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[fic] Spare Me Over

30 July 2013

This fic is also on AO3, if you find it easier to read there

Fandom: Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo x Elisabeth (Budapesti Operettszínház)
Focus: Death & his relationship with: Fantine, Montparnasse, Eponine, Cosette, Grantaire, Jean Prouvaire
Setting: Les Mis canon setting
Length: 1,661 words

Themes:

5+1 things; canonical character deaths; canon knowledge of Elisabeth not required

Summary:

Five people Death doesn't kiss (yet), and one he does.

Foreword:

Thanks/blame for this fic go to Carmarthen, who is a wonderful enabler and beta.

Title is from the traditional dirge "O Death"

The particular Death I had in mind while writing this is Szabo P Szilvester's, of the Budapesti Operettszinhaz production of Elisabeth.

Fic:

Fantine suppresses a cough when she sees the man walking towards her. Nobody wants a sick whore. "Good evening, sir," she says, and gives him a wide, close-lipped smile. He looks a little familiar, she thinks.

Then she coughs.

"Sir," Fantine says again, wide-eyed, for in the brief moment it took her to cough he had silently closed the distance between them, leaving her no time to steel herself for his closeness. He stretches a hand towards her, stopping just short of her bristly hair, and a memory surfaces.

Him? She had thought him nothing but a fever-dream, when she last saw him.

He must see the recognition in her eyes, for he moves his mouth in a brief, alien smile, and his cold hands softly envelop hers. She shivers, and it is not only from the cold. "Come with me," he says. "It is time."

Fantine's lips open, her first genuine smile in -- she doesn't want to think how long. She had never realized this would be a comforting thought: He is here for her. It is time.

Then -- "No," she says, her voice catching in a swallowed sob. She snatches her hands away, stumbles back from him, but he follows her in two slow deliberate graceful steps; menacing, she would call it, if he were a client, but she finds herself turning her face up to meet his. She cannot read the look in his eyes. Quietly she tells him, "Not yet. My Cosette needs me."

She coughs again, and is glad of the excuse to turn away.

It took many kills for Montparnasse to learn how to see Death. Or perhaps it was less a learning; perhaps it simply took many kills before Death chose to show himself. Whatever it was, Montparnasse now counts his brief encounters with Death as fully half the pleasure of his chosen profession.

"Good day, sir," Montparnasse says with a nearly elegant bow. He mourns that it falls short of perfection because he must hold his knife away from himself; it wouldn't do to drip blood on his clothing.

Death looks up from where he is bent over the bleeding -- dead now, Montparnasse notes with a practiced eye -- young gentleman. One hand trails down the gentleman's face, gently caressing his lips and lifting away as Death straightens. Death's eyes widen in exaggerated, belated surprise.

Extracting a cloth from his pocket, Montparnasse begins cleaning his knife, but he spares a portion of his attention to direct a smile at Death, who does not look impressed. But he never does, and Montparnasse's smile widens. It's funny, he considers, how much he enjoys this challenge -- he who dedicates himself to the life of an idler.

Montparnasse knows better than to try for a kiss; he has no intention of dying anytime soon. But there are other pleasures that could be enjoyed. It would be delicious to enjoy the little death with Death, he thinks.

He drops the cloth and sheaths his mostly-clean knife, then steps carefully towards Death, skirting the pool of blood seeping into the spaces between the paving stones. He bows again, then extends a hand and says, "Will you dance?"

Death looks down at Montparnasse's hand, his expression remote, and Montparnasse admires the shape of his jaw, the steady lines of his eyebrows, the curve of his nose and the sweep of his eyelashes.

"What do you want?" asks Death, sounding almost intrigued. Montparnasse smiles. Progress. "You," he says, only a little breathlessly. He does not retract his hand; Death slowly reaches out and takes it.

They dance.

"You want me," Eponine says, and laughs. There is nothing he can do to hurt her. "If you want me, then kiss me. I am not afraid."

A gamin gives her a strange look as he darts by her on the street, but she ignores him and sways in close to Death. He stands eerily motionless, glittering like the night sky above them. Eponine laughs again. She is hungry, so hungry, and nothing -- or everything -- seems real.

"I admire the fierceness of your face," she says as she drapes her arms around his shoulders. She brings her lips closer, closer, closer until she can feel his utter stillness, not a breath of air entering or leaving him. A scant moment before their lips touch she jerks her head away -- then his hands are firm about her wrists as he snarls, "Do not tease me."

Eponine tilts back her head, baring her neck as she looks up at the stars, ignoring the way his hands grow painfully tight. "Then kiss me," she says again. "Draw me close, feel my warmth fade as I die. It doesn't matter."

"It matters." The words are sharply bitten, sharp as the angles of his cheekbones in the moonlight. "You don't want it yet, little girl." He leans in, until his mouth is once again near hers, and breathes out, "I will return."

With a swirl of the many tails on his long glittering coat he turns from her, striding away. Then he is gone.

It is that man again.

Cosette looks up, then further up. She is crouched over her heavy pail of water, only halfway back to the inn and already exhausted, and the man is very tall.

She is not afraid of him.

It is odd, how certain she is that he means her no harm. He is not kind to her; he has hardly spoken to her. But he is there, so often: sitting patiently in a corner and watching her, keeping pace with her as she struggles through her chores, standing over her as she falls asleep at night. She is fascinated by how apart he always looks, like he doesn't belong amidst the dreary reality of life in Montfermeil -- and yet he returns, again and again.

So she looks up at him, eyes wide, then looks back down at the bucket. She can't stop yet. The horses need the water, and she will be beaten if she is too long about it. With great effort she carries the bucket a few steps further, then pauses to rest again. The harsh pant of her breath is loud in the stillness of the winter air.

Slowly, painfully, she and her bucket make their way back to the inn. The man remains beside her the whole way, never saying a word. His presence is somehow a comfort.

Grantaire is deep in his cups and surrounded only by bottles, no friends. He considers declaiming his thoughts to the walls, but they wouldn't appreciate it, he thinks morosely.

He opens his mouth to speak anyway, but before he can begin, someone sits down in the other chair at his table.

Grantaire drinks deeply from his bottle and eyes the bastard across from him. Funny-looking, he is, but not discordant: all of a piece. The light's doing interesting things across his face, though. Grantaire squints a bit to get a better look. It's unnatural and unearthly and would look amazing in a painting if he cared about such things, which he doesn't. At all.

"Come with me," the man says.

Grantaire sets his bottle down with a hollow thunk on the scarred wood of the table. "Never in life," he says. He isn't interested in dying yet, and who else can the man be but Death?

Death stands abruptly, the tips of his long thin fingers pressed against the table. "You want to come with me," he says. Grantaire can't place the tone of voice. Angry? Entreating? Confident, arrogant, disbelieving, frustrated.

Grantaire attempts to stand himself, wobbles a bit, then gives up and rests his head on the table. "And why should I?" Grantaire says. "I could quote you a thousand lines about the value of life, if I could remember them just now."

Disbelieving anger wins as Death says, "You want me." Death's fingers are sharp on Grantaire's shoulders, dragging him up, pinning him against the wall. Grantaire doesn't resist, slumping into the press of Death's hands until it is the only thing holding him up.

"You've caught me," Grantaire says, "I admit it, it's true -- right now, at least. But I want something else more." He grimaces as Death's grip loosens and he begins to slide down the wall. "You know I'm telling the truth." He lifts a hand in a mocking, wineless toast as he sprawls lower across the floor.

"Do not think that will keep you from me long," Death says finally.

Grantaire's eyes drift shut, and he doesn't see Death depart.

When Prouvaire is captured, he knows it will be his end. He will not sit passively by to be used as a pawn; he is on the streets tonight for a purpose.

He has considered death often, of course. His favourite poetry is full of it, the streets of Paris are full of it, the world is full of it. But contemplation is not the same as action, and poetry, though it might drive its reader to the heights of emotion, is not death.

What will it be truly like? he wonders, as he kicks free of his captors, seizing a sword from the surprised grip of one young soldier. He manages to defend himself briefly, his body acting on memory and impulse as his thoughts are caught up in the consideration of the infinite. Then he is disarmed.

There is no recourse left but submission, should he desire to live, and submission is anathema to Prouvaire.

"Long live France! Long live the future!" he shouts. His heart races and his mind races and he is too exhilarated to be afraid.

They shoot.

Falling, he imagines he is being caught in the arms of Death. He feels the welcoming touch of Death's lips on his. As his thoughts scatter to pieces, he only wishes he could have met Death while he had life in his body to enjoy it.

Comments:

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