Children Shouldn't Live Like This – Chapter 7

"You useless brat!"

Gavroche shrieked as powerful arms grabbed hold of his wrists and suspended him against the wall. Kicking out valiantly to free himself, Gavroche felt another rock-hard fist smashing onto the side of his face and went limp, all the fight going out of him in seconds. The two Thenardier henchmen remained on his sides, holding him up as they blindly watched their boss punish his son.

Gavroche took in a deep breath to calm himself, only for that same breath to be rocketed out of him by a fierce punch to his sternum. Another punch to the stomach sent his world reeling as he felt his dinner, meager portions as usual, rising like burning bile in his throat. Forcing it back down, Gavroche finally felt warm tears flooding down his cheeks, as the pain got too intense to bear. Looking up at the subject of his nightmares, Gavroche whimpered as his father drew back his fist yet again.

"Papa…"

The blow to his face forced him painfully against the wall. A resounding crack rang through the room as his nose broke. Simultaneously, the two henchmen let go of his wrists, causing Gavroche to fall to the floor. As blood streamed down in rivets, Gavroche held both wrists up to his face in an attempt to stench the bleeding, but to no avail. The pain was overwhelming, causing him to wail out despite his determination to not look weak in front of his father.

Looking up, he saw his father pick up a butcher knife, one that his mother had used to carve chickens just hours before, and felt his blood run cold.

"End of the line, son."


The blood-curdling scream that echoed throughout the guesthouse shook Courfeyrac out of his own slumber. Jolting out of his seat, Courfeyrac felt himself topple over. Too disoriented to regain his balance, he fell floorwards, knocking the side of his head painfully against the table. Wincing as he rubbed his forehead and letting loose a string of French expletives, Courfeyrac then remembered the reason for his rude awakening, and leapt to his feet.

Gavroche gasped as the door to his bedroom swung open hastily, and relaxed as he saw Courfeyrac looking worriedly into the room.

"Hey, Gavroche, are you okay?"

Ignoring his pride in a time of vulnerability, Gavroche sobbed as he shook his head, his cheeks already wet with moisture, a physical manifestation of the nightmare. Deprived of parental affection and longing for protection, Gavroche could see nothing through his tears, merely responding in kind as he felt Courfeyrac's arms wrap around him in a tight and comforting embrace. Sobbing now giving way to frenzied bawling, Gavroche couldn't stop himself from letting loose his negative emotions, taunted by the devil who had plagued both his life and his dreams for years on end.

Rubbing Gavroche's back vigorously to soothe him, Courfeyrac frowned, slightly disturbed by the boy's outburst and sudden breakdown. He had had consistent nightmares for days on end, evidenced by sudden yelps in the middle of the night, as informed to Courfeyrac by the other students. This was the first time it had escalated to the point where one of them actually had to intervene.

Gavroche obviously had some severe emotional and physical scars from his experience living in the Thenardier household.

How were they going to fix him?

Shaking his head, Courfeyrac told himself to push that thought out of his head in the meantime. These were things that could be worried about in the morning.

Gradually feeling Gavroche settle down as he succumbed to emotional and mental exhaustion, Courfeyrac wordlessly removed his arms from Gavroche's back and laid the boy back down onto the bed. Wiping his tears dry with his own sleeve, Courfeyrac covered Gavroche up with the blanket. Within seconds, the boy was asleep.

Glancing worriedly back at Gavroche as he walked out of the room, Courfeyrac pulled the chair that he had rested on earlier closer to the bedroom door and settled down onto it, this time taking care to leave the door open lest another nightmare strike that night.


Gently knocking on the door to the guesthouse, Eponine waited patiently for half a minute before it swung open to the image of a slightly haggard Courfeyrac with a pen between his fingers.

"Oh, hello Eponine. Here to visit Gavroche?"

"Yes, Courfeyrac. You look exhausted, what's wrong?"

"Oh, no big deal." Courfeyrac gestured with his hand to invite Eponine in before shutting the door behind her. "Enjolras and I were just working on a particularly challenging assignment that was issued today. He's been throwing ideas at me, it's all very tiring."

"I see. Hello, Enjolras."

Enjolras merely raised his head slightly and grunted in greeting before burying his head in paper yet again. Already used to seeing this side of the intrepid student, Eponine smiled and shook her head lightly. Courfeyrac crossed his arms and whispered into Eponine's ear.

"Consider yourself lucky, and try not to speak to him. He just chased Grantaire out of the place for placing his glass down onto the table too loudly. Apparently he was 'disturbing the zone of serenity', whatever that is."

"I'll keep that in mind." Eponine grinned as she mentally pictured Grantaire running out of the apartment with Enjolras right on his tail. "Is Gavroche okay?"

"He's doing better, healing better than Joly had previously imagined he would, too." Courfeyrac took the time to describe Gavroche's medical condition as he walked Eponine to the bedroom. "Apparently the fracture in his leg was not as severe as Joly thought it was, he said that Gavroche would be able to get out of bed within the next week or so."

"That's fantastic news."

"Yeah. Marius is in there, doing what with him I don't exactly know."

At the sound of her crush's name, Eponine visibly seized up slightly. The motion did not go unnoticed by Courfeyrac's sharp eyes, but he decided to let the matter slide. Smiling once more at the girl who had an eye on his friend, Courfeyrac walked himself back to the table and settled down next to Enjolras, pen to paper once again.

Placing her head against the bedroom door, Eponine tried to identify what exactly her brother was saying to Marius. After being informed of his antics the day before Eponine was more uptight about her little crush than ever, already telling herself that if she found out that Gavroche had said or disclosed anything to Marius, there would be hell to pay, mostly on her brother's part.

"Je…je…m'ap…pelle. Je m'appelle…Gavroche. There, monsieur Marius, I'm finished!"

"Let me see…that's right, that's how you write and spell je m'appelle. Excellent work, Gavroche!"

"Merci, monsieur Marius!"

Smiling at what the pair was doing behind the door, Eponine knocked lightly on it before opening it, only to have two sets of eyes directed in her direction.

"Eponine! Eponine!" Gavroche beamed excitedly as he waved a piece of paper in the air enthusiastically. "Monsieur Marius is teaching me how to read and write!"

"It's an important skill, I was surprised that he didn't know how to." Marius stood from the bed and smiled at his good friend. "He's a very fast learner though. You've got a very intelligent little brother."

"I think its best not to overinflate his already large head, Marius." Eponine quipped cheekily as she approached Gavroche, who stuck out his tongue at her. Ruffling her little brother's hair affectionately, she looked back at Marius and smiled appreciatively.

"Thanks for teaching him, Marius. My French isn't that good in the first place, so I never could teach him."

"It's no problem. Besides, it's a lot more fun than working with Enjolras and Courfeyrac out there in the living room." Marius gave a mock shudder, which caused Eponine to giggle and Gavroche to smirk knowingly at his sister's reaction. "Enjolras is intelligent and all, but when he gets into his work he scares me a little."

Spotting something he didn't understand in Marius' guide to beginner's French, Gavroche couldn't resist interrupting.

"Monsieur Marius, monsieur Marius," Gavroche tugged on Marius' sleeve with one hand and held onto an open book with another. "What does this word mean?"

As Marius addressed Gavroche's question, Eponine couldn't resist stepping back and taking a look at the picturesque scene in front of her. It seemed that the influence that the students have had on her brother was positive in every possible way. Between Marius' and Enjolras' teaching, Joly's care and Grantaire and Courfeyrac's company, there wasn't a more positive environment for Gavroche to recuperate in.

At this point, Eponine wouldn't blame Gavroche if he directly refused going home to live with his siblings again.

Quietly stepping out of the room and leaving the two to their own devices, Eponine reached the front door of the guesthouse, only to be addressed by the two students working in the living room.

"Eponine? Do you have a minute?"

Eponine turned around, wondering why Courfeyrac wanted to speak to her. She was taken aback when she realized that even Enjolras had abandoned his work for the moment, the papers on the table pushed into a messy pile. Nodding her head in affirmation, Eponine walked towards the two and sat down at the table. Enjolras spoke first, with a tone that was surprisingly official.

"We need to discuss a matter that has to do with Gavroche."

Her attention now perked further at the mention of her brother, Eponine raised an eyebrow.

"What about him?"

"We were wondering if you could…give us more information about what has happened to him." Courfeyrac looked at Eponine with a slightly sympathetic gaze. "We understand that what your father had done a week ago is painful for both him and yourself, but we were hoping you could give the rest of us an insight into why he's having…well…"

"Nightmares." Enjolras frowned as he completed Courfeyrac's sentence. "The five of us have all taken turns staying with him as he slept. There hasn't been a single day where he hadn't woken up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare."

"I haven't tried to ask him about the details yet, as that's a relatively…sensitive area for an outsider to tread upon." An expression of sheepishness appeared on Courfeyrac's face. "You don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to, we're just…concerned for his wellbeing. Over the past week he has grown on all of us a little, you see. Even monsieur Enjolras here." He then cheekily poked Enjolras' cheek with his index finger, only for it to be swatted away by an irritated hand.

Taking in the flood of information from the two students, Eponine wiped her slightly sweaty brow with the back of her hand.

"The nightmares. Of course, I know what you're talking about. He has had them even before last week."

Looking infinitely more worried now, Eponine then uncrossed her legs before re-crossing them again.

"Our father is…not a nice man."

Courfeyrac only resisted the urge to snidely reaffirm her words through his innate politeness. It was common knowledge to nearly everyone living in the area that the Thenardiers were the craftiest cheats in the city. The master of the house was rumored to have a clan of thugs and thieves that extended their reach throughout the nook and crannies of Paris, a rumor that Courfeyrac didn't have any reason to disbelieve. The exception to the stereotype of nasty that was the Thenardier household was Eponine, and now, Gavroche.

"He beat him all the time, usually for absurd reasons. He got drunk very often and took it all out on Gavroche. I tried my best to shield him when I could, but I was able to do very little. My mother is biased towards my sister and myself. She regards Gavroche as…incompétent."

Hearing those words, the sides of Courfeyrac's mouth tightened disapprovingly. Enjolras leant back against his seat's backrest and stared up towards the ceiling.

"Every few nights he would wake up after a nightmare and slide next to me on my bed, where I would find him the next morning. He doesn't like to speak about the nightmares even to myself, but I have no doubt as to their contents."

Nervously tugging at her hair, Eponine then voiced out her concern.

"If he really has been having nightmares every day for the past week…then my father's mistreatment of him and getting thrown out the house must have hurt him more than I thought."

"It's not that surprising, actually." Enjolras spoke absent-mindedly as he continued analyzing the cracks on the ceiling. "Even if he had been punished mercilessly, if this had happened since he was young he would have been conditioned to…tolerate it to a certain extent. I guess being ejected from your household was a large hit on him emotionally, to have that kind of consistency removed from his life would have been especially traumatizing, for someone his age. The nightmares are a manifestation of monsieur Thenardier's physical form, which is now primarily absent from his reality. His mind is making up for your father's absence within his dreams as he sleeps."

Eponine gaped at Enjolras, utterly bewildered.

What in the…

Noticing her confusion, Courfeyrac hastened to offer his own simplified explanation.

"What Enjolras is trying to say is, Gavroche has gotten used to the punishments even if they were painful for him. When your father threw him out, he realized that he was alone for the first time. He had gotten so used to the fear and pain that your father reappears in his dreams more than ever."

Eponine's confusion shifted into revelation.

"Ah. I think I understand."

Realizing that his own explanation delved far too much into academics and that Eponine probably didn't understand a word, Enjolras grimaced and looked away from the ceiling. Glancing apologetically at the young woman, he then decided to contribute an important observation to the conversation.

"He needs to rid himself of his fear for his father. As far as I see it, it's the only way to stop the nightmares."

"How is that going to happen?" Eponine sighed, frustrated. "He's absolutely terrified of papa!"

As the three sat at the table and pondered possibilities and implications, none of them realized that the answer to Gavroche's problem was, at that moment, sitting alone in the café, sulking as he sipped from yet another mug of beer, silently cursing Enjolras for asking him to make himself scarce.


Author's Note – This chapter was more boring than the last few, I think, but it was pretty much inevitable, especially considering how I planned for the story to flow. Next chapter is especially important, and in case you didn't get my blindingly obvious partial-cliffy at the end, a certain frequently drunk student probably has something to do with it. Mind you…my idea is relatively esoteric, so not everyone might approve. I'll be looking forward to everyone's reactions to it.

Otherwise, this was another difficult chapter to write. Long dialogues again. Thanks for all the reviews though, they keep me writing. Really appreciate them.

That being said, more reviews!