Montparnasse didn’t remember coming out of the ground, and yet his very first thought was the way the pressure seemed to split in his every extremity as the night wind greeted him once more, after so long. He took a deep breath and-

Fuck, this was his BEST outfit! 

It was ruined. All ruined. It was ruined and it was all his fault. And with his first empty breath in over a year, Montparnasse retracted his nails from the dirt from his grave and strode off into the night.

He didn’t visit Courfeyrac, like he wanted to. Oh, he wanted to, in what little was left of his rotting heart. But underneath it all, pulsing in his very bones, was a single core instinct, a primal need: kill. And he could feel it warping his ribcage, pressing an unfamiliar emotion into his heart. He wasn’t one to hate, but now he at least knew how it felt.

Over the following weeks, the Montparnasse region of Paris was painted red. There were whispers of the Patron-Minette reforming, and of victims slung up and eviscerated in ways that made even the most nefarious slightly queasy to speak of. 

It was ridiculous. 

And yet the noise on the streets had been enough to startle him on his way home, having gone out to buy some wine and food (and possibly dallying a bit until he realized how late it was getting). He ducked into the doorway of his building, noticing how eerily quiet the streets were aside form the sounds of fighting. But there was that voice, rising above the others, that had caused him to linger, caused his feet to foolishly lead him down the street toward the noise. It was an insane curiosity, something he’d always been prone to. 

He let out a soft sigh as he got closer, telling himself to turn around, this was so stupid, he wasn’t going to be there-