Lessons
Up-front disclaimers:
a) I do not speak a word of French. I never studied French. I think I got the familial terms right. If I didn't, please correct me and I'll fix them. Somehow they just flowed better.
b) Since we have no canon first name for d'Artagnan, I borrowed from the historical figure.
c) This is weirdly serious crack. I have no excuses.
d) This also 99% failed at the prompt. More on that at the end.
For another prompt from the AU meme on Tumblr.
prompt 4. teacher/single parent au - Milathos
- We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us? (Lydia Sigourney)
"Charles."
Maman's voice is stern; even with how often she's been away, Charles knows that tone well enough to realise he's in trouble. And so he closes the comic he's reading (a little too slowly, a little too reluctantly) to meet her eyes.
"You've been fighting again." She's holding a letter - he can see Monsieur d'Athos' neat script like a ghost through the folded paper - and her face is pinched and tired.
"Ye~e~es," he drags the word out. There's no point in lying to Maman - she always knows. It's part of her job somehow, though Charles has never really understood why. Maman's job is just another one of those things he's not supposed to ask about.
"Will you tell me why?"
He looks down at his bruised knuckles, trying not to scowl (and failing, because while he's still mad at Louis he's almost as mad at Maman for keeping secrets and for being gone so often and for not listening to him). "I told Monsieur d'Athos," he says mulishly.
"Charles -"
"Ask him!" he yells, and then snatches up his comic book and his sweatshirt and runs before she can say anything more. It's mean and probably not fair, but she wasn't fair first.
He spends the rest of his afternoon down by the river, kicking rocks and stomping around and scowling. He punched Louis, but Louis had said horrible things about Maman first, and even if Charles hates her for leaving him with Pépé so often (and he likes Pépé, even if they aren't actually related, but it's not the same), he still loves her, because she's his mother and she's all the family he really has. He just wishes she wasn't gone so much because he wants to talk to her about things and she always tells him 'not now', and then when kids like Louis say those sorts of things what else is he supposed to do to make them stop?
Dinner is quiet, uncomfortable with just the two of them; not until he's tucked into bed and Maman comes to kiss him good-night do they say more than a few words to each other. But when she bends down to kiss his brow, fingers brushing his hair out of the way, he mumbles an explanation.
"That's why you hit him?" she asks; he thinks she sounds a little surprised. When Charles nods, she sits down on the edge of the bed, stroking his hair gently. He wants to protest that he's too grown up for that, nearly eight, but it's nice having her there and so he just snuggles into her warmth. "My little gentleman," she says fondly. "Your father was a good man. You take after him so much -"
"Then why do you never talk about him? Every time I ask, you say you'll tell me later, but it's never later. Why not?"
Her fingers stop; when she says nothing, he twists his head around to look up at her. Her face is very still, her eyes sad and far away, and when he flings himself at her in a fierce hug she starts before her arms tighten around him in turn. "I love you, my boy," she murmurs against his hair, quiet and fierce. "Don't ever doubt that."
It's not until Charles is nearly asleep that he realises she's avoided his questions once again.
- x -
Monsieur d'Athos sits down next to him at lunch that Friday. Most of his classmates are in small groups, but he doesn't want to talk to anyone and so he's alone at one of the corner tables with his nose buried in a book. They might tease him about it, but he doesn't care. The stories are better than his stupid classmates anyway.
He can't tell Monsieur d'Athos to go away, so he just ignores him and pretends he's still reading. After a few minutes, though, his teacher just reaches out and takes the book from him. "You're reading the same lines over and over, or not reading at all," he observes, over Charles' protest.
"I was reading," he grumbles, but at the sympathetic noise looks up from his food. "What?"
"You should get to know your classmates better, Charles."
He scowls and snatches the book back. "Why? They're just a bunch of jerks."
There's something soft and sad in Monsieur d'Athos' eyes - something that reminds him a little of Maman's when he'd asked about Papa. "No man is an island," he says; it sounds like he's reading a line from a poem. When Charles blinks at him, a little confused, he just smiles. "People are meant to be around each other. You and Louis may not get along, but there are seventeen other children in this class. I'm sure one of them will appreciate who you are, if you let them get to know you."
He leaves after that, and Charles goes back to his book and his sandwich, but the words get him thinking. And so when he ends up partnered with Constance Bonacieux for math for the third time that week, he tries to look at her as a maybe friend instead of someone else who's going to tease him about having no father and almost no mother, and when he smiles hesitantly she smiles back and asks if he wants to sit with her and Annie at lunch. They're girls, he thinks later, walking to Pépé's from the train stop after school, but they're okay.
And then two weeks later Louis insults Annie, and Charles punches him again, and he's left in the classroom at the end of the day when all of the other children have gone and a very disappointed-looking Monsieur d'Athos, who just looks at him at first.
"I won't say I'm sorry," he mumbles, because one thing Maman taught him is that you don't lie when it matters, and much to his surprise - both of theirs, maybe - his teacher laughs.
"What did Louis do this time?"
"He called Annie stupid. Just because she's quiet doesn't mean she's dumb - she's one of the smartest people I know."
Monsieur d'Athos exhales heavily and sits down next to Charles. He looks a little funny, folded into one of the child-sized chairs, but there's nothing funny about his serious expression. "Listen to me, Charles. Louis is wrong, and we both know that. Louis probably know that too. But just because someone is wrong doesn't mean you can hit them. Did your mother teach you that was okay?"
"No!" he exclaims, horrified. Maman would never do anything like that. No matter how angry he's made her, she's never hit him, not even once. "But - Louis doesn't listen. How can I tell him he's wrong if he doesn't listen?"
"He won't learn that from being punched either."
He thinks of the storybooks he's read and frowns. In the stories, knights would do honourable combat to defend the honour of ladies, but from Monsieur d'Athos' face he doesn't think that saying next time he'll challenge Louis to a duel is the right answer. Anyway, no one fights duels anymore, even if it would make things easier. "What do I do, then?"
"Ignore him. It's what the girls have been doing all year. Insults like that are the refuge of cowards and fools most of the time." He frowns, looking at Charles, and then says, abruptly, "Is your mother home?"
"She's away again." Away for a week already, and she'd called last night and said it would probably be another two before she was home again. Right now he really, really hates her, because the school's athletic events are that Friday and he's sure she'll be late again this time, and he was really hoping she'd be there to see him run because he's good at it, and he might win one of the races - everyone says so. But if he does, she probably won't see it. She's never there.
His frustration and anger must show, because Monsieur d'Athos reaches out, puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'll talk to your grandfather, then. But one thing you have to understand, Charles: you've hit Louis twice this year. You can't do it again. I'm telling you this because you're a bright boy and I know you can understand, but if you do it a third time they'll suspend you from school, and you're too clever to do something like that because you can't control your temper."
It's not the sort of reaction he expected - he knew hitting Louis was a bad thing, but he'd expected Monsieur d'Athos to be like all the other teachers he's had and not care as long as Charles didn't make them look bad. And okay, hitting Louis probably makes Monsieur d'Athos look bad, but that's not what his reaction's about. There's something serious in his eyes, quiet and a little sad, that makes Charles think this isn't about his job, but about Charles himself.
"Promise," he says, and means it.
- x -
He helps clean up the classroom afterwards, wanting to sort out this baffling situation before he leaves, and because it's grown late Monsieur d'Athos lets him telephone Pépé. Pépé doesn't sound worried when Charles tells him his teacher has offered to give him a ride home, just asks to speak to Monsieur d'Athos for a moment before the phone goes back to Charles. "Alright," Pépé says, "but make sure he comes in when he drops you off. I want to meet him."
No one says no to Pépé, and so Charles just agrees.
There's surprise when Monsieur d'Athos follows him to the front door - surprise and recognition, because apparently he and Pépé know each other. Charles wants to know more, but they vanish into Pépé's study, and he's left with the cats, listening at the door (which isn't very helpful - Pépé's house is old and the doors are all so solid Charles has to lean into them to get them to open). Eventually he gives up, curls up on the sofa with his schoolwork and Lucifer in his lap (Lucifer misses Maman too, he knows - she's his favourite - and he always finds Charles when she's gone), and waits to hear what happens.
That night, he hears Pépé on the phone, but he can't make out more than half the words, and what he hears just gives him funny dreams.
He keeps his promise, though - behaves, even when Louis says worse and worse things. It helps that Constance doesn't have any problems yelling insults back; half the time, Charles has to hold her back while Annie calms her down. They end up staying further away from Louis and his cronies at break, and soon enough the older boy loses interest, and Charles just concentrates on his new friends and on his studies and on the upcoming contests. He runs from the train stop to Pépé's, and if he shows up out of breath then his grandfather just shakes his head and chuckles and lets it slide.
The Friday of the competition is perfect - cool but not cold, mostly sunny - except that Maman didn't come home the night before like she'd said she would, and Charles can't decide if he's absolutely gutted again, or if it's happened so many times that he's past being disappointed. He puts it out of his mind, though, stands with Constance and Annie and the rest of his classmates as they queue up for hundred-meter race. Principal Treville is there at the starting line, starter's pistol in his hand, and down at the other end, he can see Monsieur d'Athos waiting for them. And just past him, in the crowd of parents, is Pépé, and -
The bang of the pistol startles him. He runs - unthinking, heedless, only aware that there's been some kind of miracle (is that what Monsieur d'Athos had talked to Pépé about?) and Maman is here, and if there was ever a race he'd wanted to win it's this one, because she'll see it and -
He's not the first; Nico beats him by half a step. But when he looks up from bending over to catch his breath, Maman is still standing there, motionless and smiling like the sun as she looks at him, and he races across and flings himself at her, not caring who sees him hugging her. "You came back," he mumbles against her dress, and she laughs (it sounds suspiciously like a sob) and ruffles his hair. Her eyes are bright when he looks up at her, and he just catches her hand and drags her forward to where Monsieur d'Athos stands, surrounded by the other children and their parents but watching them.
"Maman," he says, because it suddenly matters a great deal, "I want you to meet the best teacher in the whole world."
"Madame de Winter." There's something oddly formal in hearing someone refer to Maman that way, but Charles knows better than to say anything and so just watches his teacher extend a hand. "A pleasure to finally meet you."
"From the influence I hear you're having on my son, I'm only sorry it took this long," Maman replies. "A pleasure indeed, Monsieur d'Athos."
Charles wants to hug them both in his excitement, but then Constance and Annie descend on him, chattering and pulling him away. As he lets himself be dragged off, he watches his mother and his teacher shake hands and smile at each other and thinks, 'Maybe things are changing.'
- finis -
Endnotes: Holy bananas, this did not go where it was supposed to go. Somehow "hey, y'know what would be funny, make d'Artagnan the kid!" turned into "let kid!d'Artagnan hijack this fic!". So I'm sorry, anonymous prompter, and if you want I will totally go back and write some of the background things d'Artagnan wasn't aware were going on from Athos and/or Milady's perspectives, or something that comes after this (because tiny d'Art is so going to matchmake at this point I don't even know what my brain is on oh god), but I figured this at least is a "hi, I tried, so sorry!" sort of reply.
I've got a request for more in this setting, so there may be more coming.