Chapter Text
Prologue
Dante thrifts a projector and one thing leads to another
Many were the things Noé Archiviste fully believed in: that all mundane moments in life felt like biting into the very formula of the universe was one of them. Things like taking a hot shower at night or stepping into the deserted parking lot of a supermarket were no different to him than sitting together with the concept of infinity itself. And while solitude felt infinite, crowded spaces were the utmost expression of what it meant to caress the proverbial string of fate tying all of humanity together, and what a privilege that was.
The subway was no exception, he thought, as he struggled to shove his way out of the automatic doors, muttering apologies to whomever he happened to bump into. The Métro Line Four was bustling as ever and it only seemed to get more intense around the holidays; citizens and tourists all around held their shopping bags close to their chest, a universally shared need to provide tokens for their loved ones and guard them from harm and thievery that Noé could only describe as ancestral.
He took off his headphones as he looked around the Poissonniers station and recoiled ever so slightly when all the noises of an average parisian afternoon hit his ears at once. Dozens of conversations overlapped with the faint roar of car and bus engines out on the street and the ringing of a couple phones not too far away from him.
Remembering where the exit was took less than he expected. He leaned on the side of the escalator and then made his way out of the building while his fingers fretted to open the Maps app on his phone and type in Rue Marcadet.
The small rental he lived in being a five minute walk away from a métro station was one of the reasons he chose it. His father had recommended finding a place that could give him easy access to public transport and allow him move along the city and reach the center with ease. Noé took that part to heart.
His apartment was located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, on the northern end of Goutte d'Or. That, Germain was less enthused about. He had insisted for days on end for Noé to consider options around the 5th, 6th or even 8th district, and never mentioned any number above that. Noé had humored him at first, but very soon after a quick skim of the local real estate websites he found himself unable to accept the idea; the offers for barely furnished single bedrooms ranging from two to three thousands euros every month following one another as he kept scrolling had made his blood boil just enough for him to shut down his beloved old man.
Besides, contrary to Germain's belief, Goutte d'Or had a certain aura to it that made him feel small in a way that was morbidly comforting. That tingling sensation beneath his skin and in his lungs only seemed to increase around the Christmas season. The neighborhood got roudier by the day, and yet, Noé could swear that there was a lingering sense of shared joy hovering above the noise. Fairy lights dotted the balconies on his street in gold and red for them to join the kaleidoscope of colorful experiences the area had to offer. In december, the air would also carry a light sugary scent. It followed him every day as he came home from university, and that afternoon was no different.
He turned his backpack towards him as he fumbled for the keys for a minute before ultimately giving up. He rang the intercom, praying to himself that his roommate would be home. He recalled Vanitas only having morning classes on thursday and figured he might be back, unless he had decided to go out with one of his friends. In which case, Noé really hoped his keys were somewhere on his person. As if on cue, he heard a familiar voice on the other side of the intercom.
«Who's this?» Vanitas asked.
«Noé.»
He heard a buzzing sound and right after the main door for the building unlocked. He walked his way up three flights of stairs and found the door to his apartment opened and Vanitas leaning on the frame, his brows furrowed together.
His roommate chucked a pair of keys at his chest and Noé barely had time to think before catching them in his right hand. The slight pain of sharp metal against his palm only registered seconds later.
«Ow.»
«You've got to stop forgetting 'em.» Vanitas crossed his arms. «What if I can't be home one day, are you just gonna stand outside 'till I get back?»
«I'm really sorry,» Noé said, sheepisly «but in my defense, you're always here when I need you to be.»
«Don't get too used to it. And don't just stand there, either.»
He nodded and entered the apartment, making quick work of placing his clothes and scarf on the old wooden hanger near the door. The temperature change from the bone-seeping cold following him across the street to the almost unbearable heat in their living room didn't come as a surprise for him, as Vanitas had taken control of the thermostat as soon as early november.
Looking around, Noé recognized the bulky silhouette and wavy ginger hair of a third person kneeling on the floor, bent over what looked like an old projector sitting in the middle of the room.
«Oh, hello Dante,» he smiled at Vanitas' guest «what brings you here today?»
«He got scammed is what.» Vanitas spat out in Dante's stead, pointing towards the incriminating machine.
«I did not!» the other man retorted. «I'm telling you, this thing works! I just gotta figure out how to connect it.»
«And it just has to connect to my laptop because…?»
«Because,» Dante drawled out ever so slowly, tone getting louder by the syllable «it's a present I thrifted for you ungrateful piece of shit specifically.»
«No,» Vanitas corrected, his own voice raising. «thrifting is when you buy a good quality item for very little money, this is you getting scammed out of thirty euros and making it my problem.»
«Fuck off.»
Noé couldn't help but chuckle at the argument unfolding before his eyes. He ignored Vanitas' own azure eyes glaring daggers into his skin as he did so.
Vanitas had introduced him to Dante on the very night he moved into their apartment. As far as he gathered, he was something of a friend from Vanitas' teenage years and was now tutoring him from time to time in exchange for money or the occasional warm meal. With or without textbooks, it was not uncommon for him to have a place at their tiny kitchen table. Dinner time conversations often revolved about university and class schedules. Noé didn't know much about medicine, nor how anything worked at La Sorbonne, although he assumed it was similar to how the Institute Catholique de Paris operated. Dante still always made sure to ask him about his own degree; he never failed to nod as if he knew all the information he was presented with when Noé would go on his history-related tangents.
Vanitas, on the other hand, rarely asked him anything about himself. Silence grew heavy around their shared spaces whenever Noé stopped to think about it.
He was snapped out of his recollections when he heard Dante shout. Noè saw him stand up and then fall to his knees once again, his fists held high and a triumphant smile plastered on his face.
«It's working! It's fucking working!»
«Jesus Christ, will you keep it down?» Vanitas groaned, running a hand through his long, dark hair. «We don't wanna be those upstairs neighbors just yet.»
Dante rolled his eyes. «Sorry. Still, I was right. Did you see that, Noé?!»
Noé perked up at the mention of his name and turned around to see one part of the room hit by hard light, as the wallpaper on Vanitas' computer became the hologram of wallpaper for the actual wall.
«That's great, it does work! May I ask where you got that projector?»
«That huge flea market in Saint-Ouen. Have you been there already?»
«Uh, not really.»
In all honesty, Noé had heard great talk of it from his colleagues at university, but he had never seen it in person. He knew it was supposed to be the biggest market in all of Paris and he knew he had tried to get there on his own on a day where he found his morning classes cancelled. He also knew that little adventure ended up with him getting lost and having to call Vanitas in a panic, asking for help because his maps app had gotten bugged and kept making him walk around in circles on a road he had never seen before.
«You should totally check it out, lots of great deals. Just make sure to bargain a bit, yeah?»
«He can't go, actually.» Vanitas butted in «He's still grounded.»
After the Saint-Ouen incident, Noé was put on Goutte d'Or arrest until further notice; his roommate had insisted he stuck to visiting markets around their neighborhood and often tagged along to, in his own words, "just look around and also make sure Noé didn't end up in an alley behind the Château Rouge station". So, his experience with parisian markets in the last couple of months had been about enjoying the foods and relics that people of different backgrounds from all over the world had bought to Goutte d'Or and admiring how magnificent it was for his life's story to intertwine with those of all the people that gave the neighborhood its life's blood, all while Vanitas kept asking questions like "do you need your hand held so you don't wander off?" and "just out of curiosity, were you a leash kid growing up?"
«Then you go with him. Chaperone, or whatever you do.»
Upon hearing Dante's proposal, Noé beamed in Vanitas' direction. «Would you, Vanitas?»
«If you insist. But I need to run by Marché Saint-Pierre sometime soon, so I'll take you there first.»
Noé's eyebrows raised at the sudden invitation, lips slightly parted. That Vanitas would include him in his plans without needing to think twice about it was something that happened frequently the past few weeks, and yet it had the same aura of novelty every time, perhaps a small reminder that as Noé grew older, the red string of fate grew within him. That it had not forgotten he existed.
«Anyway, guys,» Dante started, making his way to the apartment door. «I better get going. I'm having dinner with Johann tonight, I gotta go home and change. Enjoy the projector! By the way, Noé, feel free to use it too if you want. If Vanitas gives you shit just tell me, I'm the one who bought it after all.»
«Thank you very much!» Noé said «I don't watch a lot of movies though, so he'd probably make a better use of it than me.»
«Not even on Christmas season? No classics you wanna rewatch?»
«Leave him be, why don't you?» Vanitas teased «Surely he's got better things to do than rewatch Home Alone for the tenth year in a row.»
«Actually, I've never seen that one.»
For a moment, ice-cold silence filled the living room as the two of them stared at him blankly. Then, surprise erupted.
«I'm sorry?» his roommate's eyes widened «You've never seen Home Alone?»
«No, I swear. Is that weird?»
«Not weird, just unusual.» Dante supplied, now facing him as he still stood near the exit.
«But why?»
Vanitas and Dante just kept staring. Noé blinked as he struggled to comprehend what he said that got the two men so shocked. He had never seen either of them show so much emotion for any topic involving him or anything other than their daily bickering, and now that Dante seemed to have forgotten about his dinner plans and their indignation was all directed towards him, he was starting to feel cornered.
«Wait,» Dante tried «what about The Nightmare before Christmas?»
«… What's that one about?»
«Oh my God. Trading Places?»
«Never heard of it.»
«Die Hard?»
«Neither.»
«Jesus.» Vanitas exhaled, still looking at Noé as if he'd grown a second head. «A Christmas Carol?»
«I mean, I know what it means to call someone a Scrooge.»
«Congrats, you're as knowledgeable as most third graders.»
«What about the Grinch?» asked Dante.
Noé didn't respond.
«Seriously, Noé?» at that point, Vanitas had begun gesturing towards nowhere in particular. The pitch of his voice had also raised a couple octaves and part of Noé found it grating at that moment. «You've never seen the fucking Grinch?!»
«I'm… Sorry, I guess?»
«What the- You should be! Do they not have the internet in Averoigne or something? Or even, like, TVs?»
«Of course we do!» Noé finally snapped, facing his roommate in a stance he might have interpreted as aggressive. If he did, Vanitas didn't seem to lose composure. «I just never happened to watch much.»
«Clearly.» Dante coughed.
«Is that really such a big deal?» he huffed.
«Calm down, man.» Vanitas rested his hand on top of his shoulder. «We're just messing with you.»
«Yeah, it's not a big deal at all. It's pretty cool, actually.» Dante added.
«… Cool?»
«I mean, think about it. It means that if you ever do get into movies, you've got a gigantic catalogue to chose from.»
Noé rested his thumb and index on his chin as he thought it over. «You do have a point there. Should I?»
«What,» Vanitas asked «get into movies?»
«Yes. I mean, you guys must have lots of recommendations for me if I needed them, and Dante said I could use the projector too, so… Would you guys support me on this journey?»
«You're discovering Letterboxd, Noé, not leaving the country.»
«Letter… Boxed?»
Vanitas sighed. «Forget that. Tell you what. Dante goes home, you and I go buy a couple snacks, and tonight we watch Home Alone. If you like it, we'll see if we can throw in another couple classics before you have to go back to Averoigne for the holidays. I'll see you again in January, we keep doing this until you're caught up with every movie worth seeing. Set up a movie club of sorts, except it's just you and me and sometimes Dante or whomever. Then eventually we move out of this shithole and what's done is done. Sounds good?»
A pang hit Noé's chest as something inside him shouted that he didn't want to ever move out. That he didn't want anything to be done. That what's done being done meant there wouldn't be any more memories to make in Paris and there was no guarantee that the ones he did make wouldn't disappear. He pushed that side of himself deep into his stomach and exhaled lightly. Their contract wouldn't be done for another nine months, and in the meantime, he was real. Figuring out whether he wanted to be for Paris or for Vanitas could be postponed.
«Yeah. Sounds good.»
«Great! You're gonna be my pet project. My Elphaba, if you will.»
«… Your who?»
«Soon enough you'll know.»