A/N- Well, how was that for a hiatus? Okay, technically I wrote this chapter about the time I wrote the first chapte of this fic, so I'm not really making a comeback or anything. Mjulinir reviewed the previous chapter and I suddenly remembered that this dusty lil thing was still lurking in the deep shadows of my computer, so I brought it out, shined it up, and here it is! Yay.
1827
Marcel glowered at the desecrated blue rose bush. Was it significant that his father had spent most of his life—as far as Marcel remembered—cultivating this spectacular flower, only to vomit on it shortly before his death? He pressed his trembling lips together and turned away.
Peering through the little kitchen and into his home, he could see the back of Marius Gillenormand's head as he stood in the doorway of the room where Georges lay. Wonderful darling Marius had the same dark hair as Marcel, though his had a lot of curl that Marcel's did not. He was nicely dressed, the bourgeois. No surprise there.
Inside the house, Nanette brushed past Monsieur the Bourgeois and spotted Marcel in the garden. She started toward him, but he turned away.
And as his eyes left the little garden and focused elsewhere, Marcel saw two dark figures standing motionless in the road. One was heavyset and large, but the smaller man was very familiar, a spectre raised from the random memories of his childhood.
Marcel stared in shock.
What was he doing here?
1819
The morning had been cloudy when his father had left him here, with soft groans of thunder murmuring in the grey distance, but now heavy rain splattered from the eaves of the chapel, leaving hardly a hand's width of dry space in front of the door. His father had asked him to come inside if it began to rain, but Marcel had no desire to cause a commotion by entering mass late, his clothes and hair soaked, and dripping over to join his father, who was doing nothing but staring at stupid Marius.
So Marcel sat on the wet stoop, clenching his lips to keep his teeth from chattering and alternating between lifting his numb, bare feet from the soaked ground to crouching in hopes of allowing his cold seat a chance to regain feeling. His hat had only protected him for the briefest of moments before becoming saturated with water and dripping onto his face, so he had taken it off, wrung it out, and sat on it for a while. Nothing seemed to help. Now his dark hair was plastered to his cheeks, forehead, and neck, all of the waves and curl flattened. He lifted his arms and saw his flesh through the drenched white fabric of his chemise. Only his course woolen pants did not cling to his damp skin.
He had not noticed a young man staring at him from the window of a nearby café. The stranger, although sipping languorously from a cup of coffee, had the physical appearance of someone near death by starvation. He wore handsome clothes, yet his flesh was stretched tightly across the narrow frame of his face like fabric on the wooden skeleton of a kite. His eyes were hollow but conveyed contentment. He stood, revealing a frail looking body clothed in several layers of fine fabrics, and went to the doorway of the little café.
"Hey, boy!"
Marcel looked uneasily at the thin stranger.
"Come over here, get out of the rain!" When Marcel didn't answer, he went back into the café and returned a moment later with a large, black umbrella. The stranger crossed the deserted street in long strides and crouched before the boy. Marcel sat completely still, even holding his breath.
The stranger stared at him with small, icy blue eyes, then smiled, showing a row of unnaturally perfect teeth. He put one long hand into his coat pocket and withdrew a coin, holding it daintily between two tapered fingers, every motion that of a showman. "I can buy you a little food, my boy. I just hate to see anyone alone in the rain." He spoke slowly, as if considering every word before pronouncing it. Sensing Marcel's weakening resolve, he continued, "I'm not out to kidnap you or poison you or the like. I just want to see you dry. How does a cup of chocolate sound?"
Still wary, but considering just how cold and unhappy he was, Marcel slowly nodded. The man smiled again, an unsettlingly unnatural movement, and moved the umbrella to cover both of them. Marcel could not help but sigh in relief, feeling immediately lighter and free of constant prickling of the rain that now rustled helplessly around the two figures beneath the black umbrella.
The interior of the café was not especially warm, though a fire hissed and popped to itself on the hearth. The stranger passed Marcel an inexpensive cotton handkerchief and bade him dry himself as best he could. The pair returned to the little table by the window, where Marcel anxiously watched the doors of the chapel. He was not afraid of his father worrying upon leaving mass and finding that Marcel had disappeared into the rain—he was afraid that the father would forget and leave him here.
"Well then," the stranger said, passing Marcel a fresh mug of chocolate, "where are your parents, my boy?"
Without answering, Marcel dropped the damp handkerchief he had been working through his sopping hair and seized the cocoa with both hands, holding it near his chin so that the steam drifted over his numb face and the cup warmed his icy fingers. He sighed, contented, and allowed himself to answer the stranger.
"My papa's at mass over there."
This answer visibly surprised the stranger; he drew back, narrow brows lifted, and stared fixedly at the boy. "And you thought it better to sit outside in this rain than join him?"
Marcel shrugged, took a sip of the cocoa, and shuddered with delight. He had burned his tongue, but the warm drink was delicious.
"Very well then. Your mother?"
"She died," Marcel said into the cocoa. When he exhaled, more of the warmth swept over his face. "Having me killed her." He drained the mug, leaning back in his chair and watching as the last drops rolled into his mouth. His fingers and toes were throbbing back into life now; he noticed that his hands and feet were an intense shade of violet-red. Intending to thank him, Marcel looked back up at his companion.
The thin stranger was glowering out the window at the rain. This expression, this grimace, seemed to come more easily to his features than the forced smile of earlier. Marcel glanced over to the silent facade of the stony chapel. "Thanks plenty, monsieur," he said, setting the empty mug back on the table. The man's attention snapped back toward the boy, and he nodded.
"You've a home, then?" he asked. "You're happy there?"
Marcel shrugged again, allowing the burnt tip of his tongue to creep out between his lips in search of relief.
"Well," sighed the man, "look here, lad. I was prepared to offer you shelter and a position in my business—an apprentice, if you will. You don't need it now, but if you're ever down on your luck, or if your father loses you, leaving you out in the rain like that, just find me. I have a place set up near the Temple, a side business, pulling teeth. I'm using that to bring in a little money until I have my next opportunity set in place. But as for now, I bid you good afternoon, lad. Until we meet again." He got to his feet and started toward the open door of the café, but stopped long enough to drop one more instruction over his shoulder.
"Just ask for Babet."
And the thin young stranger turned, opened the rain-spotted umbrella, and went out into the rain.
1827
Marcel stepped over the low wall of the garden, never taking his eyes off the stranger, who seemed to have gotten smaller and thinner over the years. Still, there was no mistaking that stretched face, razor nose, and showman's smile. "Are you Babet?" he ventured once he had joined the two men.
The stranger's peculiar smile dropped into the comfortable grimace Marcel remembered. "Depends who's asking," and Marcel suddenly realized that he was holding a knife in his bony hand. The bigger man was cradling a crowbar.
Marcel refused to be intimidated. He was here on invitation, however belated the response may be. "I—you told me once, when I was a boy—you offered me a job. Near the Temple. If I wanted to get away from my father."
"So you think you'll run away and take up a life of crime then, is that it? How terribly romantic," Babet said, his voice thick with disdain and sarcasm.
The bigger man laughed and reached out to contemptuously ruffle Marcel's hair, but the boy ducked away, remembering the knife and misinterpreting the gesture. "Don't want me to muss your locks?" he asked, amused. "Are you a little dandy, is that it? Pompous," he added in English, "but a child. The child of Kleopompous."
Marcel furrowed his brow at the nonsense. "What?"
"Mythology, boy! Haven't you been educated? Parnassos, the child of Kleopompous. A mayor. Saved them from a flood and wolves or something."
Marcel's befuddled expression did not change.
"Shut up, Brujon, you babbler," Babet said irritably. "The others may think you're clever, but your educated talk is all nonsense." And to Marcel he added, "If you want to come, boy, then follow. Let's go."
The man called Brujon grinned. "Come along, little dandy, little Parnassos. Changing you into a wolf of Pantin won't be easy."
"I'm called Marcel."
"Not anymore," said Brujon. "We can't have people tracking you down. You're leaving the safety of Mount Parnassus now, little dandy," he said, taking hold of the boy's shoulder and guiding him along the path.
Marcel Pontmercy followed the criminals obediently, only turning once to see his little home for the last time.
