The face of the watch was broken. A crack that looked like the grin of a clown. He'd remarked on it himself when checking the time in a shop. The large hand wobbled a little when it brushed by the small hand, and a second was fractured. He could almost feel the sharpness of the glass beneath his fingers, like the promise of a cut hiding beneath the surface.
Today, that fractured second had turned into enough fractured minutes that when he turned lazy eyes up to the small clock that balanced over M. Verleaux's desk like a horned-toad ready to leap, he found that he was late.
He was, to put a fine point on it, never late.
"Merde," he said out loud, stubbing his feet into his shoes and feeling the cracked leather give way a little more. As if he could afford to buy some new ones. No, no, little shoes. No, darlings, my pretties, my precious dears. Be kind to papa Grantaire, eh? Be good little children. Think, little cullottes, think of the subject of Bread. Bread is a good thing to be able to buy, eh?
I'd like to buy bread.
The Cullottes grinned in gaping leather-toothed smiles at him and suggested, oh infamy of suggestions, that perhaps if he spent less on wine, there would be more sous trickling over his palm for rent.
Sauce, he thought abstractedly, and hurried out the door, catching the tail of his coat in the jamb and tearing a handful of thread off in his wake. A streamer, if you please. A marker that said 'Grantaire Was Here' in case any patron or saint, prostitute, drunkard or mouchard wished to put argument to the question.
Two bloody-minded femmes were having an altercation, handfulls of hair, mud, flecks of drymouthed grandmere's swearing and insults floating around the street. Mme. My Grey Hair Is Longer Than Yours hissed like a cat, showing gums that were both toothless and infected. Mme But I Have Longer Petticoats Under These Rags retaliated with a cat-like howl and a spit of tobacco.
"Ladies, ladies, ladies," he edged around them, dodging a hand that went for his collar. The unerring grip of a grandmother, tighter than any putain redcoat. "Charming belles, beautiful fates, why would you spoil such a lovely day with such shouting? What is the concern? What is the trouble that stirs your ancient hearts to such distress? Come now, tell your little fiston everything and he will make it better!"
The first hacked a gob of spit into the gutter and swore at his head, while the second tried and failed to box his ears. He blew them both a kiss, ducked, and left them once more united in the certainty that there were none in the world quite as rude or obnoxious as That Boy From The Store.
And all it took was a common enemy.
He stubbed both toes running around the corner, kicked a cat by accident and prayed a thousand fish upon its head in recompense, and arrived covered in dust, at the door of the Cafe. Slipping inside, he checked the cracked pate of his watch. Still late, and still fractured. The air of the cafe was rife with heresy, political - and indeed one could argue religious. The air of awe and reverence directed at Apollo would have made any of the mosaic gods in the temple of Athena or Zues jealous enough to start Troy all over again.
Louison took his request for wine with a sour look that told him he was late, sweaty, out of order, and reeked of tobacco spit from old ladies. He grinned at her and made a bow fit for the prince of robbers, drunks, and men unlucky enough to have grandmothers spit at them. As she bustled off in brown and white and a touch of red to show her devotion to the Cause, he felt for his cravat and found it missing.
Delightful. He grinned to himself and found his way to the Table at the Back. Reserved for unbelievers and cynics. With an emphasis on the drunk.
Apollo stood at the centre, as he always was, and did no more than raise an eyebrow at Grantaire's late appearance. Upon those eyebrows, a soul could be drawn and quartered. He made some small comment to Combeferre, who gave a noncommittal look and adjusted his glasses. Big hand, thought Grantaire, kicking out his feet under the table and easing the burder of the cracked leather boots.
Little hand.
And the numbers on the dial.
Voila... noon, of course was Courfeyrac. Bright child of the ladies of Paris, but never in love with the same one twice. Across - at the prime of one o'clock and at his side, Bahorel. Then a leap down to three, quarter of the way, Feuilly with fans and art and Poland. Three things Grantaire could actually remember about the man while drunk. At six were the two gemini, Bossuet and Joly, Prouvaire in the double-barreled poetry of an eight, then swinging up to nine...
Nine for himself. An unlucky number at the crack of the watchface.
"What did I miss?" he asked loudly, late and brash and with a hand on a bottle of wine. "What glorious iniquity are we up to today, great one?"
The big hand glared, and the small hand stayed still, and the seconds fractured over the number nine, cracked by the smile on the face of a clown.
But what, Grantaire thought to himself, would be late?