AN: I am aware that some of the French words are missing the significant symbols, but my keyboard, alas, isn't French, so I can only apologise for that. This is a oneshot based on a little interaction I imagine between Montparnasse and Eponine just before the Robbery scene in Look Down. I don't own Les Miserables. Dedicated to all musical theatre fans, all Montparnasse fans, and all Les Mis fans! Constructive criticism encouraged.
Ma Chatte de Gouttiere.
The early morning mists had not quite cleared over the streets of Paris on that dismal spring morning. The cobbled streets glistened as a reminder of last night's rain, and the chilly air was shattered by the constant cawing of starving beggars, the sobs of hungry orphans, the inane babble of a crowd that has nothing better to do than sit on the street and wait to die.
Eponine Thernardier scowled down at the cracks in the pavement as she listened to the tirade of her father - it was barely ten o clock and already he was ranting and raving. Bloody fool. She shifted from foot to foot, the damp soaking through the thin soles of her cracked shoes. Why can't he get on with it?
Claseqous, Brujon, Babet - all were there, gathered around her father, who was squatting on the floor, reeking of stale alcohol, his chin dotted with stubble and his eyes sunken in exhaustion. Her mother was there too, towering over him like the ogre she was, her mountainous bosom heaving with impatience as her piggy eyes glowered at her daughter who clearly had done something wrong - because where was he?
"You, 'Ponine, can pull your head out of your arse a bit more," her father snapped. " If you don't give us a bit more notice of the law, we shan't be getting that money and it'll be you wandering the streets for yer supper tonight!"
"Not that anyone would have her," Madame Thernadier chimed in cruelly. "Look at the state of her! Lord above girl, if I wanted a hussy for a daughter I'd have turned you out on the street years ago, like that whore Cosette's mother!"
"You'd have had a bit more looks to yer name back then," Thernadier scowled, looking his daughter up and down and looking thoroughly unimpressed. "And to think of the fortune we could have got on her - "
"She'd have fetched a price of five francs a go at LEAST!" Howled his wife. "An' now look at her! Bare footed half the time, no teeth to her name, and a face that looks like it's been sent from hell to curse us! Not even able to keep the attentions of an eighteen year old lad! Meant to be here, this morning! Where is he? Not seen him since last night when you were with him!"
"What did you do to put him off?" Thernardier growled, glaring at Eponine.
"Didn't do nothin'," Eponine muttered sulkily, but her mother cut in.
"Why did you ever give that bloody girl away?" She wailed at Thernardier. "At least she pulled a bit of money in, and kept the inn clean to boot! She'd have been more use than this lazy slut here!"
"Now surely, Madame," demurred a smooth voice. "Your daughter is not so bad as all that?" Faces turned to the speaker: curly headed, well dressed Montparnasse, with a rose in his button hole and a top hat to boot, who nobody had even noticed arrive.
"You're late," Claseqous noted sourly, but nobody paid him attention compared to Madame Thernardier, who immediatley descended on the lad with breathless greetings and fairly shoved her scowling daughter next to him.
"Now that we're all here," Thernardier said pointedly. "Let's go through the plan one more time - "
As the Patron-Minette huddled around her father, Eponine made to edge away from Montparnasse, who noted it with humour.
"May I ask where you are going, 'Ponine?" He asked pleasantly. Eponine wasn't fooled. She had witnessed his pleasant air turn to murderous too much for that to happen.
"Away from you," she said shortly.
"And why would you do that, my beloved?" He asked, still with a pleasant air. Eponine rolled her eyes skyward as she turned away. "When we are bound to be watching for the law together at any moment now?"
"Don't call me that, 'Parnasse." She paused to hitch up the side of her chemise, which was too big for her, and always sliding down her shoulder.
"Whyever not?" He asked, his eyes big and innocent, as his cherry coloured lips pouted in a smirk.
"'Coz I'm not." She snapped back, pulling the brim of her hat firmly down onto her head to hide the fact that her hair hadn't seen water or a comb for far too long.
In what seemed like a flash, a slender, but muscular arm slid around her waist, as quick as a striking snake, and pinned her to it's owner in a surprisingly firm grip.
"Oh, but you are," breathed Montparnasse, his breath tickling Eponine's ear as he squeezed her waist tighter, his fingers brushing her ribcage and making her shiver. "You're the baby, the pet of the Patron-Minette. And your father has expressed a particular fancy for you to be mine, exclusively."
"I'm not yours, 'Parnasse," she snapped, resisting the urge to wriggle away. "Never have been, an' never will be."
"That is not what your father has agreed to, ma cherie," Montparnasse chuckled. "If you recall, I am almost his son in law now," he added, a touch of sarcasm sprinkled in his words. Eponine snorted, and watched Montparnasse wrinkle his nose in distaste.
"He's a fool," she said shortly as he began idly stroking her hair. "Me an' you are nothing."
"At the very least, we are collegues." Montparnasse pointed out, tweaking a tangled lock of what felt like ebony wire. Her reposne was a jerky shrug. "We do a job. Doesn't mean anythin'," she muttered. Montparnasse resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The child had ridicolous notions about herself. He hadn't been exactly thrilled about Thernardier's propostion either. But it was something to do, and to rise in the Patron-Minette you had to put yourself out. The odd murder by night and watching for the law in the day was all well and good, but a man has to do something for a change.
"I have agreed to it. That's all you need to know," he said abruptly, suddenly bored of the whole thing, as he let her go so suddenly she stumbled. She hauled herself to her feet, scowling at him as the sudden rumble of acitivty ahead indicated the Patron-Minette were on the move.
"I ain't your mistress," she insisted, as the gang began to edge into the square, ready for the job at hand.
"Nobody is asking you to be," Montparnasse assured her. He let out a dry chuckle. "Indeed, taming this little chatte de gouttiere enough to be anybody's mistress would be a Herculean task! But..." and here he paused for thought, his dark eyes roving almost thoughtfully over her concave body as she crossed her arms defensively in front of her chest. "I am not a gentleman," he mused, a slender finger tracing the outline of his lips as he spoke. "I do not require a lady - they are too still, too stiff, too lifeless... a little...defiance is quite refreshing nowadays." His eyes shone as he remembered ladies in their elegant finery, their pearls and silk gloves and silly hats, shrieking in fear as he slipped silently behind them, his knife to their throats, and all they did was continue shrieking untill he had no choice but to silence them. Or the painted whores, in their ragged corsets and matted hair, with their voices of poisoned honey and insincere words, who were so simply irritating in their persistance for a franc... or just plain bad at pretending. That was it. Montparnasse needed reality. He needed honesty. He craved the struggle, the precarious balance between life and death - not simpering, swooning ladies or false, jaded whores who simply lay there and did nothing. Eponine was ugly, yes, and barely dressed, with a filthy temper and the mouth of a sailor - but she was alive. Real. She would not submit. She would not shriek easily. What would make her shriek? She was a feral alley cat, to the pampered kittens living in luxury. Alley cats survive. Kittens don't.
Montparnasse finally looked up and smiled a lazy, mysterious smile at a thoroughly annoyed Eponine. "Nobody is asking you to be my mistress, 'Ponine," he said at last. "But - " he added, as he began to follow the Patron-Minette into the square, "I am asking you to be mindful. I am a rather possessive man - particularly when it comes to ma chatte de gouttiere." And with a final chuckle he swept into the square, leaving a surly Eponine to follow, snapping her fingers rudely at a young urchin boy who was standing close by, singing loudly and staring at her.
Les finis.
Ma cherie - my darling.
Ma chatte de goutteire - roughly translates to my alley cat.