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It was a dark and stormy night. In a room on the Rue de la Verrerie, two young men were attempting to sleep. At least, one of them was. Pierre Courfeyrac was lying in his bed listening to the lashing of the rain and letting it pull him off to rest when he heard a different noise coming from the direction of the mattress on his floor. Courfeyrac sighed as he started to think over the events of the day and wound up at Marius’s bursting into his rooms earlier that night.
“I have come to sleep with you.”
“There.” Courfeyrac had pulled the second mattress off his bed for Marius and hadn’t asked him why he had come. Perhaps, he thought, he should have.
He raised himself on his elbow and hissed down to his friend. “Psst, Pontmercy!”
The noise stopped after a bit. “Yes, what is it?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Good night, then.” Courfeyrac turned back to face the ceiling, worrying at his lip. Clearly Marius was not, in fact all right. He determined to figure out what the noise was. It was a sort of hiccuping half-choking accompanied by sniffling. The realization hit him like a coach and pair. Marius was crying. And, by the sound of that half-choking, trying not to sob.
“Hey, psst, Pontmercy?”
“Courfeyrac, I am trying to sleep.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Oh, then what am I doing, since you know so well how to see in the dark?” Marius scoffed.
“I can’t see in the dark, Pontmercy, but I have ears as good as anyone else’s. You are not all right, and I very much doubt you’re trying to sleep at all.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. Come up here.” Courfeyrac sat up in bed and patted the mattress, gesturing for Marius to sit next to him, even though he doubted Marius could see it.
Marius sniffed and got up on the bed next to him, but as far away as the constraints of space would allow. Courfeyrac obligingly moved to let him next to the wall, turning the blanket so that they could share it. He made a move to put his hand on Marius’s shoulder, before remembering all the numerous times earlier on in their acquaintance he had whacked him on the shoulder or dropped an arm around him as he would one of his other friends and Marius had flinched, almost violently, at the sudden touch. He dropped his hand, taking care to do it slowly, and it landed on his own knee, which protested with a twinge of pain. Ignoring that, he looked over in the dark at Marius, huddled against the corner of the wall, his whole body shaking uncontrollably, and cursed the boy’s grandfather. Not that he knew the man. But whoever would cause their relative to do what Marius had, to drive him to this state, deserved all the curses Courfeyrac, well-learned in such matters, could throw at him.
A small whimper came from the corner, and Courfeyrac was pulled sharply back to the present. I have to do something, he thought, and he needs more than words, but words will help for now.
“I’m here,” he whispered as gently and softly as he could. “If you need me, I’m here.”
The shaking got worse.
“What’s– no, that won’t work. Would you like a shoulder?”
Marius shook his head. “D-don’t move closer, please.” His voice was shaky, barely audible between the thunder and the wind and the rain.
“If you’re sure.”
They sat there in uncomfortable almost-silence for a while, Courfeyrac awkwardly tense and his knee aching, trying not to move closer, even though all he wanted to do was take Marius in his arms and tell him that it didn’t make him any less of a man to need an embrace from a friend or to let the tears come instead of choking them back. Then, slowly, Marius inched a fraction closer, away from the wall. Courfeyrac could have cheered. He sat and waited, barely moving, letting things take their course. Marius was still intermittently making the heartrending hiccuping half-choking noise. Gradually, painfully slowly, he moved closer, until he brushed shoulders with Courfeyrac, and then sat incredibly still, the shaking over except for what went with the noise, staring at the blanket. Courfeyrac nearly held his breath. He decided to test something, lifting his hand slowly, carefully, delicately. Slowly, carefully, delicately, he moved it to rest on Marius’ knee. Marius, predictably, flinched. Courfeyrac kept his hand there.
“I’m not going to hurt you. And I will never let you get hurt, so far as it is in my power.”
Marius sniffled and hesitantly put his own hand on top of his friend’s.
“Would you like a shoulder now?”
Marius shrugged.
Courfeyrac carefully leaned closer, giving Marius the option. “You can stay here as long as you want to.”
Silence, except for the noise.
“As I said, I won’t hurt you. Nobody is going to hurt you for weeping, if that’s what you need to do.”
Doubtful silence and a mournful half-scoff. “It’s childish.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m an ingrate.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m a bad person.”
“You most certainly are not.”
“What am I, then?”
“My friend. And none of my friends are bad people.”
Marius dropped his head onto Courfeyrac’s chest, leaning into his shoulder. Courfeyrac tentatively lifted his other hand and began to comb through Marius’s hair, soft brown waves tangling around his fingers. They sat like that in almost-silence again for a while. Then a sob from Marius, and then another, and before either of them knew it, the dam had burst and Marius was shaking, sobbing violently and incoherently, turning around to bury his face in Courfeyrac’s chest. Courfeyrac continued to run his fingers through the younger man’s hair, whispering whatever words of comfort he could find. Curses were easier, but he confined those to his head.
“M-my friend?” The shakiest, hoarsest, quietest voice that Courfeyrac had ever heard from Marius.
“Yes?”
Marius hiccuped again, practically shoving himself into Courfeyrac, who, not quite sure what to do about this, carefully put his arms around him, letting his friend weep as hard as he wished. His nightshirt would dry easily enough. Eventually, Marius wrapped his arms tightly around Courfeyrac, holding him as if he were afraid he would leave. Courfeyrac rocked him gently, dropping a soft kiss into his hair, then second-guessing it, then, since Marius hadn’t fled the room, another.