Work Text:
When Feuilly first saw the man, he thought he was a drunk.
He was walking home from work, exhausted, his cramping hands shoved into his pockets. They’d offered him double wages that day if he took on the work of a fellow fan-maker who was ill, on top of his own, and Feuilly didn’t have the finances to refuse. He’d taken ill quite a bit himself lately, and though he dragged himself to the studio through most of it, working through the chills and the headaches and his hollowed, aching stomach, the other fan-makers marveling at his ability to keep his hand steady through it all – well, there were a few days Feuilly literally couldn’t get out of bed, though he’d tried. Today had been a blessing, a chance to earn the wages he’d lost, those he couldn’t afford to lose.
Still, he was tired. His fingers ached, his eyes were dry and sore. He could feel paint hardening in the cracks of knuckles, along the side of his face, pinching his skin where he’d wiped the sweat away (the studio was usually chilled, but Feuilly had been working double-time). He wanted nothing more than to wash himself clean, nibble a little of the bread he’d saved (he could buy another loaf tomorrow, thankfully), and curl up on his stiff mattress under his threadbare blanket.
He was nearly home when he saw the man out of the corner of his eye, hunched over himself under the glow of a streetlamp, presumably being sick. Feuilly stopped, weighing his options. After all, the man had gotten himself in such a position; Feuilly had met enough drunks to know they often got themselves out of it just fine. Feuilly had never been drunk in his life. He enjoyed a glass of wine as much as the next Parisian, and frequented a few of the working class cafes, but to be drunk was to lose oneself, to lose control, and Feuilly had worked very hard for the things he had control over. He had control over his finances (when he wasn’t being tossed about by the whims of illness), over his education (lacking, though it was), over his position in the community (even at such a young age, Feuilly was looked up to by many of the other fan-makers as someone who could negotiate, who wasn’t afraid to stand up for them, who demanded what he had earned). Still, Feuilly didn’t begrudge the drunks; he knew many people in far worse circumstances with far less resilience than he.
Just as Feuilly decided to go help the drunk, however, the man turned and came into focus. He wasn’t retching, wasn’t swaying or moaning; in fact, there was a rather pleased grin on his face, and he was plucking something off the ground between two fingers, examining it closely, and turning back to put it in…
…a shoebox?
Feuilly stopped and stared.
The man was well-dressed, assembled in a pair of thick trousers, a navy blue waistcoat, and a clean, white cravat. His dark coat was laid out underneath the shoebox, peppered with…something Feuilly couldn’t make out, gray blotches spotting the coat in an inconsistent pattern. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, his knees covered in dust, his glasses perched atop his head. Despite his messy appearance, Feuilly could tell he was, at least somewhat, well off. He didn’t belong in this neighborhood, especially at this time of night.
As if hearing his thoughts, a presence suddenly hovered near his elbow. “Good evening, fan-maker,” said a smooth, cold voice at his ear, and Feuilly nearly growled. He didn’t know the name of the boy behind him, but remembered his face, the way he spoke and dressed, remembered he roamed this part of Paris with a predatory eye. Though he barely knew the boy, he despised him. He dressed in the finest things he could, elegant hats, coats that were stylish but a bit shabby, and earned his living at the misfortune of others. He wanted all of life’s fineries, but was too lazy to work for them, and therefore became a thief, roamed the streets with a group of men notorious for their plundering. Feuilly had no use for people like him.
“Hard at work, I see,” Feuilly said, his hands clenching into fists.
The boy laughed. “Just about to begin my shift,” he said, his eyes on the man bent over his coat.
Feuilly shook his head. “Find another neighborhood to terrorize.”
“Shall I? I think I like the looks of this wanderer, here. A lost lamb, in the den of wolves.”
“I mean it.” Feuilly calculated how quickly he could pull the knife from his boot. “I won’t have it. Not tonight.”
“Oh.” The boy grinned. “The fan-maker can bark.”
“I can do more than that.”
The boy laughed again, but there was a nervous edge to it. Feuilly smirked. He’d taught more than a few thieves not to dabble on his street; it seems his reputation preceded him.
“Fine, fine,” the boy said, backing away. “I’d rather not face your bite just yet. Besides, the night is young, and Paris is full of unwilling employers.”
As soon as the boy disappeared into the alley, Feuilly hurried over to the man under the streetlamp who, upon closer inspection, was barely a man at all, couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Feuilly himself.
“Hey,” Feuilly said, and the man startled, seemingly not aware that he had narrowly avoided being robbed. “Monsieur…”
“Combeferre,” the man said with a smile, though Feuilly hadn’t exactly been asking for an introduction.
“Monsieur Combeferre. Listen, I don’t mean to impose, Monsieur, but it’s not particularly safe for you…” Feuilly trailed off, catching sight of what Combeferre had splayed over his coat. “Are those moths?”
“Ah, yes, actually.” Combeferre rubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly looking embarrassed. He tipped his glasses back down to his nose, started unrolling his sleeves and tightening his cravat. He swept the moths off his coat into the palm of his hand, dumped them into the shoebox in which, Feuilly could see, were piles and piles of the same. Feuilly wondered, vaguely, if Combeferre was drunk after all. “You see, I’ve been studying the varying effects of pollution throughout the city, the spread of illness due to reduced lung function and tainted water,” he waved his hands as he spoke, “when I noticed a strange effect in the coloration of moths in the areas closer to gunpowder factories and…” Feuilly didn’t know what sort of expression crossed his face, but it made Combeferre shake his head and shrug into his coat with renewed speed, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Forgive me. I was merely collecting data for a proposed experiment and lost track of the time. And, perhaps,” Combeferre looked around warily, “my way.”
“You were almost robbed,” Feuilly said.
Combeferre paled. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to put you in any danger.”
“I wasn’t,” Feuilly insisted. “But you were.”
Combeferre stood, gathered his shoebox under one arm, and used the other hand to brush himself off. “You have my gratitude, then, Monsieur. If there’s any way I can repay you.”
“Just be more careful.”
Combeferre nodded. “Thank you. I should be going.”
“Wait,” Feuilly said, a little startled at himself. He was suddenly intrigued by this lost stranger, his box of bugs, the way he was so engaged with his project that he would rattle off the details to some worker on the street. Feuilly loathed being talked down to; he’d taught himself to read, devoured any book he could get his hands on. He wasn’t stupid. He was starved – for knowledge, for an intellectual conversation, for someone to talk to him like he wasn’t beneath them. Combeferre hadn’t condescended to him; he’d spoken as if Feuilly might be interested.
Feuilly was interested.
“Do you know where you are?” Feuilly asked.
Combeferre shook his head. “Ah…I’m afraid not.”
“It’s not safe to be out any longer,” Feuilly said. “My apartment’s just a few down. If you’d like, you can come up and we can figure out where you’re heading, without the threat of being attacked.” Combeferre remained silent for a moment, and Feuilly felt the heat rise to his face. “I mean, it was just an offer, Monsieur. I didn’t mean to offend you, I’m sorry – ”
“No,” Combeferre said, smiling suddenly. “No, it’s a generous offer. I’d be most grateful if you’d let me take advantage of your hospitality for a few moments.”
Feuilly shrugged. “It’s not much.”
“It’s more than enough.”
“This way, then.”
Feuilly led Combeferre towards his building, but at the next streetlamp, Combeferre hesitated, his eyes fixed on a large, light grey moth, lighter than the ones that had speckled his coat, perched elegantly on the post of the lamp. “If you’ll give me just a moment,” Combeferre said, and wandered distractedly towards the light.
Feuilly felt rather like a moth himself, following close behind, trapped in Combeferre’s glow.
Combeferre leaned close to the moth, close enough to inspect it but far enough away not to startle the creature.
“It’s lighter than the rest,” Feuilly said softly, as if he could scare the moth by speaking too loudly.
“Exactly,” Combeferre breathed, and Feuilly felt a little burst of pride in his chest. “I’ll need it for my sample.”
“May I?” Feuilly stepped forward. “I’ve got steady hands.”
Combeferre smiled at him and nodded.
Feuilly approached the lamp, cupping his hands and slowly, slowly, inching his palms toward the moth. Before the moth could sense him, Feuilly scooped it between his hands, curling his fingers as if he were holding a small rubber ball, feeling the mother flutter, its wings beating against his skin.
“Excellent!” Combeferre said, his grin softening and illuminating his whole face. “I’ve been trying to catch some live ones all night. I want to study their flight behaviors, to see if perhaps the pollution has any affect on their wing speed…”
Feuilly barely heard Combeferre, paid little attention to anything but the brush of the insect’s tiny legs on his palms. He stared at his hands in wonder, as if he were holding something far more precious than a trapped bug.
“Are we near?” Combeferre asked.
Feuilly nodded, still not daring to speak.
“I’d like to set our little friend free as soon as possible.”
Feuilly nodded again, and led Combeferre to his apartment. As soon as they entered the room, Feuilly regretted inviting Combeferre up. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture – a small desk for him to work at, one rickety chair – and no food to speak of except the few bites of bread Feuilly had saved for that evening’s dinner. He’d offer them all to Combeferre, anyway, though it wasn’t much.
“I’m sorry about the state of things,” Feuilly said, suddenly feeling awkward, standing there in the middle of his near-empty room, holding a moth. “Let me get you some bread, Monsieur.”
“No need,” Combeferre said. “May I use the desk?”
Feuilly blinked. “Of course.”
“Should we let the poor thing go?”
“Oh,” Feuilly said, and uncupped his hands, releasing the moth to fly erratically around his head for a moment before zooming toward the candle lit on his desk, circling the flame in a desperate, hurried fervor. Combeferre had already occupied the chair and was dumping his boxful of moths onto the table. Feuilly noticed each moth was a much darker color than the one that was currently fluttering its way around the room, their wings a dirty grey rather than a peppered array of black and white. Combeferre was pushing the moths into what Feuilly presumed to be orderly piles, arranged from the darkest ones, the ones black as midnight, to the lightest, soft as dust.
“I’m studying the effects of pollution on general health for my internship at Necker,” Combeferre began, as if Feuilly was his pupil, or rather, his assistant. “But as I gathered field research, I started to notice an interesting pattern in the coloration of moths as I traveled into the, uh,” he glanced warily at Feuilly out of the corner of his eye, “more working class areas of the city. The closer I got to the factories,” Combeferre waved a hand over his collection, “the darker the moths seemed to become.”
“You think the pollution might be affecting the health of the moths?” Feuilly inched closer to the desk, braced himself on the surface with one hand.
“In a sense,” Combeferre said. “I’m interested in watching our living companion, here, and his behaviors. But the coloration, Monsieur…”
That was clearly an invitation. “Feuilly.”
Combeferre nodded. “Monsieur Feuilly. It’s the coloration that intrigues me the most. The darkening of the wings, to match the darkening of the skies, the surfaces.”
“Camouflage.”
“Yes!” Combeferre said, and Feuilly couldn’t help himself from smiling at Combeferre’s enthusiasm. “I have a theory that the darker species of moths are congregating near the factories, in order to better camouflage themselves from predators.”
“Or maybe,” Feuilly said, “they’re changing.”
Combeferre adjusted his glasses. “How do you mean?”
Feuilly shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Maybe,” he brushed a finger over the furry wing of one of the darkest moths, “the moths are getting darker to match their surroundings.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“It could be.” Feuilly felt heart clench, his tentative happiness starting to drain from him. “Dark turns to dark. They might not have a choice.”
They fell into a momentary silence, Feuilly mesmerized by the moth’s inky wing, the softness under his touch, horrified by the idea that the world had gotten so bad, so bleak and dark and dirty, that even the tiniest creatures lost their innocence, their purity, their very beings. The things they were made of, changed so dramatically because of the blackness surrounding them.
“But even in darkness,” Combeferre said, his voice softening to match the melancholy stillness that had enveloped the room. He nodded gently at the candle. “The moth seeks the light.”
Feuilly watched the moth circle the candle over and over again, dizzying in its intensity, in its passion, in its desire for heat and warmth.
“A little dirtier on the outside,” Combeferre said. “But better for it. Stronger, and harder to kill. And always searching for a way back to the flame.”
Feuilly suddenly felt the sting of tears and the corners of his eyes, and pushed himself away from the desk, furious and terrified that this stranger, who had been so kind to him, who had shared with him and spoken to him – no, with him – would think him weak.
Combeferre seemed to take the hint. “I’ve got a lepidopterology text with me that might be able to shed a little light on the situation,” he said, reaching down into his bag and pulling a large tome out onto the table. “Oh. Damn.”
“What?” Feuilly asked, pulling himself together.
“It’s just, I’ve grabbed the wrong book. Oh, Enjolras will be looking for this one, he’s supposed to be using it as a source for a pamphlet he’s writing. He says it’s for lecture, but I don’t believe him for a moment…”
Feuilly dared to lean closer again and inspect the book, large and tattered, its spine creased, its cover flawed. It was beautiful. The title was in a language he couldn’t read.
“What is it?” he asked in a burst of curiosity.
“Oh, this?” Combeferre ran his hand over the front. “It’s a brief history of Poland through the 18th century.”
“It is in Polish?”
“Yes.”
“Can you…read Polish?”
Combeferre laughed a little, but not unkindly. “I can’t, but a friend of my roommate’s can. He’s translating the bits about the partitions, as that’s all Enjolras is interested in, for now.”
Feuilly’s head was spinning with these foreign concepts. Enjolras. Poland. Partitions.
“Ah, as I suspected.” Combeferre pulled a few sheets of paper from between the pages, with looped, elegant handwriting covering both sides. “Jehan’s already translated these. This is Enjolras’s copy, then. It’ll be too late to return it to him, now. I’m sure he’s already approached his, ahem, assignment, from a new angle.”
“May I see it?” Feuilly didn’t own any books of his own; he borrowed often from an acquaintance of his, Bahorel, who frequented some of the working class cafes and, once he learned about Feuilly’s interest in books, acted as Feuilly's own personal library. But he’d never seen one that wasn’t written in French…
Combeferre nudged the book over to Feuilly. “Be my guest.” Then, suddenly, a look of horror crossed his face. “Oh, my apologies, Monsieur Feuilly, I’m such an ingrate, I’ve been sitting in your chair all night.”
“Forget it,” Feuilly said, already opening the book, running his eyes back and forth between the strange language on the page and the neatly written translations, enthralled.
“At least allow me to share,” Combeferre said, scooting over so that he was only half seated, leaving the other half of the chair unoccupied.
Distracted, Feuilly sat on the chair next to Combeferre, their hips bumping, their arms brushing, as Feuilly learned and Combeferre sorted.
The hours passed.
Enjolras was not worried. He was simply tired. Distracted. He didn’t have his copy of Historia Polski with Prouvaire’s translations. It was late. Courfeyrac was humming some godforsaken drinking song while he lay sprawled on Enjolras’s mattress. His eyes hurt from the dim candlelight. He was exhausted from his work, his previous late nights.
He was. Not. Worried.
Combeferre was an adult, a highly intelligent man, capable of many things, the least of which was taking care of himself. The fact that he’d left their shared apartment hours ago, murmuring about moths and pigmentation, hadn’t surprised Enjolras in the least. The thought of Combeferre, perhaps, losing track of the time in his quest for data wasn’t a farfetched one.
Still, it was rather late.
It was rather dark.
Enjolras gripped his pen tighter and started scrawling on his paper with renewed vigor. Only after he allowed himself to pause did he realize he hadn’t written a single coherent sentence. He sighed.
“Yes, I hear you over there,” Courfeyrac said, hoisting himself up on his elbows. “Slaving the night away. Burning the midnight oil. Toiling over your studies. But for god’s sake, Enjolras, you’re making me tired.”
“I have work to do,” Enjolras said, clenching the table with one hand in order to stop it from shaking. He was tired, that was all. “As do you.”
“I’ve done all mine and more,” Courfeyrac said. “As you probably haven’t noticed, we’ve been working all night.”
“There’s always more to do.”
“Yes, but you must also do other things. Such as eating. Breathing. Sleeping, Enjolras, I’m tired.”
“Then go,” Enjolras said, though his nerves spiked with the desire for Courfeyrac to stay. “I’m not keeping you here.”
“I can’t leave you now,” Courfeyrac said, flopping backward onto the bed. “I fear I’d return in the morning and find a pile of dust in your stead.”
They lapsed into silence for a few moments.
“Combeferre would be able to talk some sense into you.”
Enjolras clenched his jaw, scowled at his paper.
“It is so very late, though. I might just sleep here for the evening, you know how my roommate is, and it’s awfully dark to be roaming around by oneself.”
Enjolras’s pen snapped in half between his fingers.
“Well,” Courfeyrac said, blinking.
Enjolras set the broken pen down gently, and pushed his chair back, suddenly resolved to get some fresh air, to take a small walk around the building, just to make sure all was in order, to make sure no one was hurt, one couldn’t be too careful, you know, and you must always look out for your fellow man, and for god’s sake, where was –
The door burst open, and Combeferre stumbled in, his glasses askew, his hair windswept, his cravat only half tied, a shoebox under his arm.
“Aha! Our guide has returned to us.” Courfeyrac smiled knowingly at Enjolras, who had reached for another pen and was bent over his paper once more, the hint of a blush on his cheeks. "I was getting a bit worried, mon ami.”
“Yes, yes, I know, I’m sorry,” Combeferre said, setting the box down and blustering about the room, as if looking for something to tidy up. “I was gathering moth samples and wandered a little too far, and this worker, this kind fan-maker, let me return to his apartment while I got my bearings, and we got to discussing my project, and oh, damn,” Combeferre fumbled at his side, “I’ve left my bag there.”
“The sun’s nearly up,” Courfeyrac said, yawning. “Pity the worker who has to listen to you blather about moths when he has to rise early.”
"He was still up when I left,” Combeferre said. “Reading the Historia Polski.”
“...he can read Polish?”
“I had Enjolras’s copy. With the translations.”
“Ah, yes,” Courfeyrac said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “It’s been driving Enjolras positively mad.”
“My apologies, Enjolras. I meant to take the lepidopterology.”
“Hmm.” Enjolras’s eyes never left the table.
“No use trying to distract him,” Courfeyrac said, curling on his side and throwing an arm across Enjolras’s pillow. “He’s been like that all evening.”
But Combeferre was studying Enjolras curiously, as if inspecting him, reading something in the sharp line of his jaw, the bags under his eyes, the light sheen of sweat on his temple. The slight tremor in his hand as he wrote.
Combeferre pulled up a chair and sat at the desk across from Enjolras. “I’m sorry if you were worried,” he said, low, as if Courfeyrac couldn’t hear. Courfeyrac heard, closed his eyes, and smiled.
“I wasn’t,” Enjolras said.
"Alright. You should come with me when I retrieve my bag tomorrow. I think you’ll rather like Feuilly. He’s a passionate sort, though he’s been forced to hide it for too long. I think you might be able to coax a little spirit out of him, though. You, if anyone.”
“Hmm.”
Combeferre smiled softly, and pushed his foot against Enjolras’s, which had been tapping a staccato beat against the floor since Combeferre had walked through the door. Enjolras’s foot stilled.
“Here’s the lepidopterology,” Enjolras said after a few quiet moments, pushing a book over to Combeferre.
“Thank you.”
Combeferre kept his foot pressed against Enjolras’s, and they sat together as the sun rose.