&quot;...to be free.&quot;

I will write about the following, leave one in my ask box.

Dear person I hate,

Dear person I like,

Dear ex boyfriend,

Dear ex girlfriend,

Dear ex bestfriend,

Dear bestfriend,

Dear *anyone*,

Dear Santa,

Dear mom,

Dear dad,

Dear future me,

Dear past me,

Dear person I’m jealous of,

Dear person I had a crush on,

Dear girlfriend,

Dear boyfriend,

Dear [insert URL here],

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

Eyebrows going up, Natasha made a softly impressed face as she unfastened her scarf. “It’s a lot more organized than I thought for a bunch of college kids,” she admitted.

Her tea arrived just as Corfeyrack made his whirlwind appearance. Natasha didn’t know whether to laugh or fight the kid off with her saucer. She gathered herself quickly and smiled. “Courfeyrack, hi. Call me Natasha,” she urged him, offering a hand with a smirk. “Be careful. If everyone here is more attractive than the last person I meet, I’ll start to think it’s my birthday.”

#conflagration #itendnottoweep #//this just in courfeyrac is way too much fun to play

Combeferre felt a blush rise to his cheeks at her compliment of the organization, since that side of things was mostly his domain. Fortunately the focus wasn't really on him at the moment, but rather on Courfeyrac's hilarious attempts at keeping his cool around Natasha.

"Oh man wow you say my name adorably oh God like it's just everyone's so French here so it's really refreshing that you're not."

Combeferre couldn't act like he didn't love seeing Courfeyrac legitimately flustered for once. The guy was typically smoother than a sugar glider; it would do him good to flounder every once in a while.

As if in response to Combeferre's thoughts, Courfeyrac took Natasha's hand when she held it out and pressed his lips to it.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Natasha," he purred, apparently back in his element purely to spite Combeferre for his prior enjoyment of his moment of weakness. He jabbed a thumb at his (admittedly dashing) grin. "It doesn't get much better than this. Anyway I oughta take roll but hey don't be a stranger, okay? You're amazing, love your work, blessings on the child, enjoy the show."

And with a wink and a single finger-pistol, he was gone. Combeferre took his glasses off to polish them on his shirt.

"Yeah, um. So that was Courf. He's a little exuberant."

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

It was so much louder than Natasha anticipated when she actually opened the cafe door. It hit her like a wall of solid sound and she almost turned tail and ran right then. Even the baby seemed to hear it; she became a flurried knots of limbs rolling in Natasha’s belly until she put a hand there to—well, to comfort her, apparently. Which was weird, but it made sense.

Before she reached the counter Combeferre was upon her with a grin and near-aggressive hospitality. “Hey,” she politely smiled. “I’m just getting a tea, it’s alright. What exactly is the protocol for this kind of thing? Should I just sit back and livetweet or am I expected to participate?”

"It's whatever you're comfortable with at this point," Combeferre chuckled. "We're actually really flexible for, y'know. A fierce band of revolutionaries. The real work hasn't started yet, anyway -- that'll go down once Enjolras starts it off. And it's mostly just review stuff at this stage in the game, anyway: making sure everybody knows their rights, their limits, proper attire, important phone numbers, et cetera et cetera." He paused briefly. "Okay, and then Enjolras will probably find a way to segue into something of a tirade. It's okay, though; guy knows how to hold onto an audience."

Courfeyrac returned then with a basket of fries (the place called itself a cafe, but years of catering to college students had transformed it into something of a bar, as well), and he nearly dropped them when he saw Natasha.

"Oh shit it's the Black Widow! Oh my fuck, wow, hey, how's it goin? Call me Courfeyrac, I'm, like, at least as cool as Combeferre plus also way better looking," he said with a flash of his patented grin and an offering of his hand for her to take. Combeferre rolled his eyes, but couldn't stop a grin.

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

Natasha really wished she could have gone into the Musain on Sunday with stories of all the thrilling espionage and badassery she had gotten up to in the week prior. Instead she felt like she was practically rolling herself out of the cab to get to the coffee shop.

It was relatively well-hidden, but Natasha used to have an apartment around this part of town and knew the run of the place well enough. She tried to creep into the cafe as inconspicuously as possible, unsure if she was going to be early or late, and to avoid rambling like she had done the week before limited herself to a cup of tea while she waited for any sign of what was about to happen.

What Natasha walked in on was, to the unacquainted eye, utter chaos. Debates were taking place in every corner of the place, topics ranging from whether or not a certain bill being pushed through would be a step forward or a step back for families living under the poverty line to whether Zeus or Odin would win in a fight to whether or not meaningful strides were being made toward queer representation in the media. No matter the subject, the passion and involvement (and thus the volume) of the debaters was cranked to the highest level. Almost every kid in the room had their phone in the hand with which they weren't emphatically gesticulating, researching on the fly.

"It's a fucking pacifier!" the husky one with the wild cloud of black curls (Courfeyrac) was shouting. He was standing over Combeferre, who was one of only three students still seated, and he was holding his smartphone up to Combeferre for him to read. "What is this bill going to change, Ferre? What is it really going to change? It's a fucking pacifier that they're trying to shove in our mouths to shut us the hell up."

"Progress is progress," Combeferre said, barely to be heard over the rest of the room. "We have to be grateful for every little step, Courf, or we'll just get discouraged and stop trying."

"No fuck that. I love you, but fuck that. It's not the law until it is the one-hundred percent undeniable fucking law."

Courfeyrac's phone clattered to the table as he stormed off to buy them some fries to share, and Combeferre leaned back in his chair and passed contented eyes over the room. And that was how he finally spotted Natasha. He burst into a grin and crossed the room to meet her.

"Welcome to the jungle! Can I get you anything?"

spaceexp

A remarkably intense auroral band flooded the northern night with shimmering colors on December 7. The stunning sequence captured here was made with a camera fixed to a tripod under cold, clear skies near Ester, just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska.

#science!

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

A fresh blush rocketed up Natasha’s cheeks when she almost lost her balance after Combeferre pulled her free of the devil chair. “Maybe I’ll see you Sunday. I work for the government, after all,” she joked weakly. Before he could rush out and distract the reporter she gripped his wrist with a whispered, “Thank you.”

She left first, trusting that Combeferre’s bursting energy and ability to talk at eighty miles an hour would sidetrack the journalist. When he asked her, “Hey, aren’t you—?” she snapped, “Nope!” and hurried along.

Later that night, she tweeted:

WidowsDontWeep: @combeferrific what was the name of that cafe?

#itendnottoweep #conflagration

Combeferre had time to thank God for the shot of caffeine he'd just downed as he approached the the man with his nose pressed to the Starbucks window. Otherwise, he didn't think he'd have been able to throw his pitch to him with the appropriate amount of vigor to distract him from Natasha's receding red curls.

"Excuse me, sorry to creep, but I couldn't help but notice -- you don't happen to work for a paper?"

He launched into an advertisement worthy of Courfeyrac, yammering through the group's key points of interest in a way that (thanks to all sorts of practice with college and job interviews) remained concise as well as interesting. It wasn't until he'd dropped Natasha a little smirk as she made her getaway that he answered the question the reporter had been trying to get in: "Was that the Black Widow in there with you?"

"Oh, yeah, she's shown a lot of interest in our cause. So, you wanna cover us?"

Later that night Combeferre smiled warmly around at his jubilant companions over the second drink they'd bought him in celebration of his unprecedented success. His phone chirped, as it had been doing all day, but this time the handle that dropped into his push notifications was one he recognized. His smile widened as he typed his response.

combeferrific: @WidowsDontWeep Musain. It's pretty hidden, but I have faith in your skill set.

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

"Seriously?" Natasha practically yelped, looking from Combeferre to the man outside and back again. When it became clear he wasn’t kidding around she rushed to pull on her own coat and scarf. "Kid, I owe you a million coffees for this, you know that? I—ah, shit, can you—?"

She looked up at him and huffed another sigh, frustrated. “I’m gonna burn this chair,” she menacingly said.

#itendnottoweep #conflagration

Combeferre shoved his hat over his hopelessly buoyant hair and shouldered his bag before offering Natasha his hand once more, grinning all over.

"Don't even talk about owing -- you just boosted us up like three whole levels of activism. This is the least I can do -- and it's not even completely selfless, I mean, that reporter might cover our protest."

He pulled her, as carefully as he could, out of the awful squishy chair, steadying her once she was standing before wrapping his fingers around his backpack straps, which made him look much too eager and much too young.

"We'll definitely have to do this again sometime. I'll tweet ya."

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

"Well, if I’d known that I would’ve fixed my hair first," Natasha deadpanned, tucking her phone away. "It’s probably a good idea to turn off your Twitter notifications for a few hours."

She looked out the window just in time to see someone whose body language and clothing screamed ‘reporter’ check their phone, gape, and look inside the window. They had the kind of look like they went to this Starbuck’s so often they knew the interior design by heart, even in a shitty selfie. Natasha turned her back to them, facing Combeferre more directly.

"Act uninteresting," she muttered, studying her fingernails.

#itendnottoweep #conflagration

Combeferre snatched a glance over his shoulder before complying; man, those guys never missed a trick, did they? He turned back toward Natasha, shaking his head down at his phone (uninteresting, after all, was his natural state of being), before he was struck with an epiphany.

"Are you kidding?" he said, stuffing his phone into his coat pocket and pulling his gloves on. "I'm gonna invite that guy to our next rally! Chances are he'll politely decline, but hey, at least it'll buy you some time to dash if need be, right?"

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

"Combeferrific," snorted Natasha, penning in his handle and the group’s.

WidowsDontWeep: just ran into @combeferrific at Starbuck’s and learned all about @abccafe. Interesting stuff, can’t wait to find out more. #ViveLaRévolution

"Come here, they’ll eat this shit up," she added, leaning across the gap as far as she could and gesturing for Combeferre to do the same. Once they were shoulder-to-shoulder she smiled and snapped a picture. She glanced at the result, deemed it "cute" with a mournful sigh, and sent it out into the stratosphere. "Welcome to the world of the Twitter elite, kid."

"Jeez, well, I hope I can handle it," Combeferre giggled, his phone already beginning to rattle with notifications. "Thank you so much, this'll mean so much to the guys. And it means a lot to me, obviously. You're just --" Deep breath. No gushing. "-- really great." Fuck, what did I just say?

There was a brief lull. Then, "Wow, I'm absolutely making that selfie my profile picture on everything."

rawlikesugar

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

"Oh, please," Natasha chuckled. "I am not an icon. Captain America is an icon, I’m just ‘The One With Boobs.’"

She finished off her coffee in one go and sat back, waiting for the jitters to set in as she fiddled with her phone. “What’s your Twitter handle? I’ll just mention that I met you and you’ll probably gain a hundred followers—I hate that I’m Twitter famous. I hate it so much. The very idea that I was laid up long enough to start a Twitter is just—it’s disgusting.”

There was the caffeine setting in. She never talked so much or so emphatically, and caffeine apparently made pregnant women go a little insane. Well, this was her version of insane: ranting like a crotchety old woman about Twitter.

"Anyway," she sighed. "Handle. Gimme."

#//i can see the puns now #@enjolrad #@coolfeyrac #like jeez #conflagration #itendnottoweep

Combeferre giggled through her rant, his own jitters settling in. But oh man, Black Widow, Black Widow, was asking him for his Twitter handle. She was having a coffee with him on a cold, shitty day and she was offering to support his ramshackle little grassroots movement. He was usually the one whispering to the others to hold it together (it should come as no surprise that they were an excitable bunch), but in this moment he couldn't seem to keep still, couldn't seem to stop smiling, couldn't even begin to convince himself that this wasn't some incredible dream.

"Ah, well -- as I've pointed out, Twitter fame has its advantages," he said, removing his own phone from his pocket and tapping away. "I can't believe I'm not already following you, um -- mine's, uh, I'm @combeferrific. And we also have one for the group, it's um -- @abccafe. We couldn't think of a good enough pun for that one."

leninlenout

Let’s talk about Combeferre, and why he’s actually a really really cool guy (because I’m a little bit fed up of seeing him portrayed as this stand-offish, haughty, pompously book-smart character in fandom oh my god.)

Combeferre’s initial description is quite literally teeming with quotes to show what a intelligent, perceptive, and (most importantly) socially-conscious guy he is - if Enjolras is ‘the marble lover of liberty’, then Combeferre fills the role of lover of the people, of society, of the everyman. One is committed to an ideal, and the other is committed to the reality that will, hopefully, follow it. Combeferre wants more than just a political revolution; he desires a moral one, a revolution in which corruption and inequality is replaced by fairness and compassion - and isn’t that gorgeous? To me, he’s one of the characters that is most in line with Hugo’s personal ideology; (probably why he easily has the longest introduction of any of the Amis) the idea that each person is necessary. To quote from the musical, Enjolras sings that ‘our little lives don’t count at all’ - whereas on the flipside, Combeferre, like Hugo, is aware of just how much they do.

A comparison Hugo makes that I feel really sums up the distinct dynamic between them is this one: ‘The first attached himself to Robespierre; the second confined himself to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world more than did Enjolras.’ Comparisons can be easily made between Robespierre and Enjolras due to their ruthlessness in the pursuits of liberty, and the shared belief that humans and their institutions cause oppression - they both fit pretty well into the charming-man-capable-of-being-terrible box. In contrast, however, Concordet believed that social inqualities and evils resulted from ignorance, as opposed to weaknesses in human nature - and this inherent faith in humanity is just so, so evident in Combeferre; ‘He loved the word citizen, but he preferred the word man.’ Whilst Enjolras embodies the blunt force of the revolution, Combeferre is its conscience - and the two work together expertly; ‘Enjolras was a chief, Combeferre was a guide. One would have liked to fight under the one and to march behind the other.’ I don’t believe that Enjolras’ revolutionary movement would attract people who were willing to fight with such devotion and conviction without Combeferre’s influence, not for a minute - under Combeferre’s hand, Enjolras’ ideals are shaped into tangible realities.

Les Misérables, as a whole, is a novel about humanity, and about the qualities in human nature that can bring about positive social change; and Combeferre, to me, encapsulates this entire belief in just three words: ‘Revolution, but civilisation’ - and damn, they’re words that speak volumes.

#ooc #headcanon #it's actually real canon but i'm sticking it in the headcanon tag so that people see it becaUSE I'M CRY

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

Natasha tipped her head casually to the side. “Well, I’m not working as much now that I’m not on active field duty, so I figure I may as well fill in the time with something productive, you know?” she suggested lightly. “Think your friends could handle it without wetting themselves?”

With a little effort she leaned toward Combeferre and lowered her voice. “Not to mention, I have a Twitter. I am very powerful.”

It was a good thing Combeferre had already finished his coffee -- otherwise there might have been an accident.

"You -- you wanna help us? I mean, you'd do that? I mean --"

He took a deep breath. Come on, Ferre. No drooling.

"Y-yeah, wow, that'd be really great! Even if you were only, like, a sponsor or something -- even if you only tweeted about us once -- it'd be really great exposure, we could get people thinking about the things that are going on right under their noses, things that are being taken from them, systems that are working against them, things that need to be changed. Twitter'd be a great platform, too, it's concise, it's neat; it forces us to be really effective and economic with our words. And with these things coming from someone like you -- they'd be way more willing to listen, you're an icon, not some uppity college kid, I mean, let's face it, college kids are always yelling about something. Even if the media decided to spin it so it looked like you'd gone off the deep end, I mean, even that would be a step in the right direction, we could twist that back --"

Combeferre's eyes had filled with that beautiful spark called hope and his thoughts were whirring through his brain at a million miles a minute because, just as sometimes happened at a good rally when Enjolras' words were truly soaring, he was really beginning to see victory as a possibility. Then he remembered himself and cleared his throat, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"Sorry, I'm -- getting ahead of myself." He gave a self-depreciating little grin. "We do that."

conflagration // @itendnottoweep

Wincing sympathetically at the word ‘extension’ (even though she didn’t quite understand the whole process), Natasha picked up her coffee again with a murmured, “Yikes. That’s rough, kid. Wish I knew anything about that kind of stuff, but I never went to college.” Never went to school at all, really. Maybe for a year before the Red Room, but if she attended she didn’t remember.

A thought occurred. “Hey, so…you and your friends, the revolution ones, you guys have meetings or whatever? Or do you just get together and end up talking total systematic reform?”