Chapter Text
Really, Adrien should have learned not to trust nice weathered days. They always turned sour before the sun had set, in some form or fashion. Today proved no different.
Adrien was seated in the public galleries, surrounded by other curious citizens, men and women interested in observing the going-ons of their government. Adrien, though he was a very common sight perched somewhere amongst the benches, rarely actively sat listening nowadays. More often than not, he picked a deputy, a scene, a piece of the building itself, and drew. Yes, he kept one ear listening, just in case something particularly interesting was said. At first, he attended maybe once or twice a week. After the events of October, however, it had become practically a daily occurrence.
Saint-Just was speaking, and wasn’t that the perfect opportunity to add yet another sketch of the man to the already rapidly filling sketchbook. If Amelie were on speaking terms with Adrien, she would be the first to point out that he’s really not doing much to keep his critics at bay. Oh well, it was an open secret at this point, and it’s not like Amelie was talking to him to make that point.
Adrien had one knee pulled up to his chest, locked into place by the bench he sat on. His other leg crossed underneath (and having lost circulation sometime around the thirty minute mark).
Sketchbook on the crossed leg. He’d been working on the same quadrant of drawing for the better part of the session. Something about the lighting of everything wasn’t behaving. Adrien pursed his lips, putting charcoal to paper, when some part of his brain that was focusing on the speeches and reports before him flashed red.
Adrien looked up. Saint-Just was still speaking, Adrien could see his mouth moving, could take in the hand gestures, but his ears were still focused on what had just been said. Camille. Danton.
Arrested. Imprisoned. Dates set for Tribunal.
Adrien hummed, a long, quiet, monotone note. Well, that was going to prove a problem.
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Securing permission to the Conciergerie took time, some careful conversation and negotiation, and not an indecent amount of luck.
Once inside, the animal part of Adrien’s brain immediately demanded he rear-march himself back out of the situation. Fortunately, the animal-brain was not in control, for if he had listened to that, well, I suspect that it would be something Adrien would come to regret immensely. Small mercies, then, that he kept his nerve.
He made his way down stone halls, past crowded cells in the paille, to a still dimly lit but less overcrowded portion. Very little sun shone, only entering through the occasional barred window, making the corridors dimly lit give off an…. Eerie feel. Fitting, given the majority of those imprisoned here were awaiting trial, which very likely would end in conviction, or had already been convicted and were simply waiting their turn at the scaffold. Adrien supposed, if despair had a scent, this would be it. Mildew and sweat and grime and fear, all mixing together into a potpourri of human suffering. It reeked, and it sank into the wool of his clothing, clinging. The selfish part of Adrien was glad that he did not have to stay here for long.
Arriving among a row of ‘nicer’ cells, nicer in that, it appeared, they were single residents and contained small, narrow beds as opposed to the dirty straw on the floor of those in the paille. Adrien stopped in front of one of these cells, and felt his nerve, or what was left of it, waver.
Camille was hunched in the corner of his cell, his expression so very unlike the Camille of Adrien’s memories. He was distraught, disheveled, perhaps… grieving? That would make sense. Adrien had heard, down the grapevine, that Lucile had been arrested. No doubt facing the same fate as Camille. No doubt Camille had heard of his wife’s situation. Adrien stood silently for a minute, almost wondering if it would be easier to leave before Camille noticed his presence.
Before he could turn coward, Adrien cleared his throat, “Cam- Desmoulins.” He keeps a steady, level tone. That’s the only defense he can muster.
Camille looks up, his face morphing into one of… an emotion that Adrien couldn’t quite identify, though whether it be due to poor lighting or Adrien’s own refusal to handle the… uncomfortable emotions. Regardless, Camille does not look pleased.
He stands abruptly, coming to the bars directly before Adrien, “You shouldn’t be here, Adrien. You aren’t safe here.”
Adrien shook his head exactly once, an abrupt and jarring motion that seemed moreso to shake away any doubts than respond to Camille’s statement. He took a breath, “Nobody is safe, now.” A pause, “If it’s a matter of safety, then I’m safer here, talking to you, surrounded by stone walls, then I am anywhere else.” Adrien hums, cutting himself off from rambling.
Camille frowned, clearly not convinced by the argument, not necessarily because it was unsound, “You shouldn’t be here. You put yourself at risk by associating-”
Adrien interrupts, “I had to come by, before-”
“Adrien….” Camille looked pained, “I don’t want you here.” At that, Adrien’s face fell, and Camille forged on, “I don’t want you to see… tomorrow.” He doesn’t say the word ‘execution’, but it looms over the conversation.
“The Republic will make corpses of us all.” The statement is… awfully final for someone not yet in their second decade. Flat. Perhaps even a tad dissociated.
Adrien, eyes locked onto Camille, but not seeing, at least not in the sense of someone fully present, still misses the flash of alarm on the man’s face. Alarm schooled into seriousness almost as fast. “It needn’t, unless you allow it to.” A pause, “You are not obliged to follow us to the grave.”
There’s a minute or two of silence following that declaration. The air is heavy. Adrien's face is twisted before straightening out. A hum.
“I came to say goodbye, Camille.” The whiplash in his tone is jarring. Minutes before he had been shaky. Frightened. Borderline verge of tears. Now? Well, the flatness isn’t normal or natural, but it’s better than before. He’s almost too composed. “Goodbye and… I’ll be there for her. For Lucile.” A hum, “I had to see you before-”
“Adrien…” Camille sounds, somewhere between sad and something else. Eventually, “Thank you.” He closes his eyes a moment before opening them and looking at the man, boy, really, before him. “Don’t come tomorrow. You’ve seen enough.”
Adrien frowned, attention snapped back to the present, “I can’t… I can’t make that promise.”
Camille sighed, “Very well.” A pause, “Then I suppose I shall see you tomorrow, in your usual place.”
“I suppose you shall.” Adrien paused, “Goodbye, Camille.” He bowed his head slightly, exhaling softly, “Until then.” And then he turned, and quietly padded away.
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The Place de la Revolution was busy. Crowded, warm in the damp uncomfortable way of mass gatherings, loud somehow, despite there being very few sidebar conversations actively happening around him. Adrien did his best to ignore his surroundings from his place at the foot of the scaffold. The air buzzed, electric with the justice that Adrien had so faithfully put his support behind.
Justice that now has turned on those who once so ardently supported it.
Adrien had watched, stock still, as the wagons bearing the men he’d grown to consider his family be brought like livestock to the slaughter. Watched them dismount, be lined up, neat and orderly, watched a scene he’d watched a hundred times before, only this time, he held a personal stake in the whole situation.
All things considered, the blank, unregistering stare and the flat expression that painted his face were likely the most composed Adrien was going to be, on a day like this.
Adrien kept his eyes forward. His hands kept busy by the little brown notebook of names and dates and words. Given that sound around him had a muted quality, well, the chance of hearing any final words seemed unlikely. The other hand drifted down to his pocket, where a single white rose was tucked away, pruned from the Montfaucon gardens that morning.
Really, Adrien needed to stop trusting fair-weathered days.
Camille was first. The buzzing in the air continued, even as the crowd stayed silent. Well, appeared to stay silent. Adrien was wholly unaware of the people surrounding him. His attention was well and truly focused solely on the scaffold before him. The hand by his pocket drifted inside, clenching around the stem of the rose, letting the thorns bring some aspect of feeling to his complete and utter numbness.
The journalist before him was distraught, but not audibly so. A faltered step, the barest visible sign of a body involuntarily trying to stop the inevitable. It did not. Adrien blinked. He blinked again.
It was, if you’ll pardon the anachronism very briefly, as if the quality of a video had suddenly dropped to 144p with nary a buffer to warn you. Adrien was watching, yes, but somewhere between the sight before him and the processors of his brain, there was a hitch, and while he could clearly see what was before him, the details did not register. As such, he did not register when the man’s gaze, just for a moment, landed upon him.
Restrained, made horizontal. Then a sound, high and sharp and horrid, perhaps a word was included, not that Adrien could tell. The buzzing in his ears increased. A swish. A drop. A thunk. The sound of metal rendering flesh.
Adrien watched them carry the body away. His hand clenched hard, thorns bringing blood to the surface.
Danton came next, the polar opposite of the man before. He looked up, eyeing the guillotine’s blade. Walked up the steps unencouraged. Adrien saw this clearly. Apparently, his eyes decided to work, at least for now. Perhaps it would have been better had they not. His grip tightened on the notebook. Softly, ever so softly, Adrien hummed.
Restrained, made horizontal. Except there was no high and sharp sound. Just a switch pulled, the sound of air being displaced, the thunk of metal hitting wood, unhindered by the meat and bone and tendon between them. A head raised to the crowd. The footsteps of the next soul damned. And so the Indulgents met their fate.
At least, Adrien would think when his mind remembered that day, it was fast.
Afterwards, with the crowd dispersing, Adrien stayed where he was. For a time. Awareness, voluntary awareness, had taken a leave of absence. In its place, Adrien’s feet took over, carrying their master around the scaffold, through the gaggle of civil servants washing away blood, piling the dead, preparing to move them to their final resting place.
Adrien found himself stopped in front of one of these carts, hand still tucked in his pocket. The men filling said cart paid no mind to him, and Adrien paid them no mind in turn. It wasn’t hard to identify Camille. Small mercies that the upper portion of his torso and above were covered by another corpse. Still, even without seeing the cut, it was a sight that would burn itself into Adrien’s memory.
Adrien drew the rose from his pocket. White and pure and undamaged. The difference was stark. Adrien moved closer on instinct alone. Reached in, finding Camille’s hands, and tucked the rose into his cooling grasp. Then, as if struck by the weight of the day, Adrien turned and beat a hasty retreat.
After all, we can’t make exceptions for those we love, now can we?
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For the next few days, Adrien kept to himself. Alone, in the dark of the Montfaucon Estates, he composed himself. He did not cry, or scream, or rage, or do anything that one would generally associate with grief. Rather, he sat, he justified, he compartmentalized. What was done was done. But, it wasn’t fully done yet, now was it?
That was how he found himself, just as he did three days prior, visiting the condemned. Really, this was becoming something of a concerning habit.
Lucile Desmoulins was on her feet before him before Adrien had even processed that he’d arrived. Frankly, he couldn’t quite remember the walk over at all. He blinked, and he was there, in another forsaken prison, visiting another person he cared so deeply about.
“Lucile…” He paused, was that really what he sounded like? So flat and monotone and uncaring? God, part of him wondered what he looked like, if that was the voice that escaped him. Pushing on,
“I’m… My condolences… for what it’s worth.” It didn’t feel like it was worth much.
The answer came slowly, after Lucile had looked the boy her husband had been so fond of up and down, cataloging the bedraggled appearance. Like a cat that had been pulled from a stream and left on the bank. “Thank you, Adrien.” then, “You’ve changed.”
This, unlike the same comment made months earlier, is referring to physical changes, as opposed to anything else. Gone was the red coat, bright and bold and a little boisterous, given the wearer, replaced with a coal black coat and vest and trousers, cravat pure white, like freshly fallen snow. Mourning attire. The only thing Adrien could do, given the situation.
“Lucile…” Adrien swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat. He swallows again, trying to force the feeling away. Trying to force some reaction that wasn’t this blank, unending apathy. But, dear reader, that apathy was not due to a lack of caring, but rather the response to caring too much. Should that apathy go away, well, it would be akin to cutting every third stitch in clothing. A slow shedding of functionality. And so, the apathy stayed.
“You needn’t apologize, Adrien.”
“I feel I must. Either through words, or actions, or-” He’s beginning to ramble, beginning to become unfocused.
“Camille would not ask you to destroy yourself. You must continue, my dear. I think he would have wanted that. And-” she pauses just a fraction of a moment, “I should like to think you might find some happiness yet. Somewhere down the road.”
Adrien sniffed, just once. The most emotion he would allow. Then, “I wish I were as certain as you.”
Lucile smiled sadly, “Certainty comes when the end is nearing. I suspect that I shall be with my husband soon.”
Adrien dipped his head, voice catching in his throat, “I shall be there.” A breath, steadying, “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
“I would expect nothing less, my dear.”
And so, once again, Adrien left a prison having been comforted by someone who had every reason to need comforting themselves. Adrien had made a promise to Camille, and he intended to keep it. He would be there for Lucile, just as he had been there for her husband. Some promises, after all, were easier to make than to survive.
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Adrien’s feet carried him home that day. His little brown notebook tucked in his jacket, the same one Lucile had repaired for him that past December. Worn for just one day, a beacon in the crowd, to one of those damned that day. He felt…. exhausted. He didn’t even greet the footman at the door of the Montfaucon Estate. Didn’t answer the questioning tones.
His feet led him upstairs, put him in front of his desk. Hands that he didn’t remember moving scrabbled for paper, a quill, ink. His vision blurred, his eyes felt hot, the paper felt damp.
Dear Camille,
I’m sorry. I hope Lucile is with you. I hope you are safe. I hope-
He let his head hit the desk, and cried.