Children Shouldn't Live Like This – Chapter 3

The tense atmosphere hadn't yet evaporated from the tiny bedroom, but the quiet brought about by the absence of three provided an ambiance that allowed for silent contemplation on the part of the two that had remained behind. They sat, one on each side of the bed, on which lay a young boy whose origin was uncertain and whose fate was even more so.

Courfeyrac couldn't help but stare at the child by the name of Gavroche, who was now a much more pleasant sight, now that Joly had wiped his face clean of blood and bandaged up his forehead wound. The boy lay snug under the covers of the bed, his skin now significantly more pinkish as the blue tinge faded away, thanks to the multiple hot water bottles Courfeyrac could see sticking out from under the covers and under the boy's armpits.

Gavroche looked peaceful as he slept, angel-like even, despite his dirty blond hair, which looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks. His similarly filthy shirt lay on the bedside table, and Courfeyrac could see Gavroche's bones clearly as his skin lay flattened over them. When carrying him to the café Courfeyrac had been too panicked to process exactly how light he seemed to be, and now his suspicions had been made clear. The child barely had any meat on his bones. He was likely undernourished, for reasons that had not been made clear to them as of yet.

The boy looked so weak and broken that the only evidence of him being alive was the very gentle rising and falling of the blanket as he inhaled and exhaled. Every fifth breath, he would give an unconscious gasp, undoubtedly struggling a little for air thanks to the injury that Joly had earlier described.

"He's so young…" Courfeyrac shook his head as he spoke, more to himself than to Grantaire. "How old do you think he is?"

Grantaire looked away from the empty wall that he had been staring at in silence and observed the boy's features.

"He looks around five or six, looks that size too. I'd say he's about eight or nine."

Noticing Courfeyrac's confused expression, Grantaire shrugged.

"That's how it is for most kids who live on the street. Not having enough food and all that, they're underdeveloped. This boy, what's his name, Gavroche? He definitely hasn't been eating enough. You can see his bones under his skin."

It turns out Courfeyrac hadn't been the only one to notice the disturbing sight.

"It baffles me how anyone could hurt a kid, though. What could he possibly have to…" Courfeyrac exasperatedly waved a hand in Gavroche's direction. "…to deserve this?"

Grantaire stared at the comatose boy for a second more before turning away.

"I'm relatively impartial towards Enjolras' opinion towards the upper classes, but…" He finished his fourth drink. "I think he might be right on that count."

"That Paris has fallen into a terrible state?"

"It's inevitable, isn't it?" Grantaire set his mug down onto the floor gently, not wanting to wake the sleeping child. "I don't give a rat's ass about revolution, but the greater the inequality between the upper and lower classes, the more likely it is for all this to happen."

"The poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer?"

"Precisely." Grantaire was alarmingly clear-minded for someone as typically drunk as he was, an observation that surprised Courfeyrac to no end. "We'll see more unrest, more people on the streets, more children like him getting beaten down because they tried to steal a piece of bread or because they frustrated the authorities too much with their begging."

Grantaire rested his feet on the edge of the bed.

"We live in a disgusting city, Courfeyrac."

Courfeyrac didn't know how to respond as Grantaire continued to mumble to himself.

"A disgusting, disgusting city…"

A pained gasp, louder than the ones they had heard from before, broke through from the bed, causing Courfeyrac to immediately whip his head around and Grantaire to nearly fall off his chair in surprise. Courfeyrac clenched his hands into fists anxiously as he spotted the expression on Gavroche's face, now an aggrieved frown despite him still being asleep. As the boy started to turn and toss slightly within the covers, Courfeyrac looked at Grantaire uneasily.

"What's going on? Is he having a nightmare?"

"I think so. Damn…if he keeps moving around like that he's going to hurt himself further without realizing it. Come on, help me hold him steady."

With slight awkwardness the two grown men crawled onto the bed and sat on the covers to prevent Gavroche from shaking them off. As Grantaire carefully shifted himself next to Gavroche's hips to prevent him from rolling excessively, Courfeyrac copied his movements, but on the other side. They could feel the boy struggling slightly still.

Then, he spoke.

"Papa…no…"

Both students paused as they heard the boy's voice for the first time.

"Je suis désolé…I din't…din't mean it…"

Grantaire raised an eyebrow.

"I…I'm…I'm sorry…don't, papa…no…"

Courfeyrac could almost feel his soul being crushed upon hearing the little boy's words and his fragile tone of voice. Gavroche sounded more and more tense as his struggling increased rapidly.

"I'll never…never do…do it again papa…"

The frown on his face had become more pronounced.

"It hurts…it's cold, maman, papa…let me…let me in…"

Grantaire clenched his jaw in anger. The real reason for Gavroche's condition was becoming more and more apparent to them now. Softer than he had said all previous words, Gavroche's rolling gradually simmered down as he uttered one final phrase.

"I'm sorry…"

A teardrop materialized in the corner of his eye, slowly rolling down the side of his face as his words reduced themselves into inaudible mutters. Finally, the boy fell silent, once again breathing slowly and peacefully as the nightmare ended, the only evidence of what had just conspired being the single path of moisture that led from under his eyelid to his temple.

Wordlessly, Courfeyrac leant over Gavroche and carefully used his thumb to wipe off said moisture. Both men climbed off the bed and returned to their respective seats on the sides of the bed. Courfeyrac stared at the closed window into the Parisian night, while Grantaire picked up his mug from the floor and downed his drink. Neither dared or desired to say anything else.


Eponine opened one eye as she lay on her bed, pretending to be asleep. She watched as the dim light from under the door became extinguished, and listened to her father's mumbling as he trod heavily on the steps to his bedroom, undoubtedly even more drunk than before. While it had been her father's drunkenness that had caused the unfortunate incident of which Eponine was a part of just hours ago, it would help with what she planned to do as soon as he hit the hay.

Slowly, she touched her cheek and winced as the familiar feeling of being stung returned for a split second. Her pain, however, paled in comparison to the horrific sight that she had been subjected to before; her little brother, sweet and innocent, being brutally beaten and nearly murdered by the person who unbelievably played a part in their conception.

Her heart sank as she worried for Gavroche, who was likely to be sobbing sadly in the snow outside the house waiting for his parents to change their mind. She felt even more anxious as she thought about his injuries. Never before had she seen him so broken and damaged.

That night had, unfortunately, not been the first of the beatings.

For years, Eponine and her siblings had been subjected to her father's heavy hand and his outbursts of rage, which worsened every time he picked up a bottle of spirits. Thankfully, Eponine and her sister had been shielded by the presence of their mother who, despite being equivalently scheming and nasty to others as her husband, loved her daughters dearly. The birth of Gavroche had ultimately turned out to be the monkey wrench in their relatively survivable home dynamic.

Madame Thenardier had grudgingly accepted the presence of the little boy in their family, but had accompanied her care giving with unnecessarily harsh punishments, errands which exhausted a boy far too young to be doing manual labor and smaller portions of food compared to what was offered to her two daughters. Eponine couldn't count the innumerous times she had snuck an extra helping of potato or chicken onto her brother's plate when her mother's head was turned after feeling bad about his meager portions.

Ironically, it was this mistreatment that brought sister and brother closer together. Azelma preferred to wander around on her own, but Gavroche and Eponine were practically inseparable despite their significant difference in age. Eponine had been the person that Gavroche had run to whenever the beatings got too painful, or when the nightmares that plagued his sleep got too scary to handle alone. While Gavroche found a soul who actually cared for his wellbeing, Eponine found a living bundle of energy and joy that was able to fully unleash itself, unrestrained, when their parents weren't around. It was this sibling solidarity that had kept the boy sane even through the many years of parent-inflicted hardship.

Eponine remembered a significant event from a year ago where Gavroche had broken down in the middle of a violent spanking, rolled off his mother's lap and run sobbingly behind Eponine. For the first time in her life, Eponine properly stood up for her brother and held onto him protectively behind her back, yelling at her mother and scaring the life out Azelma, who had been also in the kitchen. Thankfully, Madame Thenardier had been so stunned by the backlash from her daughter that she let the matter slide. Gavroche had been grateful, and Eponine had been treated to a warm hug and an additional, particularly warm pillow that accompanied her to bed that night.

Eponine felt an unconscious tear running down her cheek as she looked at the empty cot in the room, illuminated by moonlight. Wiping it off her face and telling herself to be strong, Eponine listened out one more time for sounds from the room above hers and heard nothing.

Her parents were asleep.

Allowing her feet to drop onto the wooden floor, Eponine snatched up her brother's blanket from its cot and slowly made her way out of the room, taking care not to wake her sleeping sister. Sneaking through the unlit kitchen was a harrowing task as she tried her best to avoid bumping into anything.

If her father heard anything and woke up, he would give her hell.

Finally reaching the front door, Eponine held her breath as she pushed it open, only to be hit by a wind so strong that it nearly blew her off her feet. Her teeth already chattering at the biting cold, Eponine wrapped her shawl tighter against herself as she walked out and shut the door as gently as she could.

The snow was almost one foot deep.

Heart pounding heavily in her chest, Eponine whispered out into the night.

"Gavroche?"

No response.

A sight caught her eye. On the ground in front of her, at the spot where Eponine had last seen her father tossing her little brother out into the cold was a faint pink, nearly invisible under the fresh snow that had fallen. Now fearing the worst, Eponine squatted down and dug her hand into the snow as deep as she could, only to touch the hard ground underneath the white blanket. Another look around the area yielded no sight of her brother. Only then did Eponine realize that the faint pink had only been found in that single spot. There were no trails of blood leading away from the house.

Eponine could reach only one conclusion. The night was dark and the streets were full of marauders, thieves and kidnappers, people who her parents had warned her with to stop her from leaving the house in the middle of the night. She knew these people existed, but never before had she expected that one of her family would be placed in such a situation.

Fighting the urge to cry, Eponine struggled back to the front steps of the house and sat.

No, no, no, no…

Her brother had been taken away by the darkness of the night and the dangers of Paris.

Finally unable to control the urge to cry, Eponine shoved her face into her hands and wept for her little brother.


Author's Note – There we go. I had to explore the sibling relationship paradiagm at some point, so I thought this would be a good time to do so (let's give the other students time to actually get what they need, yes?).

Reviews appreciated and desired.