Miss Betel was fond of grapes. The tiny playhouse just on the outskirts of the English District would oft put on Greek plays, this month Antigone. She was fond of scuttling about backstage, and plucking small garlands from the wigs, this morning those of Creon and Eurydice. How lovely the little bobbly cloth grapes were. Grinning, she fixed one of the gimcracks in her own hair, and peered into a small rusty mirror to admire herself. Not bad at all. But there was not much time to spare, for footsteps were heard on the other side of the door. Oh dear. Luckily the exit wasn't far off, so she lifted up her skirts and ran back, weaving through hat stands and prop racks. This was all rather thrilling, and she couldn't help but giggle a little. Half the fun was chancing being caught. Though she'd never be caught. Never, never!

Panting a bit, Imogen at last popped through the small swinging door into the shining mid-day sun, and peered over her shoulder to see if there'd been any following. She relinquished the grip on her skirts to touch the grapes again, ascertaining their position. No one in sight though. Another successful mission! Well, with that in mind, she grinned from ear to ear as she made her way back to the tap house. Surely someone would be there, she was feeling a little lonely. Though she hoped most desperately that the someone would not be that nasty woman with the under-bite. She was positively frightening! What with all those funny mumblings...not to mention the drooling...

At length, she reached the market, business in full swing. It was Wednesday, after all. At least, that was what she surmised. Yesterday being a day she was fairly certain began with a 'T'. So then it could potentially be Friday as well. Hmm. Well, perhaps she would ask someone back home.

But such a quandary flew from her mind almost instantly upon noticing such a sight. There stood a stately woman in a pink and white gown. She looked rather like a large, shapely piece of cake. But it was not merely her chosen panoply which frightened Imogen with vivid familiarity, but her face. She was the woman who'd run out the door upon seeing Dianna pulling at her eyelids. There was no for-thought upon her flying from the scene to hide behind a fruit stand, nor a thought that the woman could not possibly have recognized her. Only that she was an element of Fogg's, and thus, an element of fear.

Her smile contorted and flipped, and she clutched the corner of the stand with trembling hands, kneeling on the dirty ground with nary a discernible thought save the one of potential discovery. She had not noticed the garland fall from her hair to the ground in between, either.

"I mean, i's not gottany pearls innit." Babette informed her companions, as they sat on the sand in their bathing dresses. They were discussing marine life. An odd, rather uncharacteristically scientific topic for the three of them. It was a slightly windy Saturday, the second Saturday of the month, in fact, a day on which the girls were taken out for a few hours after luncheon.

The oyster--or what they'd decided was an oyster-- sat between Babette's legs. It was small and ugly. Babette had always imagined oysters to be round and beautiful, akin to the treasures they held inside. "It's only a lake. Iffit were an ocean, then maybe?"

They went on discussing this and that. Here and there. Up and down. she thought. The other two girls, Georgia Piquette and Sarah Mart, thought it would be a good idea to ask Madame Giry about it. The oyster, that is. Babette had lost interest suddenly, turning her head to the sparkling lake surface. Its glass-like quality was disrupted by swimmers. That made her want to swim herself.

She wore a rather unremarkable bathing dress, with a nautical collar and a hem that reminded her of castle turrets. The sun made the sand soothingly hot, and she rolled onto her side, letting her hair tumble out of the hat pins she'd forgotten to remove earlier. She now faced a rather empty side of the beach. A gull glided by, with that odd, rather indescribable gull song. It reminded her a bit of La Carlotta when she was angry.

The gull's shadow was clearly drawn on the sand, it flew by as quickly as it had arrived, and beneath it lay a sparkling object. Babette frowned, and rolled over further onto her stomach, propping herself up with her hands. It looked like a bit of silver stuff. She didn't dare touch it, for fear of being caught stealing or something. But she looked. And looked. And looked...

Not only was this day out of place in the most prominent way--wherein he'd been sharp enough to leave the House without his hat--but there was also the small, infinitesimal matter of how he'd ended up next to a bordello.

It was highly irregular for things to go so badly so quickly in one evening for our Monsieur. There'd been no precognition to the days abhorrent conditions. He liked to think that there was, and that he could control the outcome of it all, each moment and each incident at a time. Unfortunately, only so much can be controlled by will of mind and sharpening of sense.

Picking it up at the least troublesome, he'd gotten his lavender waistcoat dirty. Mud tends to soil when it is splashed onto one's chest by passing spoked wheels. That could've been enough to label the day as bad and end with that. But oh dear, how we must go on.

Next he realized that the hour on his pocket watch was incorrect. In his careful planning to meet Madame Denis at six o'clock, he'd arrived a half-hour early. When, from a correcting glance through a shop window, he came to the delightful conclusion that it was already a quarter past seven. Well that explained the lack of peacock feathers trotting down the road.

And lastly, and most disastrous of all, he'd gotten himself lost. Now, surely he'd lived in Paris long enough to find his way back. To pick out a landmark on the skyline or bother tracking his steps, making note of each corner turned and each pub and apothecary passed. But all this nonsense regarding Madame Denis had gotten him in a state. He'd stormed off once he'd realized the correct time, and thought his career would surely be over the moment he returned home.

Apparently this kind of distress leads a young man to run blind through the streets like a toss-pot lunatic, only to arrive in a grimy, smelly part of the city where several haggard faces stare through cracks and scratch at the leg of his trousers. "Spare a coppa' for a poor old girl?"

Sidestepping across a streaming gutter, he managed to avoid the croaky beggar and found himself in the vicinity of a few bare shoulders and visible garters. He felt ill. But not because of immediate, visual occurrences.

There were times when Giry considered detaching from Erik. Whether it was for the sake of Christine or the sake of her own sanity, she was unsure. She'd spent the better part of her life caring for him, and, though she never once felt regretful of it for one moment, there were times, times like now, when she began to wonder if there wasn't something...more...to this life. Yes, she was at the top of her career, working in a place she loved, with a daughter that she loved, what else was there to miss? Jules perhaps, but she found missing him was rather like missing an uncle she'd only seen, albeit fondly, at family parties. His face was especially etched in those rare times when she supposed she needed him, but apart from that, she'd had no fiery romance or any sort of undying love.

But in such times, that sort of love was permanently unavailable. It seemed very much like time had stopped, even though each of her days flew by rather like a golden-guilt hurricane, pointe shoes careening across the sky, letters with red seals and girl's tulle all wound into beautiful, if cumbersome, colourful arcs. Perhaps she was having a crisis? Or perhaps she was just early with menses. That made sense.

At the moment, she'd felt far too exhausted to join the crew for dinner. No one she really liked would be attending anyway, and she wagered her girls had gone out with the boys for some sort of obscure adolescent evening out. She'd been growing more comfortable with the idea, if that were the case. She couldn't say for sure though, what they were doing. But they must have freedom, of some sort. She resigned long ago to let youth bloom as it might, and that childhood should not be hammered away so quickly. Something she'd experienced early on, when she made the (hindered) decision to become a ballerina.

Dorée heard a far off noise from her position by the cat-walk staircase. She'd collapsed in a chair after rehearsal, and found it rather impossible to get up again. Which was rare for her. She could not have been here for that long...surely the dinner hadn't ended already...Well, even if it had, there would be no small chance of her going to greet anyone, nor would she even bother chastising Meg if that's who it turned out to be for not telling her she'd left. Would she do that?

Well now this was just confusing. Hadn't she said something else entirely not minutes ago? He indicated this with a look, but said nothing. Women were so very annoyingly inconsistent. One moment he'd been satisfied in understanding what she was about, and then she'd go off on something and change entirely. Vexing.

"If the next shop yields the same population of saccharine hen and cock...then there won't be half a world to slip in edgewise. Certainly not from me." It was odd, being this chatty. Not like him. The only time he would ever allow himself to talk this much was with a customer. Either hers or his. During those conversations, he could go on for minutes, spewing clever sentences about the weather, all eventually leading to butter up the individual for a shave, or at times a pie, if he was feeling generous towards Lovett at that particular time.

They continued to walk, and he eyed her now and then. Since the oddly undefinable fiasco on his birthday, and the bleary night before, Mr. Todd had given up on trying to form one path or the other when it came to their relationship. Weary from days without the Judge made him give in, if the truth be known. It was easier to embrace than deny, after all. Things would come as they came, and what that entailed between the both of them was...well, he couldn't venture to guess. Nor did he particularly want to.

To her last words, he frowned a little and thought about it. The days were beginning to blend into each other, and it was difficult to resist the seductively flowing breeze. Perhaps it would be forgivable to take a break from business and blood. Not that he didn't like the blood bit. But...one can have too much of a good thing. And besides, the appeal of it all might run the risk of waring off were he not to take an interlude away. So, he nodded again, brow set in finality.

He supposed the situation might have been slightly humorous, but the fact that about sixty people were watching gave the whole thing a bit of doom. Oh woe, the doom! Doom was such a great word. That cheered him up a bit. So, hoisting his pants back up, Mr. Jernigan decided that, despite the meaning of the word, he would try to embrace it, and move the hell on. Wow, how optimistic he was today! He thought vaguely about telling Patty about it, but then again, he decided, she'd probably just rub it in his face. Or worse still, rub something else into his face. Like her pudding or something. What a freaking bitch. Why did he tolerate that? Honestly...A five year old was better behaved.

Thinking about pudding was the wrong thing to do though, as he continued down the block, half-assed manuscript and dilapidated knapsack under one arm, it made him hungry. And he'd just eaten too. What the hell? Maybe he should have eaten more cereal, or drank all of his orange juice. God, he was thinking like Candy or someone. Pulling his hat down over his eyes, he reached the door of the rather insensitively windowed business complex, and avoided the gaze of Mrs. Winthrop, the secretary, who delighted in greeting him copiously with that inscrutable nasally voice of hers. He darted past the elevator (It always smelled horrid in there) to the stairs instead. Climbing them would surely wake him up a bit.

Before he even reached the second floor however, he felt something lob him in the head, knocking his hat off to send it careening to the floor a storey below. Well what the hell? He whipped his head around, clutching the railing with his free hand. A baseball had crashed through the window and hit him. Frowning, Gert bent knee to pick up said ball, though gingerly, as if it might bite him, the way he usually handled sports equipment. Edging to the window, he peered through it to see the round faces of three kids with little red caps. Stupid kids. This was not his day. First his pants fell off, then his hat, and to boot he got a conk in the head. He pushed the ball through the jagged hole it had made carefully with his index finger, pushing until it popped through again to fall and bounce to the ground at the boys' feet. Good, fine, there. Now he had to go all the way back downstairs to retrieve his hat. He just hoped that his dislike of the smell of elevators was not universally shared.

The lace parasol did little to keep out the dripping rooftops. Her skirts were sodden with rainwater almost to the knee- even a winter overcoat and the most intent, businesslike expression she could muster couldn't keep that from being mercilessly uncomfortable. The dress itself was the most plain that she owned- still a delicate pastel-yellow pinstripe and greatly impractical for the situation at hand. At one point, she'd even had to run- and things were heaving, in a most indecent manner. Still, the poor girl's eyes were on a distant star, so to speak- and none of this could deter her.

The hour was obscene, but to her guardian's knowledge, this was the best hour to attend services. No prying eyes.

She'd met him there, and when she did- God Above, there was an actual skip in her step, a restrained jubilation forced into too small of a container. It ought to have shown in her face, like the proverbial light under the bushel. But what would be waiting besides a locked door, more questions, breakfast with the Judge for the thousandth time? As if to make a rainy day still more miserable. She had good reasons not to call him father.

Johanna's eyes were on the cobblestones, mouth grim-set in a guilty line. Whether anyone else's attention had set on her, she wouldn't dare tell. Her gloved hands worried at her quite outdated overcoat's hem. Sudden childlike embarassment blazed like a beacon- she felt like a china doll, in a sea of muted watercolours, grey and green and brown.

Johanna politely averted her eyes from the less than hygenic display of freshly cut meat at a level with her elbow- all the while feeling slightly dizzy, and much too aware of the buzzing of the flies. It was unkind to judge, but more likely she'd caught a chill.

The handkerchief her curls had been hastily pinned up in was beginning to slip, but she scarcely noticed- instead quickening her pace to avoid the sudden notice of a few bored young men, likely off-duty sailors-- unlike hers in every way possible. One gave a mocking salute as she passed, a smile full of common mismatched teeth, and she very politely froze mid-step-- surpressing a shiver and maintaining her brisk avoidance of loose cobbles.

A wary side glance, moments later- for an alternate route of escape- led to another alarming sight. Whether it was the poor lighting or merely the man's lightning-struck appearance, she found herself inadvertently recoiling. There was nothing particularly threatening about this man if he'd been seen in the light of day, perhaps, but to a frightened girl his look was ghoulishly out of order.
'P-pardon me, sir?' Her voice was barely audible- how was it that she could take tea and say her prayers in French and yet the littlest modicum of small talk required stumbling over childhood lessons?

There were times in life where you just really needed a top hat and a cane. 'Cause you were a gentleman, that's why, and you needed something to tip.

Oh. Well, it would appear that barbers (much like judges) lived in their place of work as well. Or just liked to be comfortable. Let their hair down a bit-- haha.

"Good evening."
He bobbed theatrically low. Dredging up the breath for something that sounded vaguely casual, the same thuggish adolescent-boy goloss he was accustomed to using only around women, animals and his own sweet self. "You're the, ah, tonsorial expert?"

Razors were not the friendliest of companions. Mister Todd was as forbidding as ever, mostly by way of the polecat stripe, but nothing if not convivial. Perhaps he wasn't as bad as he'd seemed. Whiskey sodden and just dripping class.
Alex gave the man another look, before casting a meaningful look over the man's shoulder.
"Still open for business?"

His hands went to his collar, tugging at the bloody constrictive thing that seemed to threaten to strangle him. (Perhaps it was the heat-- it had to be the heat. Short of breath. Felt like the time he'd tried to hold his breath with his head in the bath and managed to gasp in a mouthful of water.) In a rare attempt at subtlety, at least it could vaguely be mistaken for an attempt at looking prim. His thumb grazed the lower edge of his chin, pensively.
"I mean, if you're not, it's all well and good. I just thought, since the shop downstairs was open--" He was babbling, and it felt right.

Feuilly believed very much in a certain ideal of friendship, but more because he'd been told so than out of any personal loyalty. He'd read the classics, sure. But never saw the charm. Patroclus ends up dead, no matter what you do, and one wasn't so sure there wasn't some funny business going on there too, Hero or no. Not terribly heartening. Forget brotherly love--Gabriel loved everything and everyone; every fallen sparrow, every blade of grass. Loving people in specific, to the exclusion of others, that was selfish, and ought to be avoided. Love should come free, or at the least, be reasonably priced. Pining away after one person in particular, Platonic and ideal as it might be, was grossly inappropriate. (Thoughts such as these were at least a factor in why Feuilly had never been too popular with the girls-- that and his paltry lack-of-salary. ) Drinking was a waste of good money as well, besides the absolutely necessary-- ask a bartender for a glass of water and he'd nip out to fill one from the gutter, extra dead dog bits for preference. No matter that what was served here, there and everywhere in Paris tasted a bit like the stuff in the back of your mouth after you were sick on your shoes-- it was heat in your throat and plenty heartening. You couldn't have a proper gathering of any sort without a little liquid courage involved, certainly not of artists, and never of politicals. A sober republican is an angry republican. Love and wine should both flow freely, but too much at one time-- there was a metaphor in there somewhere, if he were a writer-- meant nausea, vomiting, and much later regret. Overindulgence was detestable, particularly when there were places where men were both sober and starving.
Noticeably, this attitude didn't make the boy too popular.
And the disobedient child sometimes (in drunken wit) called Capital-R was something that shouldn't be bothered, not this early in the morning.
Perhaps it was a lost cause.
A pair of gloves smacked down on the table, like a challenge to a duel.

"I'm quite shocked." He re-crossed his arms primly, with a final air, and he was drawn up to maximum height-- admittedly not overmuch, but full to bursting with adolescent indignation. "War afoot and here you are."
He himself was well to the wind already, possibly what had emboldened to go hunting for everybody's favourite drunk so early in the evening, but that was irrelevant. Always quick to point out the proverbial mote before setting down to business removing his own plank. Gabriel threw himself down nearest, practically tutting under his breath.
The small stir created by a shrill-voiced young citizen confronting one of the tavern's patrons about his drinking habits was shrugged off easily, though not without an odd look or two. Stranger things have happened.

Today, he'd be a woman. For the hell of it. It wasn't difficult in the least, it wasn't messy. To change things. It was a question of shutting your eyes and willing yourself into a full body itch-- and to want to scratch. Something he'd gotten better with over time, as impressionable and primitive villagers on the warpath don't take kindly to realising their new fertility god is as blank betwixt the thighs as a stone carving.
And this was cruel, it really was. More than usual. He liked it.

Girl-bodied, girl-hipped, with a gold chain on his white, white throat, Luzepher crossed the threshold and sidled to a place on the throne.

Pretended, for a moment, to have something better to do. Investigate a non-existent particle trapped under a fingernail, cross and uncross one's legs, fix one's hair. Make him squirm.


The man had been in the habit of scurrying off whenever he thought he could get away with it, abandoning his post despite having made his oaths-- twice. Never let it be said that perfection didn't allow for second chances. Poor broken bastard was sprawled chained at his feet with one leg wrenched to the side in an attempt at deference, giving his master-mistress a steady wounded-dog stare. Perhaps surprised, at the difference in shape? Their last meeting was... eventful, and not pleasantly. Fingers shouldn't bend that way, but at least for how cold it was, it could not hurt. His guest attempted to open his mouth, and rather than words, produced only sticky black strands between his lips. The former servant continued doggedly in his attempt to produce words for one long moment, like a beached fish retching on the air-- and stopped dead, forced to swallow. The poppy-red stain now streaking his teeth and the wetness around his mouth should have made the nature of his suffering-- he'd lost his tongue.

It wasn't much to grant an impossible thing in here, at least for a short while, but to hell if he'd play healer just to be lied to. Luzepher put out a hand affectionately to tease the man's dark hair, like a harem favourite with a favorite hunting dog. At the barest sign of a flinch, warm and much too long fingers caught him by the chin and pressed to his lips, drew them back to reveal the teeth, forced them apart. A practiced draw of the finger, probing across the bloody mess where the missing piece had been severed-- pressing a little harder than was needed to elicit a cry-- the seraph hissed slightly between his teeth, and caught himself before a laugh could escape to follow. It wasn't even very good work. There were ways of silencing a slave turned traitor, more sophisticated ones, and even the old ways could be bloodless, with a hot enough blade.
Satisfied, he let him be-- wiping suppurated blood in a sweep on the man's already-filthy shirtfront.

"Did it hurt?"

A hesitant, disbelieving nod.

"Good." His voice was cold and nearly monotone, like the chime of a bell.
Still cringing from the unexpected contact, his guest seemed unsure whether to nod, or deny it, or what. Luzepher unfolded prettily from his seat, to the rustle of unseen wings, and kicked him, as if he'd been brazen enough to reply.

"Not as if any of you have been much good at keeping your oaths, anyway. Do you have a woman at home, little Man? A child?"

More frantic tosses of the head, from where he was sprawled. There was no use in bothering to get up again.

"But you could have. That's the important part." One golden track of an eyebrow raised sardonically. His voice dropped. "Now I believe you should know, I'm very, very sorry for this..."

Carnivean could take care of him from then on, for all he cared. Put those beautiful dark eyes to some use. (He'd practically only been a boy, after all. Really too bad.) Or the other prisoners could have him-- like dogs, they were, ready to tear apart their wounded comrades for a fast meal. Or simply leave the prisoner to himself, to fester and choke. That alone would be enough.
Against all protests, Perfection waited, and watched.

It is still uncomfortable, sometimes, the itch of remembering it all-- because he knows he shouldn't. Like asking an alcoholic to walk past a ledgeful of lined up beer bottles on his way to work, labels gleaming-- or better yet for this metaphor, they are full and open and glittering at you like so much mirror. Sometimes he doesn't remember except in fits and snatches, here and there, and it's a lot easier to do his job if he's having one of those days.


He dislikes having to walk home so much, he never does. (Out on the outskirts of town, where the artificial forest full of talking bears and girls in red capes encroaches like a wine stain, seems to be the place to be if you're a bored college kid these days, or a scared homeless kid looking for somewhere to crash. On his way out-- when he does go out-- he has to shoo them away from the broken cigarette machine, from the steps outside. The girls might get angry, but the boys disperse, as if they know better.) Nobody in Reverie seems to find this strange-- does Rapunzel ever leave her tower, when there's not a lost Prince outside? Most people don't remember half as far as that... And nobody who isn't Legendary cares enough to remark. The sign said 24 hours, did it not?

You couldn't make stuff like this up. Therefore, it was easiest to assume no one did.
Slipping on a comfortably familiar pair of Ray-Bans, putting his feet up behind the bar, easing into a midnight hour that was already shaping up to be pretty drear.

Tonight, he went a-walking.

(If Reverie were really in full swing, as some nights it was, he'd meet three or four dour ghosts before the night was out, maybe even a jolly young soldier lad helping a milkmaid retie her garter and if he was lucky a harp made out of a dead girl's collarbone hopping around peaching on her murderer. Or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves having a row on the front lawn wielding frying pans, or whatever idiotically twee thing was going to happen next around here. Stuff out of children's realm, half of the characters beyond recognition or the ones that even babies knew from those tattered cardboard Golden Books.)
Ever just get antsy? Ever just need to walk?

He walked along the very edge there, where forest that shouldn't exist (and probably didn't) and dirt roads met city and paved. His line of sight, as it were, was firmly directed towards his feet. If you were paid to get on well with people all day, or as often as not just not try to, it was relieving to be well and truly alone. Locks held here. The bar would be safe. Wouldn't it? Slicking back his hair with sweaty hands and fostering a decidedly human limp in his walk. (People liked that. Battered, ash-trailing old bartender. It felt right-- righter than him getting a real job, anyhow.) Nights in New York. Years ago, the Corinthian really did like New York-- when it was the only city that had what it had, which could only be said truthfully in about 1925. But there were rules now.
Couldn't just go around with a loaded shotgun, or strangle deities any more-- this universe could get so stupid.

It was only when he heard the barber's rather hoarse echo, that he realised he was committing the equivalent sin of smashing an egg with a lead-weighted nightstick. Ego screamed like a stuck pig, babbling in obscenities that he would make a difference to the world. They would listen to him. They had to, he was The Vidocq. Even if he was forced to change the world one English Barber at a time, he would do it.

Rare was the occasion when Gene did not agree wholeheartedly with Ego. Ego was, after all, his very best ami. He'd done a lot at the side of Ego and Brass and Bluff, the unholy trinity that had carried him out of prison gates and into the beds of more women than he could even remember. But today he had the feeling that Ego was pricked so full of holes that it was putrefying in hurt vanity. And there was no need to expend all of that onto a barber whose only sin had been not to know who Gene was.

"Pardon, m'sieur," he said rather stiffly, sinking back into the chair. "I must seem - hypocritical, oui? After all it is my hand that delivers the fatted calves into the arms of the butchering justice. But, well, it seems to me that a man cannot fully comprehend what he dooms another human to unless he has tasted the same bitter cup. These judges, they give out a sentence to the galleys as though it were candy to a child. They do not know." He paused, digging his fingers deep into the arms of the chair. That was what separated him from the heathens in their halls of justice. When he handed a bad 'un over to the chain-gangs for the final pilgrimage to Brest or Toulon or Roquefort, he knew exactly what he was doing. Right down to the weight of the iron collars which he still felt in his dreams some nights. "No man has the right to judge who does not know what it is like - in there, in the prisons or on the boats."

Sometimes Alec wondered if any of his new and rather youthful friends paid any attention whatsoever to reputation. Rrreputation, roll the 'r' and grit your teeth like a man. Oui, reputation with a capital R - just like himself, the completely sozzled portion of his brain giggled hysterically. See, Paris hadn't been over-impressed wi' young Alec Grantaire fresh from the country and oh such a buffoon and a fool. A painted li'l upstart of naivete. Spit-shine th' boots, pressed jacket, and a rosy complexion. All 'orribly out of fashion and all gone in a week.

But now he had a reputation. An' he'd worked for it! Oui, slaved for it. There's sweat and blood and tears in that name. When y'go walking with me at night Gabriel and you see people cross t' the other side - really think they're avoiding you and your red-breasted revolutionary swagger? Or d'ya think jus' maybe, possibly, a leeetle bit, they might be avoiding Capital R? Homme who beat up five men while half-drunk cos they broke his bottle? Dangerous, fighter, fella with a nice big sword who knows how t'use it, that's what they think of me, Gabriel. That's why they respect me.

I'm no winecask to them.

An' you just spilt my wine. You know - swear on Zues you know that any other fella you'd be apologisin' before he could draw his big ol' shiny sword and make it cut-through-the-flesh personal, eh? But not me. Jus' the old winecask, doesn't matter, never matters.

Need a drink.

The heavy door swung open smoothly and voila. Doctor Jeckyll. It was a good thing, Alec thought, that they'd bumped into each other before. The man was a lot like a very nervous corpse after the epidermal layers had been stripped and the muscles peeled away: pale, skinny, and unnerving to unsuspecting visitors. Would be damned easy to take him for a patient.
Alec bowed shortly, and extended a hand. "Doctor Jeckyll. My thanks for agreeing to see me." Considering the fact that his note had been nothing less than unprofessional cheek in the cold clinical white hospital light of artificial daytime, he was lucky to be standing here instead of listening to M. Firchoux deliver one of his heretical dissertations on How Doctors Should Act. If one was to believe him, a doctor was between the gods and a rain cloud. It should never be around when you want it, and it should always be dripping wet. Doctors were irrevocably its.
Not far from the truth, really. God knows some days he forgot that it meant anything more than minor biological differences to be male. Suppose it's handy not having all that weight on the chest, though.
The crux of the matter was this: one of his patients had died, killed by this unusual creature haunting the streets of Paris. M'sieur Jeckyll was aiding the police in their investigations and had the body. Alec wanted it back.
Alec was very proprietary about bodies.

A la, what a child M'sieur Le Squire was, oui? But she was willing at last to overlook his ill-considered choice of being Anglaise. He was blushing, and the accolade to her ego was difficult to resist. She sashayed closer, running a gloved finger over the silken smooth surface of the bench.

The compliment was sweet, and there was a touch of the gauche to it which charmed Odile. After all the over-done flowery posies of words stuffed in her face every day by the lords and dukes and merchants and Spanish and whoever else wished to be introduced to society... innocent and young was as refreshing as a spring shower.

"You are too kind, m'sieur," she sent him a devastating smile, her favorite for the young and impressionable. Sweet as a 16-year-old-virgin, with the promise of passion behind the pout of purity. She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging a curl into better repose against her cheeks, and knowing full well how finely the white of her gloves would set off her hair. La Marqis was being witty again, and she glanced at him slyly, her eyes twinkling. He understood, perhaps, what was her mood. "I was drawn here as to sanctuary, m'siuer Fabian, the world is too overgrown with the fools and the louts to be borne, oui? A la, but I was under siege! I thank providence that I have found myself with two such charming gentlemen... you will defend me, will you not?"

Defend me from this boredom, she thought, and wondered whether he kissed as well as he promised.

Octavian wiped the water from his face, holding out his palm to feel for the rain. Mud and blood dripped drip dripping to the ground, little jewels sparkling around the ground - little pretty jewels. Jewels with eyes.

His throat was so tight - like it was held by a big hand. It hurt, and more rain fell, trickling down his face and coating his tongue with salty water. Salty rain? The sky was raining salt - the sky was crying onto his face. Octavian wondered if the flower would leave him quickly or slowly. Like the flash of the pretty people on the street, or lingering like Maman in her crinkled black dress.

He struggled to his feet and shuffled backwards as Mont-Par-Nasse gestured. His feet flopped and tripped in the muddy red, slipping around. Big duck flippers cut off a bird and sewed on with cat-gut. He could see them yellow and webbed, dancing garishly before his eyes.

Stupid rain.

His chest hurt, and the hash was gone and it was raining.

And the flower would leave him. Now or later. And he couldn't grow his own.

Just a little posy - pretty little posy...

A tentative step forward, a bit of untangling, a lot of sloshed wine. He made an indigent noise, pushing through a sea of badly costumed gamins. Crowding was not favourable, even in such low-grade light. He threw the half-drunk bottle to the side dramatically, making an echoing crash, a perfect crash, crossing the road, feeling ruffled and quite sticky with sweat and wine and God only knew what else. He fancied leaning over the bridge to empty the contents of his stomach, or perhaps cross it to try and find a place away from copious debauchery. He just wasn't in the mood. Especially when everyone was wearing masks. The mocking sort, made of old wooden planks and wind-blown pamphlets, stained with dirt, carefully strung up and plastered across faces. They'd accosted a young fop half way to the Opera House, taken his mask, taken his coat, and taken him somewhere far off, but not too far as to make too conscious an effort. Jeannot, himself, was a faithful swain. Or, at least, so honourable a one as not to rape any and every pleasantly cheeked toff that happened to go about without a cane to beat him away.

Ahem. An amiable cough. Stumbling, looking over his shoulder for a cart, or perhaps another gendarme. His heel still tended to get caught in grates or holes in the cobble now and again. He ought to find another pair of shoes, or perhaps find a saw and do a better cutting job.

Ah, the Seine. As saucily flowing as she was wrought with enough disease to sear one's flesh upon a mere splash. Like the demon river Styx. Filled with souls. At least filled with bodies.

He spotted a rather waifish figure. Teetering on the edge. Perhaps it had the same idea. This place was not too far from the local thieves quarter. A whorehouse across the way. It was a humble neighbourhood. A home.

Feeling less crowded, he gained enough confidence to walk up to it. Hmm. Him? Yes, a him. He walked up to him, and assumed a delicately stationed stance, tilting his head to get a look at him. "Oh my. Hello young sir." If he had a pair of spectacles, he would push them down his nose and squint, pursing his lips and wondering what that thing was. That thing. That thing on his face. Was he deformed? Oh my. Oh my it looks like sutures.