Thankful
Description: Christophe is thinking about Gregory, and a final incident with a dog that unearths a secret from Christophe's mysterious past finally brings them closer...
Pairing: Gregstophe
Warning: Eeeeh language, you know?
I do not have a lot to be thankful of in my life. My father abused and hated me from my birth, and frankly, I'm glad I left him back in France. My mother is quite tough – very much tough love when it comes to it. Heck, she didn't want me to begin with, but she said she 'grew to love me', which makes me feel extremely fucking wanted.
And apart from my fucked up family? Oh the things that have happened to me in my life, you could not believe. Living by stealing since the age of 3? Check. Being mauled within an inch of my life more than 20 times, before the age of 5? Check. Being killed by dogs, journeying to Hell and then back, aged just 7? Happened.
I learnt, at an extremely young age, that it was a dog-eat-dog world out there, and the only way to survive was to be tough, and not let anyone get in your way. Become attached to no-one, kill those who threatened you, and find work where possible. That's how I managed to get into the mercenary business – I simply used my survival instinct. I did very childish missions when I was young – when I moved here to South Park, America, I met Gregory Thorne and we basically 'played' mercenary together.
Gregory Thorne is probably the one thing I am grateful for. I would thank God for him, if I believed it meant anything. He gives me my pay-check, the money that allows me to buy my food; he pays most of the rent for the apartment we share; he is the one person in my life who I could not live without.
And not just because of the money I get from him. Non, not at all. The relationship we share – more than business partners, or boss and employee – is what I guess could be compared to 'best friends', though it is such a childish term I never use it.
Oh I have other friends, oui. I am good friends with Damien, the Antichrist, and Kenny McCormick – him and Damien seem to be extremely good friends due to the time they spend together in Hell whenever McCormick dies. I have met various other people, and I occasionally talk to said people if I feel it worth the breath. But there is no-one, no-one, I trust like I trust Gregory.
Sometimes he annoys me. Sometimes I can hardly contain the want to hit him around the head with my trusty shovel. So I resort to calling him childish names, like 'British bitch' and various others, depending on the situation. And always, every time, he will come up to me, apologise sweetly, and ruffle my hair, though he knows I hate it. Yet every time, I can forgive him.
He is generally a civil, neat, and calm person. He has a dark side – I have annoyed or upset him enough before to regret it for a week afterwards. He helps me, surprisingly frequently, on my missions – you wouldn't think, from his extremely neat and clean exterior that he would enjoy crawling through mud on tough, life-threatening missions. He doesn't; as unfazed as he is about killing someone, he hates to get his hands dirty or hair messed. And whenever he complains, all I can do is laugh inwardly.
Gregory looks, quite honestly, stunning. He is handsome, and there is no denying it. His golden-blonde hair is always neatly combed – apart from the early mornings, when it is so uncharacteristically tousled he apologises for 'looking a state'. That is another thing that makes me chuckle to myself.
He is always dressed impeccably well, in clean almost new looking clothes, almost the total opposite of me. I am hardly ever out of a pair of my many combats, and a plain t-shirt; all mud-stained. He always tuts at how dirty I am, but I simply tell him it's part of the job. Then he sighs, and drops it. It's almost a routine.
And his eyes. His eyes are the most beautiful, piercing ice-blue you can think of. He stares at you with those eyes – eyes that seem to see through every barrier you put up to protect yourself – in such a calm, steady manner that most people end up stuttering and getting awkward. If you lie, he looks at you in such a way, that most people break down and confess the truth. I, however, am not most people.
He's staring at me, right now, with those eyes, in a thoughtful manner.
"What are you thinking about, Christophe?" he asks me, in that smooth voice of his, his British accent still as heavy as ever. It's not an old-fashioned English accent, like that Pip boy's – his accent is simply clear and suggests a high education – no slurs, missing letters or slang.
"Vous, mon ami." I reply simply. I know Gregory understands French extremely well, and speaks it fluently too – it is required, and he knows many other languages too. It makes discussing things like missions in school much easier; no-one can speak French as fluently as me and Gregory, so no-one can understand.
"And why would you be doing that?" he inquired – his face is still calm, his voice and gaze steady.
"You are an interesteeng person, Gregory." I shrug.
"How so?"
I smirk, and refuse to answer him. He knows it is no use to try and get a reply from me if I do nto want to answer; so he simply shakes his head.
"And what are you theenkeeng about?" I ask. He smiles at me.
"Vous, mon ami." He replies, his grin staying in place and showing off his perfect, white teeth.
"And why are you doeeng zat?" I smirk. He gives a short laugh.
"You intrigue me." He says, and suddenly becomes serious. "You are such a mystery Tophe. Sometimes, just as I think I know you, you do something completely unexpected. I know almost nothing about you."
It's true. As much as I trust Gregory, I have never told him of my past. He knows the bits he's been there for himself – then there are various blanks I don't fill him in on.
"Oh really?"
"Mmm." He doesn't reply in words, instead cocking his head and making a thoughtful noise of agreement.
"Maybe zat ees part of my appeal." I smirk at him. I swear his cheeks go slightly pink, but he shakes his head and stands up.
"Come on, let's go home. It's freezing out here."
It's not far to our apartment, but Gregory takes a longer way around. A sudden barking from somewhere startles me, and I instinctively flinch backwards as a small puppy comes running up to us. It goes straight for me, so I try desperately to back away, but the fucking thing won't stop fucking following me.
I can hear Gregory laughing at me in the background, as I'm cornered by the dog. Then I get my shovel off my back, raise it and he stops laughing and runs to the creature's rescue.
"Honestly Tophe, it's a puppy. You don't need to try and batter it." He shoos the puppy off, and it runs back to the garden it came from. He looks at me, backed as far into the corner as I can, and gives another short laugh. I scowl at him, and heat up. I don't blush – but I do feel my face grow hot. Who knows, maybe I do blush, but it's never noticeable.
"What are you laugheeng at, beetch?"
"I find it extremely amusing that something as small and harmless as a puppy would scare you." He chuckles. I don't find it fucking amusing.
"You would not find eet amusing eef you knew ze reason behind eet, Gregory." I growl at him.
"And what is the reason?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Yes." He stares at me stubbornly, though he still has a grin on his face.
"My fazer set 'is on me on more zan one occasion." The grin on his face drops straight off his face.
"Oh, Tophe..." he whispers, steps forward, and puts a hand on my arm
"I do not need sympathy." I say, and shake his hand off. But he steps forward again, refusing to be deterred.
"I'm sorry. I honestly cannot understand what you've been through. Yet you stand so strong still." He looks up at me – I am about an inch taller than him. "I truly admire you."
I can't help but soften – as much as Gregory can be cold, serious and seemingly uncaring, he can sometime show a soft side. I truly adore him sometimes.
"Zank you." I mutter.
I've suddenly realised how understanding Gregory is. I've suddenly realised how much I trust him, how much I need him – how much I love him. I let my last defences drop –he won't ever see me as weak.
"Je t'aime." I whisper softly. He grins and pushes me back into the corner, pressing himself closer to me.
"I never thought I'd hear you say that." He says, then reaches up to kiss me. He breaks away to say "Je t'aime aussi." Before we engage in a heated fight for supremacy.
Like I said, I'm not thankful for many things.
But I'm thankful for my beautiful, wonderful Gregory.
Words: 1,558
A/N: OMG this SUCKED .
It just came to me and I had to write it! It kinda... doesn't make sense to me.
I have always had, since I considered Christophe's past, an idea in my head of what it was like – his father has always hated him, and his fear of dogs stems from various occasions when his dad set dogs on him. His mother is also a bit more loving when I imagine her, but I decided to stick to the 'my-mozer-tried-to-kill-me-in-ze-womb' thing, and so instead she's very tough-love here.
I COULDN'T THINK OF A GOOD WAY TO HAVE HIM CONFESS TO GREGORY WITHOUT HIM SEEMING OOC! Christophe is just... arrrgh! Too much pressure to write in character soo... meh! It's past midnight, and I'm ILL. -edit- I got a review from D McVetty who suggested a better way to have Christophe confess - DAMN IT WORKED! I think it sounds more Christophe-esque now, so THANK YOU!
I'm thinking of doing a Damien/Christophe fic. Because when I thought of their pairing name I realised you could either get Damstophe or... Christien. Which I found SOOO fucking funny cause they are the most ANTI Christian couple EVER.
So yeah. I'm 14 later today (because it's 00:30am on 12th September oer here in England.) Hooraaaaaay! (I'm not actually that enthusiastic XD)
I'm tired now (no, that a lie, I just need sleep.) so Imma go now.
Buh bye, please don't flame too bad cause I KNOW it sucks!
Jem
-EDIT-
Thank you very much to D McVetty, The Truth's Lie and angelgirl 158 for reviewing when this was a seperate story!