To the people that are reading this, the first chapter is credited and dedicated to MightANT, for allowing me to expand his story, Monster.

Warning: Much angst ahead

~Un Monstre a Paris (c) Europa~

As time progressed, the flea grew far too used to being alone.

Francoeur was not at fault for this—but time had become a cruel, wicked thing, taking from him everything he held dear. An epitome, he supposed—a monster didn't deserve such luxuries as friendship, or heaven forbid, love.

The cabaret was silent, as it always was nowadays, and Francoeur had yet to become accustomed to the stillness. The club was empty, thick layers of dust and grime coating most everything in sight, and a majority of the chairs that had been stacked on top of the tables had toppled over in senseless heaps on the stained and faded carpet. The stage, once glittering with the soft glow of a spotlight, was dark, deep scratches running across the mahogany, the light fixtures ripped from their standings. The voices that had once sung upon it had long been silenced. Deep, garnet curtains that had once hung from the sides in vivid pride were now tattered and torn, hanging loosely and partially hid the demolished diorama that had been a recreation of Paris' buildings and landmarks, destroyed by the flea in an uncharacteristic fit of rage ages ago….he'd lost track, exactly.

Francoeur surveyed the cabaret floor silently from the confines of an old balcony seat, crouching lowly on the ledge. Oh how long ago it had been….he could see himself now, a younger more vibrant version and Lucille, ever clairvoyant, as they danced gaily across the stage, their voices ringing out in a crisp symphony over the club goers…..but no more.

The flea shivered at an unexpected chill, turning his head with a slight chirp—the only sounds he made now—laying eyes on a shattered window, not twenty feet away from where he was seated. He'd forgotten about that, having been meaning to patch it up….Francoeur shuddered again, sinking lowly into his trench coat, even more tattered than when he'd first found it all those years ago…..when Lucille found him. It was all he wore now, his stocky and broad build bare save for the long jacket, and at times even the same wide-brimmed hat over his eyes. There was no purpose, otherwise. It wasn't as if he'd be going outside, anyhow….at least not in daylight.

Francoeur was barely startled by the sudden cry to his left, and the gibbon quickly landed deftly at his side. The flea offered the monkey a rare smile, hardly any of the life and vivacity it would've had before, but a smile nevertheless.

Charles gave a small trill, pulling his faded vest in greeting. The gibbon's pristine white fur had given way to grey long ago, covered various parts of his body with faded splotches. Francoeur raised a three-fingered hand, laying it on the chimp's hatless head, softly rubbing the fur atop his cranium, Charles having lost his cap some time ago. The gibbon gave a sympathetic sort of sound, resting lowly on his knuckles. The flea only sighed, and the both looked over the abandoned club from above.

Looking back on it, his companions' demises had all been unexpected, as those things often were.

Lucille had, ironically and tragically enough, been the first, and perhaps most painful. The young cabaret singer had been stricken with a deadly illness….one they could find no cure for. Her friends and loved ones were forced to watch the petite woman gradually wither away, unable to do a thing to aid her as she became more frail and sickly with time. The days she breathed her last, Lucille had been lying in bed, cushioned by pillows and bundled with thick blankets, surrounded by everyone she loved. Lucille had all but lost the power of speech in her weakened state, and had instead settled for giving all of her friend's weary smiles, only a twinge of happiness present at having them all with her. As her frail chest shuddered, she grasped one of Francoeur's four hands, clasping it with all the strength she could muster. His fiery red eyes had been the last thing she'd seen before her own fell shut.

The ceremony that followed was all too somber. At a cemetery in the center of Paris, overlooking the Seine in fact, was where they finally laid the singer to rest. A group of laborers had carried her casket—the mourners, a large group of over fifty men and women, all gave the flea strange looks, but they were to be expected. Francoeur had come wearing his usual white ensemble, even receiving glares from his fellow mourners, all dressed in black, but he paid them no heed. Lucille had told him long ago that white was seen as the true color of death.

Emile and Raoul had stood by him, rain beginning to fall down in sheets, instantly soaking the three of them to the bone. None of them cared, and they stood by Lucille's grave for hours on end.

After the singer's death, Francoeur hadn't been the same. None of them had been, really. But by then it was quite clear that the flea had changed. More distant and reserved, he hardly ventured from the confines of the cabaret….but soon that too became a problem. With the loss of their star performer, the club began to gradually lose its customers, until it had gone completely out of business. The building fell into disrepair, and abandoned by all expect Francoeur.

Raoul and Emile would try to coax him out of his depression, but the flea answered to no one other than Lucille. And even so, their attempts continued for some time nevertheless. But fate couldn't leave well enough alone.

A mere five years after the singer's passing, Emile followed. His death, in many ways, had been even worse—alone and on his way from work one night, the small man had been mugged. Three attackers had come out of the shadows, demanding that he give them his camera—a truly expensive piece of equipment that he took with him everywhere. Emile had refused. By the time he was found the following morning, it had been too late.

The flea had come out of hiding to comfort and consol both the hysteric Maude and Raoul both. But things only grew worse when the police returned with the few possessions Emile had been found with—his camera had been taken, but his bowler hat and pocket watch from his grandfather remained, along with a small black box found in his coat pocket. He'd apparently been on his way to propose to Maude.

The forthcoming sadness had been too much for the petite woman to bear.

And then it had only been Francoeur and Raoul who remained, not to mention Charles. The Frenchman had fulfilled his dream of becoming an inventor in the years that passed—how many exactly, the flea had lost count—and as far as he knew, the human never married. The inventor, in his late forties then, had come to visit Francoeur at the abandoned cabaret at least once a month, if only to keep each other sane.

Raoul had died of a heart attack over a year ago.

Francoeur hadn't a visitor in months now…there was no one left to visit him. The empty club had become his home, his sanctuary within the city, the only place where the pain of his loss and happiness at the memories that remained would join into one melded feeling—the kind of emotion that made one want to sob with joy, and then throw oneself into the Seine the next. And Francoeur would admit, the thought had crossed his mind, however fleetingly, but it wasn't what Lucille would've wanted, his subconscious would rebuttal. But would she wish for him to be miserable then, living alone for the rest of his seemingly-immortal life?

Those who came to the cabaret were usually teenagers—itching to destroy, to steal, to vandalize what he praised more about all else. Others wished to tear down the building itself. And this did not bode well for him, not Francoeur, who could still hear the voice of his beloved echo through the high-vaulted ceiling, and feel her hand in his gloved one, petite and fragile to his large and rough. He would never harm the trespassers, only frighten then enough so that they wouldn't return. And most never dd.

Francoeur had lost track of how much time had passed—all he knew was that even the buildings around the cabaret were soon abandoned as well, the entire portion of Paris falling into disrepair. The city changed, the technology—the cars looked smoother, built sturdier—even the humans, from the flea's vantage point. Especially their capacity for war.

Charles' fur grayed more every year, to the point that Francoeur knew he wouldn't last much longer. He didn't know for how much longer he would live—the potion he'd first been given had life-altering effects on his body, perhaps it had even granted him immortality, to a fault, at the very least. And so, he had been forced into watching all he held dear pass away with time.

Francoeur would learn to live with the curse he'd been given, and the monster he was gradually becoming.