A/N: new multi-chapter I actually have a lot of plans for. It's a li'l crooked. Enjoy.

Paris, 1895

What first caught Robin's eye was the excessive splendour of it all: red velvet adorned the walls, and heavily powdered women in wavy skirts and almost no top danced hurriedly across the booze-stained hardwood floor. The twinkly lights and radiant candelabras lit up the ladies' breasts, about to pop out of their tight corsets, and cast shadows over the dark corners of the room, covering a multitude of sins to later reveal a multitude of others. Perfectly lined up men in suit and top hat glided across the room, chanting something he couldn't quite understand with the music blasting and echoing back to the grand trumpets, violins and saxophones it came from.

He was completely lost for words, in awe of the magnificent creatures and conventions of the Parisian underworld.

He'd come here, to the village of Montmartre, in search of a better life, because, naturally, who wouldn't be tired of living as a poor dockworker in a shabby English town? Working sixteen-hour days, trying to survive with half a potato a day, and then two weeks ago, his mother had died: the last tie to a terrible life severed, cut, destroyed. And it had been about time. His mother, that filthy scum of a mother he barely dared to call his, had never worked a day in her life. Robin's father had been a kind man, gentle, hard-working, and most importantly – for this mother, that is – rich. She'd married him for his money since the lazy faux princess's worst nightmares had always included her lifting that scrawny arse of hers for even one day. She'd tricked him into sleeping with her, naturally she did, the despicable whore, and when she'd turned up seven months pregnant at his doorstep, as chivalrous as he was, he'd married her. She'd never given him anything else after that. No appreciation, no sex, and absolutely no love. He, however, had given her money, nice things, all the trinkets and lush dresses and opulent jewellery she'd wished for. He'd felt robbed, violated, but he hadn't done a single thing about it, because that was the kind of man he was. And because he'd felt lonely, so incredibly lonely, when he'd gotten no love in return from her, not a kiss nor a single touch or glance, he'd searched for that gratification somewhere else. Six years later, he was dead. Syphilis he'd caught from some whore he'd frequented – it was the disease of the century after all. With his father dead and buried, it was just Robin and his mother. And what did that lethargic, impoverished woman, the one that refused to sell the few riches she had left, what did she do? She sent her eight year old son out there to work for a penny and a potato a day: at least she'd been smart enough to feed the money-making man of the family, couldn't afford losing him to starvation and illness. And that's how they'd lived for a harrowing seventeen years. Seventeen years of living a bleak, sad existence, hell, you couldn't even call something only focused on surviving, and solely surviving, living. Robin hadn't had time for anything: he'd always been working while being at his mother's beck and call, until finally, finally after all those years, thank the Lord, his mother died on that beautiful spring morning in May. And what else had been there do for him than gather his things and just leave?

After getting a raise when he turned of age, he'd stored the extra money in a small burlap sack under his pitiful straw mattress, and he'd had just about enough for a boat ticket to the continent, France to be more specific. Several days and rides on stolen horses later, Robin and his childhood friends John and Tuck had reached this grand city of promises and dreams, and what a magnificent city it was. Paris was everything he didn't know he wanted, didn't know he needed, with its modern-day troubadours at every corner, and intoxicating atmosphere, as if it wanted to tell him with every breath he took that "you stay here, pretty boy, you stay right here in my blissfully sinful heart, and you better enjoy yourself because…" and then it stopped. Why did he have to enjoy himself? What was so crucial about having to enjoy himself right now?

This city was the greatest mystery to him, and he adored it.

When he'd stood in front of the arch of Montmartre, and the decent men surrounding him were shouting at him that "no, my man, don't you enter that wretched place" and "stay away from la butte, stay away, my good man, for it's the lair of all things wrong in this world", he'd walked in with all the courage he could muster because these men had no idea what they were on about, since what on earth could be worse than the life he'd led in England?

Best. Decision. Ever.

After they'd found a small shithole on the fourth floor of a ramshackle building, they'd dropped their bags, well, bag, and made their way out onto the street.

But nothing could have prepared them for what they were about to see.

And now, they were here, the epicentre of immorality: sugar, spice, and everything nice made place for sin, greed, and everything in between. The place was brimming with deadly sins, and it couldn't be more delicious. Taking another look around, he caught a glimpse of the flashy orchestra, the trumpeters' cheeks red and puffy, one violinist was crying – … okay? –, and the tambourine player was waiting for the piece where he had to come in, all the while savouring some green burning liquid. The pianist was nearly butchering the keys with his hefty hands landing on the poor piano with loud bangs and he wasn't even paying attention, eyes aimed at the ceiling, and–

Green burning liquid?! Robin's eyes shot back at the tambourine player who was now merrily shaking his jolly little instrument, his empty glass laying abandoned on the stool next to him. He frowned, thinking damn, I wouldn't mind a bit of this, and he browsed the grand room, looking for the bar, or at least a waiter, or?

And that was when he saw her.

She was sitting at a table in a corner of the room, quenching her thirst, drinking a glass of the same bright green stuff, and there was something about her, something he couldn't quite place. Until she turned her head, so hurriedly, he'd never seen anyone move that fast, to find the bucket next to her and bury her head in it, emptying her stomach and what seemed like half of her intestines into the whacked wooden bucket. Yeah, he knew what it was about her: she looked awful. Her head shot back up and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, before taking the bottle to pour herself another glass. But first, she positioned a flat metal sieve of some kind on the glass and placed a white granular substance on it, might have been sugar or salt or some drug, Robin didn't know. She grabbed the bottle, opened it, and then stopped. And she… stared? at it. No, she was thinking, considering her next action: was she going to pour it, or scratch her nose or stomach or, or, oh yeah, why not just chug the bottle? Why on earth not? She finished it, finished the last two thirds still left in that bottle containing that seemingly magical liquid green gold. Removing the bottle from her lips, she prepared her body for the next hurl of the century, but it didn't come, so instead she just took the bucket, and then, she most definitely did something so unexpected, so very out of the ordinary. She took the bucket, she stood up, and she looked up. At him. She looked at him and he noticed her, noticed every single little thing about her face. Her bloodshot dark brown eyes, her raven locks, hopelessly clinging to those rosy, yet sweaty cheeks of hers, her plump lips with lipstick on them, also reaching further than just those lips, she was practically bright red from chin to eyes. But she was also beautiful. She didn't look it, not at all at the time, but he could see it, still.

One blink later she was gone. Escaped onto the stage, behind some curtain, out of sight.

And he felt a strong hand tug at his shoulder, turning him around swiftly, as if he was ice skating on the slippery hardwood beneath him. "Here, put this on now, we're a man short." Before he could see who it was, they were gone, and he was left with a bunch of clothes and a hat in his palms. And he thought of those gliding men in suit and top hat he saw when he entered, and he knew that yeah, this is it, fate brought him here, into this wretched place, and he's going to damn well enjoy it.

Minutes later he was lined up with the other men, and when the music started, his legs and feet and arms and smile seemed to know exactly what they were doing. And right in that moment, he became part of it, part of the experience, part of this bohemian life he never knew he needed, part of Paris, part of the Moulin Rouge.

He knew he was supposed to be here, was meant for this life of green alcohol, breast-popping women, tambourine-playing men, and her, because he hasn't forgotten about her, how could those intoxicating orbs not be inked into his memory?

And

With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us