When Annmarie came to Jehan and Combeferre, she was a bubbly five year old with a wild sense of curiosity and imagination. It had taken them three years to get the okay, but on May twelfth, they were finally allowed to take her home.
"Hello Annmarie, I'm Jehan and this is Combeferre, it's very nice to meet you." Jehan said, crouching down to her level with a friendly smile and offered a warm hand. Annmarie had eyed it for a moment before looking up at the man's freckled face.
"You're gonna take care of me, right?" She said sternly. Jehan, looking slightly taken aback for a moment, had grinned toothily.
"Sure are." He said happily. Annmarie's face was still serious as a five year old can be.
"You gonna love me?" She asked. Jehan's smile softened and he glanced back at Combeferre, who although normally was the pillar of calm, seemed nervous and fidgety, standing behind Jehan and watching the two with worry. When he caught Jehan's glance, he cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Sure are." The teacher says with false cheer, imitating Jehan. Annmarie finally giggled, running to cling to Jehan's neck.
"Take me home then."
"How many times was she moved?" Eponine asks Combeferre softly as they stand in the corner, watching Jehan and Grantaire humiliate themselves as Annmarie had demanded they play barbies with her.
"Three since she turned five." Combeferre said softly. "She was at a nice foster home from eleven months to five, and then they ran out of room. She was the oldest, she had to go."
Eponine heaves a sigh next to him, ruffling Gavroche's hair as he sulks towards them.
"What's up punk?" She says brightly.
"Why did it have to be a girl. Girls are so boring." The eleven year old mutters, leaning heavily against his sister. Combeferre chuckles and Eponine ruffles his hair.
Halloween that year Annmarie wanted to be Albert Einstein.
"You want to be who?" Combeferre said, looking up at his daughter from the open book in his lap. She was grinning at him toothily, hands clasped behind her back.
"I want to be Albert Einstein for halloween."
"Have you told Daddy about this?" The bespectacled man asked skeptically. Annmarie pouted, worming her way onto Combeferre's lap and crossing her arms.
"Daddy asked me if I want to be a princess. No! I want to be Einstein."
"Do you know who he is?"
Annmarie huffed and rolled her eyes over dramatically in that cute way five year olds roll their eyes and huff.
"Yes daaaaaaaad I know who he is."
Combeferre waited for her to go on. She sighed and hopped off his lap.
"He was the smartest Austrianever!" She exclaimed.
"German." Combeferre tutted. Annmarie looked at him with childish skepticism.
"Steven says he was Austrian."
"Who's Steven?"
"You're avoiding the point. I want to be Einstein for Halloween."
"Good for you." Combeferre turned back to his book.
"Daaaaaaaaaaaad." Annmarie shook his arm.
"Whaaaaaaaaaat."
"I want you to take me to the Halloween store."
"That's a Daddy kind of thing."
"But I want it to be a dad kind of thing!"
On her birthday, December fifth, she asked if she could get boy clothes.
"Daddy I want a sweatshirt with a skull and cross bones."
"We'll see when we get to the store."
"No daddy that's what I want."
Jehan smiled at her patiently, trying to make sure the grilled cheese he was making didn't burn. Combeferre emerged from his study, looking a little put out, but caught and lifted Annmarie when she ran at him, hoisting her onto his shoulder with a smile.
"What's the plan for today then?" He asked as he plopped the giggling birthday girl into a chair at the table, slipping in next to her. Jehan brought food to the table and sat himself as well, watching Annmarie devour into her lunch.
"We're going shopping." He said lightly. Combeferre gently slapped his arms onto the table.
"Alright well I might as well get to work, don't want to do any of that dreaded shopping." He said jokingly, making to stand. Annmarie giggled and tugged at her father.
"Daaad no you're coming with us."
"Am I now."
"Yes."
"And who's decision was this."
"Mine."
Jehan watches the two bicker with faded amusement.
"Daddy can I get boxers?"
"Why would you need those?"
The three of them stood together in the boys section of Target, Jehan carrying a black and grey sweatshirt with a skull on the front over his arm and the basket in the crook of Combeferre's elbow was filled with various gray tee shirts with monsters on the front and black skinny jeans.
"Because they look more comfy than panties."
"But I think for you panties would be more comfortable." Jehan suggested softly.
"Pleeeeeease?" She begged, clasping her hands together and looking up at the two of them with puppy eyes. Jehan sighed and glanced at Combeferre, who shrugged and looked the other way. Clothes wasn't in his part of the deal.
"Fine, one pack."
"Yes!" Annmarie exclaimed, laughing and running to the underwear section, stopping to look at the superhero patterned briefs.
"Don't let her get Batman." Combeferre said suddenly. Jehan gave him a bizarre look.
"DC. Marvel. It's a thing I have going on with Enjolras and Courfeyrac. Just don't." He muttered, wandering off in the other direction.
Combeferre took a right.
"Wait where are you taking us?" Jehan exclaimed.
"You'll see."
Annmarie cackled from the back. Jehan narrowed his eyes at her.
"What did you two do." He said accusingly. Annmarie gave an innocent shrug, grinning as they pulled into an almost empty parking lot of a small shopping center that looked run down and practically abandoned. There was one shop with a dragon statue in front, holding a sign proclaiming the store behind it was called 'The Compleat Strategist'.
Annmarie practically shot from the car. Combeferre literally ran with her. Jehan walked behind them, curious.
The store was small and crowded with shelves of games and smelled like a new card deck. In the back you could see a group of rowdy men surrounding a table, bent over some sort of display, talking in hushed tones. They erupted into noise as Jehan caught up to Combeferre and Annmarie, who were now speaking animatedly with the man at the front. He was an old man, like some wizard out of a fairy tale, with a pure white beard and watery blue eyes behind small round spectacles, much like Combeferre's.
"Is this the famous Jean Prouvaire then?" The man mused when Jehan finally stopped gazing at the posters advertising things like 'Magic: The Gathering', 'Castles and Crusaders' and 'Tunnels and Trolls'. Combeferre's face tinted pink a little and he pushed his glasses up, grabbing Jehan's waist.
"Jehan, yeah."
The old man held out a hand.
"Pleasure to meet you. I love your writing."
Jehan flushed humbly and shook the wrinkled limb.
"Pleasure is all mine." He murmurs. The man laughs.
"Well, your daughter and partner sure have kept me in business. Now, what's the family here for?"
"My birthday!" Annmarie exclaims. The man looks down at her, smiling kindly as a grandfather would to a grandchild.
"You're birthday, dear me, you're getting older everytime I've seen you. How old are you now, three?"
Annmarie giggles.
"No silly, I'm six!" She scolds. "And I'm here for my birthday figure!"
"Your birthday figure! Now I wonder what ever that could be." The man laughs as he turns, winking at Combeferre, who grins. Annmarie jumps up and down, hands on the glass counter. Jehan looks between the three people with fascination.
"Garret." Annmarie says excitedly, bouncing. "Garret Garret Garretgarregarretgarret."
"Sorry? Garret? We have a lot of characters named Garret." The man chuckled, appearing to be looking through a box for something.
"Garret Adoendithas."
"Aaah, now I remember. The half orc."
"The unclever one." Annmarie giggles.
"Quite unclever, poor thing." Combeferre chuckles. Jehan gives him a look and Combeferre merely smiles back, shrugging a little and pulling his lover in close, kissing his cheek.
"Courfeyrac got her into Dungeons and Dragons." He whispers. Jehan lets out a shout of a laugh, causing the other two to look at him strangely. The poet giggles, pressing a hand to his mouth. He can feel Combeferre's smile against his shoulder.
"That's kind of ridiculous." Jehan mutters into his hand. Combeferre shrugs with a laugh.
When she turned seven she wanted to cut her hair.
"Short? Like how short?"
"Like Steven's!" Annmarie points to her friend, who stands beside her, obviously the one chosen to spend her birthday with her. Jehan frets about how she's not making many friends, but Combeferre reminds him that he didn't have many friends when he was younger either.
"Steven's? That's quite short." The boy in question looks up from the candy bowl he had been peering into. His hair which was golden waves just the summer before had been cropped into a buzz cut, making him look like a cartoon character, pale skin blending to hair. Jehan smiles and hands him a cookie, which he takes gratefully. Annmarie whines.
"Yeah but I want it to be short. I want to look like a boy."
Jehan looks down at her, she's at his stomach now, with her long messy curls pulled back into a tight braid and practically drowning in the over sized sweatshirt Gavroche had given her once he had grown out of it.
"I- I don't know Annmaire, we can't just do it suddenly. Have you talked to your father about this?"
She nods dutifully, shoving her hands into the pockets of the black thing and grinning. Her front tooth is missing. She lost it two weeks ago at her second karate class.
"Pleeeease? I won't need anything else for my birthday!" She then stuffs a cookie into her mouth.
"Call Cosette, I'm sure she'd be able to get you into her salon." Coufeyrac calls from where he's spread across the couch, tie loosened from around his neck. He had taken the afternoon off for Annmarie's birthday as Combeferre couldn't get out of his staff meeting until five. Annmarie's school had let out early that day. Jehan sighs, looks down at his watch and gives up, taking his phone out of his pocket.
He tries not to cry as he watched the curls fall to the ground.
Annmarie's hair curls like Feuilly's, and at their birthday dinner for her, Bahorel announces that she could probably pass as the tall Polish papersmith now. Annmarie runs a hand through it, grinning at her family friends. Steven whispers something in her ear and she giggles loudly, trying to cover her mouth.
They have blue cake with a brand new Blue Dragon Dungeons and Dragons figure protecting her seven candles. The little girl shrieks and blows the fire out.
"You didn't make a wish." Eponine points out, smiling behind her digital camera. Annmarie beams.
"Didn't have too."
Jehan has to leave the room for a moment as they cut the cake and Steven and Annmarie fawn over the new figure.
On her eight birthday she asked them to call her Matthew.
"Matthew? That's a nice name." Combeferre comments, stirring the pasta sauce on the stove. They were alone that night, Jehan having to go to some show of Grantaire's, and the artist had deemed the event not a place for children.
"Steven helped me pick it out. We went on babynames dot com. I never knew there were so many names to choose from." she explains.
"Why Matthew though?"
"It sounds cool. Matt sounds cool. Steven's brother's best friend's name is Matt, and he's super cool. He plays guitar and can do that like, dindeladeedee thing?" She plays air guitar for a moment before the Ikea step she'd been standing on teeters and she leans on the counter again, watching her father. "Anyway, yeah. I wanna be like him. So I want to be called Matt." She rolls around a little.
Combeferre watches her, amused, before pouring the now warm sauce into the pasta bowl and serving large helpings on to two plates.
"I guess that's okay." Jehan says after Combeferre finished talking. They were sitting on the couch together, Combeferre having sat the other down the moment he'd gotten back. Annmarie was peacefully sleeping.
"Should we have a meeting to inform everyone else?"
Jehan shrugged.
"Yeah. I'd doubt they'd be surprised."
"Yeah?"
Jehan swipes a hand over his face, resting it to cover his mouth.
"My poor baby." He whispers. Combeferre wraps an arm around the man's shoulder, dragging him into his side.
"It'll be okay. At least she's better off with us. We'll do what we can." He whispers into Jehan's hair. The small man nods quietly, still covering his mouth.
There was that one time when she was nine and Grantaire and Enjolras had to watch her and Gavroche for a day.
"Matt, what do you want for lunch." Enjolras called from the kitchen. Grantaire, Matt and Gavroche sat ridiculously close to the tv, clacking away at their Xbox controllers, shouting insults at one another.
"Grilled cheese." She and Gavroche yelped back in awkward almost union. Enjolras sighed at scratched at this temple, fishing around in the fridge for the necessities for such things. Why people always dump their children on him, he had no idea.
"Can I make an announcement?" Matt said suddenly. The three males at the table turned to her as she climbed to stand on the white chair she had originally been sitting on. Grantaire smiles and glancing at Enjolras, who seemed to be biting at the inside of his mouth so as not to say anything. Gavroche rolled his eyes.
"Go on then."
Matt put her fists on her hips.
"I'd like you guys to consider me a boy." She said defiantly. Grantaire's smile faltered and he looked at Enjolras straight on this time. The blonde's face was grim. Gavroche choked on his food.
"Looks like we have a trans on our hands!" The teenager yelped. Enjolras hit the back of his head, and his face shot forward, scrunching in pain and letting out a shout.
"Matt, sweetie, how about you sit down, and we can discuss this when your fathers get back?" Grantaire says calmly. Matt shrugs, sitting down.
"I still want to be a boy." She mumbles to her food.
" I know man, I know."
"So are we calling Matt he now." Courfeyrac says.
Everyone is squished into Jehan and Combeferre's livingroom, Matt out in town with Steven, Gavroche and some of the teenager's friends.
"I- i suppose so." Jehan mutters, twisting his hands in his sweater.
"Well, at least he has a supporting family." Cosette reasons. They all nod and mutter in agreement.
"Should we start saving up for an operation?" Feuilly jokes, but Combeferre seems to consider it honestly.
"We don't know if this is a phase or not, but we should take it seriously." Enjorlas pipes up from where he's sitting with Grantaire pressed to his side. Combeferre hums in agreement, scratching at his cheek.
"She seemed like a normal girl when you guys brought her home..." Marius mutters.
"What do you mean." Jehan snaps. "Are you suggesting we did this?"
Marius's eyes widen and he sputters under Jehan's strong gaze, shaking his head frantically.
"No no no I just meant that maybe it is just a phase. Or it may not be. We don't know." He spits out. Cosette takes his hand reassuringly. Jehan sighs, muttering apologies and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"So Matt is a he, and he's going to stay that way until said otherwise." Eponine announces.
"Right." Courfeyrac says from his spot beside her.
"Now who wants a beer." Grantaire asks lightly. Jehan accepts his offer.
When he was eleven he kisses a girl on the lips.
"How dare she! That- your-" The women sputters, holding her daughter brutally to her side.
"My what? Spit it out women we don't have all day." Jehan snaps, one hand gently keeping Matt to his side. Matt is looking down, ashamed. The girl is crying, hitting at her mother's grip, crying to be let go.
"You're disgrace to society. Why can't she just be a normal girl?" The women sputters, her face turning red.
"Excuse me, you're obviously the disgrace here, if you can't accept the innocent decisions of two eleven year olds!" Jehan snarls.
"Innocent! That- that dyke was kissing my daughter. That is disgusting and not innocent. It's obviously all this exposure to being in a- in a-" her face screws up in disgust as she spits out the word "homosexual environment. The poor girl has no real role models. Really, your kind shouldn't be aloud to have children."
Jehan's face turns red and his fists curls at his sides.
"No real role models?" He sputters. "No. Real. Role. Models. The reason your older daughter is getting through high school is one of my child's role models! The sibling of your older son's best friend is one of my child's role models! And a homosexual environment in this case is obviously a better environment to be in because imagine if Matthew had been put into your care! Would you have called him by the things he'd wanted to be called, to wear the clothes he wanted to wear?"
He grabs Matt's hand, leaving a shocked and sputtering mother in the doorway of the large Georgian style house, her daughter screaming and kicking to be let go.
He drags the child down the driveway and to the Prius parked in the street, slamming the door as he gets in.
Finally inside, Jehan takes a deep breath, covering his face with a hand. He then turns to Matt, who's staring out the window at the house.
"I'm sorry." Matt says quietly, and Jehan's eyes fill with tears. He reaches out towards his son.
"No, no darling don't be sorry it's not your fault."
Matt looks down, not receiving the comforting touch, but not pushing it away.
"Yes, it is." He says quietly. "I asked Rose if I could kiss her. It was my idea. I'm sorry for causing so much trouble. I'll be a good girl now. You can call me Annmarie again."
Jehan's crying now, he can feel the tears sliding down his cheeks, horrified at what's happening.
"No, no, Matthew." he cries, clambering to sit in the back and wrap the child in his arms. "No Matthe-"
"I said you can call me Annmarie." Matt snaps. Jehan flinches away, as though burned.
"Matt, you can be who you want to be, okay. If you want to be Annmarie, fine. But I'm not going to stop calling you he and him and Matt until I feel you really want to be Annmarie." Jehan says softly though his tears, and then climbs back into the front seat, starting the car up and driving them home.
"I don't know what to do." Jehan wails, barreling into Grantaire's studio. Grantaire looks up from the game he had been playing on his phone in front of a half painted canvas. After one look at Jehan he sighed and paused the game, turning to wrap his friend in a hug.
"Why're you coming to me about it then? Isn't Combeferre the one to deal with this kind of thing?"
Jehan shakes his head.
"He's with Ma- Ann- Oh Grantaire it was so horrible." Jehan wails. The artist shooshes him, rubbing soothing circles into the smaller man's back.
"Tell me what happened."
They sat on the floor, wrapped together. Jehan spills the whole story into Grantaire's sweater clad chest. In the back of his mind the poet realizes by the smell that it's Enjolras's.
There's a moment of silence after he's finished.
"Stefan's mom?" Grantaire says finally. Jehan nods, sniffling. Grantaire tugs at his curls. "Jesus, but the kid is so great. And he's seen me and Enjorlas kiss all the time."
Jehan shrugs.
Combeferre knocks on Matt's door.
"Can I come in?"
Theres a shuffling, and it sounds like something's being dragged away from the door. Combeferre tests it, seeing that it opens, and surveys the scene inside.
It appears as though Matthew had taken every blanket they owned and wrapped it around himself, turned the lights off, and sat in the farthest corner. Combeferre walks over to the bundle of blankets.
"Can I join you?"
Matt moves farther into his corner, opening his cocoon of blankets. The man shuffles to fit, sitting with Matthew leaning against his side.
"You want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
"Okay."
They sit like that in comfortable silence, with the occasional sniff from Matthew, for what seems like an eternity. Combeferre doesn't mind it a bit.
"I kissed Rose." Matt finally says into the dark.
"Why'd you do that?" Combeferre hums.
"Cause Gav said that's what you do when you like a girl."
"That's what you do when you're sixteen and you like a girl. You have to remember Gavroche is six years older than you. We have to stop letting you hang out with him, he's a bad influence."
Matthew giggles half-heartedly, then sighs into Combeferre's shoulder.
"I don't really want to go back to being Annmarie." He whispers.
"You don't have to, Matt, it's your life, your brain. Do what you feel is right, and we'll accept it. Unless it's something like having sex. We'll have none of that. Or doing drugs. Or smoking. O-"
Matt cuts him off with a laugh.
"I get it dad." He says quietly. Combeferre sighs.
"But honestly, I know how you feel. Do you know how much shit I went through to be with your father?" He whispers the curse, and the boy giggles, and then his face grows as somber as his ten years will allow.
"Will everyone be like that?" He whispers. Combeferre practically chokes.
"No, sweetie," He wraps a protective arm around the child, "No not everyone. Don't you see here how we accept you. You just have to find the right people."
Matthew nods into his arm, sighing.
"Can we eat ice cream." He whispers. Combeferre laughs, heaving them up.
"I think some ice cream is due. You want to visit Compleat too? There should be a Magic tournament tonight."
Matthew beams.
"I'll get my good deck."