Work Text:
It was still early when Ginger returned to the flat, a baguette under his arm and a bag of croissants in one hand. Algy was in the kitchen - audible by his whistle - so Ginger went that way, ignoring a pile of unfolded washing with practiced ease.
"Good morning," he said, before dropping the bag of croissants at Algy's elbow. Algy grunted in response, his focus entirely on the pan of scrambled eggs before him.
Ginger leaned against Algy's shoulder to spectate. "The edges are going to burn," he commented. Algy elbowed him in the ribs. Ginger elbowed him back.
The edges did end up slightly burnt. Ginger sliced up a chunk of baguette and buttered the slices optimistically, a thick layer of proper butter the way he'd always longed for as a kid, before Algy served the eggs on top.
He took the tray through to Marcel's room. The curtains were still drawn, leaving the room in shadow.
"Marcel?" Ginger asked.
A vague affirmative noise emerged from beneath the eiderdown. The top of Marcel's head was just visible, strands of brown hair sticking out every which way. After a moment, one eye appeared from within the bundle of blankets.
"Bonjour," Marcel offered. His voice was quiet, as it had been while he recovered from his weeks of privation, and a slight rasp still echoed. "Breakfast in bed? The service here, it is exemplary." He smiled.
Ginger smiled back. Marcel's cheeks were still hollow but no longer skeletal. The sparkle in his eyes was somewhat diminished, but had never disappeared. It was a testament to Marcel's strength of character, Ginger thought.
It took a moment for Marcel to sit up, but not nearly so long as it had at the beginning. The wound on his thigh was healed, and the cuts and bruises from his flight through the jungle were almost cleared away. Now there was only the lingering tightness around his eyes and the weight he'd lost to hint at his ordeal.
Ginger set the plate on its tray on Marcel's lap. "Would the monsieur like a drink?" He asked, in his worst French accent. "We have le jus de apples, or les oranges," he continued, stretching that final zhhhh out for far longer than was reasonable. Marcel snorted.
"Non, non, my cabbage, je n'ai pas soif," he replied. He gestured at his bedside table where a half-empty jug of water stood beside a full glass. "I am well served."
It was awkward, lingering while Marcel ate. For the first week they'd had to, to make sure he didn't nod off into his soup bowl and drown in consommé, and the week after that it had been easier to eat in Marcel's room on trays, all together, to make it less obvious that they were completing the record of his diet that his doctor had requested.
But they couldn't leave him now, because otherwise the food would end up anywhere except Marcel's stomach. Breakfast was worst for it; they'd collected an empty plate and washed it up one morning, and then three days later Algy found two slices of toast crammed into the side table drawer, growing mould.
It was a sort of compulsion, as far as they could figure out. The moment Algy had tried to broach the subject, Marcel had flushed scarlet and turned away. There was no reason to do it now, when food was easily found and replenished, but the memory of not-having lingered, and so Marcel put toast in the drawers and slices of ham behind his headboard. When he ventured out of his room, shuffling slightly as the wound in his thigh troubled him, he put boiled eggs in the pockets of his dressing gown. It was easy to understand, but difficult to watch.
So he sat and watched Marcel eat, while they both pretended he was reading a yellow-back novel. The sun broke through the clouds briefly, just visible through a chink in the curtains. Ginger turned a page.
"I am very grateful for your help," said Marcel.
"I sense a but barrelling towards this conversation," Ginger replied. He turned another page. He wasn't quite clear on the plot of what he was reading, but the chapter ended on quite the cliffhanger. He marked his place with his forefinger and closed the book, turning to face Marcel properly.
His plate was mostly empty, only a crust of bread and a forkful of eggs remaining. Ginger felt this was good progress, and hoped that it wouldn't make a reappearance in the sick bucket they'd been taking turns to clean.
"But," Marcel agreed, chin tilted up. "You do not need to go to such trouble now. I am, comment-dit-on, 'on the mend'." He crooked the fingers of one hand as if to emphasise the unfamiliar phrase.
Ginger raised his eyebrows. "You might be on the mend, old man," he said. "But you're hardly on your feet, and Algy and I aren't going to leave you in the lurch." Biggles had almost insisted on it when they'd landed back in Marseilles, and he continued to respond to their telegrams with assurances that their leave was approved and indeed encouraged by Raymond.
Algy had opined that Raymond was probably being held hostage by Biggles' resignation letter, often threatened but rarely seen. The Special Air Police was successful enough that Biggles held some sway there, but Ginger suspected that their stay in Paris was heavily contingent on a lull in air-related criminality. The moment a dope racket popped up they'd be summoned back to London with hardly a by-your-leave, and Marcel would be on his own once again.
Even now, it was difficult to imagine leaving Marcel alone. Ginger knew he would keep the memory of Marcel in the jungle, half-starved and desperate, with him for a very long time. And knowing that he'd been fundamentally alone all that time, whether in a cell or isolated by language or hunted by criminals and the law alike - it was horrible. On their first night in the flat, Ginger had sat up with Marcel half the night just talking, knowing that if he left the room he'd lie awake the rest of the night convinced the whole rescue operation had been an elaborate dream.
"I can see your cogs turning," said Marcel. "Mon cher, ce n'est pas necessaire. I insist." Ginger looked down at Marcel's hands, the fingers twisted in his coverlet. The tendons stood out at his wrists.
Ginger, with only a little hesitation, put his own hand over Marcel's. "We're happy to be here," he said firmly. "You can hardly shake us off now. Algy's like a terrier, he'll sink his teeth into your ankles and hold on while you shout."
"And you?" Marcel asked. "Clamped on the opposite ankle?" He fixed his gaze on Ginger's — it was the first time he'd done so in some days, Ginger realised. He was no longer used to Marcel's frank appraisal, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. He wouldn't look away, but it was tempting to do so. He didn't know quite what his face was doing in response.
"If you needed it," Ginger replied. "You gave us a proper fright, you know. I'd rather spend a few weeks as a nursemaid than a few minutes as a pallbearer."
"For an empty coffin," Marcel muttered. He looked away and down, inspecting the backs of his hands. A cold shiver went through Ginger's stomach, before he mastered himself. "I will not ask you to leave, then. But please — if it becomes a, euh, a burden, or you start to resent it —"
"It won't" said Ginger, firmly.
"If it does," Marcel continued. "You must go. I am hardly the ideal host."
Ginger snorted. "You've met my flatmates," he pointed out. "You can't be much worse than Biggles. He's a proper terror when he's ill." And Marcel was a paper doll of himself, Ginger thought, like someone had rolled him flat and tucked him up in bed.
He was getting better, though. He smiled in a way which reached his eyes, and ate more than a mouthful at mealtimes. He sang in the evenings after dinner, while Algy tried out the upright piano that had come from a junk shop. Marcel — as he told it — had bought the thing for a song after several bottles of wine and pushed it through the streets of Paris, having forgotten the upcoming challenge of getting it up two flights of stairs.
How he managed that had been promised as a story for another day. Ginger was looking forward to it.