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Montparnasse was pretty sure that Eponine and Cosette finally getting together was the last seal required to spark off Armageddon. It had to be. Otherwise why else would Eponine act so weird? His roommate had been replaced by some permanently and frankly creepy smiling being who spent her time on the phone giggling like a middle schooler who'd drunk half a glass of apple cider. Montparnasse had heard her sing this morning, for fuck's sake! Something had fallen apart in the fabric of the universe, and Montparnasse was trapped in the uncanny valley.
And honestly, he could have dealt with their syrupy lovey-dovey bullshit if they didn't actively try to drag him into their cult. Now that they knew the bliss of young love, Cosette and Eponine had convinced each other that Montparnasse needed to be infected with the same ailment. They couldn't have been more wrong.
Montparnasse didn't date. It was a principle of his. So when Eponine ambushed him in a stereotypical Parisian café on a fine Saturday afternoon, Montparnasse's first reflex was to flee towards the nearest exit.
“You haven't even met them yet! They would be perfect for you!” Eponine protested, hooking her arm around his to stop him in his flight.
“I'm pretty sure this violate the Geneva convention,” Montparnasse grunted, fighting against her grip.
How dare she set him up like this! It was too early for him to deal with that kind of bullshit and she knew it! He should have known something was up when she texted him to meet at a café. Eponine was a bar person, not a café person. Jesus, why did every person in a relationship thought they had to “fix” single people into an item?
“Come on, what do you have to lose?”
“My time,” Montparnasse answered flatly.
Having a good enough hold on him, Eponine started dragging Montparnasse away from the exit back towards the main room. A reluctant cat on a leash would have been more cooperative. Oh, he could have escaped, if he had really put an effort into it. But what would have been the point? If he fled now, Eponine would find other sneaky ways to trick him into going on a date, sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now, once and for all. But he wouldn't give in to her without putting up a fight first.
“Look at it this way: worst case scenario, you waste twenty little minutes. Best case scenario, you get laid. It's honestly not that big of a deal.”
“I don't need you to get laid,” Montparnasse groaned between his teeth.
The café was a real tourist trap. There was even a surprising lack of accordion player on the terrace. The main room was filled with tourists taking pictures of everything and anything. You could always spot them. They were the only ones ordering croissants. Cosette, with her bright pink hair, stood out of the crowd like a beacon. She made a sign to Eponine and Montparnasse, and Eponine's grip on his arm tightened. Montparnasse's eyes fell on the second beacon present in the room, a cascade of red hair falling in soft waves on naked freckled shoulders. Montparnasse blinked, taking in the freckled face and shy smile, the big doe eyes and bright yellow sundress. It was too much to process at once. Fuck, they were beautiful.
Eponine let go of his arm, but Montparnasse failed to notice. She went to kiss her girlfriend, a spring in her steps. Fuck, they were beautiful. Irritatingly beautiful. Montparnasse's gaze went from their designated date to Eponine, daggers in his eyes. He couldn't let her win. He couldn't let her sappy rhetoric win!
“Jehan, this is Montparnasse,” Cosette said enthusiastically, giving Eponine meaningful looks. “Montparnasse this is Jehan! We thought you'd like to meet.”
“Hi,” said his date, waving their hand.
Montparnasse merely nodded. Cosette and Eponine looked at them both, positively elated.
“Well, we'll leave you to it,” Eponine declared, quickly leading Cosette out of the café. “Have fun!”
They were already too far away for Montparnasse to protest. He found himself face to face with a stranger, a beautiful stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. His date, Jehan, gave him an embarrassed smile and sat at the nearest table. For a second, Montparnasse weighed his options. He could leave. He could walk out the door, just like that. He didn't know them, why should he care? He glanced outside. Eponine and Cosette were sitting at the terrace. Fine. Reluctantly, as though someone was pushing on his shoulders and hitting him behind his knees, Montparnasse sat at the other end of the small table.
“Is Jehan your real name?” he found himself asking.
“It's Jean, actually,” his date explained, tucking a lock of red hair behind their ear. “But most people call me Jehan. Is Montparnasse your real name?”
Montparnasse shrugged.
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”
An awkward moment of silence fell between them. Montparnasse was suddenly very aware of his body. What should he do with his arms? With his hands? He had ants crawling under the sole of his feet, all of a sudden. Jesus, he never had to think about this, usually!
“Listen,” Jehan said, leaning forward slightly, as though they didn't want to be heard by other people. “we both know what's going on here. I know you'd rather be elsewhere, and I could frankly do with less scrutiny over my sentimental life. We're in the same boat here. So how about we chat for ten or twenty minutes, tell them we tried and call it a day?”
Montparnasse could not have said why, but he felt slightly offended that Jehan had already decided things would not work out. Before he remembered that he had already decided things would not work out. He crossed his arms against his chest and leaned against the table.
“Glad we're on the same page,” he said, keeping a neutral tone.
The cheerful voice of the waitress rose above them:
“Good afternoon! What can I get you today?”
“Black coffee, please,” Montparnasse said.
Actually, he longed for a deliciously frozen and decadent frappuccino topped with caramel syrup and whipped cream. He'd skipped breakfast. And lunch. Probably because he'd been sleeping until 1PM, until the infamous Eponine text woke him up. And there he was. Coffee for breakfast, then. At least, in a café, those came with a biscuit.
“I'll take a pot of Chai, if you don't mind, er,” Jehan squinted to read the waitress's badge, “Elodie. That'd be lovely.”
“Great. I'm bringing you all of that!”
The waitress scribbled on her notepad and dashed to another table. Left alone for a second time, the silence felt all the heavier.
“How do you know Eponine, then?” Jehan eventually asked, before the awkwardness could reach the point of no return.
“She's my roommate. Childhood friend. You?”
“I'm part of les Amis de l'ABC, you know, the activist group.”
Montparnasse nodded. Ah yes. The Wednesday meetings Eponine went to. He'd always thought she went there because Cosette hung out with these people, and whatever could get her closer to Cosette was good to take. He'd never really thought she was actually interested in all that social justice stuff until he'd see her making protest signs that one time. There was still glitter on the carpet. A damn shame.
“That's where I met Cosette, too,” Jehan continued, their nails playing with the cracks of the wooden table. “It's really great that they're finally together. They danced around the question for too long, everybody could see it. It was agonising.”
Montparnasse let out a chuckle, in spite of his best efforts to stay stoic.
“Tell me about it. You didn't actually live with one of them. It was hell.”
“I can imagine,” Jehan said with a little smile. Jesus, did they always look at people through their lashes like that?
The cup of black coffee and the pot of Chai arrived quickly on the table. They thanked the waitress and she put a little saucer on the table, for the bill. While Jehan was pouring sugar into their pot, Montparnasse put a ten euro note into the saucer.
“Oh, I don't want you to pay for me!” Jehan said, embarrassed.
Montparnasse quirked an eyebrow.
“I'm not paying for you. I'm leaving her a tip.”
Jehan's eyes went from Montparnasse to the saucer and the ten euro note.
“That's―That's one hell of a tip,” they pointed out.
“She has a god-awful thankless job,” Montparnasse shrugged. “The order came quickly and she was nice. I would have killed for a tip like that.”
“Did you use to work as a waiter?”
“Worst. A barrista. The worst three months of my life.”
Alright, considering, perhaps not the worst three months of his life. But those three months were pretty much up there in the pantheon of his shitty life experiences.
“Did you quit?” Jehan asked. They sounded curious. Suddenly, the conversation didn't feel as awkward.
“I was fired,” Montparnasse answered with a little teasing smile. He took a sip out of his cup to build suspense. “I hated this job and wanted to leave, anyway. But one day some guy came to the coffee shop and stayed there for about three hours. He was a creeper, you know the type. He started bothering a couple of girls, so I thought I'd buy him coffee on the house. Unfortunately that coffee ended up on him rather than on his table, what a shame. My hands are usually so steady.”
A grin grew on Jehan's face, and they made an approving sound.
“That guy could have sued you, though,” they remarked.
“I persuaded him not to,” Montparnasse said airly. “The coffee shop had security cameras. It'd have been a shame for the tapes to be released. I know people who are very good at sharing files.”
Jehan drank a bit of their tea. If Montparnasse was to believe the smile on their face, they were very amused.
“So what you're saying is that you're chaotic good?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Montparnasse snorted. “Chaotic neutral maybe. Or true neutral. You just don't creep on people in my coffee shop. Creeper, creeper, crotch on fire.”
Fuck, this was going well. This was going too well. They were laughing together for fuck's sake!
“I worked in retail once,” Jehan said, holding their tea cup with both hands. “It didn't go well either. There was a lot of misgendering, but I was prepared for that. One day the manager told me I made people uncomfortable, because they didn't know or didn't understand my gender. It weirded them out, so they had to let me go.”
Well, so much for the light-hearted atmosphere. Jehan's story was a gut puncher. Montparnasse pursed his lips and fidgeted with this coffee cup. That was the sort of bullshit Claquesous had to deal with, too.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “That was really shitty of them. Isn't that discrimination? Couldn't they get in trouble for that?”
“It was a while ago,” Jehan shrugged. “It got to me when it happened, but I don't really care anymore.”
“What shop was it?”
“Why, are you going to go and persuade them to right their wrong?” Jehan teased.
“Maybe.”
Jehan raked a hair through their hair and smiled at him. They liked him. Or maybe he was reading too much into it. They appreciated him, at least. He didn't care about being appreciated, most of the time. But just this once, it felt nice. Warm.
“You're sweet, but I don't think it's necessary. They're just―”
A little jingle rose from their bag, startling them both.
“Shit, sorry,” Jehan muttered as they reached for something in their bag. “I thought I'd turned it off.”
The words “it's okay” got stuck in Montparnasse throat. Out of habit, he had looked into their bag and recognised a familiar rainbow pattern on a package.
“You smoke Sobranies?” he blurted out before he could think better of it.
Caught off guard, Jehan looked at Montparnasse, then down at their bag, then at Montparnasse again.
“Oh―er―yes, well, I don't smoke that often, actually. That packet must be two years old. It's more of a―er―aesthetic thing.”
Montparnasse reached into the pocket of his jacket and retrieved the slick black packet of Sobranies he kept there. Jehan let out a surprised gasp, before their expression turned into utter joy.
“Black Russians! God, no one knows what they are around here! They're so fancy, I love them!”
“They're such a bitch to get in France,” Montparnasse said, encouraged by the enthusiasm in Jehan's voice.
“I order mine online. Well, once every two years, you know.”
They looked at each other, all smiles. Fuck, they really were beautiful. And they really were interesting. And they really made him want to stay and keep talking. He glanced outside again, his gaze covering the terrace in search for Eponine and Cosette. They were nowhere to be seen.
“Look,” he said, his lips moving of their own volition, “I know a place in Montmartre. Great view. Maybe we could go there, if you want? Exchange a Black Russian against a Sobranie Cocktail?”
Jehan seemed to take his words in, wondering whether or not they should leave with an almost total stranger. Montparnasse was hanging at the edge of their lips, and he couldn't believe the fact that he wanted them to say yes. Damn Eponine and her schemes.
“I'd love that.”
Eponine flicked through the channels, Azelma leaning against her. The more channels you get, the least watchable things there are. They watched bits and pieces of shows. Half of them were about cooking, because of course they were. They were halfway through a very tense mayonnaise-making session when the front door opened. Eponine straightened her back, disturbing Azelma who had dozed off five minutes ago.
“So?” she asked expectantly, looking at Montparnasse take off his leather jacket.
“So what?” Montparnasse rolled his eyes.
“So how was the date! Isn't Jehan amazing? Did you like them?”
“They were alright,” Montparnasse answered flatly, quickly walking towards the kitchen to avoid any more questions.
“Parnasse, what's that on your neck?” Azelma asked, a little sleepy.
Eponine let out a loud gasp at the sight of the red bruise glowing on Montparnasse's neck. Immediately, Montparnasse slapped his hand against the mark and walked faster.
“Oh my god! You made out! That's a hickey! Montparnasse, come back here! Oh my god, I knew it!”
“Oh, shut up!”