ConcreteAngel- You're welcome!
Shimmer- I ship Éponine with whichever barricade boy strikes my fancy (except Jehan… For some reason that's really awkward in my head). Currently, though, Epeyrac is my new ship J
TheIbis- Yes, our lovely Chetta is Henri's wife. J And is Éponine still in love with Marius? I tried to make it so she and Courfy had a love-at-first-sight thing. In the brick, the one time they meet their interactions leave so much room for imagination, since Hugo didn't give much emotion in their words. It makes me happy inside, thinking they could have happened.
Carly- I hope this chapter makes you happy, then! And I suppose I will have to change the summary, since Epeyrac is a major plot point now. J
SPAS- Courfeyrac is equally cute and annoying all the time ;). I was planning on introduction 'Chetta a little later (there's a certain drawing I have in mind), but I threw it to the wind. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on our mysterious Madame Montparnasse. And I love you do, dahling!
I have this story planned out. There will be about fifteen chapters total plus an epilogue. After this, I think I'm going to do a PJatO AU with Éponine/Courfeyrac and Grantaire/Enjolras. Maybe some Jehan/Montparnasse?
It was late in May, and the streets were very crowded. Couples ventured as they courted publically; men had easier access to flowers for their mistresses and the women were no longer afraid of having a red nose whilst out with their beloveds. Henri was one of the few people who walked the streets alone. Those who find loneliness in Paris become the shadows that one is scared of. They only dare to bare themselves to the night, and even then they are hesitant, sticking to bars and brothels instead of pathways lit by moonlight.
Henri drew odd looks as such. He was an obviously wealthy, handsome man with a ring on his finger. Where was his wife at this time of day? A few shopkeepers chortled, thinking he was off to visit with his mistress. That was the case, in a way. Musichetta, to disguise her annoyance with his over-indulgent tendencies, teased him by saying his work was his mistress.
Henri received change for ten francs, which amounted to 200 sous. He asked the beggars on the street his question, and if they gave him any useful information, he would reward them with a sous or two. However, his search grew quite pointless as nobody claimed to know the girl in the portrait. He approached the brothel by the Seine's docks, ignoring the scandalized stares aimed at him.
He entered and asked the pimp, "Do you know this girl?"
The grimy man peered at the picture for a while before rubbing his chin in deep thought. "Well, Monsieur, for some money I can try to tell ya."
Henri grudgingly handed the man three sous. The pimp raised his eyebrows and wiggled his greedy fingers. Henri placed two more in his hand. The pimp, still not quite pleased, made a grunting noise before pocketing the change.
"I think she worked for me 'round eleven years back. Got 'erself a regular customer, me thinks. Stopped coming to work 'round December of '31." The pimp shrugged. "Probably some high-end escort for a grown-up student by now."
"Do you know if she had any family?" Henri asked. Perhaps he could find Ceara there. As he looked at the pictures, he was reminded more and more of petit Enjolras who used to toddle after him at Christmas time. He knew, he knew this woman was close to him. Any remaining bonds to his cousin he would seize.
"Had a brother and a sister. The sister was useless, she was too young. Sold some hand-jobs for a few years before the police got on us about it. She left not long after her sister, dunno what happened to her. The brother… He was a workman or something. I can't tell you where." The pimp said, nonchalantly, his eyes trailed on a lonely student who wandered in after Henri.
Henri handed the man three more sous, and received a rotten smile in turn. "Ah, Monsieur. I see you ain't much of a listener. I said that I can't tell you, but thanks for the money." He winked at Henri and greeted the other man behind him.
Feeling as if his day had gone to waste, Henri left the brothel in a foul mood. He found his way to the Corinth, a well-known wine shop that Henri and Musichetta frequented as young adults. He slipped inside and took a table in the back. The widow who owned the place approached him shortly after he sat. She seemed quite angry as she roughly slammed her meaty fists on the table.
"You."
"I'm sorry, Mad-"
"Why would you come back here? Didn't have enough time here ten years ago, eh?" She snapped, and Henri got a sick feeling in his stomach. Never before had he known where his cousin built his barricade. He heard it was built around a restaurant, but could it really be the Corinth?
"I believe you have me mistaken for someone else, Madame." Henri said as politely as he could muster. "My cousin, Marcel Enjolras, was a student here ten years ago before-"
"Yeah, I remember. Do you know how much I had to pay to fix up the place? And the bloodstains still haven't come out! Not to mention that the sons of bitches threw my wine to waste!" She began to ramble as Henri stood.
"I'm sorry, Madame. I won't intrude any longer." He said, his voice shaky. As he left the wine shop, he looked around in disbelief. This was where his cousin died. As the widow said, he noticed dark stains on the battered floor and a dent in a nearby table, shaped as if made by a body.
Henri shook his head to clear it; this strange feeling was due to the nearing tenth anniversary of the massacre. He left the Rue de la Chanverrie and went back home. Musichetta was bent over the stove, making fruity tea to freshen the two of them. Henri gently kissed his wife on the cheek, and he squeezed her shoulder before disappearing into the spare room, in which Henri stored all of R's work. Despite his requests, Musichetta refused to look at them. She seemed close to agreeing, but Henri made the mistake of mentioning the artist's full name, and she'd reeled back as if slapped.
As the reader may have forgotten, Henri found three canvas paintings as well as Grantaire's sketchbook. Henri went to the spare room and carefully uncovered the smallest of the three, frowning in confusion at it. Sure, it was a beautiful piece. Different from the rest in the way that it was highly realistic, and it did not fit with Grantaire's personality. Given, Henri never actually met the man, but from what he could tell, Grantaire felt a deep connection with his bottle.
And this painting did not put a wine bottle in a good position.
Indeed, with paint applied in smooth strokes, a broken bottle was depicted. Wine seemed to bleed from the glass shards, and the crimson liquid had a beautiful gleam about it. Henri felt as though he would touch the painting and his finger tips would come away stained with wine. In the corner of the painting, a gold glimmer was seen. Henri bent close, inspecting that shine. It seemed to be nothing, as if Grantaire had accidentally smudged the canvas with gold paint.
The label confused things even more for poor, over-thinking Henri.
A gamin's revenge. February 1832.
There was a hill; that much Enjolras could tell. But he was leaning against a tree that hid his sights from much else, and caused his back to be too sore to focus on his surroundings. He stood away from the tree and glanced around, frowning. It was an odd place. There was green grass on rolling hills in every direction. Everything was nature but for a row of nine headstones.
Then there was a woman. Enjolras's breath was taken away. She was stunningly beautiful in a sad way, for her eyes lacked their cunning, instead coming across as harsh. Her hair was slightly less ratty, and it still had that beautiful caramel-russet color. She was terribly skinny though, and she held herself with tiredness from years of living life by barely surviving.
And he knew her. Of course he knew her.
She knelt down at the first grave, kissing her palm before brushing the front of the tombstone. "Bahorel," She said, softly. She moved to the next and said with equal tenderness, "Combeferre." She repeated her movements with each tombstone. "Courfeyrac. Feuilly. Grantaire. Jehan. Joly. Bossuet."
He waited as she came to the ninth, but she said nothing, staring down at it blankly. He approached her, warily. He came to the front of the tombstone, and was surprised at what he saw. Where the others had dirt covering them, the ninth grave was open and empty. He didn't have to look at the carving to believe it bore his name.
The woman said one word that broke his heart. "Why?" She asked the empty grave.
"Ceara," He said, softly. He reached out a hand to touch her but she pulled away, hissing.
"Why?" She repeated, looking at him with anger. "Why did you do this? You took their lives!" She prodded his chest and he backed away, not wanting to cause her any more pain. "And for no good reason!"
"Ceara, I-"
"You left me alone!" Her voice broke. "You left me to die all by myself."
"I'm here, you're alive," he tried desperately to comfort her, and she shifted under his gaze.
"Am I?" Her voice was haunting. Suddenly he wasn't so sure. She stepped back, suddenly growing young again to be the teenager he knew. Her eyes were wide as she smiled a terrible smile. She pointed at the empty grave, and he turned to look. His every move felt as though he was wading through water.
His heart stopped as he read the name.
Ceara Aerona Faerghan, 1816-1832.
"No." He said aloud, his voice hoarse. He turned to look for her, but she wasn't there. Fearful of what he was to see, he looked back to the grave to find the hole filled with fresh dirt. "No!" He said louder, this time falling to his knees. His hands acted on their own, reaching to shovel dirt away from her.
However, every time his hands made indentations in the dirt, the holes would refill. And he could do nothing as the tombstones aged before his eyes, growing old and weathered. Wild flowers grew over where their coffins laid and weeds sprouted on the once-perfect hill.
Enjolras let loose a terrible scream as he gave up, and his scream morphed in the air to become higher and feminine…
When he woke up, the scream was reverberating through the café, raising the heads of all those present. It wasn't coming from a red-flushed Enjolras, though. It came from outside, and Enjolras scanned the room quickly only for his heart to skip a beat. Ceara wasn't there.
"Merde!" Courfeyrac exclaimed, pushing away from the table. His wild eyes avoided those of his peers. "I invited her here, if she got hurt it would be my fault…"
"Damn it, Courfeyrac, Ceara hasn't come either." Feuilly snapped, and Courfeyrac paled even more.
"Merde." He repeated.
"Merde." Answered Enjolras. The two were the first out of the café, running in the direction of the scream. Enjolras was thinking about his dream, and how his female friend relied on him more than he realized. For Courfeyrac, a single name was running laps in his head.
In the lone light of a street lamp, a feminine figure came towards them. The snow filtered from the sky and swirled in the air, hiding the girl's identity until she practically ran into them. Enjolras reacted immediately, grasping her arms and asking her in a voice much huskier than usual, "Are you all right?"
"Yes, but I heard a scream!" She said, looking towards Courfeyrac who suddenly seemed to be close to fainting.
"Éponine…" Was all he said. Ceara exchanged a confused look with Enjolras before her eyes widened and a smirk graced her face.
"Oh, Éponine." She said, teasingly, but Courfeyrac easily brushed her off in favor of continuing the search.
"Éponine!" He yelled, and the three of them heard a meek response in the form of a groan. The small noise came from a nearby alley, and Courfeyrac was the first to run that way, immediately kneeling in filth to take a cold gamine in his arms.
Ceara and Enjolras weren't far behind. Laying in the slush was a girl unfamiliar to Enjolras but somewhat so to Ceara. She bent to be close to the girl and asked in a gentle voice, "What happened?"
"Say, you are the girl that gave Gavroche shoes! It saved him, you know. He lost one of his friends because the little bastard had no shoes." Éponine rambled, appearing to be only shaken. Courfeyrac, noticing her thin clothes, quickly discarded his jacket to wrap it around the girl.
"Mademoiselle, please tell what caused you to scream so." Enjolras, ever the calm one, took control. He was only able to do so since he came to terms with the fact that Ceara was not the one screaming. She was there, her thin shoulder held by his firm hand.
"It was just a drunk who wished to have his way with me." She shrugged as if it was nothing, But Courfeyrac looked murderous.
"Did he-"
"No." Éponine laughed nervously and went to stand. Courfeyrac immediately reached out an arm to steady her, and she took it gratefully. "I screamed, and when he had a knife out, (At this, Courfeyrac hissed) I said that my betrothed was in the Patron-Minette. That sent him running!" She cackled at her own joke, but the laugh dissolved into rough coughs that rattled her body.
"Is he now?" Ceara asked. Enjolras snuck a look over to Courfeyrac, who was devastated and doing a bad job at hiding it.
"No." Éponine smiled wickedly, and Enjolras found a grin working on his face as well. She and Courfeyrac had more in common than one would think.
"I can't help but think that this is my fault, Éponine. If I hadn't invited you to the meeting…"
"Oh, hush." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "I'm fine, aren't I? And now I get to meet that group you worshipped."
"You worship us?" Enjolras was highly amused, although his stony face hid it fairly well. Courfeyrac wrapped an arm around Enjolras's shoulders and kissed the man on the cheek.
"Of course I do! And you can't resist me!" He howled, causing the girls to dissolve into fits of laughter. It was then that Enjolras noticed- with a hint of annoyance- Ceara's lack of proper winter wear.
"Let us hurry inside. Some of us," He aimed a pointed look at Ceara, although Éponine blushed. "Are not properly fitted for the weather."
"Oh, you are too uptight." Ceara giggled, rolling her eyes. Although, if one were to look closely enough, they would see her barely-repressed shivers. "We are fine. 'Ponine and I have had much worse!"
"I'm sure of it!" Éponine agreed, promptly leaving Courfeyrac's side to join Ceara. The two girls hung back, laughing over some story about a mutual friend. Their arguments did not do much to comfort either of the men; Courfeyrac and Enjolras subtly increased their speed so as to save the girls' feet from frostbite.
However, it appeared a little late for that. Éponine, without warning, collapsed to the frosty pavestones. Once on the ground beneath the street lamp, her splayed legs placed her bare feet on display. They were a horrific shade of white, tinged with green. Courfeyrac shouted out and ran to her side, quite roughly shoving Enjolras out of the way.
"Why did you not mention that your feet were cold? You stupid girl!" Courfeyrac scolded. Éponine winced before squaring her shoulders and baring her cheek to him. For a moment, he was lost, staring at her bold cheekbone. When she realized that he wasn't doing anything, she looked at him quizzically.
"Are you not going to hit me, Monsieur?" She asked. Courfeyrac looked at his friends with a hopeless expression on his face. For how was one to respond to such a question? He chose not to answer. Courfeyrac picked Éponine up, despite her yelped curses. He shifted her in his arms and a strange look crossed his face. It was a mix of horror and pain.
"Éponine, you are freezing to the touch!" He exclaimed. She shrugged in response, obviously snuggling farther into his chest. He blushed, a pleased smile flitting across his face before he remembered the urgency of the situation. He trudged through the snow that piled on the sides of the road with an unnatural speed. He pushed through the door of the Musain, gaining a scolding from Louison.
("What is it with you students and your street girls? Why must you do that upstairs? Look at me, won't you! Listen to me!")
Enjolras and Ceara were not far behind, and when Louison shot Ceara a very pointed look of disgust, Enjolras nonchalantly draped his arm across her thin shoulders and steered her past the disapproving grisette. Ceara blushed furiously, and her rosy hue continued long after Enjolras released her to return to their usual platonic stance.
In the back room, the excitement was nearing chaos. Grantaire was on his second bottle of wine, and Jehan kept making suggestive faces at Éponine and then at Courfeyrac. Bossuet made the mistake of touching Éponine, and Joly leapt at him and began a very physical search for any illnesses he could have contracted (it must be noted that, whilst slightly offended, Éponine was laughing throughout this ordeal). Bahorel was off in the corner with his mistress, a girl barely older than Ceara with the name of Eglantina. Feuilly was attempting to assist Combeferre in warming Éponine's feet while Courfeyrac danced around everyone and hissed in their ears to not mention his feelings for the gamine.
"Listen!" Enjolras tried, but the room's loud noise continued around him. Annoyed, he stood on a chair and repeated, "Listen!" He put his hands around his mouth (oh and what a mouth it was) and shouted, "LISTEN EVERYBODY!"
Alas, Enjolras's efforts were to no avail. From the doorway, little Ceara placed her hands over her diaphragm and said clearly, "C'est des conneries. Va vous faire foutre, trouducs!"
The room slowly went quiet, Jehan staring at the small young woman in shock, his gentle mouth gaping like that of a fish. She smiled sweetly at the men and Éponine before bowing dramatically and pointing at Enjolras.
"Thank you for… that, Ceara." Enjolras said, clearing his throat and pulling his cravat away from his neck in discomfort. None of them were particularly used to such harsh curses, let alone coming from a girl who had such a kind demeanor. "I believe it's time to call this meeting to order."
Combeferre spared a nervous look towards Éponine. "Not until we get something to warm up the mademoiselle. Enjolras, she may die if we don't-"
"Oh, ca fait chier!" Snorted the aforementioned street girl, swinging her legs from her perched seat on the table. "My feet have looked a hell of a lot worse, Monsieur. You needn't worry for little Éponine."
It was then that something very peculiar happened. There was a small window in the back room of the Musain that faced into the alley. This window was situated as such that the bottom sill was at the same level as the table. The building next to the Musain had poor brickwork that required little effort to climb the wall.
This window was open. Why? Perhaps Joly decided that if he stayed in such a stuffy room, he was to suffocate. Or perhaps Grantaire opened the window to see Joly have a panic attack about the cold weather. Whatever the reason, the combined factors of the opposite building, the open window, and the convenient trajectory, allowed easily for a small object to be thrown into the room.
Éponine was squealing and squirming as Combeferre tickled the calloused bottoms of her feet so as to renew feeling in her damaged nerves. She'd tumbled off the table and curled into a giggling heap on the floor. It turns out that Mademoiselle Thernardierwas quite ticklish.
Despite Enjolras's efforts to calm the disastrous state of the room, nobody paid the blond any attention. Most were amused at Éponine's heightened ticklishness, and thus being nobody was looking out the window when something small and metal zoomed into the room and struck a full bottle of wine, spilling the contents over the table.
This quite quickly drew the attention of the rag-tag group, for all eleven heads swiveled to meet a pair of small and very angry blue eyes.
"Let go of my sister, you batards!" he screamed. The little boy was hanging off the other building by his fingernails, and his small (shoed) foot was eased into a space between two bricks. Curiously, Enjolras picked up the object used to break the glass bottle. It was a single sous.
"Gavroche?" Éponine asked from the floor. She stood unsteadily, her feet still quite numb, and walked over to the window. Once there, she rolled her eyes at the boy and the two began talking in rapid argot.
They appeared to come to an understanding, after much amusement from Éponine and much suspicion from Gavroche. Finally, the blue eyes scanned the room and came to rest on Ceara, who waved at the boy enthusiastically. He nodded, shortly. Then he turned to the rest of Les Amis.
"Lookie, you're lucky that the mam'selle over there is a friend of mine. Otherwise you'd all bite dust." With one final grimace, Gavroche jumped to the street and darted off to join the rest of Paris's children. In the meantime, Grantaire was looking oddly at his broken wine bottle, admiring the way that the rich liquid shone on the broken glass.
He stored the image in his memory, to the best of his ability. The minute the meeting adjourned, he went home and mixed shades of green and gray until he found the perfect bottle green. Then he began to paint.
Please review, my lovelies!
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