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Correction (Feuilly): January, 1829
When Aimery went home for Christmas and the weeks thereafter, I expected to be heartsick and lonely, and so I prepared myself for the prospect of being alone in the darkest, longest nights of the year. He had promised me that whatever else made demands on his time, he would be with me on the night before he departed, and so I expected to have time to bid him farewell then. When I got up to leave that morning, I did not wake him to say goodbye, for we had something of an appointment in the evening. I should have known that he would forget, that he would instead go off with Christophe or whomever it was and forgo my company entirely. Neither of them were in the Musain that night, in any case, although I had told Aimery I would meet him there. I waited until well past midnight while the midwinter cold settled in around me. I half-hoped that I would find Aimery waiting for me at my apartment, but it was as cold and dark as the streets outside. There was no note from him the next day explaining his absence. He was already out of the city, surely, leaving me behind without half a thought. I missed him almost immediately, then wondered why I should when he so clearly felt nothing of the sort for me. The Musain's back room was almost empty that night; only Audric and Julien were not going to see their parents, and they were talking to each other in the soft, earnest tones that meant, to me, that they were thinking of nothing but each other. Marius was there as well with crumpled sheets of paper around him. I sat at his table and smiled at him though I felt no mirth. He had been avoiding me for weeks. "Good evening, Marius." He looked up and blushed when he recognized me. "Daniel." "What are you doing?" I asked, as mildly as I could. "I thought I would write a letter to my, my grandfather, telling him that I would not visit him for Christmas, but I can't phrase it properly." He crumpled the sheet in front of him, which only had three lines in ink. "Ah." I knew nothing of his family, save that he had never spoken of them. "It seems to me that all you need to do is fail to visit, and he'll realize that you haven't reconciled with him, yet." He sighed. "I suppose so." Julien and Audric stood up, almost in unison, in the way of lovers who spend a great deal of time together. I felt an ache in my chest; to have that rapport with someone, that level of understanding and synchrony, seemed sweet and impossible. They put their winter clothing on and came over to bid us good night and happy Christmas. Audric embraced me briefly, and they went out, leaving Marius and me alone in a place where neither of us seemed to belong. "Are you doing anything for the holiday?" he asked me when they had left. "I've no family to visit," I said with a shrug, "so I suppose I'll go to midnight Mass for the company." He blinked at me, and I admired him even in his bewilderment. Such a pretty boy. "I hadn't thought of that." I did not have the heart to tell him I had been joking, and perhaps it had not been entirely a joke. "And you?" "I don't know." He sighed and looked at the table, adorned with his failed efforts. "I haven't spent Christmas without my family before." I wanted to tell him it would feel better in time, though that was not necessarily true; I wanted to reassure him that he would find someone else with whom to spend holidays, but I had been abandoned by my chosen family, and I could not say that the same thing would not happen to him. I looked at him in his pain, and I had no words to console him. I leaned over and kissed him. Who would see in the dead of winter? I knew my friends had gone home; I had said my farewells to all of them except Aimery, and if he should come in and see me kissing his foundling, to hell with him. Let him see, let him wish belatedly that he had held me the night before. I had no time to miss him, not with Marius suddenly in my arms, kissing me with a passion I had half-forgotten. I had no desire to repeat the last kiss we had shared and its uncomfortable side effects, and so when he paused for breath I put a finger over his lips to forestall him. "We should go," I suggested. He clung to me, as though if he let me go for an instant I would flee. "But -- Courfeyrac." "I don't give a damn about Courfeyrac," I told him, as lightly as I could say it, although I knew I was lying. "Don't you live with him?" I laughed. "No more than you do." He blushed at this. "I cannot let you see my lodgings." "Whyever not?" "They're horrid." "Ah." I touched his cheek. "As are mine." "No, they are." He looked away. "I've no money." "Marius," I said softly, "do you think I'm rich? Do you think I'm moderately well-off? Not at all, mon ami. Every sou I have, I've earned; our dear friends could hardly say the same." Speaking of them made me dizzy with longing to have them all crowding around, loud and happy and distracting, such that I might not look at Marius, or want him. I could not bear the thought of being alone for weeks. Thus was my mad proposition born: "Come and live with me over Christmas. Keep me company." He stared at me. "I'm sure I couldn't afford it." I drew myself up, affecting the haughtiest expression I could. "I'm sure it's a present in honor of the season and I couldn't accept a sou." "Daniel --" "Yes?" "Are you sure?" I smiled a little. His resolve was weakening. "Yes." "But Courfeyrac --" "Courfeyrac be damned," I said with a wave of my hand, and for a moment, I meant it. He could do as he pleased, but I would not spend this month alone and wait for him. "I thought you loved him," Marius said, very softly. "So did I," I admitted -- how much to say to him, when I wanted him and needed something from him, when I was offering him such a gift? "He doesn't matter," I assured Marius, and I hoped that it would begin to be true. "All right," he said rather nervously. I wanted to see Aimery, then, in all his charm and confidence, not this nervous, vague boy who asked difficult questions. Instead, I kissed Marius again, then pulled away from his eager embrace. "Shall we fetch your things?" "What things?" he asked bitterly. "I've sold everything I had, and I daren't leave my money in the flat." "Your clothes?" "What I'm wearing." "Ah." I stood and offered him a hand up. "How much rent did you pay in advance?" "To the end of the week." It was then Friday, and December was almost half gone. "Come home with me?" He stood and embraced me. "Ah, God, Daniel." His innocence startled me almost as much as his poverty. His manners were those of a boy who has always had more than enough money, and who has never consorted with anyone with odder habits than our mutual friends, who had gone to some pains to behave in his presence. He knew of my love for Aimery; it was the most curious thing he had come upon in some time, and he could not fathom that I had changed my mind so quickly. Perhaps I had not. I wanted to love him, for he was handsome and sweet, not in the calculated manner that Aimery sometimes had, and he was beginning to understand what it meant to have no money at all. Something held me back -- contempt, perhaps, for this boy who understood little and believed the improbable. I could not admit to myself that I had already given my heart away. We slept entangled in my bed under all the blankets I could afford. He was eager to kiss me and whisper promises of adoration that I could not answer in kind, no matter that I would have liked to. I could not lie to him, not in that, though after the first week he frowned when I kissed him as an answer to his ready declarations of love. Perversely, I was more comfortable naked with him than I had ever been with Aimery. With Marius, I was not outclassed and outmanned, dependent on his hospitality and his condescension. He was beautiful, but he knew nothing of the thousand arts Aimery had mastered. We spent Christmas in bed, wrapped up in each other, eating the best food I could reasonably afford between making love and falling asleep again. It was not until dark that either of us remembered to wish the other a happy Christmas, and by then it hardly mattered. My mind was full of the loveliness of his face and the taste of good wine on his lips. It was the closest I came to being in love with him. He might have been one of the men I called brother, that day; I came close to saying it several times, but his politics were too muddled for that to be at all sensible. Not a brother, only a lover and a friend. While we were together, he was more than enough to drive Aimery from my mind, but during the day I wished to see him, if only to curse him and tell him I would not tolerate him again. My memories of him were driven farther and farther away by the immediacy of Marius, his insistent kisses and constant presence. On New Year's I realized I had not dreamed of Aimery since I had last seen him. On Twelfth Night, Marius was dejected, but would not explain until we were eating supper at home. "I suppose the Christmas gift is expired." I had forgotten my ruse for a time, and I thought he had done the same. "Why do you say that?" "The season has passed." "You still need the present." He stood, glaring at me, drawing every inch of bourgeois dignity that he still possessed to put me in my place. "I most certainly do not." I sighed. "Sit down and finish eating, would you?" I had paid for the meal; he had so little money that I could not ask him to when I could easily afford it. My savings had been somewhat diminished by his presence, but I only had savings at all because of the time I had spent with Aimery, basking in his reflected luxury. "I don't need your charity," Marius said coldly, but he sat down and began eating again. I shivered. I had no way to continue the earlier pretense, and no desire to turn him out. I could only think of one way to convince him to stay. "Mon amour," I said softly, "don't leave me." He stared at me. I thought for one dizzy moment that he knew I was lying to him, that the endearment tasted of ashes in my mouth. I only wanted to help him, and he needed every bit of help he could find. If he should turn me down, he would be freezing on the streets in the middle of January. But his expression changed to tenderness and he took my hand across the table. "Mon chéri, if I may stay --" I swallowed the guilt -- how could I lie? because I had to -- and the pity for this dear boy who foolishly cared for me. "Of course you may." The rest of dinner was cold before we got out of bed to finish it. Not a week later, Aimery knocked on the door. Of course he chose the worst possible moment to do so, although the resulting embarrassment destroyed the passion of the moment. I was in no mood to see him and I had nothing at all to say to him. We went out, leaving Marius behind, as he had no part in the conversation. I accused him of abandoning me without so much as a note. He said he'd written two letters, apologizing for not being there when he said he would. I stared at him. I laughed because I didn't dare cry, not in public, and I embraced him. We shared a bottle of wine. He told me about his time at home and his parents' idiocies, and I told him, briefly, of Marius. I could not help thinking of what I would tell Marius, how I would send him away without lying, without hurting him. When I got home, I found that I had no such problem. The letters Aimery had sent me were there on my desk with a note from Marius reading simply, "I'm sorry." I never told Aimery by what agency his letters had been so delayed; there was nothing to gain in letting him know that I had broken Marius' heart on his behalf, and it would only irritate him.
I did not see Marius again for months. When we met again, I spoke to him of nothing but politics. We had little else in common, after all.
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