The Marble Man
Disclaimer: I still only own the plot.
AN: Dedicated to my babes, my Browncoats, my biggest fans and supporters: Sabrina, Lily, Christine, Mary, Kat, Free… Couldn't have done this without you!
Chapter seven:
After R had finally made time for some snarky comments – "so you did steal the statue" – it only took her about five minutes for her to be completely done with the awkwardness of the situation, and to be even more fed up with Enjolras still keeping her sketches away from her. She wants to punch all of them at this point – even Jehan.
"R, we still need to talk," Jehan interrupts the madness.
Scratch that, she loves Jehan, because he is now almost forcibly dragging R away from Enjolras, who looks very relieved at the other men's departures. He looks relieved at having at least some semblance of peace again – something which is undoubtedly impossible with R around. She is not that much of a peaceful creature herself, but she can have a good try for him – this whole world is still overwhelming to him.
As she waits for R's exit line, the one that never comes, she is struck by just how normal Enjolras seems, standing in the garden in his old trousers and his borrowed red shirt and teasing her with the damn book – he no longer looks like the haunted bare-chested mess she rescued from the museum the night before. But she is not fooled by his exterior, because she knows that on the inside he is still just as much of a mess as before – things like that don't just fade away overnight. He is still falling apart on the inside.
"We need to talk as well," she tells him, sitting herself down on the grass.
"Do we?" Enjolras seems reluctantly to join in on the conversation.
Of course they do – this is the first time since he came to life that they actually have a decent amount to talk about something. He is not looking as sickly as he did when he had just woken up, so maybe he will be okay to have a talk.
"You were a statue twenty-four hours ago," she tells him, desperate to get through to him somehow. "Somehow you came to life and I want to know what's going on."
There might not be a real explanation for this, because how can there be an explanation for a statue coming to life in front of her? Oh God, is this because she ever so fleetingly wished that he were real? Can a simple wish like that, a wish she only meant for a lonely second or two, can a wish like that really come true?
The world has changed overnight – well, it started to change the day before but the saying still somewhat applies – and now it does not seem like wishes coming true is an impossible thing any longer. Now it seems that this one stupid wish made so carelessly has come true when her other wishes made with all her heart have gone to waste somehow. She had wished for a better life for her siblings and a better relationship with them and her stupid fleeting wish about the statue is the one that is granted.
"I do not know what is going on," Enjolras tries to play dumb.
"Fucking hell," she curses under her breath.
She is so not a patient person, but she is going to have to be patient dealing with him when he is attempting to be contrary. Deep breaths might have to be enough for her, because she does not have any other ideas that will work for this.
Fuck! Another deep breath before she goes to try again.
"You came to life and that means that the statue is gone from the museum," she tries to explain it to him one step at a time, hoping that might make him ready to reveal something about his curse. "It means that they think someone has stolen the statue, because there is no record of it moving to a different museum or of it being ruined or in repairs. They think someone stole it and that is a serious crime that the police have to investigate. They're blaming me! They think I did it! They think I stole you and if they can prove that I will go to jail for years. Can you blame me for being upset?"
There is another deep breath so her voice doesn't get raised and raised until she is screaming, because screaming is not going to make him listen. She isn't even sure that there is any way that he will listen at all, but she is damn well going to try.
"They have no proof," he speaks, finally sitting down facing her.
"They will think of something," she shrugs, "especially if they find you. I have a past, Enjolras. I have a father who hasn't always obeyed the law. I am the easiest suspect."
Her past should not be a factor in this, because it is all related to who her family is and not to who she is. But still, she is savvy enough to know that it will just be one more mark against her on a very long list. She is the latest employee only hired because she happened to be in town when R had to go away – just that would be suspicious enough for any cop to consider her suspect number one. She is basically screwed and somehow Enjolras refuses to understand that.
"Surely they do not think a woman would have the strength to steal a statue?" he asks.
"As if a man could do any better," she snipes at him, rolling her eyes at the unexpected dose of misogyny. "No one person could carry a marble statue out of the museum like that, and I'm sure the cops know that. That's why they'll think we did this together."
Wow, ancient guys really don't know shit about women, do they? She is stronger than many a man and fuck him if he wants to act like this – she will teach him about feminism and equality for all so fast his ears will burn and his brain will hurt with all of the new information that it is trying to remember. She has no problem with that.
"They must not be very intelligent," Enjolras is now a bit haughty.
"Slow down, mister smarty-pants," another eye-roll and another reason why she really needs to teach him all the ways in which the world has changed. "We are both in serious danger of being thrown in jail, of being detained for several years. When they find you, they are going to think you are an illegal citizen and I'm sure they'll think of unpleasant things to you. It would benefit us both to just discuss your curse calmly and rationally."
All of the big words she is using have to get through to him, and while threatening him with the idea of deportation – or worse – might not have been very nice of her, she is sure that this is not all that far from the truth. He has to realize that they are in a serious amount of danger with all these developments – he has to start talking!
"I am risking a lot for you," she speaks again, since he has yet to respond. "And I don't need to hear your entire life story right now, but I would like some answers."
Judging by the look on his face, he is actually pondering responding to that – it seems as if she is finally starting to make a bit of progress with him. They might finally get somewhere with this curse thing, and as much as she wants to believe that the curse was easily broken with just her wish, she is worried enough about there being a catch that they have not thought of yet. There is always a catch in the stories and books.
"I am willing to make a deal," he tells her almost hesitantly.
"I'm listening," she quickly replies, wanting to keep him talking.
There is a brief silence during which he is obviously looking for the right words to use to convince her to take this deal. Her protesting man can be a master of words, she is sure of that, but she is not sure that he is prepared for just how cunning she can be.
"I am not going to be the only one revealing secrets," Enjolras tries to be subtle.
"What can I tell you that you don't already know?" she scoffs loudly. "I have spilled my secrets in front of you already. You know everything about me."
She remembers days and nights of secrets whispered into the empty gallery, for his ears only. She remembers things escaping her lips that she has never told anyone else in her entire life. And still he wants to know more about her?
"I may know about you," he starts, "but I don't know you."
That just feels like a line; like some bullshit explanation for all of this. She has told him just about everything that there is to know about her and still he is asking for more, when she knows nothing about him and she is only asking for something small. She is asking for him to give her a boon, and still he refuses.
"And how would you propose to get to know me?" she asks.
"For every question you ask me," he starts, and she starts looking for the catch before he has even told her what he wants from her, "I get to ask you a question."
But she has so many questions to ask him, so many things that she does not know about him and about his curse. All she knows about him is that he used to be just a man until he was cursed, and she knows that his last name is Enjolras – and she remembers him asking for his little sister in the middle of the night. She has no age, no first name, no date of birth, and she does not know what his likes and dislikes are. She's got nothing.
"There is little about me that you don't already know," she repeats once again.
"That is for me to decide," he tells her haughtily, and his arrogance just wants her to agree to the deal so that he will get the raw end of it. "Are you in agreement?"
She is still trying to figure out what questions would be the best ones to ask, but also the kind of questions that he will actually answer. There are limits to his willingness to talk about anything, and she has to be careful so she doesn't reach his limit before he has even answered the first question. She will have to take baby steps.
"I will go first," she nods gravely.
That does not seem to please him all that much, but she does not care about that, because she is here to get some answers rather than to make him happy. She's been wanting these answers since she walked into the gallery and found him in a crumpled heap on the floor rather than standing upright and made of marble. She has been needing them since she came back from the grocery store to find the gendarmes in the house, calling her a suspect in the statue's disappearance from the museum.
Because of him, she is a suspect in a grand larceny investigation. Great!
"What year were you born?" she throws out a relatively harmless question.
It startles him, and she can tell. He was expecting something else, something horribly invasive, something private and personal like the reason for him being cursed – and she is not going to give him the pleasure of playing right into his hands like that. She has some tricks up her sleeve that he has never even heard of.
"What year was I born?" he tries to stall for time.
"You heard the question," she is just not having any of this bullshit.
If she were standing, she would be tapping her foot impatiently at this point, a stupid habit that annoys many a person she meets. Right now, since she is sitting down, her foot starts harmlessly twitching and she has to hold it still.
"I was twenty six years old when I was cursed," he then speaks, frowning, as he appears to be thinking very hard on something. "I can't remember which year that was."
Is he that old that he cannot even remember how long ago he was born? She can only imagine how the years might have blurred together when he was a statue, standing still in a museum with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Was he even conscious when he was a statue? He has told her things that she has told him, but she cannot even imagine him being alive inside that statue and just waiting for someone to break the curse, hoping that someone would actually be able to break the damn curse.
"Has it been that long?" she asks him, hoping he'll say more about this.
"I think so," is his very vague answer. "It has been so long, I just do not know."
She could choose to take the offensive and try to get a definitive answer out of him, but she doubts that he'll even be able to give her anything, no matter how much she presses him on the topic. So she stays quiet for a while longer, hoping that the silence might reveal something to him that he'd forgotten before. But alas, nothing happens.
"Your turn to ask the questions," she dreads what he might say.
"Why do you not call these men your friends?" he starts, and her stomach sinks. "You live with these two men and you spend time with several others. Why are they not friends?"
Of course he would ask questions that she would prefer not to answer. Of course he would want to delve right into her issues with commitment and relationships – even those of the platonic kind. She hates talking about this, but a deal's a deal.
"I don't have friends," she shrugs as if it is no big deal. "I've never had friends and I won't start now. I travel a lot. I'm never in one place for long. There's never enough time to make friends. I've only been here a little over three weeks – I'd hardly call people my friends after such a short amount of time."
This is not all there is to that story, but it is all she is going to tell him at this point, because she'll be damned if she pours her heart out to him again. Pouring her heart out to Enjolras can only end badly, especially now that he is alive again for some fucked up reason and walking around in Musain – Jehan and R know about him now and she does not want to risk Enjolras telling them anything that she told him.
"Why am I your only friend, then?" he asks a new question.
"I am counting that as a separate question," she warns him. "Just so you know."
So once again he needs to delve into her every thought, and while she tries to think of other answers to this, there is just no way that she can think of anything except the truth that she does not want to tell. Her life is not his playground; especially not when all she wants to know is what is going on with the damn statue coming to life.
"You're my only friend because," she trails off, because even though he has nodded in acceptance, she is not sure she is ready to talk about this.
"This counts as my second question," he tries to make her talk again. "I know."
Only his second question and she's already close to shutting down this little game, which was probably his intention when asking these hard-hitting questions. With just a couple questions he has exposed some raw wounds deep inside of her and they are already starting to fester – the ugly truths he wants will be kept inside as much as possible, but he is still supposed to get his answer. She made this deal and she will honor it.
"You're my only friend because you don't tell my secrets to anyone," she just blurts it out to soften the blow to herself. "You couldn't betray me. Marble men tell no tales."
He'd be the first person to not betray her confidence, mostly because he was not able to tell anyone anything. He was the safe choice – if she had to choose someone to reveal her secrets too, it should be the guy who can't talk back or judge her. He would be the only one who ever knew.
"I am your friend because I could not talk back?" he scoffs, exposing more of her dark side to the light of day. "I am glad you seem to value my input."
Well fuck that noise, because she is not a particularly nice or good person and she never claimed to be like that. She has never said that she had nice reasons for talking to him – her reasons have always been purely selfish. She needed to imagine someone who would listen to her without commenting or being mean or revealing her secrets to others later. She needed for this to be just about what she needed.
"I never said you'd like my answers," she bites back.
And he must know she is right about that because he does not reply, even though he's frowning and obviously angry with her. He was expecting a much kinder answer, but she does not have any kind answers to give. He is just going to have to deal.
"Ask your question," he talks through clenched teeth.
"Who is your petite soeur?" she aims to bring up painful memories.
She is ready to lash out at him, and the flinch she can barely spot when she mentions his sister means that she is succeeding. She is sure that he will ask her painful questions about Azelma and about Papa as well, and she is not answering those if he cannot tell her about this. A question for a question was the deal, and she is taking that to mean that it will be an answer for an answer as well. If he won't answer, neither will she.
"I had a sister once," he is now more sad than angry. "Her name was Cécile and she was not yet seven and ten when I was cursed. She pleaded for my life. End of story. We have both asked two questions now. How long would you want to keep going?"
Why she is picturing a girl much like a younger version of Azelma is beyond her – any sister to the great Enjolras would be fair and beautiful and a catch for any man. She remembers Zelma as being beautiful as well, but in a completely different way from the blonde beauty Cécile Enjolras would have to have been. Azelma has a sharp face with pointed features and her complexion is less than fair, but more than beautiful.
"At least your sister loved you," she says that before she even realizes what she's doing.
"My next question," he is looking for a painful spot to hit, and she is sure that he is going to find one within his reach. "Why won't you make up with your sister?"
Fuck him! This is one thing that she is not going to talk about with him; because there is no way that he is ever going to be able to understand this. It is too painful to talk about anyway, and she thinks that she should be awarded a pass – there has to be a clause somewhere in this conversation that will give her an out when she needs it.
"No," she tells him.
"I answered your questions," he replies. "It is only fair to answer mine."
There is no way that this thing is even remotely fair. She starts thinking of excuses, of things to tell him that she can tell him, places she can tell him to shove it, or lies that sound believable enough for him to believe. There is nothing.
"She took my father's side," her voice breaks on those words. "She took my father's side in everything and I will never be able to forgive her for that."
And that is all he will ever need to know about that; all that she is able to tell him with her head still held high. He has no need for the details, she decides, because it is none of his business anyway. Also, since his response was brief, so was hers.
"What did-" he starts to ask another question.
"It's not your turn yet," she reminds him, cutting him off quickly.
He wanted to start on question number four when she has not even had the opportunity to ask her third question. She is sharp enough to realize what he is trying to sneak by her, even when she feels like she's breaking apart at the seams. But he is not going to get the satisfaction of seeing her fall apart again. She is going to show him what she's made of – Éponine Thénardier does not let anyone walk over her like that.
"I get to ask the next question," she draws out this moment where she has power over him. "And my question will be… How did you come to life? What caused that to happen?"
This is just one of the dozens of questions that she has been asking in her head ever since she found him trembling on the gallery floor. This is just the first question about the curse she has actually allowed herself to ask during this little deal. If she had started talking about the curse immediately, he would have stopped their conversation immediately and walked away without giving her anything at all.
"I have always been slightly aware of my surroundings," he starts talking, and she leans in so that she can hear every word of this. "But when you came for the tour with R, you were just so interested. And you started talking to me. No one has done that before, and I had to listen. I could not keep myself from listening to what you were telling me. When you wished for me to be real, you allowed me to be human again."
So her thoughts were close to the real thing after all; she is the reason that he is now sitting in front of her, completely human when before he was marble. Her wish was granted, and it was not a wish made in an hour of need, rather a heartfelt desire made on a whim. She wanted it badly at that moment, because she might have been a bit lonely and in need of a supportive friend; and her supportive friend was that marble statue. Guess she really missed the mark on his personality when she tried to imagine him.
But how can she wonder about personality when he has just told her that he has been awake for decades, watching the world go on around him while he was stuck encased in marble. She cannot imagine being stuck without anyway to move or to shift her eyes or to get away from something she was uncomfortable with. She has made a life out of taking a runner when her problems get to be too much to deal with and he has never gotten the chance to run away from anything. He might have run once, but they caught up to him before he got the chance to get away and he was stuck to the spot for decades and centuries as his punishment. He just could not move.
He was stuck to the spot when all of his loved ones died and time continued to pass – it sounds like the worst punishment that she has ever heard, and the pity that she feels for him now must show on her face. She takes a quick look up, trying to look into his eyes only to find him looking at the ground as his nimble fingers absentmindedly play with blades of grass. She tries to school her face into a more indifferent mask.
"I made you come to life?" she is still stunned at the mere idea.
"Your wish brought me back," he tells her, sounding grave.
She doubts that she has any kind of special powers, though. She imagines that anyone could have done what she did; because any sincere wish for him to be real probably would have done the trick. It's the sincerity that matters, not the person.
"Next question," she speaks up, feeling too awkward about the silence.
"Why are you running away from your problems?" he just lashes out all of a sudden.
Well fuck! Where the hell did that come from all of a sudden? She knows that it is all part of this stupid deal, but that question came out of nowhere and he phrased it in such a rude and patronizing way that she can't help but be offended. How would he even know about her problems? And who is he to judge her anyway?
His eyes are burning into hers and she can't keep looking at him like that for much longer without lashing out in return. He remains so strong and self-assured even though she is slowly poking and prodding her way into his life and all of his problems.
"First of all, fuck you," she knows that she has to answer the damn question. "I can deal with my problems however I damn well choose. And I choose to walk away. Nothing is ever solved by sticking around and letting myself get hurt again. End of story."
There, that should be enough to satisfy his curiosity on this topic. She really does not want to get into this anymore than she already has. For some reason, talking about her problems is not her favorite activity – it's shocking, she knows that.
He stays silent, so she takes that to mean that he has accepted her answer and is letting her ask a question of her own in return. So she thinks of things that she could ask him that would make him understand how ridiculously personal his last question was, and why she would have been in her right not to answer. So far, she has mostly stuck to simple questions, but right now she is ready to be a little harsher. No matter how she may pity him for his sad lot in life, that is not an excuse to be an asshole.
"What's your first name?" she asks an impertinent question of him in return.
"No," he immediately replies, face locked in an eternal frown.
Does a name hold that much power that she is not allowed to know it? Will her knowing his name bring the curse back upon him? She cannot think of a reason why he would guard his first name so closely when that is the first thing people ask of each other.
"That's a lovely name," she rolls her eyes at him, waiting for him to talk.
Making fun of him is the only response she has to his flat out refusal to answer this very simple question. She has about half a dozen other crappy jokes up her sleeve if this one doesn't do the trick, but she'd rather he'd just answer the question already.
"I will not tell you this one," he vows.
"It's just a name," she raises her hands to the heavens. "For fuck's sake!"
First names are not nearly as dangerous as last names, at least in her personal experience. A Thénardier is always judged, but the name Éponine gets her nothing but the same old reference to the same old story of a revolutionist and his wife. So Enjolras might be the last name of the man who got himself cursed for some reason, but his first name will have been his real identifier to people who knew him.
Still, she wonders about how different things might have been back before he was turned into a marble man. Would first names have been used as freely as they are in this time? She honestly doubts that, because first names were probably seen as something that was way too intimate – choosing to refer to people by their last name and title.
Is this why he will not reveal his first name to her? Is it too personal?
"It is still a name I am not going to reveal," he holds firm to his convictions, hands clenched at his side rather than playing with blades of grass.
"I didn't know we were allowed to say pass to questions we didn't like," it smarts, and she has to let him know. "I would have passed as well."
If she knew that she was allowed to say no to some of his questions, she would have said no several times before, especially to some of his more painful questions. She had to tell him about her problems with her sister and about her tendency to run away from her problems and still he pulls the pass card on a question about his first name.
Yeah, she might be a little pissed at him for that.
"New question then," she figures she might as well go all out now. "What was the whole curse thing about? Why and how did you get cursed?"
It is a cruel thing to ask of him, giving him that harsh reminder that until about 24 hours ago, he was completely made out of marble. It is cruel to remind him of the life he had before the curse, but she is a Thénardier and cruelty is in her DNA.
So she really is not swayed by how his deep blue eyes are wide with hurt when she asks her damned question. She does not feel the pang when those same heartbroken eyes finally look down and away from her as he tries to gather enough courage to speak.
"I understand the point you are trying to get across," he knows that she will keep asking until she gets an answer, but still his voice breaks on his words, words filled with pain and sadness. "I made a bad decision and people got hurt – I was blamed and a Gypsy was hired to curse me. My sister is the only reason I am not yet dead."
Her breath catches because this whole curse business is starting to sound more and more real to her. She can't even grasp the idea of Gypsy curses being real, because in her experience the Romani don't have actual magic that they can use. But then again, she never thought that statues could come to life either, and that happened.
"But, what did you do?" she has to ask.
"You cannot expect me to answer that right now," he tries to sound calm – but he fails.
She had to try, even though she knew that he probably wouldn't answer that one – it is way too personal to tell someone you have only known for about a day. She wants him to tell her so that she knows just why her wanting him to be real broke the curse – and she wants to be sure that the curse is broken for good. She just wants to understand where he is coming from and what she might be able to do to help him.
"I know," she takes a deep breath to keep from getting too frustrated.
"You are a very talented artist," he then tells her so very casually.
He has clearly had more than enough time to take a closer look at all of the drawings she has made of him. She kind of hates him for it, because her art is very personal to her and she rarely shows it to anyone. But still, at the same time she wonders if he can tell she was just a little bit in love with the statue – not so much with the man, but actually with the marble and its clear lines and the defined expression on the chiseled face. Like many a man or woman loves the Mona Lisa, that is how she loves her statue. Or, how she used to love it. Now it just seems too strange to talk about being in love with this work of art.
"Please give me my sketchpad back," she tries to ask nicely. "It's really personal and I'd like it back. Just, I don't want you looking at the sketches I did of you."
Her fingers are already reaching for the sketchpad that he has somehow managed to hold onto throughout the entirety of their discussion. She only stops because her phone vibrates in her pocket, so she quickly takes it out to figure out if there's something important that she needs to know.
"What is that?" Enjolras looks at her cell suspiciously. "Is it a torture device?"
That brings out some laughter, because the look on his face is part little kid who has seen something shiny and part special agent looking at a bomb that is about to explode – he is panicking and admiring the phone at the same time.
"Do you know about phones, telephones?" she asks him, wondering how to explain.
"Those are devices people use to communicate, yes?" he asks. "I have heard people discuss them while I was – in the museum."
He will not refer to his time spent as a marble statue like that; he will only mention it with an odd reference, like this one. She can almost understand that it would be oh so painful for him to constantly be reminded of the pain of living as a sculpture and watching the world pass him by while he simply could not move.
"Yes," she acknowledges his little bit of knowledge. "Every phone has a corresponding 10 digit number that one dials to reach the person owning the phone. There are phones that have to be plugged into a socket on the wall and phones like this one that you can take with you wherever you go. This type of phone is called a cellphone."
Yep, now she actually feels like a teacher to this grown man, telling him things that most children understand – he grew up in a time where electricity might not have been figured out yet, and where phones definitely weren't commonplace. It is odd mostly because she has always taken these things for granted and here he is seeing everything through fresh eyes and with wonder shining in his eyes.
"May I?" he reaches out for the phone, and his curious eyes don't move away from it.
"Just don't drop it," she warns him.
Just as she is about to drop her phone into his hand, it starts buzzing again.
"What-" Enjolras pulls his hand back so fast; it is like he has been burned.
That does it – she is giggling like a schoolgirl before she even knows it, because of that damned look on his face. She knows that she should not laugh at his fear of technology, but he just looks so much like a startled kid that she can't help herself. His eyes are wide and startled until he realizes that she's laughing at him.
The corners of his mouth turn up.
AN: Let me know what you think! Leave your comments/fave parts please!
Also, updates might not be as fast as most of you are used to with my stuff. I have about 6-8 weeks left to write my MA thesis, and fanfic writing will be slow in those weeks.