Dracolover- Thank you! That means so much :)
TheIbis- I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no ;) And, concerning Enjy, really? In almost every fic, (correction: every fic) he is kind of the hero dude. Usually to Eponine, but we can make an exception, hmm? Speaking of Mamselle T, I hope you like this chapter! It strongly features Eponine (and a drunk Courfeyrac, which is always fun)
SPAS- Thank you! It's fun, actually, having two different story lines to work with. Grantaire's just a heart-breaking character, if we're being honest here. And I kinda like Montparnasse! I may be the only one, but I thought his interactions with Gavroche were almost cute. He's a little bit of a pig, but I don't mind him :)
ConcreteAngel- I'm stealing another, just so you know. I like making you confused! I like it very much!
So, in this chapter, another character will be introduced in a... different way, because I feel as though fanfics neglect this character's future. Also, the dates of the whole Gorbeau attack has been changed. Pretend that happened a hell of a lot earlier, so Eponine finds Marius in February (It's April in the book, but I want to give time to the C/E story line).
"Do you not remember how I asked for your hand?" Henri asked, fondly stroking his wife's gloved hand where it rested in the crook of his elbow. She looked up at him. Her tired eyes had the slightest gleam of remembrance.
"Do you not remember how I denied you that request?" She laughed her tinkling laugh that he'd missed so much.
"How could I forget? You pushed me into the fountain!" Henri exclaimed, indicating the fountain where the aforementioned event occurred. "And cursed me for being so 'insensitive'." He smiled serenely and cupped her cheek in his hand. She leaned into his touch slightly, sighing. Her long lashes hid her silver, fortune-teller's eyes and the usual rosiness in her cheeks was absent, leaving her with a sickly look about her despite her relatively young age of thirty.
"It is so close to that day," She mused, looking up at the warm sun that covered the Luxemburg gardens with its warm light.
"How are you feeling, ma petite?" He asked, kindly. She managed a wan smile and nodded at the notches etched into one of the marble benches. (A work by one of the gamines to remember the tragic fall of the barricades)
"I've been better, I suppose." She sighed again and pulled away from him to adjust her bonnet over her silky, chocolate hair. Her tiny wrists seemed barely able to do the effort of the action, and Henri felt immensely better once they resumed their contact.
"As have I." Henri said wearily. His wife made a face akin to a grimace, a strange sight on her delicate features.
"Is it your work, mon cher?" Her tone was condescending, and Henri felt the weight of clouds despite the warm day.
"Yes, but more than that. I mourn the coming day as well, in case you have forgotten." He said through clenched teeth. He hated the strain on their marriage; everyday became harder and harder. At first Henri convinced himself that it was their age difference (He was freshly forty and she a ripe thirty), then he realized her loneliness. Her sadness was unbearable to him, causing the obsession with his work to increase tenfold.
"How could I ever forget?" She applied the slightest pressure on his elbow to calm him. It worked, to a certain extent. "'Twas how we met, after all."
"In a way, I suppose we owe them."
She jerked away, her short temper blaring in her eyes. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare drag them into this."
"I apologize." Henri let out a heavy breath and attempted to reach for her again. She avoided his outstretched arm with her Parisian nose upturned. "Please, let us not do this here. This was supposed to be a pleasant day."
"You always mean well, I know you do." She admitted with the smallest shred of hesitance. "But you are so…" She trailed off, unable to find the words to describe the man her husband had become. "Whatever happened to the man who followed after me with a lily pad on his head and convinced me to marry him in front of a group of street children?"
"He's grown old." Henri's chest ached from the memories as his eyes trailed across the water until he met a curious pair of eyes. He started, recognizing suddenly the child from the day before. His wife saw the small girl as well and her frustrated face released some tension.
Then the girl's mother appeared and knelt down at the girl's level. Mother and child laughed heartily, and Madame Montparnasse split her croissant with the girl. Henri spared a glance at his wife, whose gaze was firmly fixed on the ring on the mother's hand. Her jaw had re-tightened and her lips were pursed.
"Do you know that woman?" Henri asked, and his wife turned back to him, her eyes closed.
"I did, once. I'm afraid a certain… riff broke off our friendship." She looked back over at Madame, who raised a work-reddened hand in her direction. His wife gave the woman no acknowledgement.
"What 'riff', if I may ask?" Henri, from his wife's teary eyes, knew that the riff had something to do with that day in June so many years before.
"Nothing, Hen-" She cut off, her jaw going slack and her eyes wide. Henri looked across the way as well and saw a man around his wife's age (Madame must have been a good four years younger). He held a young boy in his arms and the two left the garden together as a couple. The man bore no resemblance to the girl who had wild russet curls and bright eyes. Instead he had raven hair and eyes dulled by drugs. His fine clothes hung oddly off his slender frame and his cheap ring was a strange light amongst the black and white of his being. The boy had hair the same color as his fathers, but his mother's sharp eyes.
"Musichetta, what is it?"
She didn't respond.
Henri stood in the middle of the night and clumsily stumbled into the main room of their flat. He lit a lantern with shaking hands (he really was getting old) and sat on their chaise lounge. He picked up Grantaire's sketchbook from its place on their bookshelf and began leafing through the pages until he came upon the sketch of Ceara sleeping. He didn't bother to glance at the title last time, but in the hours when one can't sleep, the strangest urges come into existence.
Apollo plays hero.
Henri frowned at the three-worded explanation to a picture that appeared to have more than a thousand words behind it. He then looked to the next, which made him smile. It was a caricature that reminded Henri all too much of his early days with Musichetta. In the cartoon, a boy with glaringly perfect curls stared into the distance. His eyes had cartoon hearts drawn in them in sharp contrast with the first portrait that Henri had seen of the man Courfeyrac.
Courfeyrac's cravat was undone and his mouth was upturned in a dreamy smile. One hand supported his cheek and the other held tight to the neck of an unrecognizable bottle. Henri chuckled in thinking of this wicked young dandy whose heart had been seized. Indeed, it was labeled as such.
The Women's Plague Is Infatuated. February 1832.
Courfeyrac was the one to waltz into the back room this time. Enjolras and Ceara were in the corner (he was helping her with her French grammar. He was kind and patient; a development that none of them thought their friend capable of) and Ceara looked up to smirk at Courfeyrac's dazed face.
"Has our precious cochon found something under a skirt that he was not looking for?" She teased, fluttering over to where Courfeyrac had deposited himself into a chair with a love-induced haze around his eyes.
"I could barely call it a skirt… Nothing but rags." He sighed, dreamily and placed his head on the table. "Oh, I didn't even catch her name!"
It was then that Bossuet and Joly came through the door. Bossuet heard the end of Courfeyrac's moan and laughed his hearty laugh that warmed the rest of them on such a cold day.
"Do my ears dare to deceive me? What woman has caught the affections of our local slut?" He said the insult as a term of endearment. He ruffled Courfeyrac's black curls and sat beside his friend, handing him a bottle.
"Alas, I do not think I can live the same way again! She has been a message sent from God to tell me of my mistakes! Why must He torture me so? Sending me this beauty only for her to not even look my way?" Courfeyrac took a deep gulp from the bottle before sputtering, "Woe is me! I cannot even bare to seek comfort tonight at the docks- (Ceara's eyes hardened at this and Enjolras was the only one who saw, gently placing his hand over hers for a second in consolation) for I shall see her face on any woman I bed! But it is so wrong to be shameful to this entity…"
"We have no wish to hear of your overly active sex life, Courfeyrac." Enjolras scolded, wanting to call the meeting to order but somehow knowing that such an effort was fruitless. Courfeyrac spared a wink in Enjolras and Ceara's direction, allowing them to know that he saw their single tender moment. Enjolras made no affirmation of anything, but Ceara's face flushed in the lantern light.
"She must be something divine," Grantaire commented. "Only Aphrodite could capture your attentions."
"Please, Courfeyrac, start at the beginning. How did you see her? Do you have any leads on where she may live?" Asked Ceara.
"I was on a mission to visit père Mabeuf. You know, mes amis, the old churchwarden?" They nodded in confirmation and he continued. "I could not find him at the cathedral, so I followed directions to his cottage on the outskirts of the city. I was shown to his garden by his kind serving lady, and it was there that I saw her." He sighed again, resting his cheek in his hand. "She appeared as a vengeful angel! A dark siren sent to capture my heart! She did not see me, for she was watering Mabeuf's garden and she was off as soon as she asked him something. Just a flash and she was gone! When I asked père about her, he called her a goblin. I laughed, for how could someone so beautiful be something so vile?"
"My, he's fallen hard." Combeferre clucked his tongue in mock disapproval. In the meantime, Bossuet raised a new bottle (where were all these bottles coming from?) and smiled warmly in the smitten Courfeyrac's direction.
"To the witty girls who went to our heads!" He nudged Joly before pouring himself a glass of scotch. Joly rubbed his runny nose and smirked at his lover.
"To the pretty girls who went to our beds!" Bahorel howled, hearing the group's mantra. He entered late and accepted a glass from Grantaire. "What have I missed?"
Ceara giggled and mussed Courfeyrac's flawless curls into disarray. "Courfeyrac is in love!"
"Oh!" Bahorel's jaw dropped in utter shock, causing the room to erupt in rambunctious celebration. In the festivities, Enjolras retreated to his corner with Combeferre while the rest drank. As the group slowly inhaled the alcohol supply, tongues grew looser and the tone lightened.
"She must be poor, oh what I would give to get her off the street!" Courfeyrac slurred about his love, and proceeded to describe (in extraordinary detail) exactly what she was wearing and what parts of her body could be seen. As he spoke, Ceara's eyebrows cinched together, and Grantaire's eyes grew wide with remembrance.
"Say, I do believe I know the waif you speak of…" Grantaire said, slowly. Courfeyrac practically threw himself across the table to get to Grantaire and grabbed the other man's jacket in desperation.
"Introduce me, Grantaire! I don't even care if she's one of your conquests! I must have her as my own and I shall save her and…" The man began to babble something that none of them could understand.
"What was her name, Ceara, do you remember?" Grantaire asked the girl beside him. She swirled her pinky in her wine and quickly downed the whole glass. Her eyes grew wide and her pupils were dilated in her inebriated state. She rested a hand on Bahorel's arm for support as she mused.
(Enjolras looked over then, a darkness clouding his eyes as his gaze lingered on her and Bahorel. He turned back when she glanced in his direction)
"I think it began with a 'P'… If not, then it had a 'P' in it. Her friend's name was Gavroche or something of the like. Although I don't remember her to be particularly pretty…"
"Oh, but she is!" Courfeyrac moaned, allowing himself to collapse with his torso on the table.
"Gavroche, you say?" Enjolras's attention was suddenly gained. Ceara nodded, wide-eyed and slightly wavering in her seat. Enjolras frowned momentarily at the empty glass in her hand. "I fought next to an urchin called Gavroche in '30. Brave boy, if I remember properly. Little scoundrel was barely ten at the time. Blond hair and blue eyes?"
"I did not pay particular attention to his eyes," Confessed Ceara. "And it was dark, so I can't be too sure of his hair."
"How can I see her again?" Courfeyrac was in no state to do anything, and he seemed to realize the annoying nature of his loving moans. "Christ, I sound like Marius…"
"Marius! How is the boy?"Asked Bossuet. " I always liked him…"
"Who is Marius?" Ceara seemed overwhelmingly confused. Marius had joined in 1830, long before Ceara snuck into the lives of Les Amis.
"He is a Buonapartist… good riddance. Although I admit that he had a certain naïve charm about him. He is in love you say?" Enjolras asked. Ceara could tell that the fact that their peer wasn't a republican was enough to earn Enjolras's immediate disapproval.
"By the way he moans in his sleep, I would assume so." Courfeyrac sat up with great difficulty before falling back on his face. "Ow…"
Bossuet chuckled. "I do believe that you've had one too many glasses of wine, mon ami."
"How can I stay sober knowing that she is open for any man in Paris? Who knows who she could fall in love with?" Courfeyrac was not aware that the subject of his affections was, at the moment, in hopeless love with his roommate.
Courfeyrac and Marius were strolling by the Lark's field in a tension-filled moment. Finally Courfeyrac broke his friend's unsettling silence. "I do believe that I am in love."
He'd hoped that such a statement would bring Marius out of his shell, but Marius just shook his head sadly. "You are always in love with a bit of skirt."
"Alas, Marius, it is here that you are mistaken. I am always in lust. Like a dog in that way, I am." He winked, and Marius's serious demeanor was broken by a small smile.
"You are terrible." Said Marius half-heartedly.
"I try," Courfeyrac laughed, the sun catching his mischievous green eyes and brightening both men's moods. Had it been later in the year, the birds would have sung and fluttered their love-ridden hearts with make-shift wings. However, February found a certain chill about the air, shoving the creatures away for the winter.
"Ah! There he is!" A raspy voice spoke from very nearby. Courfeyrac turned in its direction and froze, hoping for a minute that she was talking to him. Alas, her dark eyes were focused on Marius. Up close, Courfeyrac could see her weather-beaten, pale skin. She had a bold gaze that didn't move once she'd set it on something. She had hay in her chestnut tangle, telling of where she'd spent the night. Her freckles were like stars on her rough skin, and it was all these imperfections that made Courfeyrac fall even deeper into the hole of love.
She was looking at Marius with a little smile on her face. Finally she spoke, her voice terrible to most, but lulling to Courfeyrac, who was unable to move. "So at last I've found you! Mabeuf was right. If only you knew how I've been looking for you!"
The rest of her words lacked importance because they were directed at an uncaring Marius. Courfeyrac felt a surge of jealousy as Marius received his angel's attention and cared naught for it.
"You aren't living in the tenement anymore?" She asked. Marius looked at her almost coolly before responding.
"No."
"You've got a hole in your shirt." She observed, nearly stepping forward to touch it but deciding at the last moment to not do so. "You don't seem very happy to see me." She seemed to deflate at this thought, and Courfeyrac wanted nothing more than to say I am happy to see you!
After a pause befell the odd trio, the sun escaped behind a cloud, drenching their world in momentary darkness. The air seemed to meet her mood, and as long as she was sad, so was Courfeyrac.
"I've got the address." Was all she said. Her face was heartbreaking to behold, the pain on it so obvious to everyone but Marius who turned pale.
"You mean-"
"The young lady- you know…" She sighed deeply, and Courfeyrac's swollen heart sank in his chest. She was in love with Marius. He could see it so plainly writ on her features. He watched with a hurting heart as the two conversed about the address, the girl with a terrible sadness and Marius with excitement. A surge of anger filled Courfeyrac at the thought of this girl being forced to run her love's errands and have him pay her no affection in return.
Of course, given the opportunity, Courfeyrac would do the same.
"Your father. You must promise- Éponine, you must swear to me that you'll never tell him where it is." Marius said, rushing. Courfeyrac's face tingled upon hearing her name, but all lightness grew heavy when he saw the same expression on her face.
"Éponine! How did you know that was my name?" She asked, then continuing despite Marius's efforts to keep her focused. "But it's nice. I'm glad you've called me Éponine."
Marius grasped both her arms and began shaking her in desperation. It was then that Courfeyrac stepped in. "Marius! That is no way to handle a lady!" He scolded, and the girl seemed to notice him for the first time.
Their eyes met and even Marius was struck by the electric shock that occurred when they did. Even for love struck Éponine, all thoughts of Marius disappeared when she saw Courfeyrac. When Marius realized that she was no longer paying him any attention, he huffed like a spoilt child and hurriedly introduced the two.
"Courfeyrac, this is my old neighbor, Éponine Jondrette. Éponine, this is my friend Courfeyrac."
"Mademoiselle," Managed Courfeyrac, reaching out for her hand. She obliged, albeit reluctantly. As he kissed her dirty knuckles, she snorted.
"You treat me like a proper lady, you do." Éponine giggled, and Courfeyrac found it to be a lovely sound. "Alas," She gingerly removed her hand from where he still held it. "I am no lady."
"For Heaven's sake!" Marius cried, exasperated. Éponine looked back over to him, annoyed. She listened to him for a bit, nodding to what he said and occasionally speaking. Every now and then, her eyes would travel back to Courfeyrac only to dart away when he was looking at her as well.
"Well, come along. Heavens." She laughed. "How delighted you are!" She led the two boys down the street for a little before she turned to the two of them, a touch ashamed. "You're keeping too close to me, Messieurs. Let me walk on ahead and you must follow me as if you didn't know me. It wouldn't do for respectable young men like yourselves to be seen in company with a woman of my kind."
Marius hung back, but Courfeyrac stepped forward and linked their arms. "With all due respect, Mademoiselle, we can let them stare."
She smirked back up at him, her bold stare meeting his unwavering gaze. She didn't know that she'd tamed the animalistic part of the dandy. She patted his arm and her eyes never left his as she said, "I do believe that we shall get along well."
"I hope so."
Review! I feel as though we're a little family because my reviewers review every time and you all are so lovely :)
(This makes ConcreteAngel our weird cousin)