Pyrexia ~ Chapter 10

Montparnasse had become such a constant fixture in the little apartment that Enjolras would often forget how little he actually knew about the boy. Hours, even days, would go by when Enjolras thought nothing of the company, but then the true horror of the situation would strike him all at once: No matter how noble his intentions may have been in bringing Montparnasse here, he was still abetting a dangerous criminal.

For the moment, Montparnasse seemed content to accept his hospitality, but Enjolras knew that he was no house pet at heart. He would stay a while, perhaps through the winter, but he would grow restless soon enough. Enjolras' conscience would not allow him to set a known murderer free once more on an unsuspecting city. He had once entertained the notion of reforming the boy, but that prospect had seemed a less challenging one when Montparnasse was near death then it did now that he was well again and may have had another fifty years ahead of him.

Regardless, Enjolras knew he would have to try, for the only alternative would be to deliver Montparnasse to the authorities. That was the last thing he wanted. Enjolras was acquainted only casually with a circle of prison reformers, but from their talk he had gathered enough to know what sort of fate would befall Montparnasse there. For someone like that, who was still young, who had a fresh face and a weakness in his chest and no connections to mention, there would be only one unnamable option open to him if he wanted to survive. Such were the stories Enjolras had heard. He believed them, mostly, even if he did not always approve of the salacious way in which they were told.

Over the long days of Montparnasse's convalescence, Enjolras had come to feel fiercely protective, though he was careful not to let on too much. Montparnasse had a touchy kind of pride. He didn't have much to his name, but what he did possess, he guarded well. His independence was one, his looks another.

Montparnasse knew he was handsome, though perhaps, Enjolras sometimes thought, he overestimated himself a bit in that regard. While he had been sick, Enjolras had thought his face might have the trappings of beauty, but now that Montparnasse was well again – his hollow cheeks filled in, and his sallow coloring deepened to blush – Enjolras could see that he was merely pretty.

For some reason, the discovery relieved him.

He did have to admit that Montparnasse had rather striking eyes, and that his neck was long and exquisitely curved.

But Enjolras suspected that Montparnasse had embraced vanity as a surrogate for all he had been denied in life, and he wondered if breaking the boy of that particular bad habit might make the rest of his vices easier to confront.

Once, Enjolras had asked him what he expected to do once his looks began to fade. Montparnasse had only laughed at him, though. He laughed often when Enjolras tried to question him, and without any humor. Of all his habits, it was the one Enjolras found most unnerving.

"It's no good," Montparnasse announced one evening, as outside the snow fell and the wind gusted so hard that the windows rattled in their frames. "You'll have to send down for a bath."

Enjolras stabbed his pen against the page, smearing the ink. He didn't bother trying to finish the sentence he had been writing; he had lost the thought the moment Montparnasse spoke. "Pardon me?"

Montparnasse didn't look up from Enjolras' mirror. He had been perched in front of the glass all evening, trying to set his hair into curls. After so many long days spent abed, he was having little luck with the task. "I think I'd like to see what it's like to be clean, for once."

Though he wanted to be annoyed at having his work interrupted, Enjolras found that he could not. Montparnasse didn't ask for things often. So he shooed him back into the bedroom, out of sight, and sent word down to the porter to haul water. After he had gone, and Enjolras had drawn the latch on the door after him, Montparnasse slipped out from behind the partition.

"You always act like you have a jealous husband. Or an overprotective father. Next, you'll be making me hide under the bed." He winked boldly. "Don't worry, I know a thing or two about that."

Enjolras wanted to tell him that he didn't appreciate such talk, but by the time he opened his mouth he had already forgotten the words. Casually, unselfconsciously, Montparnasse had unbuttoned his bedshirt and started to undress. Enjolras' jaw snapped shut so suddenly that his teeth clicked. He turned away, snatched his pen and a handful of papers up from his writing desk and headed for the bedroom with such haste that he was surprised he made it without stumbling over the furniture.

He supposed it was too much to hope for that Montparnasse hadn't noticed. Though he was safe now on the other side of the screen, out of sight, Enjolras could still hear the whisper of clothing sliding to the floor, the soft hiccup of water displacing as Montparnasse slipped his legs into the tub.

"Is everything all right, M. Enjolras?" he cooed. And Enjolras knew that he was being mocked, but he could not work up the anger the situation deserved.

"Fine," he snapped.

"It's just that you moved so very quickly…" Montparnasse said soothingly. "I thought you'd want the water first. I'm so dirty, you see. Far dirtier than you are."

Enjolras set his jaw. "Just don't spend too long in there. You'll take a chill."

"It feels good, though," Montparnasse said.

There was a splash as he dipped his head under the water. Or so Enjolras imagined, and regretted his presumptuousness at once. Montparnasse may have been immodest, but that was no excuse for Enjolras to forget his own good breeding. He knew a thing or two about how the impoverished lived, entire families in a single room, with no space left over for privacy, or shame.

After a time, he heard Montparnasse stand up out of the water. Then, he appeared at the edge of the screen, wrapped in a dressing gown which he had belted loosely, so it gapped open around his legs.

Enjolras did not look up, he was resolved not to look up, but Montparnasse waited there, silent and still, until at last he raised his eyes.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were embarrassed," Montparnasse said. His hair was slicked down around his face, and it clung to his skin like cracks in porcelain. It was longer than Enjolras had thought. "It's just you and me. There's nothing to be embarrassed about, is there?"

Montparnasse stepped forward, and Enjolras retreated into the familiar and unsentimental fortress of common sense. "You'll make yourself sick again, walking around like that."

"But I've been so much better these days. If you keep talking like that, you'll never get a chance to see how good I can really be."

Enjolras felt a brief moment of annoyance. Montparnasse was talking nonsense, of course. Perhaps his fever really had returned. He opened his mouth to protest, but Montparnasse only shook his head and came forward. Enjolras could see by his eyes that his intent was wicked indeed. It was not in his nature to shrink from danger, but all the same he was glad for the stiff back of the divan. It kept him from flinching away as Montparnasse crossed the floor towards him.

With a sweep of his arm, Montparnasse gathered up the book that lay open across Enjolras' thighs. He flicked his wrist and tossed it to the floor, and Enjolras forgot that he was supposed to be afraid for his life.

"For God's sake…" he snapped. It was the harshest oath he knew, but he might have even said it a second time if Montparnasse had not, at that moment, come to occupy the place in his lap where his books had just been.

They were close enough that Enjolras' could feel the inside curves of Montparnasse's thighs against his hipbones. The muscles there were tense and twitching; they did not yield, not quite. Montparnasse's hands fluttered up to wrap around his collar, and Enjolras did not yield, either. Nor did he resist.

Montparnasse leaned in, but he also pulled him forward. Forcing Enjolras up to meet him halfway. It was not his first kiss, not even the first that had been stolen from him so brazenly, but this was the first time he had not jerked away in alarm, or pursed his lips tight to keep out invading particles.

When he realized that Enjolras wasn't pulling away, Montparnasse's hands relaxed. They fell limp on his shoulders; his thumbnails brushed against the bare skin above Enjolras' collar. How easy it would be, he thought, for Montparnasse to close his hands around his throat at that moment. How easy to throttle the life out of him. He might even have allowed it; he had let Montparnasse kiss him, after all.

Enjolras tilted his head back a little, and Montparnasse broke away. He seemed only to need a moment to catch his breath. Enjolras' head was still humming, at any rate, when he began to speak.

"I kept thinking you were going to come to me," Montparnasse said. "I thought you were just waiting for the right moment. I thought maybe it got you excited, playing indulgent nurse, and stern father, and Jesus Christ himself all rolled into one. Maybe that's what gets a man like you hot. But when you ran off like that, I finally understood. You poor dear. You were scared to death."

Numbly, only half comprehending, Enjolras licked his lips; they were dry suddenly, and a little sore. He felt shaken. As if he had been sound asleep beneath a mound of blankets, dreaming soft and meaningless dreams, when all at once a hand had come to snatch away the bedclothes, and the a shock of cold air had slapped him awake.

"You're always reminding me how you saved me," Montparnasse said. "Let me do something for you now. Then we'll be even, and you won't be able to hold it over me any more."

He leaned close again, and Enjolras' felt his heart leap into his throat. He caught Montparnasse by the shoulders, holding him at bay.

"I'm not going to bargain with you…" he rasped.

Montparnasse leaned back on his knees. He still sat defiantly astride Enjolras' hips, but at least he was far enough away now that Enjolras could breathe without feeling that the air was tainted. He could not take his eyes from Montparnasse's face, the inversion of his eyebrows and the bemused expression he wore.

Enjolras knew that he was blushing, and it irritated him greatly.

"That's not why I saved you," he snapped. "I never wanted… never…"

Montparnasse looked at him critically. "Never?"

"You don't understand why I did what I did. How could you? It's like trying to explain the social contract to a mongrel dog."

At first, he was afraid he had gone too far, but Montparnasse only looked sulky and bored. He tossed his damp hair and flounced out of Enjolras' lap, sliding off the edge of the divan and down to the floor at Enjolras' feet, where he sat like a prim Infanta.

"So maybe that's true," he said. "But it's not like you understand me any better."

"You're no great mystery," Enjolras said. "I've let you play at it, all these weeks. Dodging my questions. Laughing at the sound advice I gave you. But I know the truth; you're nothing but a lazy, sullen wastrel. And you'd rather die than change your ways."

Montparnasse sprang to his feet, but Enjolras had anticipated the movement and he rose to meet him. He caught hold of Montparnasse's arms before he could turn away. "It will be easier for both of us if you just admit that I'm right."

The thief was tense in his grip, so tense he was almost trembling, but he was too poised to pull away.

"I'll admit it," he said quietly. "If you admit that you liked that kiss I gave you."

Though he had resolved to hold Montparnasse there until he agreed to see reason, at those words Enjolras thrust him away. "You're impossible…"

Montparnasse sniffed and straightened himself. He went to the small mirror and began to shape his damp hair into curls.

"You liked it," Montparnasse said. "But you want to pretend that you didn't. You'll never say it. You'll never thank me. But when it's convenient for you, then you'll come back. Then I'll be good enough for you to use. Rich boys like you, you're always such cold fish, but I'll do my part. I'll prop up your fragile little ego for you…"

He flinched when Enjolras' hand came down on his shoulder. His fingers clenched in his hair, so hard that a few black strands came loose in his grip.

"If we're ever going to get anywhere," Enjolras said, "you're going to have to stop blaming me for everything bad that's befallen you. If you've been wronged, then so be it. I've tried to only do right by you."

Montparnasse's shoulders slumped. He let Enjolras turn him away from the glass, but he didn't lift the hand from his hair until Enjolras reached up, took him by the wrist and urged it away.

"I know," Montparnasse sighed. "You're always so damned decent. You're so decent to me. Do you really hate me that much?"

"You're talking nonsense," Enjolras said. He drew Montparnasse away from the mirror; gently, but with a steely grip that indicated he would not tolerate any further foolishness, he guided him over to the divan and made him sit. He took a blanket from the bed, and Montparnasse drew it around his shoulders.

He looked up. His eyes were feverish, but Enjolras did not worry. He had seen that expression before; it did not always indicate sickness.

"I suppose you want me to say I've done things I'm not proud of," Montparnasse said. "I won't. I'm not ashamed. It was just something I did to make a little money, before I learned that I could take it. It was fine, for a while. I'm too old for it now."

Enjolras looked away. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't know," Montparnasse admitted. "I'm talking like I'm drunk. But I don't feel drunk. You haven't let me have a drop in weeks…"

His eyes flicked over Enjolras' face as if it were a page in a book. "I know you don't hate me. It might be easier if you did."

"Easier to do what?" Enjolras asked. But Montparnasse only fidgeted in his seat and said nothing.

Enjolras knelt down, to better see his eyes.

"I like you a lot…" Montparnasse started to say, but Enjolras silenced him with a glance.

"You're confused," he said. "Because your mind has grown lax from disuse. Beginning tomorrow, I shall take responsibility for your education."

He scooped the book that had been knocked from his lap up off the floor and placed it in Montparnasse's hands. He took it without complaint, but held it as if it were something dead.

Enjolras said, "It's what I should have been doing all along."