SPAS- Yes, this story will stray *slightly* from canon. Unfortunately (you know, with the violent, heartbreaking deaths and whatnot), it will stay fairly true to the Brick. I'll go ahead and tell you ONE other thing that's changed in this story, although I won't really write about it. (There's more, but.. No spoilers) Valjean's involvement on the barricade will be different, and because of that, so will his death.
Italia- WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY I'M CUTE. Like WUT. Haha and thanks. Yeah, for some reason Kaylee, although the spelling is phonetic, NOBODY SPELLS IT RIGHT. Which is more frustrating than if you have a hard-to-spell name that isn't like the way it's pronounced. (i.e., Gracee and Ceara)
TheIbis- Don't sweat it mon ami. :) And yeah, Dubhghlas, as he said to Henri, is indeed Ceara's brother. But one has to wonder, where is Ceara in all this? Hmmm?
Bowties- Thank you so much! That means a lot :) I hope this is soon enough for you!
C- STARTING to? You mean you didn't before? I'm hurt, m'amie ;)
So I'm going to the wilds of Nashville next week, which will render me unable to write because I'm going with little High Schoolers for mission trip in a place where I can't bring my laptop and there probably won't be any wifi. I was going to ask ConcreteAngel to update for me, BUT SHE SIGNED UP FOR THE SAME TRIP SO JUST. GRR.
I'll try to work something out, but for right now I'm just going to write as much as possible and post before I leave Sunday.
WARNING: Again, this chapter contains slight M/M, because Dubhghlas/Henri happened and I just… I didn't have the heart to change it.
Henri gave Dubhghlas Faerghan his word that he would keep in touch. The young man hadn't heard from his sister in twelve years. Not since he was twelve and she was fourteen. Apparently, the same went for his little sister. Henri wondered if the youngest Faerghan would be with Ceara, and if she wasn't, if she could give him any information. For, although a nagging feeling in his gut told Henri that Ceara was dead, he refused to believe that.
Gavroche simply stayed to keep Dubhghlas company, averting his eyes when Henri spoke of Les Amis de l'ABC. Henri chose not to comment on that behavior. In fact, he mostly ignored the blond installment of the duo until something Dubhghlas said made Gavroche throw his head back in laughter. It was then that Henri did a double take.
"Monsieur Gavroche, I know where I have seen you before!" He exclaimed. Gavroche scrunched his face in confusion. Then his eyes widened in realization with a touch of guilt.
"Look, if I stole from you-"
"Non." Henri assured, reaching in his briefcase for Grantaire's sketchbook. He pulled it out and flipped to the sketch of the street children. It remained the same as the last time Henri saw it. The blond boy was still front and center, looking very clearly like a younger Gavroche.
Gavroche all but snatched the book from Henri's cleaner hands and observed it with a nostalgic smile on his face. "Ah, yeah. I remember this! 'Twas back when mes momes stayed with me in my elephant!"
"The elephant?" Asked Henri. "As in the Elephant of la place de Bastille?"
Gavroche nodded. "Oui, when I was younger I made the discovery that the monument is hollow. Became a nice home for me, it did." He explained. Henri, recalling the doodle in the textbook, managed to make sense of things to a certain extent.
"Well, Messieurs, this has been an absolute pleasure." Henri commented after pulling out his pocket watch to check the time. "But I must return home. It's past time for someone of my age to retire for the night."
"But surely you musn't be older than thirty?" Gavroche said with an air of teasing innocence. Henri chuckled and ruffled the youth's hair.
"You boys are good for my health. You come here every day after work, non?" He asked, and they nodded. "If I find anything new in my search, then I shall come here to meet with you. Merci beaucoup, again."
As Henri left the rowdy tavern, his mind was full of blue eyes and a white-toothed smile. He couldn't shake the glorified final image of Dubhghlas as silhouetted in the window. The torch light had set his dark hair aflame, bringing out the russet undertones, and the light made the trim boy's figure more than noticeable.
Henri knew that his attraction was wrong. Sinful, even.
(Then why did it feel so right?)
He returned home to a fresh-cooked meal. Usually Musichetta wasn't one for domestic activities, but in the days approaching the 5th, she always did more activities around their flat to occupy her mind. Henri, although the question was always on the tip of his tongue, never quite managed to ask her who it was she mourned.
She wasn't in the sitting room nor the kitchen, despite the warm meal laid on the table. Henri found himself to be slightly worried. He softly padded in bare feet around their garret as he searched for his missing wife. She wasn't in the powder room nor in their bedroom, leaving Henri confused as to where she was. However, as he walked by the slightly ajar door to their spare room, he heard the soft sounds of crying.
He pushed open the door and saw his wife bent over one of Grantaire's works, one hand clasped over her nose and mouth whilst tears poured from her eyes. She didn't turn to meet Henri's eyes when he came in, but her slight stiffening of posture alerted him that she was aware of his presence.
"Darling, what is it?" Henri hesitantly crossed the room. "Musichetta, what is the matter?" He bent at her level and allowed her to relax under his touch. It was then that he saw that she was observing one of the canvas paintings. (The reader may recall that we have touched upon all of them, making this particular piece the last)
"Oh, Henri…" She cried, burying her face in his chest. He wisely withheld his protestations about the silk of his waistcoat, instead opting to wrap his arms around the woman. Finally, as her sobs subsided, she pulled away from him. He released her reluctantly.
She smiled up at him through her sad haze. Even with her face swollen from crying and her nose dripping, she was beautiful in Henri's eyes. He laid a tender kiss on her sloping forehead. She turned towards the painting again with that sad smile still in place on her lips. One slender finger reached out to brush one of the figures in the painting.
This work contained more people than Grantaire had ever depicted at once. Henri scanned over the painting and saw the eight original Amis (With the exception of Grantaire, who was behind his easel) as well as four women. Two of them were familiar to Henri. Of the other two, one of them had her back turned to the artist, and the last bore an unfamiliar face. Most of the men were standing around the table with bottles in hand. Five men were standing close to the table and looking at the women. The four were standing on the table with stances as if they were dancing.
Ceara was bending down slightly towards Enjolras, who was looking at her as if she was the moon in the sky. She was tugging on his hands as if trying to urge him to join her. The second girl remained unnamed in Henri's mind. She was crouching in a very unladylike stance to place a pecked kiss on Courfeyrac's waiting lips. The unfamiliar woman was holding her dress teasingly above her calves, causing a watching Bahorel to smirk. The last woman, the one with her back to Grantaire, was holding a wine bottle in her hand and it seemed as though she was swaying on her feet. Joly and Bossuet stood on the opposite side of the table with both their arms raised, ready to catch her should she fall.
It was this last figure that Musichetta indicated. Henri looked at her, surprised. A slight blush was coloring her cheekbones, as if remembering the day she got that drunk.
"Whose mistress were you?" He asked, gently. To this, she turned even more pink.
"Henri, darling?"
"Yes, Musichetta?" He asked, almost scared to hear the answer. She flipped the canvas around and showed him the label.
Patria dances with the mistress of Bahorel, of Courfeyrac, and of Joly and Bossuet. April 1832.
"You don't mean to say-"
"Yes, Henri. I was a mistress to both of them."
In response, he placed a warm kiss to her pulse point and nuzzled his head in the crook of her neck. They stayed in that position for a while, with Musichetta recovering from her grief in Henri's arms, his legs sprawled around her and his chin resting on her shoulder.
"No wonder you seem so lonely." Was all he said.
For some reason, that day had been a duller one for Les Amis. Bahorel and Courfeyrac entered the back room together. Upon seeing the others with their heads together, the two dandies looked at each other and shook their heads. The night was warm enough with a cool wind coming from the Seine. It was the kind of night that prompted most young people to frisk about in their youth. Because their friends were the exception, Courfeyrac and Bahorel found themselves nearly disgusted with the others.
"Enjolras, mon ami," Courfeyrac said in a voice that was condescendingly sweet. "Do you not find it to be an awfully nice evening to spend in such a dragging manner?"
Enjolras didn't even look up as he answered. "This is not a boring meeting, Monsieur de Courfeyrac." It was a good thing that Enjolras didn't see the scowl that darkened his friend's face upon hearing that dreaded article. "It is about revolution. We have the support of General Lemarque, in case you missed my informative letter."
"With all due respect, Marcel," Courfeyrac smirked upon getting Enjolras to snap his head up in annoyance. "I haven't read one of your letters since lycée."
"We have General Lemaix's support-" Bahorel began, only to be immediately corrected by Enjolras.
"Lemarque." He said through clenched teeth. Next to him, Ceara clamped a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter.
"It is all the more reason to celebrate!" Bahorel crowed, and to Enjolras's chagrin, most of the others seemed to agree to it. Courfeyrac strode up to Enjolras, who refused to look up again. He dropped himself in the blond man's lap as if he were a flirty woman and tilted Enjolras's chin to aim upwards. Ceara, at this point, was very near tears in trying to contain her amusement.
"Please?" Courfeyrac pouted as he asked Enjolras, who simply pushed his friend off his lap.
After silent pleading from the rest of the group, though, Enjolras caved. "Fine."
The backroom erupted into cheers, causing Enjolras to bury his head in his hands. He wondered why he'd been so stupid to allow something such as that to occur. And he would have to take responsibility with the owner for any damaged property. Knowing Les Amis, there was bound to be some sort of vandalism.
He was brought from his musings by a now-familiar hand on his shoulder. He looked up into Ceara's delighted face. She winked at him and murmured, "Now you can put your dancing skills to use."
In less than an hour, the men had managed to bring in a violin player from the streets, paying him a hefty sum of seven francs for playing their celebration night. Bahorel was the first back, a blond beauty on his arm. Joly and Bossuet entered together, holding a delicate dancer between the two of them. Courfeyrac was the last to enter, running besides Éponine as if the two of them were accomplices in crime in opposition to lovers. They came into the café with flushed cheeks and dirt smeared aross their faces. On Éponine, the gamine princess, the dirt was in place. However, on the handsome student it looked out-of-place.
Bahorel brought his light-hearted mistress, Eglantina. She was nearing the age of eighteen, while Éponine was a few days from seventeen and Ceara was barely sixteen. Musichetta was the eldest of the women. She was twenty and a few months, and she often commented on her age in comparison with the other ballet girls at the opera.
It wasn't long before a popular ditty began to play and Grantaire easily provided bottles upon bottles of various types of alcohol. Before long, the usually (relatively, at least) calm back room was filled with the tangible warmth that comes from being in the company of friends.
Éponine was the first to dance. Musichetta soon joined her, the two darker haired women linking arms and tapping their feet in an intricate dance. Éponine, in her charming clumsy movements seemed to pull of the dance nearly as well as the graceful Musichetta. Ceara seemed content to observe the cheerful proceedings from Enjolras's side, stirring her strange mix of absinthe and bourbon with her pinky.
(She declared early on in the night, "I shan't dance unless you do as well." He'd replied, "Well, you shall have to wait all night, m'amie.")
But Eglantina was having none of it. As she found herself to be pulled atop the table with Musichetta and Éponine, she made a point to grab at Ceara's small elbow when she passed by. Ceara yelped in surprise and accidentally spilt her drink on Bossuet, who happened to be walking past her at the time. The four began to move to the music uncomfortably, all too aware of the room's eyes on them.
When the violin player played a song with sharper sounds and a faster pace, however, Ceara laughed and began to move her feet in a complicated series of steps that confused and interested those watching. Éponine and Eglantina, strangely fascinated, copied her to the best of their ability, laughing when they messed up.
Musichetta snatched a bottle out of Feuilly's hand and began to gulp, making Bahorel whoop in appreciation. When Ceara looked down in her drink-induced haze, she met a pair of open blue eyes that lacked their usual iciness. The effect was like a waterfall; he was open to her as if all his defenses leaked from him. She leaned down to take one of his hands. His arm acted against his better judgment; he reached to meet her halfway and their fingers entwined gently.
In the meantime, Musichetta's light feet grew heavy as alcohol began to become a bigger part of her bloodstream. Worried for her health, Joly began to rant at her about the dangers of alcohol poisoning whilst Bossuet just held out his arms, ready to catch her. (Knowing his luck, it would undoubtedly be him that she would collapse on to)
Éponine, delighted with that new feeling of togetherness, found Courfeyrac's shoulders and pulled him roughly forward to pres her lips violently against his. Courfeyrac, shocked, didn't even get the opportunity to kiss her back. She pulled away with a pleased smile teasing her chapped lips, although a slight hurt glinted in her eye.
Eglantina teased Bahorel from a distance; taking bunches of her taffeta skirt in her hands and shaking the fabric as if she was a Spanish dancer. He got passing glimpses of her lovely legs as she danced.
In the midst of all the joy, Grantaire sat in his corner with a pipe hanging from the corner of his lip. He sketched quickly, wanting to catch the moment before it disappeared. Once the sketch was complete, he tucked it carefully back into his notebook, remembering to paint it once he got home.
Courfeyrac saw the cynic's antisocial behavior and pulled him up to join the rest. Grantaire actually smiled; a grin that was genuine instead of condescending.
Most of them didn't know that they had but two months to live.
So I'm disappointing in myself because I had a challenge with myself that each chapter would be longer than the last, but last chapter was shorter than the one before and this one is shorter as well.
OH OH OH just btdubs, 5 francs is about the equivalent of 17 and a half dollars. Back in 1832, that much money was a lot. So you can imagine WHY Eponine was so "OMG 5 francs" when Marius gave it to her.
Review! See y'all next Sunday-ish.