Matthew 25:35 by spiderfire47, art by threadbaremillionaire
Baptistine visits her brother's grave and meets another person touched by his life.
(discussions of death and loss)
Pas de Deux by saintjustified, art by bootsssss
Courfeyrac helps Marius reenter society, a little.
(warning for discussion of abuse)
Prizes, Prudence, and Possibities by laissezferre, art by oilan
Combeferre acquires 700 francs and is at a loss at how to spend it. Enjolras tries to help and is more successful than he thought he could be.
Incanta-Iacta-Est by kerrypolka art by cyan-013
Magic AU! Technically a crossover with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but you don’t have to be familiar with that canon to read this. Gen (Amis, Eponine and Marius).
Find Me Here, by art by Bootsssss and catsmagiccastle
Cosette and Eponine reunite.
The Locket by thecoffeetragedy, art by laughingandlyric
Feuilly begins having visions when he touches certain objects, and hesitates to learn from one item in particular. (warning for death, illness, and any sort of potentially upsetting things related to poverty)
Great Deeds He Has Done by etvlamaculotte, art by nisiedrawsstuff Locked into the upper room of the Corinthe, Enjolras is searching for something - and Grantaire is not helping.
(warning for alcohol use)
A Union of Hearts and Minds by teddyferre, art by acesius and aworldbeyondthebarricade
His Dark materials/ Daemon AU. (cw violence, injury, blood)
Poème, symphonie, orage, by kingedmundsroyalmurder, art by nisiedrawsstuff
After growing up with her mother and the Bishop of Digne, Cosette moves to Paris to start her adult life, and finds new friends. (cw for canon-era political violence and prejudice)
Café Society by lizamezzo, art by orlofsky
Most of the Amis celebrate Grantaire's birthday, in proper style.
(warning for alcohol and innuendo)
Lost in Translation, by amarguerite, art by pilferingapples
Combeferre tries to teach Marius German and is interrupted by the Romantic zeitgeist and then gale force winds of puns.
A Little Fall of Meteors, by @bobcatmoran, art by pilferingapples and diminutive-fox
The Amis see a rare phenomenon, and speculate about the heavens.
The Evolution of Red into Oblivion (and the Future) by kcrabb88, art by bootsssss
the evolution of a society that almost became historic,and one particular set of friendships within it.
(warning for canon violence, injury, and major character death)
Save Me From Myself by kjack89, art by jeanenjolras
Combeferre seeks to free Grantaire from the chains on his dependence on alcohol, no matter if he may have a dual motivation in mind. But just when things seem to be going better than Combeferre could have hoped between them, the events of June 1832 happen.
(Alcoholism, recovery, relapse; brief emetophobia; canonical major character death)
Let Me Bid You Farewell by sashaatthebarricade , art by clenster
On the night before the barricades fall, Combeferre reminisces about his past relationship with Joly during medical school.
(Brief sexual references and discussions of death, both barricade-related and otherwise.)
In which Enjolras Completes and Corrects Combeferre, and realizes how much the other did the same for him: by scienceandmoths, art by clenster
A study on a friendship
(canon violence and character death)
Entre le passé et l’avenir by @vivelarepublique art by @spicehobbit
(canon violence and character death)
Silent As The Grave, by estelraca, art by ellevante
Prouvaire finds an unexpected treasure in his amateur archaeological wanderings. (cw: canon character death and violence)
Grey and Black by needsmoreresearch art by nisiedrawsstuff
This is to some extent a follow-up to Your Wildly Devoted Joly (and also Lègle de Meaux, though it ought to stand on its own. Musichetta and Bahorel’s Laughing Mistress keep going.
(canon character death)
Thank you, everyone who participated; everyone's work was amazing!
A Little Fall of Meteors
fic by bobcatmoran
art by pilferingapples and diminutive-fox
“Does anyone know where Jean Prouvaire is?” Enjolras asked, looking over the back room of the Musain with a frown.
“Don’t fret about it, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac said. “He is doubtless running on Prouvairian time — that is to say, that of one who left his watch at home, either out of forgetfulness or due to some new notion that time is but an illusion.”
And that's the last of the minifest fics--I'll put up a masterpost sometime this week, but otherwise it's a wrap! Thank you SO much, again, to everyone who participated-- I know it was a tight deadline, but you all came through wonderfully! And special thanks to nisiedrawsstuff and bootsssss for covering extra fics!
A Little Fall of Meteors
fic by bobcatmoran
art by pilferingapples and diminutive-fox
“Does anyone know where Jean Prouvaire is?” Enjolras asked, looking over the back room of the Musain with a frown.
Enjolras pulled out his own watch and glanced at it. “Well, he was supposed to be here over an hour ago with his revisions to that women’s rights pamphlet. I hope nothing has befallen him.”
“I wouldn’t worry overmuch if I were you,” Bahorel said from his chair in the corner, tilted back dangerously far on two legs. “He may not look it, what with those sticks he calls arms and legs, but our young poet is quite capable of taking care of himself.…speak of the devil.” Bahorel and his chair fell forward with a thunk upon seeing who had just entered the back room.
Although the newcomer’s face was hidden behind a scarf that wound round his neck several times, it was precisely this scarf, knit with more enthusiasm than skill and twice as long as Jean Prouvaire was tall, that identified him as such.
As if this unique accessory wasn’t distinctive enough, Prouvaire was also sporting a singular fur cap, grey-brown in color, with a striped trail hanging down from the back.
“Is that a new hat, Prouvaire?” Joly asked, looking at it with a mixture of surprise and amusement.
“It is indeed,” was the reply. Prouvaire reached behind him and fingered the tail nervously. “The merchant said it had belonged to a voyageur from America. It’s made from raton laveur.”
“Washing rat?” Courfeyrac asked, trying to keep the horror from his voice. “Prouvaire, you haven’t seriously purchased a hat made from rat, have you?!”
“It’s a damned peculiar rat if it is,” Bahorel said. Look at that — that’s the tail, right? Never seen a rat with a bushy tail, much less a striped one.”
“The Americans call it raccoon,” Prouvaire said.
“So what is a…raccoon then?” Feuilly asked, pronouncing the unfamiliar word with care. “Not a rat then, I presume?”
“Some sort of small bear, I think,” Prouvaire said.
“I thought they were more akin to wildcats,” Joly said. “Or weasels, perhaps.”
“More like some sort of arboreal dog,” Combeferre said.
“That’s a shame,” Prouvaire said. “It would be more exciting if they were bears. Dogs seem very…domestic.”
“They’re not actually dogs, just akin to them,” Combeferre explained. “Procyon, doglike.”
“I should like to see a bear,” Prouvaire said, ignoring him.
“You just saw one when you went to the Jardin des Plantes with Joly and me before Christmas,” Bossuet pointed out.
“But I should like to see one in the wild, in its natural state. It would be very fierce and powerful and not have small boys yelling at it while it slept.”
“It would probably rip your throat out,” said Bahorel.
“I still should like to see one all the same,” Prouvaire retorted.
“Might I see that?” Joly asked, gesturing towards Prouvaire’s hat. It was handed over, and Joly ran his fingers through the fur. “It doesn’t look or feel like bear. Does it keep you warm enough when you’re outside in the cold? It has been a nasty winter.”
“Warm enough, but — oh — outside!”
“Before you set off on another tangent, Jean Prouvaire, did you have those edits?” Enjolras asked.
“Oh, yes, right here,” Prouvaire said, pulling the papers from a voluminous coat pocket. “But outside! Quickly, you all need to see, before they’re gone!”
“What is it?” Combeferre asked, already putting on his overcoat.
“Shooting stars, oh, the sky is full of them!”
A flurry of activity ensued, as cloaks and overcoats were donned, hats were sorted out, and Bossuet was rescued from where he had somehow gotten tangled in Joly’s scarf. “I’m fine, I’m fine, just tied to this chair,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll bring it along, as it seems to have formed quite the attachment to me, and I wouldn’t like it to feel rejected. That way, I’ll have a place to sit in comfort while the rest of you fellows stand.”
“Has anyone seen my hat?” Courfeyrac asked, peering under tables with a worried frown.
“I have an extra scarf which you can tie around your head for warmth if it doesn’t turn up,” Joly said, picking at a knot in the scarf that was holding Bossuet captive. “You really shouldn’t go out with your head uncovered in this weather, lest you catch a cold.”
“Thank you for the offer, Jolllly, but between the faux pas of going bareheaded or wearing a scarf knotted under my chin like an old woman, I’ll risk the head cold.”
“You really shouldn’t, especially given how the chill has been so damp lately. A cold could easily become pneumatic,” Joly said fretfully.
“And it’s a risk that he won’t have to take, thankfully,” Enjolras said. “Here, Courfeyrac, it was hanging underneath my coat.”
“Ah, thank you!” Courfeyrac exclaimed, setting the wayward hat upon his head, then offering an arm to Enjolras. “Shall we?”
“We shall, if everyone is ready.” Enjolras scanned the room. “Jean Prouvaire, will you lead the way?”
“There’s decent enough viewing from the Place Saint-Michel, but if we go near the Jardin du Luxembourg, we’ll get a clear view without any buildings in the way,” Prouvaire said, leading the group down the street and walking backwards so as to talk to his friends.
“What about the trees?” Grantaire asked.
“They’re all in rows, so perhaps if we look between their ranks? We can always try it and then come back if the view proves unsatisfactory,” Feuilly said. “Watch the lamp post,” he warned Prouvaire.
Neatly winding his way around it, Prouvaire suggested, “Or if we could get onto a roof, that would offer the best view. Grantaire, don’t you live around here?”
“Near enough, but it’s my upstairs neighbors who have roof access, and we are no longer on speaking terms. My own rooms have no way of getting to the roof, unless you construct wings of wax and feathers and fly up, although doubtless by the time you finished crafting them it would be morning, the shooting stars would have vanished, and I hear that using such a contraption in sunlight does not tend to end well. There is also a drainpipe that you could climb if you were feeling adventurous, I suppose.”
At Bahorel’s thoughtful look at this suggestion, Combeferre exclaimed, “No one is climbing up any drainpipes! I am all for the best possible view of this astronomical phenomenon, but not at the expense of broken limbs. The view from the Jardin du Luxembourg should be quite adequate. And here we are.”
The friends scanned the sky. It was a cloudless night, the stars standing out clearly against the black sky.
“Oh! There!” exclaimed Courfeyrac, pointing above the tree line. “Did you see it?” he asked his friends.
“Did you make a wish?” Prouvaire asked. “If you wish upon a falling star, your wish will come — there’s another one!”
“And one over there!” Joly said, pointing in the opposite direction of Prouvaire. “Bravo, Prouvaire, what a find!”
“I’ve never seen so many at once,” Grantaire said.
“They aren’t truly stars falling from the sky, are they?” Feuilly asked, sounding worried. “We won’t look up at the skies tomorrow night and find the constellations incomplete, will we?”
“I don’t think so,” Bahorel said. “I feel like we would hear about it if stars went missing every time there was a shooting star.”
“But there are so many in the sky, and most of them not well-known. Would a single one missing necessarily be noticed?”
“It might not even be one that we could notice,” Joly said. “There are multitudes of stars too dim to see with the naked eye. At least one planet as well — witness Herschel finding a heretofore unknown planet by training his telescope upon it. So if these are stars that we otherwise wouldn’t see, then no, we wouldn’t notice their movements. I suppose the only reason we can see them now is because they’ve come nearer with their movement across the heavens and are therefore newly within our field of vision — like how a single candle isn’t visible from far off but sheds enough light to read by if you’re right next to it.”
“Or they’re not stars at all,” Combeferre said. “They could very well be great rocks falling from the sky, superheated so that they glow like coals.”
“Rocks?” Grantaire said, looking doubtfully at the lights streaking the sky.
“There was a rain of stones from the sky in L’Aigle that proved to be extraterrestrial in origin. They were quite warm right after landing and produced streaks across the sky not unlike these.”
“Huh. Glowing stones.” Feuilly said, keeping his eyes on the sky. “Still doesn’t explain where they came from though, really. Perhaps they’re from some other civilization up there.”
Combeferre frowned at the sky, tracing the paths of the meteors with his fingers. After some time, he said, “It looks like they’re coming from Quadrans Muralis.”
Grantaire looked back and forth across the portion of the sky Combeferre was looking at. “Quadrans Muralis? I could tell you that there is Boötes, and there is the Great Bear — do not tell Prouvaire there is a bear hiding in the stars, lest he decide to pay it a visit — but I was unaware that either of them used navigational tools.”
“It’s right there. See? The quadrant’s arms spread outward in a triangle leading from the bend in Draco towards Boötes.”
Grantaire squinted. “If you say so. I suppose it’s no more of a stretch than the ancients’ trick of connecting a zig-zagging string of dots across the sky in a long string and saying, ‘Behold! Here is a dragon!’ as though you could not play the same trick with any number of stars. It’s all little more than seeing patterns in puddles of spilt ink anyhow. More art than science, even when it’s the art of seeing scientific instruments.”
“It’s a perfectly legitimate constellation,” Combeferre said. “Lalande described it, and you can find it in any modern, up-to-date star chart.”
“I yield, I yield,” Grantaire said, throwing up his hands in front of him. “Why do you say these shooting stars — or is it shooting rocks — are coming from there anyway?”
“Here, watch the next few shooting stars,” Combeferre said.
“I thought you said they weren’t stars,” Grantaire said, grinning.
“I am sacrificing accuracy for the sake of common vocabulary and comprehensibility. Now watch them, and note their direction of travel.”
Silence from Grantaire as he looked at the sky with a furrowed brow, then, “It’s as if — if you traced their paths onto a map of the sky, they would look like a series of perspective lines, leading to a vanishing point right about there,” Grantaire said, pointing at a location in the northern sky.
“Right in Quadrans Muralis,” Combeferre said smugly.
“But is it actually in Quadrans Muralis?” a muffled voice asked from behind them. Combeferre and Grantaire jumped, then turned around to see Jean Prouvaire, who pulled his scarf down from his face and continued. “I mean, does their origin have to be amongst the stars, or could it be much closer? If they really are rocks from out there somewhere,” he waved his hand, indicating the sky, “then in order for us to see them and especially for them to rain down upon L’Aigle, they would have to be very close indeed.”
“What’s this about rocks raining on me?” Bossuet asked, turning at the sound of his name. “I seem to have avoided that misfortune thus far, so perhaps you’re speaking of a bird of a different feather?”
“L’Aigle the town in Normandy. They had a rain of rocks from the sky which Combeferre says was akin to what we’re viewing now,” Prouvaire said. “Say, Lesgle, you never lived there, did you? Because then you would have been L’Aigle of L’Aigle.”
“No, and at any rate, I rather prefer myself being L’Aigle of Meaux, your dear Bossuet. And,” he added, “if I had been there, knowing my luck, I’d have had a sky rock crash through my roof. We’re not in any danger of that here, are we?”
“I’d imagine that rocks crashing to the ground from the sky would be loud as thunder. We’d surely hear it,” Bahorel said.
“I hope that doesn’t mean they’re falling somewhere else then,” Feuilly said. “I’d imagine rocks crashing from the sky outside your home would be terrifying, much less crashing through it.”
This horrifying vision let to a brief period of silence, before Enjolras spoke up. “It seems to have slowed down.” Indeed, the white streaks across the sky were now so infrequent that a few minutes had gone by since the last one.
“Well, it seems that the show is just about over,” Courfeyrac said. “What a marvelous display. What do the rest of you say to going back inside and getting something to warm up? I am fairly certain that I can charm Louison into making a cauldron of spiced wine. Consider it my treat, in celebration of this night of shooting stars.”
A chorus of agreement, spiced with a, “Courfeyrac, I can pay you back,” from Feuilly was the response, and Les Amis paraded back to the Musain under the clear, starry sky.
~~~
Special thanks to my little brother for giving this a read-over.
Notes: Raccoons are not bears. Sorry, Jehan. Their closest relatives are actually ring-tailed cats, which, just to confuse everyone, are not actually cats. Jehan is in good company, though, as Carl Linnaeus himself originally classified raccoons as bears.
The Quadrantids are a real meteor shower, usually occurring sometime around January 3–4. They’re notable for being relatively heavy in intensity, but very short in duration, and for being named after a constellation that is no longer recognized (sorry, Combeferre).
Likewise, the meteorites that fell on L’Aigle were a real thing that actually happened in 1803.
Unfortunately, Les Amis missed a real doozy of a meteor shower by one year and an ocean away. The Leonids of November 12–13, 1833, over the United States reportedly had tens of thousands of meteors an hour, were so bright that they woke people up, and ignited the scientific community’s interest in studying meteors. Records of meteor showers prior to then are sketchy, so la la la I’m pretending there were unusually heavy Quadrantids in 18mumbletywhenever.
Lost in Translation
fic by amarguerite
art by pilferingapples
Summary: Combeferre tries to teach Marius German and is interrupted by the Romantic zeitgeist and then gale force winds of puns.
“Marius needs to learn German,” Courfeyrac announced to Bahorel. “Where’s Combeferre?”
“And the relation between your two statements?”
“Bahorel! I am surprised at your mental turpitude this afternoon! Did you attend a lecture at the law school by accident?”
“Alas,” Bahorel admitted, lips twitching, “you have the right of it. I should not be surprised that Combeferre found time to learn German, and yet, I am.”
Combeferre was in the back room of the Cafe Musain, examining Joly’s attempts at parody. Their last attempt had nearly resulted in arrest, so Bossuet and Joly had the possibly brilliant, certainly drunken idea to create edible satires of Charles X. Joly’s characteristic care and precision made him a good cook and the batch of gingerbread batter had turned out very well indeed.
That had been the end of the obvious success.
Joly and Bossuet had invited Grantaire over to help them shape the cookies. Grantaire had been at the Musain with an open bottle of wine and it had seemed impolite not to sit and drink when Louison had already brought them two glasses. Two hours later, they recalled the original purpose of their errand. Joly unearthed a bottle of brandy to aid in the creative process. That “helped” about as much as could be expected. The result of this evening now lay on the table under the map of France, in a very sad row of misshapen lumps.
“You can tell Grantaire studied under Gros,” said Combeferre, taking out his handkerchief. He moved several of the cookies to one end of the table. These were all recognizably profiles of Charles X, and helpfully had raisins for eyes. The rest looked sort of like the profile of a human being, if one had never seen a human being before and had possibly confused human beings with rock formations.
Feuilly was standing at the other end of the table, frowning and tilting his head from one side to the other. “Which… is that…? I think that’s the nose?”
Bossuet looked down the line of Feuilly’s pointing finger. “Alas, no, that’s the tail of his wig. I think. Joly?”
“I think two cookies may have fused into one,” said Joly, rubbing his nose against the knob of his cane. “Quite the medical anomaly.”
“We shall call this one Janus, and pretend it is elaborate political commentary,” said Bossuet. “Ah ha, got it! Charles X is literally two-faced!”
“I do not think anyone would be able to recognize that it is two profiles of Charles X,” said Combeferre. “Feuilly, you are an artist. Now that you know what it is, can you see a likeness?”
“Euh….”
Bossuet sighed. “It is because I baked this particular monster. Let us be thankful that amongst my many names, one finds neither Victor nor Frankenstein. If this is my Creature, heaven help the world. You see, I have no eye for how a man’s nose changes when you put a priest’s cap upon his head.”
“Ideally, the nose should not change,” Feuilly said, still unused, as of yet, to Bossuet’s sense of humor. Feuilly moved onto one of Joly’s attempts. “Is that.. a priest’s cap?”
“Oh wonderful, that is what it is supposed to be!” exclaimed Joly, delighted.
“Why did you put a priest’s cap on the head of Charles X?”
“Because I could not figure out how to do hair mostly,” admitted Joly. “But it is supposed to be an indictment of Charles X’s hyper-religious policies. He might as well be a priest, because of his reliance on the Catholic Church— at least, that is what it was meant to convey, but since his face looks so unpleasantly melty it distracts one, rather, from the intended message.”
Courfeyrac, ever the gourmande, went to look at the cookies himself, Marius trailing behind him like the tail of a comet. Courfeyrac thoughtfully nibbled on one of the more malformed Charles Xs. “One often talks of swallowing injustice,” Courfeyrac remarked, “but it is always considered bitter. Decidedly unlike these. The irony is sweet.”
Bahorel came in then, Jehan orbiting around him. “Ah, Combeferre! Marius needs to learn German— and there is Marius! The stars seem to be aligned.”
Marius looked uncertainly around the room. Combeferre turned his attention from the cookies and smiled. “I can certainly help, though I must confess my own knowledge limited.” Combeferre moved to another table, leaving the others to sort the cookies in order of ‘most like a representation of a human being’ to ‘least likeness to any sentient creature or ones not seen after smoking too much opium.’ Feuilly was supposed to be in charge of this task, but he soon grew distracted. Jehan, Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, and Bahorel were more interested in finding the most horrifying looking cookie than trying to gather together the specimens that would actually be useful, and, anyways, Feuilly was always eager to learn new things. He considered any knowledge useful knowledge, and began slowly edging away from his table.
By the time Enjolras had arrived in the back room, Feuilly was hovering behind Marius, listening intently to Combeferre’s instruction.
“Are you giving a lesson?” asked Enjolras, smilingly. “It appears you have another eager pupil, Combeferre.”
“Feuilly, you are welcome to join us,” said Combeferre. He gestured at the chair Enjolras was already dragging over to their table. “Do you mind, Pontmercy?”
Marius stammered out that he did not. Feuilly gingerly sat down and accepted the blank paper Combeferre put before him. It felt odd to Feuilly to have someone in a top hat and a tailcoat pulling out chairs for him. It mitigated the awkwardness somewhat that it was Enjolras, who always seemed absent-minded (though he wasn’t; Feuilly had never known a man to be more observant), and who extended the same cordiality to everyone. It also helped the Enjolras immediately wandered away afterwards, to look at the cookies and to be genuinely delighted in the creative mishaps of his friends.
“I know I am not—” Feuilly began.
Combeferre interrupted him with, “Anyone who has an interest in German is welcome. Have you an interest in German?”
Simply, Feuilly replied, “I have an interest in everything.”
“Good. Let us continue with introductions. ‘I am called,’ is…?” Blank stares. Marius was too shy, Feuilly too intimidated. Combeferre prompted, “‘Ich heiße.’ Now pray repeat it?”
Marius mumbled something; Feuilly approximated the sounds. Combeferre patiently repeated the phrase. “Ich heiße Herr Combeferre. Und sie? Wie heißen sie, Marius? Though I should first explain the difference between the more formal address and the more common—”
“I— I do not know if this is….” Marius reddened. He was still deeply embarrassed to be talking to Combeferre. Correction seemed imminent, and Marius was morally certain that it would be as cutting and as mortifying as the last time. And, then, Marius had been talking in his own language, not a foreign one. It would be so much worse this time around. “I am to translate articles for a dictionary.”
“So, learning conjugations will be useful,” said Combeferre.
“You will bore him to death,” complained Jehan. “Why not try for some poetry? Goethe is marvelous, his sense of the uncanny—” Jehan stopped himself, with a gasp, and thrust a particularly hideous cookie into Courfeyrac’s hands. “Oh inspiration can come from the most mundane of discussions!”
He whipped Bahorel’s black coat off of the back of a chair and attempted to turn it into some kind of a cloak. Jehan was small and slender, and Bahorel was large and built more to wrestle bulls to the ground than to sit and compose poetry. The coat was therefore about the proportional size of a cloak on Jehan’s slender form, and it did not look as ridiculous as it should have. Jehan was also wearing a doublet over his trousers, so sartorial expectations were low, anyways.
Marius and Feuilly looked on in confusion.
Combeferre blinked. “Ah… what, pray tell, is this costuming in aid of?”
“Nien! Im Deutch!” Jehan insisted.
Combeferre was not amused. “Fine. Guten Abend. Wie heißen sie?”
“Ich bin der Tod!”
Combeferre sighed. “First of all, we are exploring the use of the verb heißen, to be named, not seib, to be, second of all— der Tod?”
Feuilly did not grasp that Jehan had literally just announced that he was death and persevered with the lesson. “Guten Abend Herr Tod,” he said, very politely. “Ich heiße Feuilly. Woher kommst du?”
Jehan replied that he came from the undiscovered country from whom no traveller returned.
This was understandably too complex for either Feuilly or Marius to follow. They heard the word ‘country’ and were satisfied.
Feuilly motioned at Marius to continue with the lesson.
“Wie geht es Ihnen?” asked Marius. He did this very awkwardly. He seldom asked anyone ‘how are you’ in French, let alone in German.
Jehan replied that he was fine, thank you, but didn’t Herr Feuilly and Herr Pontmercy feel a little sickly?
Feuilly looked blank, like a piece of paper freshly pulled from a notebook. “Euh… enchante— no, what was it again? Freund mich?”
Jehan informed them that it was, indeed, a pleasure, to meet Death.
“You are throwing off Combeferre’s lesson plan,” observed Enjolras, quite mildly.
“We are still going through introductions,” protested Jehan. Then, struck with a sudden idea, he ran over to Bahorel, and whispered to him.
Combeferre clearly hoped to get back to the lesson and began trying to explain how ‘du’ and ‘sie’ corresponded with ‘tu’ and ‘vous.’ His lesson plan was not to be, however; Jehan’s voice rang out through the room, in clearly, manly resolution.“Start again!”
Marius was too shy to start the dialogue. Feuilly gamely began again, “Guten Abend. Wie heißen sie?”
Jehan dramatically swirled out of the way. Bahorel had assumed a rather gargoyle-esque stance, his fingers curled like claws, and wore the most hideous crown anyone had ever seen. It was, in fact, more hideous than any of the gingerbread heads. This was because it was made out of the most horrifying ones, strung together with the laces from Jehan’s doublet.
“Was ist das?” groaned Combeferre.
“Das ist der Erlkönig,” replied Jehan, happily.
The other Romantics in the room found this hilarious. Courfeyrac and Bossuet were near weeping with laughter, and Joly, who was musical, hummed some of the Schubert lied. Marius looked to Courfeyrac for clarification.
“The Goethe poem,” Courfeyrac choked out. “You must have read it! Or heard Schubert’s song setting, it is quite famous! You know, a father on a horse with his young son, the son hears the Erlkönig tempting him away, the father disbelieves him, and there is an inexplicable death four verses later.”
Feuilly had not heard of either the poem or the song, and decided to ignore the Romantic for the practical. He once more pressed on with his lesson. “Guten Abend Herr Erlkönig.”
“Jehan,” protested Combeferre.
“It is German culture!” protested Jehan, in his turn. “Come now Combeferre, you cannot object to the only king that I truly recognize.”
“I am not sure I wish to politely greet kings,” demured Feuilly.
“Friend Combeferre, do you know of a less polite greeting than ‘Guten Abend’?” asked Enjolras, leaning against the table of gingerbread heads with Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac laughed and said that he could think of several, but was glared into keeping that knowledge to himself.
Joly was humming Der Erlkönig still, and sang out, “Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt!” Then, in a normal vocal modulation, he added, “Gewalt! It means ‘force.’”
Jehan, delighted, rewarded Joly with a cookie. Feuilly and Marius dutifully wrote down ‘Gewalt’ on the sheets of paper Combeferre had put in front of them.
“Guten… Gewalt?” attempted Feuilly. Bahorel hissed at him in a suitably eldritch horror sort of fashion. Joly nearly choked on a cookie.
Combeferre had been holding his head in his hands and now put his head on the table.
“I shall raise your head,” said Courfeyrac, coming to perch on the edge of the table. “We are the Friends of the ABC, and must uplift those struggling with the Ah Beh Tsay!” His German pronunciation was not good, and the joke even worse. Enjolras looked puzzled. Courfeyrac said, wincing, “The pun does not properly translate.”
“Neither will Marius if this keeps happening,” growled Combeferre, though without any real anger. “Bahroel, stop hissing. I would not rule out the existence of otherworldly elf monarchs, but I doubt the Erlkönig would successfully lure children to their doom if it hissed like that.”
Jehan staggered backwards dramatically, clutching at his velvet doublet. “Ack! Combeferre, how can you say such things? Does your soul have callouses?” Jehan used the word ‘cal,’ which caused Courfeyrac to start elbowing Bossuet in excitement.
“No Courfeyrac!” begged Combeferre.
Undeterred by this censure, Courfeyrac persisted, “But, Combeferre! With me and Bossuet as the companions of your bosom surely you must have-”
Enjolras had been listening intently and interrupted, “Calembours!” A pun was a “calembour” in French. The beatific smile which accompanied this did much to mitigate Combeferre’s exasperation.
In his heavily accented English, Courfeyrac exclaimed, “Ee ‘as beat us to se pun-ch!”
Recognizing the word “pun” Bossuet pointed at Combeferre and added, “You oughtn’t to have tried to stop us! This is your pun-ition.”
The much harassed Combeferre dragged over Jehan. “Der Tod, may I introduce you to Herr Courfeyrac and Herr Bossuet?”
“Why?” ased Feuilly.
Combeferre raised his eyes towards heaven. “It is the only way to get the puns to stop.”
Enjolras put his hand on Combeferre’s shoulder and said, with the same smiling mildness as ever, “That is right. You are my dearest friend but even I cannot offer you im-pun-ité.”
Courfeyrac and Bossuet were so pleased by this show of understanding from their chief they piled on him at once, loudly thumping him on the back and tormenting the French language in further puns, going much too rapidly to be intelligible.
“Entre deux maux il faut choisir le moindre,” muttered Combeferre. “Which one shall you take Herr Tod?”
But Jehan was busy explaining Der Erlkönig to Feuilly, and confusedly translating passages of the poem in Marius’s general direction, and could drag neither of the punsters into hell.
“There is only one Meaux present,” Courfeyrac said, slinging an arm around Bossuet’s shoulders.
“I am going to kill you both myself,” Combeferre said.
A pun occurred to Courfeyrac and Bossuet at about the same time, and they began elbowing each other excitedly. Combeferre eyed them both with a harassed expression, and then decided to take off his glasses to polish them, in the improbable hope that if he didn’t see them making a pun, the pun wouldn’t be as terrible.
“We cannot die, you see, since der Tod has turned translator,” said Courfeyrac. “How good it is to see that Herr Tod still concerns himself with the maux—” evils, which sounded like ‘mots,’ words “—of the world.”
“Courfeyrac,” said Enjolras, warningly.
Courfeyrac held up his hands, “My Rousseau pun was even worse. You see? I am keeping track of all the moves in this jeu des maux.”
Even Bahorel groaned.
“Ah ah ah!” Bossuet wagged a finger at them all. “We aren’t done yet! I have advice for der Tod even Combeferre could not condemn: between two mots, one must always choose the lesser.”
Warnings: Alcoholism, recovery, relapse; brief emetophobia; canonical major character death
Summary: Combeferre seeks to free Grantaire from the chains on his dependence on alcohol, no matter if he may have a dual motivation in mind. But just when things seem to be going better than Combeferre could have hoped between them, the events of June 1832 happen.
Notes: Much thanks to Pilf for allowing me to not so much bend as outright break the rules on word limit here, and to Perry for agreeing to this beast. As with everything I write of this nature, anything I say or imply about addiction, recovery and relapse are based on my own experiences and should not be taken as universal. Most of the recovery itself takes place offscreen, due to the sometimes graphic nature of detox that could have bumped this out of T territory. As this fic is over 5000 words long, it will be cut off if read on Tumblr mobile.
Combeferre let out a world-weary sigh before opening the door to the modest suite of rooms he called his own. It had been almost three days since he had last slept in his own bed, and judging by the ache in his back and the numbness that had stolen over his mind as he journeyed through the near-empty streets of Paris, he longed for it dearly.
But sleep was not to be achieved, at least not immediately, as Combeferre opened the door to find a fire lit in his grate and Courfeyrac lounging on his méridienne, sipping from a glass of wine. “Ah, Combeferre!” Courfeyrac said loudly, sitting up and raising his glass as if toasting his return. “I hope you do not mind I helped myself. Awaiting your return when you left no word as to where you’d gone was thirsty work.”
If it were not for the fact that Combeferre and Courfeyrac had been close friends for years, Combeferre might have taken Courfeyrac’s words at face value. As it was, he read the worry hidden in his tone and saw the shadows that lingered under Courfeyrac’s eyes, not quite masked by the brightly-colored waistcoat and cravat clearly chosen to make Courfeyrac look less peaked, and surmised that he had not been the only one with a few sleepless nights under his belt. “You were awaiting my return?” he asked mildly. “Surely when you had entered my chambers and discovered my absence, you should have taken your leave.”
“I did,” Courfeyrac acknowledged steadily. “But not after trying to ascertain your whereabouts, and upon discovering no one knew where you had gone, I endeavored to wait for you here. Granted, I did not imagine it would take you this long to return…”
His words held no condemnation in them, only mild curiosity, but Combeferre flushed and said quickly, “I was with Grantaire.”
That simple syllable held a world of emotions and discussions between the two men, and Combeferre bristled at the assumed accusation. “He has endeavored to give up alcohol,” Combeferre told Courfeyrac, sighing heavily, for this was a topic that he and Courfeyrac had discussed — at least a topic they had discussed in theory — many times before. “And he grew ill from doing so. His body has grown dependent on the alcohol and in its absence…”
He trailed off, hoping that Courfeyrac would understand, but instead Courfeyrac’s brow furrowed. “If Grantaire was ill, you should have called for a doctor,” he said lightly. “Joly, perhaps, if a real physician was not to be trusted. Surely as much as I am sure Grantaire appreciated you nursing him to health, there were other alternatives to you sitting by his bedside.”
“Even if there were, what need was there for an alternative?” Combeferre asked, matching Courfeyrac’s assumed levity. “Grantaire is our friend, and as I was free to sit by his side and ensure he did not die from convulsions or hurt himself in his hallucinations, why should I not have done so?”
Courfeyrac’s brow furrowed. “Because I do not believe you are doing so for the right reasons.”
Combeferre sighed and loosened his cravat as he slumped into the chair by the fireplace. “And what would you deem the right reasons? To free our friend from the hold that alcohol has over him, with the research that I have done into dipsomania, what better reason exists than that?”
“And what of Enjolras?”
Combeferre seemed taken aback by the question. “What of Enjolras?”
Courfeyrac set his glass of wine down on the table, running his finger lightly down the stem. “If, hypothetically, you were assisting a mutual friend of ours in hopes that under different circumstances, happier and more complete in himself, he might catch the eye of our Noble Leader, that could be considered…honorable of you,” he said, carefully. “If you were assisting a mutual friend in hopes that he might instead discover similar feelings to your own, then that is another matter entirely.”
For a moment, it seemed that Combeferre would deny that sentiment outright, but instead, he reached for the bottle of wine and spare glass that Courfeyrac had thoughtfully left out. “You do not know of what you speak,” he muttered.
“Don’t I?” Courfeyrac leaned forward, his expression troubled. “You and I sat in this very room, splitting a bottle of wine much like on this night — or on this morn, I suppose, given the hour — and you confessed that you wished to help Grantaire, wished to assist him become a man free from alcohol and thus hopefully catch more than disdain from Enjolras. You thought it was a plan in which they could both be happy, and I do not question that motive. You and I have known for a long time that there is something good that could transpire between Enjolras and Grantaire if only they could both manage it. But I question whether you will be happy, if your plan succeeds, if Enjolras spares a second thought to our beloved libertine.”
Combeferre shrugged and took a sip from his glass of wine. “I will be happy if Grantaire is happy,” he said quietly.
Courfeyrac studied him for a long moment, then hoisted his own glass and said, a little gravely, “I truly hope that you will be”, before draining his wine. Combeferre took a moment before draining his glass as well, the wine sticking in his throat the way that the lie just uttered by his lips had not.
——————————
It had been two weeks previous when this all had began — not counting the conversation Courfeyrac had mentioned, which had taken place long past, under the influence of lofty ideals and far too much wine — when Combeferre had been able to put into action his previously half-formed plans. Though plans was perhaps an incorrect term, as Combeferre hadn’t planned on this happening, had only opined how he wished things would turn out to bring the most happiness to their friends — or rather, the most happiness to Grantaire.
Combeferre had long realized that he harbored feelings toward Grantaire, feelings that Grantaire instead had towards Enjolras. He could not have pinpointed exactly why he had such affections for Grantaire — in as much as Grantaire was Enjolras’s true opposite, he was as much Combeferre’s, at least in certain senses — but perhaps that was the draw. Grantaire was kind, when he wished to be and often at the most unsuspecting moments, and well-spoken, at least when the alcohol did not send him on rambling soliloquies; funny, when his humor did not run into the vulgar, and intelligent, that much was clear from any conversation Combeferre had engaged in with him; he was not unattractive, swarthy and well-muscled, and if his body and face showed what hardships he had encountered in life, Combeferre did not find that aesthetically unappealing.
But whatever the cause of his affections, he had long since abandoned any true hope of Grantaire reciprocating his feelings, not when the dark-haired man felt so strongly towards Enjolras. But if he could not have his feelings with Grantaire reciprocated, he could work towards getting Enjolras to reciprocate Grantaire’s feelings, could he not?
At least, that is what he told himself, and when the opportunity presented itself, logic told Combeferre to seize the moment.
It did not present itself in the most auspicious way — Combeferre had stepped outside of the Musain one evening following a meeting to find Grantaire doubled over, holding himself up with one hand against the wall of the Musain, emptying the contents of his stomach. “Grantaire?” Combeferre had called.
Grantaire looked up and shakily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ah, Combeferre,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face. “My apologies that you must see me this way. The wine has not been kind on my stomach this eve.”
Combeferre frowned at him. “I did not think you had drunk nearly enough to need to purge yourself this early on.”
“Evidently you have not been paying close enough attention to my drinking,” Grantaire replied, clearly aiming for levity, though his smile was more of a grimace. “It is nothing important. A mere misestimation of my limits. It will not happen again.”
Combeferre’s frown deepened. “It may not be my place to say anything—” he started, and Grantaire snorted and waved a dismissive hand.
“I promise, if your place is overstepped, I’ll not tell Enjolras to spare you from the lecture about personal autonomy.”
Though Combeferre half-smiled at that comment, his expression quickly became serious again. “You say that it will not happen again, just as you say that it is unimportant, but I believe it to be of utmost importance. Your health is important.” He did not say ‘to me’, though the words seemed implied.
Grantaire slowly straightened, his own expression oddly blank. “My health is important?” he repeated. “To whom is my health important? Surely not I, for I bartered my health away in favor of absinthe and frivolity years ago. My health has no impact on the Cause for which you fight, though admittedly my sobriety could provide less of a distraction than my drunkness.”
“And your sobriety could perhaps provide a better or at least different sort of distraction to Enjolras.”
Now Grantaire cocked his head slightly, his brow furrowed. “If I am a distraction of any sort, he hides it well. Certainly I have been the subject of his ire on more than one occasion, but as a nonbeliever in a den of credence, that is only to be expected.”
Combeferre could not help but flush slightly, but carried on determinedly. “And yet you would seek to be more than that to Enjolras, would you not?”
Grantaire’s lips tightened, and for a moment Combeferre thought that he might call an end to the conversation. Instead, Grantaire said stiffly, “And if I did? What, you think my sobriety would have an impact on that? Surely it would be easier to convert me to a zealot than implore me to give up my drink, and would perhaps have a similar impact upon our noble leader.”
For a moment, Combeferre was lost for a reply, not as ready as Grantaire with a barbed comeback for every argument. But unlike Enjolras and Grantaire, whose verbal spars were often off-the-cuff, quick responses driven more by heat than by actual conviction, Combeferre’s arguments were measured, calm, logical, and he would not change that now. Instead, he looked carefully at Grantaire, weighing his options. “It would perhaps be easier to convert you to the Cause,” he acknowledged slowly. “But I believe the more lasting impact would be to wean you from your drink, both for yourself, and for the Cause.”
Though Grantaire did not look convinced, he changed tack, his eyes narrowing slightly. “This is not the first time one has attempted to sway me from the hold of alcohol. But Joly has warned me of the potential effects, and given the choice, I’ll take drunkenness and disappointing Enjolras any day.”
Combeferre inclined his head slightly. “There are dangers, of course, as your body has grown accustomed to the alcohol. But I would be willing to help you through the ill effects, for as long as you would need me.”
Grantaire looked startled. “But…why?” he managed. “Offering to assist me to be rid of the demon that haunts me alone…you are kind, Combeferre, if misguided. I know you well enough to know you would do this for reasons other than personal gain, as certainly you would gain nothing from my sobriety, but still, why? Enjolras aside, as I do not see him as motivation enough for you, why would you seek to help me?”
Combeferre shrugged. “Is it enough to say that you are my friend, and that above all else I desire to see you happy? Because if you can tell me honestly that you are happy now, as you are, with wine and absinthe your most consistent companions, I would trouble you no further.” Grantaire was silent, and Combeferre, emboldened, took a step closer to him. “But even if your sobriety had not a single impact on Enjolras, I would still encourage you to seek it, because I do believe you deserve health and happiness, Grantaire. And as your friend, I would help you find it.”
Grantaire was quiet for a long moment, staring at Combeferre with a curious look on his face. “I was not aware we were such friends.”
Combeferre half-smiled. “I would do anything for a friend who suffered in such a way. I’ve been reading some writings by an American physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and he believes your affliction, your dependence on alcohol, is not a moral failure, but rather a medical disease, and I must admit that I do not disagree. And if any of our companions suffered from a disease, I would seek to treat it, would I not?”
“Logic would tell you to do so,” Grantaire said evenly. “But even if this were a disease, which I do not necessarily believe, it is of my own making. And there is no cure for my own stupidity, I assure you of that.”
“But would you be willing to try?” Combeferre pressed, his gaze intent. “If it could possibly make you happy?” Grantaire’s expression did not change, and Combeferre hesitated before adding, “If it could possibly make Enjolras happy?”
Grantaire’s eyes flickered up to Combeferre’s before he looked away. “I just do not see the point in trying,” he said quietly. “Not when I would inevitably fail.”
Combeferre shook his head. “Grantaire—” he started, but Grantaire cut him off, his expression tightening.
“You would seek to dissuade me, and that is your right, just as it is mine to refuse. But I will not let you say more until you tell me why you wish to help me, truly.”
There were a multitude of reasons Combeferre could offer, including the truth, though he knew better than to utter those words at that time. So he chose instead a truth, and a plausible one at that. “Because I believe that the utmost right of every human on this Earth is to be free,” he said simply. “And that includes freedom from what ails you. And as I have the means and opportunity to assist, to help you find that freedom, I would be remiss if I did not help you.”
Grantaire hesitated before asking, “Are you sure that Enjolras did not put you up to this?”
Combeferre couldn’t help it — he laughed, though he quickly stifled it. “My friend, I am sorry. I do not mean to jest at your expense. No, of the many virtues our noble leader possesses, that is not one of them. His concern is for the masses, nameless as they are, and while he is fierce in his love of all of his companions, it is not oft on such an individual level.”
“But for you it is?” Grantaire asked, a little coolly. “For you, the Cause may be seen even in me?”
Shaking his head, Combeferre said quickly, “You are not the Cause or even a cause. You are a man struggling, and I seek only to help. You have every right to tell me to mind my own business.”
Grantaire was looking at him with an odd expression on his face. “And yet,” he said slowly, “I am finding that I do not want to.” He took a deep breath and then sighed. “I may yet regret it, but who am I to stand in the way of your noble quest for freedom? Least of all when it seems it will benefit more than just my sorry soul.”
“It will,” Combeferre had promised him. “It will.”
And though it remained too early to tell for certain if it would, during the next two weeks, Combeferre had done everything in his power to help Grantaire see that it could. The physical act of stopping the alcohol consumption did not start immediately — Combeferre insisted Grantaire see a physician or at least Joly before starting the process. Grantaire had not been wrong, nor Joly in warning him — Grantaire’s dependence on alcohol could have serious physical and psychological effects on his body with his sudden cessation, and arrangements needed to be made to help him through the worst of it. Combeferre had, true to his word, been there every step of the way through the tremors and nausea, hallucinations and convulsions. Now, Grantaire was free from the physical side effects, at least from what Combeferre had read, but had an uphill battle in facing his desire to drink again.
For that reason, Combeferre took the night and the day after to ensure his affairs were still in order — not a difficult task, as he kept a fairly tight household, his own tendency to hoard books and the odd specimen aside, but his landlady was paid through that month and next, and if he spent a little less time at his own home, she was kind enough to ensure that no one trespassed (other, apparently, than Courfeyrac, though Combeferre could not find himself surprised that his landlady had taken a shine to Courfeyrac — everyone took a shine to Courfeyrac).
But once the sun began to set the following eve, Combeferre made his way back to Grantaire’s apartment, ready to assist as needed. He found Grantaire at his table, cravat loosened, palm flat against the table where normally it would be curled around the neck of bottle. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked tired, a product of sleeping fitfully over the past few days, but when he smiled at Combeferre, his smile was genuine. “Returned so soon?” he asked lightly. “Here I thought you might tire of my company.”
“Never,” Combeferre told him sincerely, loosening his own cravat as he sat across from him. “I promised to be here so long as you need me, and here I am.”
“And need you I do,” Grantaire said, his tone turning brisk. “I’ve procured a set of dominos — from where matters not — and need someone with which to play. Have you played before? I shall teach you if not, though I suspect you’ve a shrewd enough mind to catch on regardless.”
Combeferre smiled and shook his head, relaxing, content to spend the evening distracting Grantaire however he wished, content even more to simply spend the evening with Grantaire.
——————————
In the following weeks, such an evening became routine. Combeferre still tended to his duties, both personally and for the Cause, and both men attended Les Amis meetings with regularity. But in their free time, Combeferre and Grantaire could oft be found together, playing dominos, reading together, or just talking together. In Grantaire Combeferre found a worthy companion, more than he could have imagined when he gave thought to it before this all began. Grantaire when sober gave voice to his thoughts normally muddled by the alcohol, and Combeferre found him to have a broad intellect and warm sense of humor.
His discussions with Grantaire ranged from scientific discoveries to the most mundane, Grantaire willing to argue and balk at every turn but also consider Combeferre’s more wild notions without outright dismissing them. Combeferre used Grantaire to work through his thoughts, surprised and very pleased to find Grantaire willing to listen to anything he had to say and return his sentiments, often with arguments adjusted and calibrated perfectly.
It was everything Combeferre always thought Grantaire had the potential to be, and should have been perfect, but Combeferre could not help but feel guilty. Where he felt his friendship with Grantaire deepening, he could not help but feel that he was meant to be doing this for Enjolras’s sake, to assist Grantaire in becoming for Enjolras what he had instead become for Combeferre — a confidant, a friend, and someone on whom Combeferre could rely.
Still, he put those thoughts from his mind, because surely if Grantaire was getting better, if he was not drinking and was not tempted to drink, it did not matter for what purpose. At least, so he told himself.
But one day, following a particularly vicious argument with Enjolras as to Grantaire’s own utility, Grantaire returned to his suite of rooms sullen and silent. Combeferre trailed after him as he had been recently, but did not know what to say, Grantaire preferring to brood rather than speak. Finally, when they were both inside, Grantaire gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white. “I desire a drink,” he said quietly. “You have heard Enjolras — even sober I bring nothing forward that he finds useful for his Cause. Grantaire is a drunk and Grantaire is useless — his words, not mine. If so he thinks, why should I not be?”
“Because you can be more than that,” Combeferre said quietly. “You are more than that. You have come so far—”
“And for what?” Grantaire challenged, his face red. “To prove to Enjolras that even sober I am no more useful to him than any gamin off the street? To show that when the time comes, none will be able to say that Grantaire did anything for the revolution?”
Combeferre shook his head. “This was never about that,” he reminded Grantaire, still quiet, though his tone was firm. “Your aim here was not in turning you into something you are not, a revolutionary zealot, but in freeing you from the chains that alcohol wrought on you.”
“But what good is freedom from chains if I’ve naught to show for it?” Grantaire asked bitterly. “Enjolras despises me just the same sober as he did drunk.”
“And this was never about Enjolras,” Combeferre told him, his volume rising slightly. “This was about freeing yourself, with the possibility of Enjolras as a hopeful side effect. Do not throw away all you have worked for these past few weeks on a wish!”
Grantaire gave Combeferre an approximation of a smile. “How strange to hear the Guide of the rebellion arguing against hope.”
Combeferre all but slammed his hand down on the table, and Grantaire flinched slightly, his eyes wide. “Desiring to have Enjolras suddenly change is not a hope, it is a delusion! I am filled with hope for you, such hope, and I want nothing more than for you to find that hope in yourself, that hope for yourself, for that is what will be your light when Enjolras cannot or will not be.”
Grantaire was silent for a long moment after that outburst, his brow drawn, his hand clenched into a fist. Finally, in a low voice that did not sound entirely like his own, he asked, “Why do you care?”
Sighing, Combeferre sat back in his seat, suddenly exhausted. “I have told you many times—” he started, his voice low, but Grantaire shook his head as well, leaning across the table until the were merely inches apart, his eyes searching Combeferre’s for the truth he saw Combeferre as hiding from him.
“Why?” Grantaire repeated, gripping Combeferre’s arms lightly. “I am not worthy of any of the time you have dedicated to this cause above the plight of the people, though this one may be just as hopeless. Why would you try so hard when you are only destined to fail, or worse? Why do you even care if I poison myself sooner rather than later? Why—”
Whatever question he was to ask next never made it out his lips, because Combeferre closed the space between them and kissed him.
For just one moment, Grantaire kissed him back, then, abruptly, pulled away. Combeferre did not quite panic, though he felt close to it. Instead, he met Grantaire’s gaze and said simply. “That is why.”
Grantaire nodded slowly, his expression troubled. “And if I did not return the sentiment?”
Combeferre shrugged. “I would have helped you anyway, will continue to help you. You are my friend, first and foremost.” He wanted to leave it there, but could not stop himself from asking, “Do you not return the sentiment, then?”
Grantaire shrugged and sat back in his chair. “In truth, I know not how I feel,” he said slowly. “Between the alcohol and Enjolras…” He shook his head as if unwilling to finish the thought. “Will you give me time to work out what I feel?”
“Of course,” Combeferre responded instantly. “What is most important to me, what I want above all, is for you to get better for yourself, whatever that takes.”
——————————
Though true to his word Combeferre still assisted Grantaire over the next several days, something had shifted in their friendship, something that could not shift back until Grantaire made a decision, and it made Combeferre uneasy, knowing his fate rested in so tenuous a position. This feeling was not helped by Enjolras sitting next to him after a Les Amis meeting one night the next week, after most of their friends had adjourned for different company and far better wine. “Courfeyrac says that you have been spending a lot of time with Grantaire lately,” Enjolras said in lieu of preamble, his expression unreadable as he looked at Combeferre.
Combeferre shrugged. “He and I have discovered mutual interests. Despite your frequent frustration with him, I find his company enjoyable.” He paused before asking, “Is this a problem? For the Cause? Or…for a different reason?”
Enjolras looked surprised at the question, though his expression quickly smoothed out. “Not a problem,” he hedged. “Certainly not for the Cause, as what a man does in his private life should have no impact on our fight unless, of course, it directly counters the fight for all.” He fell silent, his brow furrowing as if in thought before saying hesitantly, “I did not know you felt that way. The…Greek way.”
Half-smiling at Enjolras’s awkward phrasing, Combeferre shrugged. “There are many among our number who indulge in Greek love, some exclusively. I admit that I would not define myself strictly in the Greek fashion.”
Enjolras nodded slowly. “And you…and Grantaire…”
Combeferre’s smile faded. “If a man’s private life has no impact on the Cause, for what purpose do you ask me this?”
To Combeferre’s surprise, Enjolras flushed. “I merely sought to know what you were doing,” he muttered.
Combeferre shook his head, suddenly angry, angry at the entire situation. “Why would it matter what I am doing?” he asked loudly. “For surely you don’t care for Grantaire — you have made that abundantly clear. You openly despise the man, or at least act as if you do, and yet the moment someone else shows interest, you…” He bit off his words and allowed himself to calm slightly before saying in a low voice, “I do not even know what you mean to accomplish here, except to say that toying with our comrade’s emotions is a low move designed for far less worthy men.” Enjolras’s jaw clenched but he did not answer, and Combeferre said, still quiet, “If you do not have feelings for him, at least tell the man as such, let him down from whatever fantasies he lives in his head.”
“The problem is not that I do not have feelings for him,” Enjolras said quietly, avoiding Combeferre’s gaze. “The problem is that I do.”
Combeferre stared at him, his heart beating almost a painful rhythm in his chest. This was everything he had feared, everything even he, undoubtedly Enjolras’s closest friend, could not have anticipated. Certainly he had known Enjolras’s feelings toward Grantaire were more complex than mere disdain, but to know that Enjolras harbored feelings of this nature… “Then you must tell him,” Combeferre croaked, his mouth dry.
Enjolras just shook his head. “I cannot.” He managed a small smile. “And now you see why it is a problem.”
Frowning, Combeferre said slowly, “I am afraid that I do not.”
Enjolras sighed, something in his expression turning stony. “I cannot act on these feelings for fear of what I would bring on Grantaire by doing so. Our Cause, the sedition we utter so freely in this room, it will have consequences, ramifications, and while I would sacrifice myself and my life and my dignity, while I would gladly accept any man doing the same for our Cause, I would not see Grantaire dragged into that, not when his belief lies not with our Cause.”
Combeferre’s brow furrowed. “But Grantaire should be allowed that choice, just as any of our number would be granted that choice when the time comes.”
Tilting his head slightly, Enjolras said quietly, “It seems to me that Grantaire has made his choice, and in my estimation, he has chosen well.” Combeferre shook his head, but the words he would utter in protest died in his throat as Enjolras continued, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, “My friend, you are in many ways the sum of the best parts of myself, and all that I could never be. If it cannot be me, there is no other that I would wish for Grantaire.”
“But he wants you,” Combeferre replied, a little desperately, even if this was not the argument he truly wanted to make; on occasion, appealing to Enjolras’s passions, even his now confessed humanly passions, was the best way to get through to him.
Here, however, even that seemed destined to fail, as Enjolras met his gaze steadily. “And he needs you.” Abruptly, Enjolras stood, though he paused and tentatively reached out to grip Combeferre’s shoulder. “As always, I leave what I cannot trust myself with in the capable hands of my closest lieutenant.”
In that moment, any further argument Combeferre might have made faltered, and he could no no more than look up at Enjolras and nod slowly, even if his chest seemed locked in the vice-like grip of guilt. He needed to tell Grantaire what Enjolras felt for him — it was only right to do so, was it not? Combeferre would never seek to purposefully leave any, least of all one of his own comrades, in willful ignorance. Enjolras may not wish Grantaire to know, but Combeferre could not keep this from him.
Could he?
It would be better for him, certainly, if Grantaire never discovered the conversation that had transpired between Enjolras and himself — he already knew his affections could never be truly reciprocated, at best a pale imitation of what Grantaire felt towards Enjolras, and any glimmer of hope would cause even that pale imitation to fade completely. But would it not be better for Grantaire to know the truth?
The thought haunted him on his entire walk back to his apartment, and with it the debate over whether to tell Grantaire or to not. But when he arrived at his apartment, the thought was put from his mind by the form of the man in question leaning against the wall next to his door. “Grantaire?” Combeferre asked, surprised.
Grantaire looked up at him and smiled, a genuine smile, such as Combeferre had not seen from Grantaire since, it seemed, this entire thing had begun. “I hope you do not mind the intrusion.”
“Indeed not,” Combeferre said, opening his door and ushering Grantaire inside. “Though if you are going to make a habit of stopping by, I recommend becoming acquainted with my landlady; she appears to have no regard for thoughts of privacy.”
Grantaire’s smile widened. “I may or may not have spoken with her before you arrived,” he admitted. “She offered me admittance, but I thought it best to wait for you.”
Combeferre harrumphed and shook his head. “Yes, perhaps for the best,” he said, glancing around to ensure his suite was not overly messy, cluttered as it was with his many books, specimens, and other belongings. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
Grantaire, however, did not sit, instead shifting awkwardly. “I had rather hoped we could talk.”
Combeferre shot him a sideways glance. “Yes, I think that would be for the best,” he said softly.
Though Grantaire nodded, there was something of a nervous energy to the movement, and though he started, “I wanted to come to tell you…”, he quickly trailed off, instead darting forward to kiss Combeferre square on the lips.
Freezing, Combeferre’s eyes opened wide in shock, and he would have pulled back were it not for Grantaire pulling away as quickly as he had moved forward, his eyes wide as well. “What…what was that?” Combeferre managed.
“When I returned to my room this eve, I longed for a drink,” Grantaire told him, still with the same nervous energy, glancing at Combeferre and away. “I longed for a drink and for the oblivion it would provide, but then I thought instead of you.”
Combeferre stared at him. “Of me,” he repeated quietly.
Grantaire nodded, still not looking at him. “I thought of you, and all that you’ve done for me, and how far I have journeyed over these past several weeks. And suddenly I…” He glanced at Combeferre again, almost shyly. “I found I did not want to drink so badly.”
Combeferre reached forward to grab both of Grantaire’s hands with his own. “Grantaire, that is wonderful to hear,” he said, sincerely. “But do not overplay my role in this. Your journey has been of your own making, and you are the one to sustain its longevity.”
“Whether true or not, I did not just think of you in that sense,” Grantaire said in a low voice. “I asked for time, to work out how I feel, and I still lack a sufficient answer. But I realized I may never have a satisfactory response. And yet my feet carried me to your door as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and I think that to be an answer in and of itself.”
Combeferre’s brow furrowed slightly. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying,” Grantaire started, then shook his head. “I am saying nothing. I am doing this.”
He pulled Combeferre to him and kissed him soundly. Combeferre could not help but return this kiss, wrapping his arms around Grantaire and giving in to what he had so longed for and what he had never dared to hope would come to pass.
As Grantaire had said, perhaps this was an answer in and of itself to whether Combeferre should tell Grantaire. Or at least so he told himself as he pushed the guilt aside and tightened his grip on Grantaire.
——————————
The next morning, the guilt had returned in full force, and Combeferre decided to call on Courfeyrac, who had been there for the beginning of this whole debacle and might have some form of advice to offer, beyond what gnawed at the back of Combeferre’s mind.
“Combeferre!” Courfeyrac said when he answered his door, sounding surprised. “What brings you here on a day such as this? I would have expected you to attend to Grantaire’s to continue assisting him.”
Combeferre shrugged, and Courfeyrac’s smile faltered slightly. “Something has happened,” he said, opening the door wider so that Combeferre could follow him inside. “Involving Grantaire, naturally. Did he rebuff your advances?”
“Quite the opposite, actually,” Combeferre said, sitting down at Courfeyrac’s table and running a tired hand across his face.
Courfeyrac sat as well, slowly smiling. “So you have come to share the good news? My friend, I am glad for you, and for Grantaire! It is not necessarily a match I would have foreseen, but if you are happy…” He trailed off, looking closely at Combeferre. “And yet you are not happy, which leads me to believe there is more to the story.”
Combeferre fixed his gaze on the wall behind Courfeyrac as he said emotionlessly, “I am not the only one harboring affections towards Grantaire. Enjolras is, as well, only he made it clear to me that he has no intention of acting on those affections, that for him the Cause will always be most important.”
“Ah.” Courfeyrac sat back in his seat, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “And I shall assume that Grantaire knows nothing of our Noble Leader’s returned affections?”
Shaking his head, Combeferre said softly, “Enjolras does not wish him to know.”
Courfeyrac frowned. “Has he asked that you not court Grantaire?”
Combeferre sighed and shook his head again. “Quite the opposite. He has given his blessing.”
Now Courfeyrac’s frown deepened. “Then, forgive me, I do not see the problem.”
“It is dishonest, is it not?” Combeferre asked, meeting Courfeyrac’s eyes for the first time. “To withhold such information from Grantaire when he would hunger for this most of all? How can I go about courting him, or even just assisting him with his alcohol problems when I bear a secret such as this one?”
“By knowing that the truth does no one any good,” Courfeyrac told him, sounding almost surprised, as if the answer was apparent.
Frowning, Combeferre returned, “By my estimation, the truth would do Grantaire plenty of good, and perhaps more good than anything he and I could share..”
Courfeyrac leaned forward slightly in his chair. “But it is not your secret to tell, and dismissing the potential between you two off hand because of this would be folly.” Combeferre’s jaw had a stubborn set to it, and Courfeyrac sighed before saying quietly, “Let me rephrase — will the truth change anything? Will it help Grantaire, truly? Or will it only hurt, knowing that Enjolras returns his affections but refuses to act on them?”
Combeferre shook his head. “It matters not. He should be free to choose.”
“Just as Enjolras is free to deny his feelings,” Courfeyrac said evenly. “Grantaire is still free to choose Enjolras — you are not denying him that choice, only withholding a certain incentive for one choice over another.”
“Then it is not an informed choice,” Combeferre insisted. “Education is the only way to ensure that the choice made is fully understood and that the chooser fully consents.”
“And again, what would it change for him to be fully informed?” Courfeyrac challenged. “As it stands, his current choice is between certainty — your feelings for him — and uncertainty — the potential for Enjolras to return his feelings, or not. Even if he knew Enjolras returned his feelings, the choice is still between certainty and the uncertainty of the possibility that Enjolras may or may not choose to act on those feelings.”
Combeferre shook his head again, a million arguments springing to mind despite the fact that he wanted to believe Courfeyrac, who did not give him a chance to voice any of those arguments. “If you tell him, you will only hurt him, yourself, and Enjolras. If you do not tell him, all three of you have a chance at happiness.”
“But the freedom that truth provides above all—” Combeferre protested weakly.
Courfeyrac half-smiled and reached out to cup Combeferre’s cheek, something gentle and a little hesitant in his touch. “Some secrets were meant to be kept, mon ami,” he whispered.
For the second time in as many days, Combeferre found himself unable to reply, not because he could not find the argument — indeed, he saw numerous arguments to that, just as he always did — but because he could not find it in himself to do so. “What am I to do then?”
Shrugging, Courfeyrac leaned back in his chair. “Off-hand? I’d suggest finding Grantaire, spending time with him. You’ve gotten what you wished for, or perhaps did not dare to hope for — perhaps you should try enjoying it.”
Could Combeferre do that? Could he put aside the guilt and the analysis of morality in this situation and simply enjoy the fact that, however uninformed his choice may have been, Grantaire had, for the moment, chosen him?
He did not know, but surely it would not hurt things further to at least try.
So he stood, bid Courfeyrac farewell, and went to Grantaire’s apartment. “Combeferre!” Grantaire said when he opened his door. “I…I did not know if I would see you today.”
Combeferre smiled warmly at him. “I was out this way and thought I would stop in to see how you were doing this morning.”
Grantaire smirked. “Coming to see if I regret our conversation last night?” Combeferre looked at him, startled, and Grantaire’s smile softened. “I do not, if that was what you were wondering. And if it is not what you were wondering, you are assured now in any case.”
Rolling his eyes, Combeferre cleared his throat and said, “I had thought to ask you to accompany me on a stroll. To the jardin, perhaps? It is a lovely day outside, the month being as it is, and I thought your company might be a nice addition.”
“How formal,” Grantaire teased. “Shall I start using vous instead of tu?”
Combeferre leaned in and kissed Grantaire, a swift kiss, conscious of the fact that they stood in Grantaire’s hallway still, where any could see them, and while the laws against sodomy had been long overturned, the stigma remained. “Is that less formal for you?” he asked, a little breathlessly.
Grantaire smiled up at him. “I do believe it is.” He grabbed his jacket and buttoned it over his waistcoat, and took Combeferre’s arm, allowing him to lead him down to the street. “And what shall we talk about on this fine walk?”
“Whatever you wish to discuss,” Combeferre said easily.
Grantaire glanced over at him. “After all this time, how have you not yet grown bored of my rambling?”
“I find your rambling interesting,” Combeferre told him truthfully. “And besides, you allow me the occasional enthusiastic long-winded rant on whatever subject has captured my attention recently.”
Grantaire nodded sagely. “Ah, yes, I do believe that I shall never forget your disquisition on, what was it, the carotid artery?” Combeferre snorted and shook his head, and Grantaire smiled at him. “What a fine pair we make, then, myself with my rambling, you with your enthusiastic discussions of the mundane.”
Combeferre looked at Grantaire fondly. “Indeed,” he said quietly, in far more serious a tone than Grantaire had used. “What a fine pair we make.”
——————————
Over the next few weeks, they grew closer still. Where before Combeferre had frequented Grantaire’s apartment to assist him however he might need it while learning to live without alcohol, now both often found themselves at the other’s apartment, or else staying at the Musain long after everyone else had long since returned to their beds. Combeferre blearily opened his door early one morning for Grantaire to rush in because he had spent a sleepless night contemplating one of Combeferre’s arguments and had discovered its weakness, just as Grantaire answered his door late at night, already dressed in his bedclothes, to be pulled from his apartment to go with Combeferre to view what Combeferre called an astronomical phenomenon.
Grantaire showed Combeferre the best places in Paris, including a decrepit booksellers, where he lost Combeferre inside for the better part of an afternoon. For his part, Combeferre showed Grantaire the meaning of wonder, of discovery, whether found in one of Combeferre’s scientific specimens or in the pages of a book that Grantaire had not yet read. They whiled away the hours not dedicated to the Cause or their other interests together.
Their relationship was more intellectual than anything, especially physical — though they touched, and often, hands brushing against each other, fingers linking, occasional companionable cuddling on Combeferre’s méridienne, even lingering kisses pressed to forehead or temples, only a few times did they truly kiss again, and always initiated by Grantaire. Combeferre did not wish to force him to do anything he did not want to do, and both men were content with the way their relationship progressed. It may not be traditional courtship, but it was hardly a traditional arrangement in the first place.
And they fought — how could they not? As much as Grantaire was Enjolras’s true opposite, he must also be in many ways Combeferre’s, especially regarding the the potential for progress on its own. But where Enjolras and Grantaire’s arguments had often been bitter and caustic, Combeferre and Grantaire’s arguments were more controlled and careful. They were not seeking to prove the other wrong but rather test the other’s tenets, and this led to all manners of discussions.
One such discussion, however, shook Combeferre’s convictions. One evening following a meeting at the Musain in early May, Grantaire asked, “Where does our Noble Leader adjourn to so early in the evening? Does he not have grand plans to devise?”
“The time for planning is almost past,” Courfeyrac told Grantaire as he passed by. “And Enjolras goes to discuss armaments with others.”
Grantaire arched an eyebrow at Combeferre, who shrugged and looked away. Shaking his head slightly, Grantaire took a sip of the water that had taken the place of wine in his cup. “Well, if it is for the greater good,” he muttered, smirking slightly.
Combeferre, however, frowned, and looked back at him. “The greater good?” he questioned. “To hear those words from your mouth when you believe in none of this — I am surprised, to say the least.”
Grantaire shrugged and leaned back in his chair, reaching up to loosen his cravat, sensing an argument in the making. “It is not the ends that I have difficulty in believing, though I do not see them coming to fruition in our lifetime. Certainly a free and prosperous world is as great a fantasy to entertain as any. But the means to getting there — well, I doubt the people shall rise in force now any more than they have these past three decades, but that does not imply the means are not justified by said fantasy.”
Shaking his head, Combeferre leaned forward. “I would not see the means take place if I had any ability to stop them. Education could just as easily achieve our ends, over a more advanced timeline. And yes, yes, I recognize the suffering happening now and the necessity of our actions to alleviate said suffering now, but in my heart I long for a different strategy.” He shook his head again and sat back in his seat. “It seems we offer society only two choices: conflagration or darkness, without acknowledging a third alternative, and that, to me, seems deceitful, if not an outright lie that we perpetrate in hopes of bringing the populace to our revolution.”
Grantaire laughed. “And what is a little deceit in society, when the end results are so longed for? Surely lies are a small price to pay for so sweet a reward.”
Abruptly, Combeferre stood, his face ashen. “Lies are not an easy price for any man to pay, small though they may be,” he said in a low voice. “And the reward not always sweet enough to quell the guilt a man may feel.”
Without another word he grabbed his hat and left, striding away into the night, leaving Grantaire staring after him, bewildered. “What is it you said, capital R?” Bossuet called from across the room, and Grantaire just shook his head.
“I honestly do not know.”
Combeferre strode back to his apartment, battling the sudden guilt that he had managed to keep tamped down over the preceding weeks. For the greater good, he thought bitterly. Was that not exactly what had started this whole mess? Courfeyrac and Enjolras seemed not to mind deceiving Grantaire, as it was for some greater good. Certainly they couched it in terms of happiness, but could true happiness be achieved when one was not even free to learn the truth?
And worse, he had willingly gone along with it, had squashed his own misgivings, believing that what he felt for Grantaire was more important than anything else, more important certainly than the potential pain Grantaire might feel knowing Enjolras shared his affections and still rejected him, the ends, Grantaire’s happiness, his own happiness, justifying his lie. And now, to hear such an argument parroted glibly back at him by Grantaire…
It was too much to bear.
By the time he had arrived back at his building, his pace had slowed, as had his breathing and the pounding of his heart, and indeed, he felt a little foolish, for his storming out if not for the sentiment that inspired him to do so. Perhaps, though, this would lead to the conversation he should have had many weeks ago now; perhaps it was time to end this charade once and for all.
He was not entirely surprised when not even twenty minutes later a tentative knock sounded on his door, and was even less surprised when it was Grantaire who entered, looking a little nervous. “I came to apologize,” he said, without preamble. “I know not what offense I gave, but I assure you, it was accidental.”
Combeferre shook his head. “The apology is mine to make,” he said quietly. “My reaction was unjustified. I—”
He broke off, debating now that Grantaire was in front of him how much he should say, if anything. “Combeferre?” Grantaire said quietly, his tone soft and gentle and far more than Combeferre deserved.
“It is nothing,” Combeferre said stiffly, turning away from Grantaire as he added, “I do sometimes wonder whether I have done the right thing.”
Grantaire reached out and touched his shoulder tentatively. “I do not believe in much,” he told Combeferre quietly. “But I do not believe that you have done wrong by your country or your fellow man, and I believe you an honorable man with honorable intentions, and those intentions may yet be rewarded by the rise of the people.”
Combeferre closed his eyes, for of course Grantaire thought he referred to the revolution, to the Cause — how could Grantaire even think that Combeferre referred to him, to them? “Of course,” Combeferre said, turning to Grantaire and taking both his hands in his. “You are absolutely right. I overreacted.”
Grantaire smiled up at him. “You did get very serious on me for a moment.” He reached up and cupped Combeferre’s cheek, and Combeferre could not help but lean into the touch. “I know how seriously you take the education of our countrymen, of all people, but do not forget to enjoy what little moments of peace we have together.”
Combeferre lifted his own hand to rest it on top of Grantaire’s. “I could never,” he told him softly. “I treasure these moments most of all.”
“Good,” Grantaire said, suddenly brisk, his eyes sparkling with merriment. “For I believe you said earlier this evening that you found another error in the Dictionary of the Academy, and I know nothing brings you joy like discussing such faulty texts.”
Laughing, Combeferre let Grantaire pull him in the direction of the settee, his guilt, neither assuaged nor forgotten, again tamped down in Grantaire’s presence.
But then June dawned, and with it, the statement, “General Lamarque is dead”, which changed everything.
They were all gathered at the Musain, and the room went silent at the announcement, all eyes on Enjolras, who seemed almost frozen for a moment, profiled against the fire, his head bowed. “Comrades,” he said slowly. “If ever we have been awaiting a sign to rally the people, this is it. General Lamarque, a man who spoke for the people, now lies dead, his voice silenced, but we will not be silenced in his stead.” Indeed, Enjolras’s voice grew steadily as he looked around the room. “His death brings forward a moment of clarity, a moment of necessity, and a moment of opportunity. The grief our comrades feel will not be in vain, for we shall channel that grief into anger, and anger into action. His funeral day must be the day our barricades arise!”
“Hear, hear!” someone shouted, and Enjolras nodded officiously.
“We will fight for our fellow countrymen, stand for our fellow countrymen, even die for our fellow countrymen, if the need arises! The blood of the martyrs will paint the streets with the color of our Cause! Who will stand with me, who will fight with me, who will die with me?”
The entire room burst into enthusiastic cheers, save for two: Combeferre and Grantaire. Combeferre and Grantaire’s eyes met across the room, Combeferre as concerned for Grantaire’s reaction to this news as to anything. Grantaire just smiled, a twisted, horrible approximation of his usual, cheerful grin, and leaned forward to pluck Bossuet’s bottle of wine off of the table, raising it in a mock salute before lifting it to his lips, Combeferre’s heart breaking in the process.
——————————-
The next few days passed in a blur of preparations, final touches put on the plans established months ago, waiting only for the proper time to be enacted, and Combeferre was too busy to dwell on Grantaire, on Grantaire’s return to drinking, and what this meant for them. Did it matter much what it meant for them if Combeferre could find himself shot down by a National Guardsman in the coming days?
Still, he could not put the thought from his mind, not when he looked for Grantaire at every turn only to not find him. Finally, when he had a free moment, he went to Grantaire’s apartment, but did not find him there. Instead, he found him at the Musain, laughing and joking with Joly and Bossuet as if nothing was wrong, save for the bottle prominent at his right hand. “Combeferre!” Joly called, beckoning to him. “Join us, if you are not too busy with your preparations!”
Grantaire looked up when Joly spoke, and his smile faded. Combeferre could see what the others either could or would not, the dark circles around Grantaire’s eyes and the unhealthy pallor of his skin. Clearly Grantaire had not taken well to drinking again. Combeferre cleared his throat, his eyes not leaving Grantaire’s. “I am afraid I have not the time for merriment at this hour. I merely wondered if I could speak with Grantaire for a moment.”
Joly and Bossuet exchanged glances, and Grantaire stood, a little unsteadily. “Has Enjolras sent you to scold me for my lack of involvement?” he asked lightly, knowing full well that was not why Combeferre was there. “He would have better luck coming himself if he wished to convince me.”
Both Joly and Bossuet laughed, and Grantaire allowed Combeferre to lead him to a quiet corner of the café. “You know very well why I am here,” Combeferre said, quietly. “I come to ask you not to give up everything you have worked so hard for over these past few weeks. What will happen will happen, but you do not need to return to alcohol.”
“Enjolras indeed would have had better luck with this mission,” Grantaire replied coolly. “I drink to forget life, and to forget that life is about to end.”
Combeferre shook his head. “Grantaire—” he asked, reaching out for Grantaire, who jerked his arm out of Combeferre’s reach.
“Do not patronize me,” Grantaire said in a low voice. “None of it matters now, do you not see that? Enjolras will die. This is no mere theoretical revolution now, to be discussed in back rooms among the fumes of wine and haze of smoke. This is war coming, or do you think the National Guard will merely allow the barricades to rise without bringing out their own cannons and artillery?” He shook his head, his face flushed, and spat, “Enjolras will die. And if he does, there is no point in any of this.”
Combeferre recoiled as if Grantaire had struck him, his expression tightening. “Then I see my efforts have been in vain,” he said, stiffly. “I bid you good day.”
He turned on heel and left, making it outside before the tears that pricked at the corners of his eyes could fall, and by the time he had returned to Enjolras’s, the tears had been replaced by anger and by a hollow feeling in his chest.
He had known that Grantaire did not fully return his feelings, but now, the truth was as plain as day — Grantaire did not love him. Grantaire had never loved him. How could he, when Combeferre was no Enjolras? And everything that Combeferre had tried to do, to accomplish, had been worthless.
Luckily, Combeferre was never one for brooding, and turned his attention back to the task at hand and the preparations underway, leaving the hurt and anger and heartbreaking pain that rose in his chest to be dealt with another day.
——————————
But the prospect of another day, of course, became limited, and when the barricades rose, Combeferre rose with them, shouting and cheering with the rest. And when reality set in, when they all were finally situated at the Corinthe, only then did Combeferre turn his attention from the gun in his hand and two in his belt back to Grantaire, watching from the sidelines as Grantaire drank himself to near oblivion before all but begging Enjolras to let him stay at the barricade.
It was everything Combeferre had not wanted for Grantaire. Every ill advised decision Combeferre had made, every lie he had told, it had been in the hopes that Grantaire would not be a part of this, here at the end of all things. But as with all of Combeferre’s plans, it seemed a dashed hope now.
Still, just as Combeferre was not willing to give up on his hopes for the future, he was not willing to give up on Grantaire, even now, and so late that night, when the fighting had ceased and everyone sensible had turned to sleeping, he crept back inside the Corinthe, shaking Grantaire to wake him and sitting beside him at the table. Grantaire blinked blearily at him. “Combeferre,” he said slowly, his voice soft and sad, and not as drunk as Combeferre might have expected. “Why have you come?”
“To plead with you, one final time: leave this place. The barricade is no place for you. It is a place of lofty ideals and the hopes of a world that you have never believed in, and it will be painted with the blood of those who believe. But you have never believed, and I would not see your blood needlessly shed.” He hastened to add, when he saw the look on Grantaire’s face, “I would not forbid your presence here, nor would I ever tell you that you disgrace what we do here, because I do not believe that, nor have I ever. But I would wish you to see you live, you most of all.”
Grantaire managed a small smile, though it did not meet his eyes, and shook his head slowly. “I cannot leave,” he told Combeferre quietly. “While still Enjolras draws breath, here I must remain, pathetic though that may seem.”
Combeferre inclined his head, his heart pounding in his ears. A not small part of him considered telling Grantaire that Enjolras loved him — here, in this place, what was there to lose by telling? What was there to be gained by keeping this secret for one moment longer?
But looking into Grantaire’s eyes, Combeferre found he could not, even here. There was a chance, however small, that Grantaire might live through this instead of dying with Enjolras or dying for Enjolras, and no matter how slim the chance, it was a chance that Combeferre was willing to take. Instead, he cleared his throat and told him, sincerely, “For my sake, then — because I love you.”
It was the first time that he had uttered those words to Grantaire, and Grantaire did not look surprised to hear them, though he seemed pained for a moment. “And how I wish it was enough, for both our sakes,” Grantaire whispered.
Combeferre nodded, slowly, for he wished it, too, in the depths of his heart. Grantaire reached out for him and Combeferre went readily to his embrace, allowing Grantaire to kiss him, assumedly for the last time, his hands balling in Grantaire’s waistcoat, as if by holding him tightly enough this might all be a nightmare from which they could both wake.
Instead, they both pulled reluctantly away, though Grantaire tangled his fingers with Combeferre’s. “You must make me a promise,” he said in a low voice. “If somehow you survive this, you must promise to take care of yourself. You will meet someone else, you will fall in love, and I want that for you, and I want you to want that for yourself. I want you to live, Combeferre, I want every dream you have shared with me to come true.”
“I want the same thing for you,” Combeferre said, his voice breaking. He took a deep breath and nodded. “I promise.” He squeezed Grantaire’s hand. “And will you promise the same, mon ami? Should you survive the barricade, will you live life as it is meant to be lived? Will you again give up alcohol and become the man with whom I fell in love?”
Grantaire shrugged and looked away, his grip on Combeferre’s hand loosening. “I do not know what life would hold for me outside of this barricade,” he said softly. “And I know not if I will have a chance to find out.” He managed a small smile and squeezed Combeferre’s hand. “Now I must return to my slumber, before the wine loosens my tongue even further, and you must return to the barricade before you are missed.”
Combeferre stood before asking, a little desperately, “There was never a choice for you, was there?”
Now Grantaire smiled slightly. “Ah, my friend, even now you worry about the freedom of choice. There was always a choice — there always is. But my choice was made long ago, and I cannot change course now.”
Combeferre nodded and bent to kiss Grantaire’s forehead. “No more than I can change course,” he said in a quiet voice. “Sleep well, Grantaire.”
“And you,” Grantaire replied gently. “When sleep should take you.”
Combeferre slipped back outside, at once overwhelmed by emotion and yet somehow finding his burdens had been lifted. He had done what he could, none could argue otherwise now, and even if the result was not what he wished, even if still he withheld from Grantaire what he should have told him many weeks past, he still went to what fitful sleep the barricade could provide feeling less guilty than he had in weeks.
And the next day, when, bending to lift a wounded soldier on the barricade, Combeferre was transfixed by three blows from a bayonet, he managed to look up at the sky for one last time, his last thought the hope he still had that Grantaire, one way or another, might find it in himself to be free.
Café Society
fic by lizamezzo
art by orlofsky
(warning for alcohol and innuendo; also, illustrations on this fic are throughout the text!)
****
“I am not going to Momus.”
“But —“
“No.”
“Musichetta, my love, the plan—“
“Was made by you, not me. I’ll prepare a hero’s welcome for your return, but my foot does not cross the threshold of Café Momus. Especially not in these shoes.”
“Very well, dearest. Though I shall be thinking of you. I wish you could come. Grantaire would love to see you there, I know. It’s his favourite place, you see, and—”
“Grantaire has no idea this is even happening, does he?”
“Well, no. It’s a surprise. It took ages for me and Bossuet to work out when his birthday was, he’s always been so close-mouthed. About that, that is— obviously not about anything else.”
“Yes, ‘close-mouthed’ is not a term I’d apply to Grantaire in the normal course of things.” Musichetta smiled irresistibly, and Joly felt something he was sure presaged a syncope. “Give him my very best wishes, and come back in one piece— you and Bossuet both. I’ll be expecting you.” She leaned in to kiss him. Definitely a syncope, Joly thought, but worth it, in the end.
************
If you wanted a table at Café Momus on a Saturday in June, you had to arrive unfashionably early to stake your claim. The canny customer would seek out the upstairs room: a convivial place with its large windows and ornate plasterwork stained by years of smoke from candle, lamp and pipe. Joly, entering, found Courfeyrac and Bossuet already seated at a table that looked— to Joly’s worried eye— optimistically large. After embracing Courfeyrac (who was wearing a new scent, he noted) and planting bisous on Bossuet’s rough cheek, Joly ventured: “My dears, do we know who else is coming along?”
“Well, I’ve invited all of our crowd, of course,” Bossuet replied thoughtfully. “Enjolras gave me a stern look and told me he had work. Feuilly is teaching tonight— French to his Polish group, you know.”
“Marius was off on one of his mysterious long walks, so I left him a note at that ghastly tenement of his.” Courfeyrac sipped his coffee. “Combeferre has a shift at the Necker. But Jean Prouvaire said he’d be along.”
“Prouvaire’s coming? Good, I owe his bony poetic arse a kick or two.” The others looked up to see Bahorel striding to the table, his jacket under his arm. His hair was pomaded and tied back neatly for once, Joly saw, and he was wearing a miraculously clean shirt.
Across the table, Courfeyrac had his hands over his eyes. “Is that waistcoat… new?”
“You like it?” Bahorel posed, smiling. “Chinese silk! Expensive, mordious, but I had to have it. Dragons, you see?”
Risking a closer glance at Bahorel’s midriff, Joly discerned golden serpentine forms, clawed and whiskered, writhing across the gleaming scarlet fabric like spermatozoa under a microsocope.
“Why this desire to kick the arse of Jean Prouvaire?” Bossuet was asking.
“Firstly,” replied Bahorel, “because at our last conversation, he implied that I could not if I tried. Secondly, because on the morning following that conversation, I awoke to find my inadequacies immortalised in a ballade in the style of Villon, inscribed upon various parts of my person in what I am assured was the finest India ink. Thirdly, because the aforesaid arse offends me by its shapeliness. The curvature of those twin hemispheres is far too perfect to exist in this city, I’m sure you’ll agree. If, as the Church Fathers would have us believe, we live in a world where perfection is denied us for the sins of Adam, then the arse of Jean Prouvaire is a living blasphemy. If, on the other hand, we dwell in a chaotic and godless universe, where all things are haphazardly shaped by the mindless actions of primordial forces, then nothing so perfect as the arse of Jean Prouvaire should exist at all. How am I supposed to live in proximity to an arse which both disproves and affirms the existence of God?”
Courfeyrac passed Bahorel a freshly poured coffee and the sugar bowl. “My dear Bahorel, if you are resolved not to make a lawyer, then perhaps theology is the career for you. Think of the Sundays that would be enlivened by such a sermon.”
“Perhaps,” mused Bossuet, “Jean Prouvaire’s posterior exists as a sign of divine benevolence, like that other arc which occasionally decorates the sky?”
Bahorel finished stirring and struck the spoon vengefully against the rim of his cup. “All I’m saying is that when the revolution comes, those with perfect arses will be first against the wall.”
“I’m sure that will be of great comfort to the sans-culottes,” muttered Joly. Bossuet gave him a perfectly filthy grin—there’s that syncope again— and murmured back, “Is Musichetta coming?”
“No,” said Joly sadly. He related their earlier conversation to Bossuet. “I don’t know why she’s so dead set against this place. As far as I know, she hasn’t been here in years.”
Bossuet shrugged eloquently. “Best not to enquire, I find. If it’s an old love affair, all we should do is feel enraged and jealous for no good reason. Let Musichetta be Musichetta, that’s the best way.”
“Just as you say, my dear. Now: shall I go and fetch the man of the hour?” At Bossuet’s nod, Joly rose, made his excuses and went to seek out Grantaire.
*********
After drawing a blank at the Corinthe and the Musain, Joly found himself at the door of Grantaire’s lodgings just off the Place Saint-Michel. A word with the concierge bought him a disapproving glance and passage to Grantaire’s door. Some while after his hesitant knock, the door grudgingly opened.
“You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.”
“My dear Grantaire. Happy birthd—“
“I had just attained the blessed state known to the heathens as Nirvana and to the poets as sweet, blissful unconsciousness. I was dreaming, you infidel, dreaming— that sunny dome, those caves of ice— a vast harem of odalisques bent on discovering the inmost secrets of my languishing soul— and then your knuckles at my door, and the whole damned thing dissolves into the murk of memory. You are Alexander, and my palace of dreams your Persepolis.”
“You should write a poem about it,” said Joly, momentarily struck.
“Been done. Besides, if I pick up a pen I might be ranked beside Jean Prouvaire in the annals of futility. Come in, come in, don’t stand there like some underendowed Herm waiting for the tender mercy of Alcibiades. Or of the concierge, for that matter, who runs this place like the Conciergerie. Come in.”
***************
Joly and Grantaire strolled forth under leaden summer skies, feeling the occasional spitting drop; as they were crossing the Île de la Cité they saw a blue-white flash and heard a nearly simultaneous crack of thunder. All at once the heavens opened, drenching them and driving them to seek the scanty shelter of a chestnut tree.
Joly put his fingers to his wrist, but his pulse remained steady, if a shade faster than usual. Another flash, a pause of exactly two heartbeats, then another thunderclap. They were out of the sheeting rain, but fat drops from the leaves above still spattered them. The only poor souls in the street hurried by with their shoulders hunched. All but one: down the street came a slight-figured young man, apparently of student age, with his jacket plastered to his body and his arms open to the heavens. There was something of the sublime in the skyward stare of his wide blue eyes.
“Oh, would you look at that idiot.”
“That’s no idiot, that’s Jean Prouvaire!”
“I stand by my opinion—”
“Prouvaire! Poet! Here!”
A moment later, they were both locked in the affectionate, dripping embrace of Jean Prouvaire. “Jehan, Jehan,” murmured Joly against his soaking shoulder— “what on earth are you doing?”
“Enjoying the storm. Isn’t it beautiful? No one looks up during a rainstorm. I can’t think why. Such lightning, my Jolllly! What thunder in the heavens! At such moments, I feel truly alive.”
“Would you gaze heavenwards while an old wife empties her chamberpot on your head, since you do so when God does it?”
“My dear Grantaire, if chamberpots caused such divine cloud formations, perhaps we’d all raise our eyes. Even you. Happy birthday, by the way.” Grantaire remained absolutely motionless as the poet leaned forward to kiss his cheek.
Into the brief silence, Joly said “We were just going to Café Momus for a drink. Join us?”
“I— yes, of course.” Prouvaire gave Joly a conspiratorial smile. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Shall we go, then? It seems to be easing up.”
Indeed the most violent part of the shower was over, but still, Grantaire and Joly were almost as soaked as Prouvaire by the time the three arrived at Café Momus. At the door, Joly drew Prouvaire aside.
“I should have said something earlier: Bahorel’s here, and I think he wants to kick your—“
“Yes, well. Many have tried.” Jean Prouvaire gave him a smile. “Thank you for the warning, but I’m certain it was all bluster on his part.”
Grantaire grimaced. “That Bahorel is bluster incarnate. A paper tiger.”
“No, an unexploded grenade. But believe me, I know how to defuse him.”
Their wet shoes made a sextet of squeaks as they climbed the stairs and crossed the old floorboards of the upstairs room. From the table came a full-throated cry of greeting, the pop of Champagne and one or two handfuls of confetti, which fluttered down to decorate Grantaire’s damp hair and shoulders.
“Idiots.” He grinned. “Beloved idiots. Let’s drink.”
******************
Prouvaire and Bahorel had eyed each other like feral cats for a moment; then Bahorel had embraced the poet, lifted him off the ground, and murmured something in his ear; they were now deep in talk.
“While you were away,” murmured Bossuet to Joly, “we had to defend the table. From them.” He nodded to the corner by the piano where three young men stood, drinks in hand, favouring the revellers with the odd disdainful glance. “They kept insisting that since there was no one in your chairs at that moment, they ought to have the right to sit in them, or at least take them away. And I believe they would have, had not Bahorel intervened.”
“Devoted as I am to the rights of my fellow man,” Courfeyrac put in, “it pained me to refuse them. But, as I said to them, just because a chair is empty does not mean it is unoccupied.”
“And if our numbers are lessened,” added Bahorel, “those left behind must fight all the harder. Thus, it fell to me to kick righteous arse on your behalf.”
“No actual blows were exchanged,” Bossuet clarified. “Bahorel convinced them of the justice of our cause by… er, standing up. And also by the excellence of his rhetoric.”
“A true loss to the legal profession, our Bahorel,” sighed Joly.
“Avocat jamais!” Bahorel raised his glass to Bossuet, who met it with his own. “Jamais.”
Courfeyrac looked up. “I say. They’re coming this way.”
“They want some after all?” Bahorel brightened.
But Grantaire was on his feet. “Ha, I knew you wastrels wouldn’t be far. My friends and sundry assembled fools and rogues, may I present: Rodolphe, slinger of ink; Marcel, defiler of canvases; and Schaunard, creator of cacophony. And these are the Friends of the ABC, a perfectly innocuous society for the education of children.”
“So we can sit at your table now?” asked the shortest of the three in what he doubtless thought was a tone of light mockery. “Is there, perchance, a seat for a poet among your fancy law student friends?”
“Sit by me, poet,” said Jean Prouvaire with a smile. Bahorel ran his thumbs over his knuckles as the new arrivals helped themselves to Champagne, finishing the bottle.
“A piano bench for me,” announced Schaunard, draining his glass and scampering to the far corner, where he struck up a tune on the battered and tinkly rosewood upright.
“He’s good,” Courfeyrac admitted. “So how do you know Grantaire, then?”
“We met on the day of submissions to the Académie…oh, some years ago now.” Marcel smiled. “A month later we met again, and discovered that both our masterpieces had come back bearing the dreaded capital R. So we drank to drown our misery; by eight o’clock we were friends, and by midnight sworn brothers.”
“And you are a painter, now, by profession?”
“Well— I entertain hopes that someday my genius will be recognised.”
“How many times did you paint over that Passage of the Red Sea and resubmit it as something else?” Grantaire broke in.
“Only two times. …Maybe three. But you, your still lives were astonishing— your studies of—“
“Oh, come on. They were shit.”
“No art is shit!”
“Most art is shit. Mine certainly was. Tell me you don’t look at your work from five years ago and feel consumed with shame at its utter, irredeemably awfulness.”
“It was the work of a different artist, but no less worthy. My Red Sea never sold, but it still has pride of place on my wall.”
“Hush. I’ve come to terms with the fact that my paintings were shit. You clearly haven’t.”
“And do you still paint?” Marcel asked. “There,” he said into the sudden, table-wide silence. “If you have no faith in your own art, what do you have?”
“The satisfaction of not wasting pigment,” replied Grantaire tranquilly. “And you— if you can’t even recognise shit when you produce it, then how do you ever expect to paint anything that’s not shit?”
“I believe that what Grantaire is saying,” intervened Jean Prouvaire, “is that dissatisfaction can be as much of a spur to the artist as aspiration. I think you’re both correct. One must never avert one’s gaze from the distant Parnassus—“ this with a nod to Marcel— “yet distant it remains, no matter how we strive.”
“And what would you know about it, lawyer?” demanded Rodolphe.
During the heartbeat’s pause that followed, Joly realised Schaunard had stopped playing the piano.
“Only what a lifetime of lines written, scratched out and rewritten can teach me.” Prouvaire’s voice was soft.
“All I’m saying,” continued Rodolphe with some truculence, “is that none of you should claim to know what it is to be a true artist. None of you. To be a true artist is to serve the Muse to the exclusion of all else, no matter the cost to yourself. Have you gone without food because the journal turned down your article that week? Have you been thrown out of your cold, solitary room because you couldn’t make the rent?”
“Actually, I—“
“Shh, Bossuet.”
“Have any of you,” continued Rodolphe, warming to his theme, “had to burn your furniture because you couldn’t afford firewood?”
“Speaking of which, Rodolphe my friend,” broke in Grantaire, “don’t you have a millionaire uncle? The one who made his fortune by inventing that stove— what’s it called—“
“Yes! He would have employed me to write proposals for his new stove design, but my poet’s honour could not bear it. I fled his house by the window.”
“Without completing the work he’d paid you for.”
“Indeed.”
“And,” pursued Grantaire, “as I remember, that fee, which might have seen off your landlord for a number of months, was spent in three memorable evenings— one of them here.”
“What’s your point, Grantaire?”
“My point is that you, Rodolphe, are no better than the rest of us. But cheer up: you’re also no worse. Do you know, our Laigle here once spent no less than five louis on dinner with a… lady? His sleeping quarters were in a hallway at the time. My hallway.”
“That was long ago!” Bossuet protested. “My misspent youth.”
“Anyway, Bossuet’s no lawyer. Rodolphe, you two ought to get along fine. Here’s Courfeyrac with a fresh bottle. Everyone kiss the Widow Cliquot and make up. I, Lord of Misrule and Master of the Floral Games, command it. Rodolphe, Prouvaire, you’ll drink each other’s health or I’ll set Bahorel on both of you.”
“I’ve got to kick at least one poet’s arse tonight,” murmured Bahorel as the cork popped.
“Keep dreaming,” replied Jean Prouvaire, sotto voce.
As Courfeyrac poured, the door opened.
“Speaking of floral games!” Grantaire raised his glass. “To beauty, wit, and artistry— and virtue— in the charming persons of Citizens Floréal and Boissy!”
The new arrivals were unanimously hailed. Serviettes were handed to them to dry their hair, their wet shawls hung ceremoniously over chairs; glasses were procured for them, and Champagne poured. Irma Boissy took a glass to the piano for Schaunard, and the two of them began a song:
“Chevaliers de la table ronde,
Goûtons voir si le vin est bon.”
Boissy’s voice had a pleasing stridency which had made her a popular guest at the cafés chantant. Schaunard, as he played, sang harmonies in a high tenor. Soon the whole room was singing, with Grantaire standing on the table conducting wildly with a limp rose from one of the vases.
“Behold the Parisian Beethoven,” proclaimed Jean Prouvaire, gazing upwards. Joly had to admit the resemblance was uncanny; Grantaire’s hair had always resisted discipline and was now in open rebellion.
“To Beethoven!” Joly raised his glass, and Prouvaire clinked his against it.
“Turgid German rubbish,” said Rodolphe loudly.
Marcel smiled. “Well, I suppose it’s good enough for lawyers.”
Lightning flashed outside the dark windows. Joly turned to Marcel and Rodolphe. “Listen. Sneer at us all you like for being bourgeois. Most of us will be lawyers, it’s true. But remember that we are trying to change things for the better, and that will take lawyers as well as poets! It did in ’89, and it will tomorrow.” He realised he was shouting to be heard over the increasingly cacophonous singing.
“I understand the impulse to exist outside society,” said Prouvaire. “Society is a gilded carriage on which the rich ride in comfort while the poor either pull till they drop or are crushed beneath its wheels. Will you watch and do nothing, or will you join us?”
“Join you in what?” Rodolphe’s eyes narrowed.
“There are those who would upset the cart and lay a new road where all may walk side by side. It won’t be easy, and it will take courage. Audacity. But we believe Paris is with us.”
Rodolphe lowered his eyes to his glass. “I’m just a poet. Tonight I drink Champagne, tomorrow water. I take each day as it comes.”
“And you, Marcel?”
“I depict acts of heroism on canvas— or I try.” Marcel smiled wryly. “And fail, mostly. Grantaire was right. And if I tried to be a revolutionary hero, I’d fail at that too. Now, a failed artist is a wretched creature, but a failed revolutionary is… in an even worse case. Of the two, I know which I’d rather be.”
Grantaire had noticed their conversation, and pointed his floral baton menacingly. “Sing, you bastards!”
“Sur ma tombe, je veux qu’on inscrive:
Ici-gît le roi des buveurs.”
Across the table, Bossuet reached around Grantaire’s waist to unfasten his buttons while Courfeyrac and Bahorel tugged down on one trouser leg each. The room outroared the thunderstorm as Grantaire’s trousers descended. Nothing daunted, Grantaire sang on, rose in hand, the table shaking as he conducted like one possessed, his nether baton bouncing in time:
“La morale de cette histoire,
C’est qu’il faut boire avant d’mourir!”
The song ended with falsetto high notes from everyone and a protracted cheer. Grantaire, trousers still around his ankles, bowed theatrically in all directions and was pelted with flowers snatched from the vases on the tables. His bare posterior was towards the door when it opened, and he turned at the draft of wet, chill air.
Enjolras, his hair soaked, stood in the doorway.
Thunder echoed from without as he stepped forwards. “Courfeyrac? I went to your lodgings, and Marius told me you were here. Did you forget to leave me that article? You know we go to press tonight.”
“Oh.” Courfeyrac stood up, looking guilty. “A thousand apologies! I meant to get it to you, of course, but…” He fished in his jacket pocket, extracted a folded page. “Here it is. I’m sorry.” He handed the paper to Enjolras, who stood entirely still beside the table, not looking up or acknowledging Grantaire in any way. “May we pour you some Champagne?”
“No, thank you. I must be going. Till tomorrow, then?”
“Till tomorrow.” Courfeyrac leaned forward as if for bisous, but Enjolras had already turned on his heel and made for the door, unhurried, straight-backed.
As it closed behind him, Grantaire raised an empty glass to the empty air. “Happy birthday to me.”
***************
Jean Prouvaire had procured another bottle of Widow Cliquot’s finest and Schaunard was doing his heroic best at the piano, but the party was no longer gai. Grantaire was sunk in a profound melancholy. Prouvaire and Bahorel were seated on either side of him, talking to him in an undertone; Rodolphe and Marcel had joined Schaunard at the piano.
Joly found himself sitting next to the girl Grantaire had called Floréal. “May I pour you a glass, mademoiselle?” he asked.
“Yes. Thank you.” She was silent as he poured, watching the bubbles rise. “Tell me: the man who arrived just now and left so quickly, who is he?”
“A friend of mine, and of many of the people at this table.”
“But not Grantaire?”
“I… I don’t know. They know each other. We all know them both. But it’s true, they are… not friends.”
“What is his name?”
“Enjolras.”
“Ah.” She paused. “I have heard Grantaire speak that name. Never happily, but never with malice either. With sadness, and sometimes anger. It’s an unusual name.”
“He’s an unusual person. I think you’re right, by the way— that’s the thing about Grantaire: that no matter how unhappy he is, he’s never malicious.”
“Yes. He’s always been like that.”
“May I ask where you know each other from?”
She picked up her glass, from which she still had not drunk. “We were children together. Not related by blood, but he’s been more of a brother to me than my brothers. I knew him before he was Grantaire, and before I was Floréal.” She took a sip of Champagne. “I sometimes wonder: had I not become Floréal, what else might I have been? And I think he wonders the same, about being Grantaire.”
Joly glanced across the table. “I can’t imagine him not being Grantaire, but…”
“Yes? Go on.”
“I don’t… I don’t know whether he enjoys it much.”
She shook her head, then put a hand on the table. “Will you pardon me? I should go talk to him.”
“Of course.” Joly pushed his chair back to let her pass. She made her way over to Grantaire and laid her hand on his shoulder; he seemed to tense at the touch, but then looked up at her and said something Joly couldn’t hear. She seated herself by Grantaire as Bahorel cheerfully made room; Joly passed her glass along.
“Quite a girl,” said Bossuet, settling into the seat beside Joly. “Reminds me of Musichetta in some ways.” Silently, they raised their glasses and drank to her.
“She doesn’t talk much, does she,” mused Joly, “about who she was before she was Musichetta?”
“No,” said Bossuet, “I’ve noticed that too. She talks about her childhood and about recent years, but almost nothing in between. I suppose it’s not so extraordinary; after all, before I was Bossuet, I was no one of interest. Still, I’d imagine she knows most of our life histories by now.”
“Yes. She knows more about me than anyone except you.” Joly knew it was true as he said it.
Bossuet failed to hide a smile. “I’d never thought of it like that, but I think I might say the same.”
Briefly, clandestinely, Joly clasped his friend’s warm hand under the table.
“We should be getting back, shouldn’t we?” Bossuet said after a pause. “She’ll be waiting.”
“I know, but I hate to leave Grantaire feeling like this. We invited him here, and now…”
“What shall we do to cheer him up, then? More singing?”
“Definitely not more singing.”
“Hm. How about brandy?”
“Brandy could work.”
When Joly returned with a bottle of Armagnac and a tray of glasses, he found himself intercepted en route to the table by the painter Marcel.
“Ex-scuse me, friend.” He’s drunker than me, Joly realised, and that takes some doing. “Not to eavesdrop or any-such-thing, but did I hear you mention— just now— the name Musette?”
“My colleague and I were discussing an acquaintance of ours, called Musichetta. A similar name. I can see where the mistake arises.” Joly attempted to step forward; Marcel still blocked his way.
“Are you sure it’s not the same girl? ‘Cause if it is, you want to steer clear of her.” He tapped a finger unsteadily to the side of his nose. “One who knows, you see. Brotherly advice. Don’t trust ‘er. She’s a viper. She’ll eat your heart—“
“I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. I was speaking of a different lady altogether. Please excuse me.” Joly dodged around a nearby table and turned back toward his friends.
“She’s Italian.” He heard the painter’s voice aimed at his back. “Her real name’s Luisa.”
Joly was glad the man couldn’t see his face. By the time he got to the table, he’d mastered it— he hoped.
“My dear Grantaire, a glass of brandy?”
Grantaire looked up. His good ugly face split into a smile. “Joly! If you’ll have one with me.”
“I brought glasses for everyone.” Joly began pouring. Hands perfectly steady, now.
“Joly… Jolllly, my boon companion, I have a favour to beseech.”
“Beseech away, o comrade in arms.”
Grantaire put a hand on Joly’s shoulder and met his eyes. “Let’s never do this again.”
“What, come to Momus?”
“God knows there’s better drinking-holes in Paris, but no. I mean, no more of these futile celebrations of growing old. No more birthdays.” He patted Joly’s shoulder and let go. “It is unseemly, after all, for immortals such as we to mark the paltry passing of the years.”
Joly passed Grantaire a glass of brandy. “Are we growing old, or are we immortal? Make up your mind, old soak.”
“Both. We are Zeno’s tortoise, crawling endlessly towards a grave we’ll never reach. Or perhaps we shall share the fate of Tithonus, who withered and grew decrepit but was denied the mercy of death, while the object of his affections remained as fresh as morning dew.”
“…I’m sorry, Grantaire. I’m sure he meant no offense. He’s just… got a lot on his mind.”
“No.” Grantaire downed his brandy and made a small “ah” sound. “No, he’s Enjolras. Disdain flows in his blood vessels, mingled with divine ichor. Were he otherwise, he would not be Enjolras, and my heart would be free as air.”
Joly pondered a moment. He had never considered Enjolras a scornful sort; it was only Grantaire, Joly realised, to whom he showed contempt. Joly searched for words. “He… he sees the world a certain way. He lives here among us, but his mind is always bent toward the future, the Republic. I think sometimes he forgets that that’s not as easy for others as it is for him.”
“It’s not. Easy for him, that is,” said Grantaire, his voice rough and low. “You can see, can’t you, how it takes all he has, all the flame of his spirit? His disdain is for those who don’t give everything.”
“I don’t give everything,” said Joly. “There’s always more I could be doing. I think that’s true of all of us. You don’t have to devote yourself entirely to the Republic, as Enjolras does; I think he’s the only one who can do that. But there’s a generosity about him, too. He finds common ground with anyone who’ll give something.”
“Yes. And he rightly sees that I give nothing. That I have nothing to give. That I can’t even perceive the Republic, or imagine it. Oh, I tried, in the early days— to please him, I tried. I read my Robespierre and my Hébert, I memorised the Constitution. But every time I try to act as though I believe, it’s a disaster.” Grantaire poured himself another brandy. “Perhaps there’s some phrenological bump absent from my skull: the seat of belief in invisible things. There were times when I thought I could see the Republic through him, as a window lets in the light. But I was wrong. I can only see him. And he sees me. He’s the only one who sees me for what I am.” In Grantaire’s hand, the glass was shaking.
Joly gently took the glass, set it down, and clasped Grantaire’s hand in both of his.
“I think, after all these years, I know something of what you are too,” he said. “I think that’s true of Lesgles and me both. Call us whatever you please, but you’ll get no disdain from us.”
“It’s true.” Bossuet was there, like a falcon to the wrist. “You’re stuck with us. A terrible fate, but you’ll cope. Now,what shall we drink to?”
“To no more birthdays.”
“To many more birthdays, because as long as you know us, this is something you have to put up with.”
“Then you name the toast, Aigle de Meaux.”
Bossuet raised his glass and looked round the table. “Citizens, charge your glasses! What shall we drink to?”
“To life!” cried Courfeyrac.
“To art,” said Marcel.
“To poetry!” shouted Rodolphe.
“To the future,” said Prouvaire.
“To revolution,” murmured Bahorel.
“To peace,” said Irma Boissy firmly.
“To friendship.” Floréal was smiling.
“To harmony,” Schaunard piped up.
“To good company,” said a voice from the doorway, “and good music.”
“Musichetta!” Joly rushed to take her hand and lead her to the table. He raised his glass: “To love!”
Bossuet’s smile could have lit the room. “To many happy returns.”
*******
“Musichetta, my love! I thought you weren’t coming?”
“Well, I decided I was being a silly girl after all. A mere café should hold no terrors for a grown woman, don’t you agree? In any case, my reservations weren’t as important as wishing Grantaire a happy birthday.” She embraced Grantaire, leaving a pink afterimage of her lips on his cheek. “You look melancholy, my friend.”
“Nonsense!” Grantaire was ebullient. “I’ve never been better. A glass of ambrosia, my good Courfeyrac, for the goddess of the shrine! Schaunard, a hymn to do the lady justice.” Schaunard threw Musichetta a smile and seated himself at the keys.
“Musette!” Marcel had somehow got to his feet and was swaying towards her.
“Ah. Hello, Marcel.” Without missing a beat, Musichetta swung her right fist out and connected smartly with Marcel’s jaw. He fell sprawling. She shook her hand twice delicately, from the wrist. “Do you know, I’ve been waiting to do that for years?”
Rodolphe rushed over to kneel by the fallen painter. “What was that for? Wasn’t breaking his heart enough?”
“Not nearly. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Musichetta stepped over Marcel’s prone form to greet Jean Prouvaire and the others at the table.
”Don’t you turn your back on us!” Rodolphe shouted. “Don’t you dare walk away. We know what you are, Marcel and I.”
“Yes. I am the person who sold her earrings when someone we both loved was dying, and you never thought to go to your rich uncle.” She turned back to face them. “On that night, I knew I could have nothing more to do with you or your false Bohemia.”
Rodolphe was silent. Marcel raised his head, groggy. “I heard you got married. You married a… postmaster.”
“It fell through. I ended up with a postmaster’s son. And a medic.” Musichetta smiled. “And they all lived happily ever after, Fin. I’ll take that Champagne now, Courfeyrac.”
Marcel’s head sagged back to the floor. “Oh God. She’s wearing the shoes.”
*********
“Pardon me, citizen.” A deep voice at his elbow startled Joly. He turned to find that the speaker was a stranger of about his own age, wearing a battered, shapeless overcoat and an amiable expression. “Do you know what happened here, and if so, will you tell me? I don’t often find my friends on the floor of Café Momus, you see.” He looked down at Marcel and Rodolphe.
“Nor I mine. I can see how this might seem strange.” Joly wondered how, exactly, he was going to answer the newcomer’s question.
“Strangeness is a necessary first step to understanding.”
“There was… not a fight precisely, but an altercation… anyway, it seems to have blown over.”
“As the storm leaves fallen trees in its wake,” replied the man. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Colline, itinerant philosopher.”
“Joly, physician in training.”
“Ah, a disciple of Aesclapius! May Apollo smile upon your calling.”
The fellow was decidedly odd, Joly thought, but strangely likeable.
“Colline!” Grantaire called. “I was wondering when you’d turn up. Are you renewing Diogenes’s search? I fear you’re doomed to disappointment; the last honest man left the room some time ago. This party is strictly frauds and charlatans only.”
“I lack both Diogenes’s keen eye and his lantern,” replied Colline. “I doubt I would know an honest man if I met one. More to the point, I find myself lacking the key to my lodgings, which I was hoping to retrieve from my colleagues, if one may be found compos mentis.”
“Here’s one,” cried Schaunard, hastening from the piano. “I’m still on my feet, and moreover, I have keys. Not merely of ebony and ivory, but of the metallic variety which procures entry.”
“Both are honourable in their way,” said Colline agreeably, “but just now I stand in more need of the latter.”
“Come then: let’s get these wastrels home. Grantaire, hail and farewell. Rodolphe, Marcel, on your feet, you louts.” Schaunard and Colline wrestled Rodolphe upright; Marcel was more reluctant to leave the comfort of the floor.
“She’s wearing the shoes. Look, I can see ‘em.”
“Shut up about shoes,” Schaunard advised him.
At length the four bohemians threaded the labyrinth of tables and got to the door. As they disappeared through it, a series of impacts was audible, as of someone falling down a flight of stairs.
“I quite liked that Colline chap,” said Joly to Prouvaire.
“You have a weakness for good men in old coats,” replied the poet. “Bahorel and I are leaving too. The bill is settled— no arguments, my dears— and now we must pay the greater reckoning we owe to Bacchus and Morpheus.”
“And, possibly, Aphrodite,” added Bahorel in an undertone.
“Hush now.” Prouvaire laid a finger to Bahorel’s lips.
“Good lord,” whispered Bossuet, “I’ve never seen Bahorel purr before.”
Joly smiled. “Farewell, my friends.”
Courfeyrac, meanwhile, had embraced Grantaire and taken a courteous leave of Boissy and Floréal; he then bowed to Musichetta and kissed her hand.
“Courfeyrac, you are, as always, the preux chevalier,” said Musichetta. “Thank you, dear heart, for a glass of Champagne just when I needed one.”
“Widow Cliquot is the true heroine,” demurred Courfeyrac. “I am merely her champion. Joly, Bossuet: thank you for a fine evening.”
“Are you sure we can’t help with the bill?” whispered Joly urgently.
“Perfectly. Prouvaire and I agreed it between us. And I felt it was the least I could do.” Courfeyrac glanced at Grantaire. “Will he be all right?”
“He’s Grantaire,” said Bossuet. “He’s bounced back from worse. We’ll see him home.”
“No,” said Boissy, “we’ll do that. Floréal and I.”
They embraced Courfeyrac and waved as he left, then slowly made their way downstairs. The rain had ceased, and the air smelled of wet greenery and warm stone.
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” asked Bossuet.
“Two such guards to protect my virtue, and you worry?” asked Grantaire. “These ladies are fearless, I’ll have you know. And in their company, so am I.”
“Well. Goodnight, then. And happy birthday, Grantaire.”
“Happy birthday,” echoed Joly and the others.
Grantaire growled. “You idiots.” Then, suddenly, he stepped forward and gripped Joly and Bossuet in a fervent embrace. “You beautiful idiots. I love you. Don’t forget it.”
“We never will.”
“Never.”
“Grantaire. I can’t breathe.”
He released them. “I’ll let you live. See, my mercy is infinite.”
“Long live Grantaire, the Bounteous and Merciful!”
“Long live Grantaire the drunk,” said Boissy. Floréal took his hand and said “Come on. It’s getting late.”
They waved farewell, and Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta started home, arm in arm. They walked in silence for a while, Musichetta’s heels clicking on the wet paving-stones, till they came within sight of their door.
“Thank you,” she said softly as they halted.
“For what?” Joly and Bossuet spoke at the same time, then giggled like children.
“For not asking.”
“Musichetta, love.” Joly paused, then: “Luisa. We always want to know you better— you’re the continent round which we sail— but we never want to know more than you want us to.” As he said it, his heart untwisted in his chest and the bitter taste of Marcel’s words subsided. All was well with the world. Musichetta embraced him— was it still raining? Her cheek was wet.
Bossuet spoke near his ear: “I am quite curious about the shoes, though.”
She laughed. Joly could feel the laugh in her ribcage, under his hands, and then the vibration of her voice:
“Help me take them off and maybe I’ll tell you.”
“As my lady commands!” Bossuet fumbled with the key, opened the door, and let the three of them in. Joly contemplated Musichetta’s shoes ascending the staircase, felt astoundingly happy, shut the door behind them, and followed.
Great Deeds He Has Done
art by nisiedrawsstuff
fic by etvlamaculotte
Summary: Locked into the upper room of the Corinthe, Enjolras is searching for something - and Grantaire is not helping.
(warning for alcohol use)
*****
Chowder was the one gawking from the stairway as Enjolras rummaged through the cold feathers of ashes in the fire grating – and so Chowder was the one he turned on, jabbing with one grey hand at the door.
"You – the key. I’ll have the door locked. No one’s to come in until I’ve said so."
Turning slightly to his left, he added, an afterthought:
"That’s very kind of you." Gawking was too energetic a word for what Grantaire was doing, but all the same he decided he would rather not miss the show. He tipped out another half a glass from his bottle, and slumped with a certain resolution back in his seat. "I find I’m quite comfortable, however." And he had, as was so often the case, been here first. He had no intention of vacating the premises on his own two feet. It would have been unorthodox.
Enjolras shrugged, Chowder scattered, and soon the two men were locked in the upper room. The sun hadn’t yet set, but the neighboring buildings looming in like crooked trees cast the room in a sleepy sort of murk, and blocked all but a sliver of the yellow evening sky from the dusty window. Enjolras made a strangely sinister figure in the light of the candle he was clutching. His shadow stretched and snapped across the walls as he stooped beneath a table, peered under a chair.
"What is it you’re looking for?"
Grantaire neither expected nor received an answer. He contented himself with watching, and guessing – surely there were only so many things that could take Enjolras to his knees, and they all had a similar character – and providing his usual form of encouragement.
"Ask and you shall receive, at any rate – seek and you shall find." He drank. Even with the rustle and clatter of Enjolras’ search, the room was far too still. He had come here anticipating more company, the usual morass of noise into which he could sink like a sodden rag. Absent that, however, he could make his own cacophony. Unaided, unadulterated, unmitigated. "Awful lesson, I always thought – ask and you shall receive. That Christ fellow was overbold. Not so great a sin when one’s the son of God, of course; men no doubt expect to be put upon by such as that. But parables have consequences, and an entire humanity has been raised up to think it’s godly to go knocking on their neighbors’ doors at all hours of the night begging bread. Or was it fish? Ask and it shall be given to you. The last time I went knocking at my neighbor’s at midnight, all he gave me was two good earfuls, and I was lucky to get that much. I was miserably confused. I thought his door was mine. I’m afraid it took quite a while to sort out. But there was no bread, no fish forthcoming – nor any snakes or scorpions, for that matter. No Christ in Paris after dark."
No reply. Enjolras was stalking the baseboards like a cat after a mouse, and Grantaire struggled with the disconcerting impression of ridiculousness. Stooped and a little flushed, under tables, over chairs, poring over every nook in the mantle as though it were an impenetrable text – even a man like Enjolras might look more than faintly absurd. There wasn’t much nobility to be gleaned, it seemed, from combing the floor of the Corinthe for – what? A note, he supposed. A communication from some confederate. No doubt coded and obscure, a list of names of any number of men leaping to get themselves shot, or an accounting of the guns they’d do it with, all done up in a proud schoolboy’s perfect execution of Augustus’ silly code. The sort of thing that might have been just as safely nailed to the wall, and better still never written in the first place.
"I’ve said a prayer to St. Anthony for you," Grantaire lied, and drained his glass. When he attempted to refill it, the bottle came up too light in his hand, and only a couple of mouthfuls tumbled out. He should perhaps have taken Enjolras up on his invitation to leave; he was ill-equipped for a long hunt. The prospect of a locked door standing between himself and either of the women who supplied him with drink was unsettling, unpleasant.
But given a choice between talking himself thirsty here and pickling elsewhere, he’d take the former. ”He’s never answered me before, of course. Probably he can tell I don’t much respect him. I don’t blame him, and I doubt you do – would you help me? But this time it’s for your sake – we can hope for an exception. Saints help one another. The fortunate always do. Intercessions beget intercessions beget –”
"I am not a saint."
Grantaire thought that a funny thing to say, coming from a man kneeling with his head bowed to the cracks between the floorboards. The candle Enjolras had set beside his knee was helping not at all.
"Not yet, anyway," Grantaire replied, lifting his empty bottle. "If you’d like a head start on the road to veneration, I could use some water into wine. I know those sorts of things are usually reserved for spectacles, big, ostentatious to-dos sure to make it into the papers, but I’ll be your vouching witness. Frankly, I think they’re better done in private. What is it they say? Don’t blow a trumpet before you. Rend your heart, not your garments. That sort of thing. Of course, that’s all best taken with a hefty rock of salt – how on earth do you take it seriously when it’s from the mouth of a man who cured a leper and told him not to say a word about it? Please. False modesty is even less attractive in gods than it is in women. Don’t blow a trumpet before you, He says, and then it’s loaves and fishes for five thousand. The nerve of it."
"Instruction is not the same as boastfulness." Enjolras shoved himself to his feet with an exasperated noise. There were light patches of soot and dust on the dark of his trousers. He spared Grantaire an irritated glance before crossing to where a shelf was propped against the wall, and wedging his foot behind it. "Miracles make points. They win men over. Like any great act, they mean more than they are – the substance is often secondary. Private virtue is one thing; private virtue is right, while a public announcement of the power of right is quite another. There’s no hypocrisy in spreading good news. It takes a truly hard heart to cast the feeding of the hungry as an act of self-congratulation. Help me move – no, never mind. Stay where you are."
Grantaire would have been on his feet in half a second, if not for that order – might have been even so, had it not come on the heels of an insult. He wouldn’t have called himself proud – who would, indeed – but his heart he felt should remain unquestioned.
"Or a hard head," Grantaire suggested, a shadow of wounded displeasure moving across his face. It dissipated in the space of a breath, however, passing by in no more than the time it took for Enjolras to grind the shelf across the uneven floor. Grantaire stubbornly refused to be touched. A soft heart absorbs arrows, after all. "Well. So perform for me this modest miracle – I’ll run right out into the street and tell everyone at once. Think of all the men who’ll come running then, will you? You’ve been trying to sell the wrong goods. Give the thirsty to drink. A claret, if it isn’t too much bother."
"You haven’t any water," Enjolras pointed out, running his hands along the back of the shelf.
"That, I can provide."
With a huff, Enjolras shoved the (sadly empty) furniture back against the wall, and rounded on him. ”The real miracle would be if you would get up and walk.”
Grantaire laughed. ”Later I’ll fall down and crawl. No thanks to you.” He rattled the empty bottle against the table.
The search continued, progressing to the window frames. Even the pale glaze the glass had half an hour ago had faded away – now it was simply dull with twilight. The room was beginning to feel closer, the city outside melting into one black mountain against the sky. A shiver worked its way down Grantaire’s back; a draft, perhaps. But the flame on the candle was steady. There was no wind. Nor was there any noise aside from the sound of Enjolras’ search, which began to seem thunderous to him, like winds in the distance or waves on the hull of a ship. It went on and on, longer than he would have believed possible in a room of that size.
"What is it you’re looking for?" he asked again, mostly to hear his own voice. "What could be so important? You need – what? Men? Weapons? Intelligence?"
"A mutual faith," Enjolras murmured absently, feeling under the leaf of a rickety table he’d already inspected.
"Surely the faithful don’t get so frenzied –"
Enjolras’ hand came down on the table with an unimpressive slap. ”Will you be quiet?”
Frenzied may have been the wrong word; but there was fear in him, Grantaire thought. Or it may have been no more than frustration, impatience. All enemies of faith, at any rate – all strange to see on that face, even for a man who made provoking impatience something of a specialty. If they hadn’t been so very different, he might have thought he simply saw his own fear reflected back to him – because he was afraid, if that was the feeling, like seasickness, like something peeling away inside of him like the red residue flaking into the empty pit of his glass. But – happily to say – he saw nothing of himself in Enjolras.
Enjolras turned away again. Grantaire’s mouth was dry; acidic. When Chowder’s voice came through the door, annoyed, sharp, griping to someone that no, he’s not finished yet, doing I-don’t-know-what, he jumped at the chance – again – to chase away the silence. Pounding his fist on the table, sending his glass and bottle bouncing toward the edge and sending a shudder through the floor, he shouted: “Knock, and it shall be opened!”
A slip of paper fluttered to the floor. From where, Grantaire could not have said; by the time he thought to look up, it had settled already by his chair. His first thought was to put his foot on it.
But Enjolras had already seen it, and picked it up as blithely as though he had expected to find it there all along. He unfolded it and spread it out across the table, smoothing away the creases; it was a jumble of letters, as expected, a wordless string of meaningless signs.
"Well, there you are," Grantaire breathed, his toes twitching belatedly inside his booth. "Your invitation to the ball, is it?"
Seizing a stub of pencil from a windowsill, Enjolras flipped the paper over and scrawled something equally unintelligible on the back. He rolled it up into a frayed little scroll, took Grantaire’s empty bottle by the neck, and dropped the note inside. When he raised his eyes to Grantaire, whatever desperation had been written on his face before had disappeared entirely – how nice, Grantaire thought, to be able to wash oneself so clean so quickly.
"As good a hiding place as any," Enjolras said pointedly – and then he turned and went to the door. As he was going out, Chowder was coming in, looking harried and busy with a short broom in her hand.
She glanced down at the bottle Enjolras was holding, and then at Grantaire’s table. ”You’ll be wanting another one.”
"No need," Grantaire said, lifting his glass and regarding it with a bitter sneer. It remained stubbornly empty. No wine forthcoming; nor bread, nor fish. "I am a worker of miracles."
The Locket
fic by thecoffeetragedy
art by laughingandlyric
[warning for death, illness, and any sort of potentially upsetting things related to poverty.]
2921 words.
—-
Feuilly owns exactly one piece of jewelry - a plain silver locket, empty, worn and dirtied by time. As far as he knows, the locket is the only thing he has left of his parents; Father Thibault, at the orphanage, told him so, and so Feuilly kept it with him through the years, through everything, and brought it with him to Paris. It was once beautiful, perhaps, in another era completely. Perhaps it was clutched in the hand of a mother, passed to the pocket of her son’s uniform when he marched off to fight a war. Perhaps it was lost, then, trampled in the mud, its former beauty spoiled by the blood of the innocents that was spilled on it. Then it would have been found, cleaned, and sold in the city market. And - and that is the part that grabs at Feuilly’s heart, sometimes, when he look at the tarnished silver locket - perhaps his father had walked by, and had stopped when he eyes caught its shine - and bought it to give to the woman who would have become Feuilly’s mother.
Feuilly doesn’t think of himself as an especially sentimental person; he cannot afford to be. Still, he does take pride in his imagination. He keeps the locket in a box in his room, by his bookshelf.
He hasn’t dared it touch it since the visions began.
i.
She is beautiful; lively, kind, young - and she loves him.
Him!
She is all he can think about when he wakes in the morning - or at night, really, for is it day or night if the sun has not risen yet but he must leave the relative warmth of his bed to start a hard day of work?
But the though of her small hand in his eases the bleakness of his life and he waits, patiently, until the moment he will see her loveliness again.
—-
It starts innocently enough - at first Feuilly thinks he must have fallen asleep and entered a dream because all of a sudden he isn’t in his room anymore; he is in a house, a warm, happy home, light flooding through the windows, dust moths floating in the hair, illuminated by the warm glow of the setting sun - wasn’t it morning just a few moments ago? - and Feuilly is unable to move or speak for a moment as feels an intense, pure wave of joy - joy fulfilment love - wash over him - that is gone as suddenly as it came, and when Feuilly blinks again he is back in his own small, dark room.
The porcelain mug he had been holding is lying, shattered, at his feet.
The vision stays with him for a long time. He spends the rest of the week with a painful headache lingering behind his temples, but also has work to distract him, though the warm weather and bright June sun mean the days are longer, more exhausting. He had never minded before, but the lack of windows in his rooms now makes him feel vaguely melancholic, as if he is missing something.
He shrugs the feeling off and goes back to work; after all, that is the only thing he can do.
—-
ii.
He is not good enough for her; that, he has told her plenty, but she laughs every time, pretty and bell-like, and reminds him that she, too, is wearing garments made from cheap fabrics, and her fingers are as callused as his from her sewing and needle work.
He takes her hand, then, and kisses every scar on her knuckles, every crease on her palm, and she promises to marry him, whether or not he has a ring for her.
—-
It happens again four days later.
Feuilly is on his way to the Musain, where a few of his friends have convened, when an older gentleman suffering from a heavy limp drops a snuffbox a few steps in front of him. Feuilly reaches to grab it, intending on returning it to its owner -
- but he is immediately hit by a wave of nausea, the smell of blood and rot filling his nostrils. He can’t see much - except smoke, smoke and dirt and boots trampling the yellow grass. There is a sharp pain in his left leg; someone yells in his ear and he stumbles, suddenly back in the street of Paris.
He leans against a wall, panting, and he looks up; a few passer-bys throw him odd glances - probably thinking he is a drunk, or otherwise. The gentleman is nowhere in sight, the snuffbox still in his painfully tight grip.
Feuilly drops it as if it is burning a hole in his hand.
He has to sit against the wall fighting the urge to be sick for nearly ten minutes before his legs stop shaking - the left one doesn’t stop, not completely. He is still pale when he reaches the Musain and he leaves early, fully intending his own dreams to drown the distant sound of gun shots.
—-
iii.
The wedding is held in the summer - it is barely a ceremony, attended by very few friends; he does not have any family left, and she only has her elderly father, more than half-blind, dozing on a chair besides her. She looks splendid, as he expected her to, in the new dress she has made since he met her - a brown dress, with delicate flowers on the sleeves and skirt. She has worked on it for weeks, she explains shyly when he compliments her, and the exhaustion of these sleepless nights was worth the joy of this day. At her neck shines the bright silver locket his mother had received on her own wedding day, decades ago; the only present he can afford to give her.
If he thinks at all about the future as he kisses her, it is only of the house they will buy in the countryside in which they will raise their children once he has saved enough from his work at the factory to afford moving out of the city. She is nineteen; he, not yet twenty-four. They love each other; they still have time.
—-
Feuilly had not expected Prouvaire to follow him out of the café.
"Feuilly?" the younger man calls. "Are you alright?"
Feuilly curses under his breath and turns; his head is still spinning.
"Hello," he replies, trying to sound nonchalant.
Prouvaire approches and even in the semi darkness Feuilly can see the concern on his expressive features.
"You look pale, my friend," Prouvaire holds out his hand; Feully doesn’t move.
"I’m alright, there’s no need to worry. I just need some rest - I promise."
"I saw you earlier today," Prouvaire confesses, looking down at his feet. "On the street. I wanted to reach out to you, but there were too many - I did not want you to be embarrassed. For a moment I thought you had -" he shakes his head and blushes, as if he is about to say something he knows he should not. "But it is not like you, I know, to drink so much in the middle of the day. I am worried. You look unwell - I cannot convince you to see a doctor other than our friends, but perhaps we can at least go see Combeferre?"
Oh.
"I am not - embarrassed, exactly," Feuilly says, looking away from the obvious concern in Prouvaire’s eyes. "And I was not drinking, no. I’m only tired I - I don’t know what came over me. There is no need to distract Combeferre from his studies. I only wish to sleep, now."
He has not had any disturbing dreams when he is asleep, not yet - and as long as he does not understand what is happening to him, it seems to be the safest option.
Prouvaire’s piercing gaze, however, does not let go of him. It’s heavy yet gentle, warm and protective, and Feuilly flinches at the reality of Prouvaire’s hand on his arm, expecting to suddenly be taken somewhere else, to lose his grip on the familiar location of the backstreet behind the Musain, of his friend’s presence - none of that happen, but he feels his stubbornness dissolve. He explains, quietly, the headaches, the visions - or dreams, whatever they are - , the fear and the pain, and lets the younger student walk him to the main street.
—-
iv.
She is pregnant less than a year later; her belly swells as the winter winds blow down the streets and through the cheap walls of their rented lodgings. Her father dies in February; she falls ill and nearly loses the child in March, and her husband spends over a month of wages to bring a doctor to her. She and the child are both saved, but she is warned not to attempt to work until the child is born. That might not be until May or June, and her husband has to sacrifice his meagre savings to keep the three of them fed and warm through the following months. We will make it though this, he whispers to her at night, his voice already rough from the smoke he spends eighteen hours a day breathing in. He rubs her stomach, thinking of their unborn child - their family. Together, we will make it. I promise.
—-
"This is fascinating," Combeferre says, stroking his chin, barely-contained excitement in his voice. He is eager to understand - Feuilly cannot blame him, though he isn’t so sure about the qualifying word he has used - although Combeferre seems to think everything is fascinating, but Feuilly has never thought that he, of all people, could be described as such.
He squirms on his seat, uncomfortable. Prouvaire is sitting on Combeferre’s couch, his long fingers tangled in the comforter, but his eyes are trained on them like a bird’s.
And Feuilly feels a little like a mouse, trapped and vulnerable.
"I thought - you don’t think I’m going mad?" he asks Combeferre, willing his voice to be more relaxed than he truly feels.
Combeferre shakes his head and pushes his spectacles up his nose with his middle finger; it’s an habitual gesture, familiar and beloved, and somehow Feuilly feels a little more at ease.
"There are people who dream of the future," Combeferre says, a thoughtful look on his face. "Others can communicate without speaking, or possess a memory ten times as powerful as anyone else," Prouvaire shifts on the couch and looks out the window. "Although you would be the first one I encounter, it is not surprising that some would dream of the past."
"These are not exactly dreams, though," Feuilly runs a hand through his hair. "It is like - I can tell I am awake. I am simply not - where I was anymore."
Or who I was, he leaves unsaid.
Combeferre frowns, and a wrinkle creases slightly between his thick brows.
"Do you know what triggered it?"
Feuilly stays silent for a moment, digging through his memory for anything at all about the last twenty four hours that might be a clue.
"The snuff box," Prouvaire supplies. "You had grabbed a snuff box that had fallen from a gentleman’s pocket. With the intention of returning it, I am sure," he adds, smiling at Feuilly’s embarrassed blush. "But that is when you seemed to…" he waves a hand in front of his eyes. "You seemed to freeze, then you stumbled and fell against the wall. You dropped the box and immediately seemed to wake."
"It lasted only a few seconds, then," Feuilly nodded, mostly to himself, but Combeferre’s dark eyes turn to him, his frown deepening.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, voice no longer curious and interested, but concerned and sharp. "You have been rubbing your left leg since Prouvaire brought up the snuffbox."
Feuilly’s face pales and his fingers unconsciously clench at the fabric of his trousers.
"I - am not hurt, I don’t think," he hesitates.
"The old man who dropped the snuffbox was favouring his leg - the left," Prouvaire adds quietly. "In fact, I am not certain he did not wear an artificial limb."
Combeferre’s eyes widen behind his spectacles.
"I am alright!" Feuilly quickly reassures him. "I did feel pain, however, terrible pain - but it was gone as quickly as it had started.
"All of this from simply grabbing the snuffbox?"
Feuilly and Prouvaire both nod.
"This is indeed fascinating," Combeferre repeats, then flushes slightly. "Of course, I mean I am sorry that you had to endure this, but - it truly is the first time I have heard of such an interesting… ability…"
Feuilly is not sure he would call it an ability under any circumstances; it has happened twice in less than a week and it was certainly too real to be an accident or, God forbid, a daydream, but he still only has a vague idea of what triggers it - and even less how to control it.
Combeferre has turned away from his guests and is rummaging through a trunk.
"You do not have these visions every time you touch an object, do you?" he mutters, head still bowed in the trunk, and Feuilly has to strain to hear correctly. "Your clothes, or this chair - you have not reacted to these, and you must have touched other items on you way here - the omnibus, for example."
"Yes, still - I was thinking of starting the habit of wearing leather gloves," Feuilly says lightly. Prouvaire smiles, and presses his arm. "Perhaps it would be helpful, although Courfeyrac might mock me."
"Yes, he probably would," Combeferre grins, walking back towards them with a few objects in his hands - a book, an old candlestick, a hat, a sheet of paper. "But before that, if I may ask - would you satisfy my curiosity - and yours, I think - by testing these?"
—-
v.
She gives birth to a little boy in the last week of May; it is a hard, harrowing, bloody night, and in the end she is left weak and unable to go back to work, her body ravaged. The doctor warns her she is not to attempt to bear children again or she will likely not survive the pregnancy. She cries, oh, she cries, for days and nights, finding comfort only in feeding her son. Her husband, clutching desperately to his dreams of a house and a family, takes on other jobs after his day at the factory. He moves crates and merchandise at the docks, and comes home too late to see his wife and son awake at all.
The locket he had given her on their wedding day stays on the small table by their bed, forgotten.
—-
The book does nothing, to the disappointment of everyone in the room; neither does the hat, to Feuilly’s frank relief, nor the paper. The candlestick, however, brings the sweet smell of fresh apples and warm bread, the fragrant autumn breeze in the south of France, and the sight of a tall, soft-spoken woman who looks so familiar, with her dark skin and intelligent gaze. When he comes to, Feuilly looks into Combeferre’s eyes and understands.
"The candlestick belonged to my grandmother," Combeferre explains and Feuilly describes the vision, and though his eyes are teary, there is a gentle smile on his lips. "She used to invited my siblings and cousins and I for dinner every week - when she passed, each of us took a bit of her home with us - I chose this candlestick."
Feuilly wants to say something, but does not know what: he feels like an intruder, having witnessed this short moment, this powerful love he has never known for himself.
But Combeferre smiles, clasps his shoulder, and says, still smiling, “Thank you.”
—-
vi.
He leaves a month before their son’s third birthday.
He rises before the sun, as he has seemingly all of his life; his wife is still sleeping. He dresses, kisses her forehead, and walks through the door, taking the direction of the docks.
It’s a week before they find his body floating face down on the Seine, miles from the dock he had been working on when he fell; nobody is arrested, or even fired. He is simply replaced by another young man, also a father with two young daughters to feed and no one thinks much of him again.
Accidents happen, after all.
—-
It is Prouvaire who suggests that the emotional weight that has been given to an object is the trigger to Feuilly’s strange visions of the past. His theory is sound: Feuilly remembers the porcelain mug that had triggered his first vision; he does not know who had owned the mug before him, but he thinks, now, that perhaps it had been part of a set given to a bride on her wedding day, perhaps.
Combeferre nods, satisfied with the explanation for now. He hands Feuilly a pair of leather gloves; “Until we figure out a way to control it,” he says, and Feuilly accepts them gratefully.
The following weeks his own curiosity swells and swells until he cannot contain it anymore; alone in his room he takes off the gloves and concentrate on books, maps, utensils - some objects bring a glimpse of someone else’s life; family, joy, warmth, passion, sometimes mourning or pain, but mostly mundane emotions. Some objects give him nothing, and he breathes, both relieved and surprisingly disappointed.
He does not dare touch the silver locket, not yet. Perhaps it was owned by his mother; perhaps he would see a glimpse of her life, then, maybe a happier time.
But perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps it is just a cheap trinket the orphanage gave a curious child pestering them for answers about his own origin.
He is not sure if he wants to know.
vii.
She cries when she is awake, now, and sleeps the rest of the day away. Her son cries, too - there is no food left. She glances, blearily, at the silver locket left on the bedside table. She will sell it next week, she decides. Up until now, she had not had the heart to; but today has nothing else left to sell, and her son is hungry.
One morning, three weeks after her husband has died, she finally rises from her bed; her son is still thankfully asleep. She looks at the locket, then back at her son. He is small for a three year old - has it already been three years? - but she hopes he will survive longer than she did. She kisses his forehead, like her husband had done, and walks through the door one last time, leaving both the boy and the locket behind.
In which Enjolras Completes and Corrects Combeferre, and realizes how much the other did the same for him.
fic by scienceandmoths
art by clenster
(warning for canon violence and major character death)
He had spent the next several minutes talking quietly with the newcomer, attempting to explain his friend’s habits and outline a few of his own points to show Marius why Napoleon was not as perfect as he seemed to think.
But when everyone had left Enjolras immediately went to Combeferre’s rooms, knocking on the door and clasping his hands in front of himself while he waited for his friend to answer.
“Combeferre,” Enjolras started as soon as the door opened, stepping past him and pulling off his coat once he was inside— “I need to speak with you about earlier.”
“Please, do come in Enjolras,” Combeferre replied dryly, shutting the door once Enjolras was inside and turning to face him. “What about it? The friend of Courfeyrac’s was certainly a character.”
“That’s exactly what I need to speak with you about,” Enjolras said, pacing softly for a moment before turning to look at Combeferre. “You handled the entire situation very poorly. This was his first ever meeting, and he was brave enough to be willing to speak out about his passions, which is one of the very reasons we hold them, is it not? And yes, I did not agree with him in the slightest. But the way you replied to his speech was very poor. You simply gave him those words and left, without even explaining your opinions or attempting to help him understand why you believe he is wrong. I stayed behind to speak with him, which is something that you should have done. I was… disappointed in the way you handled it. And I hope that you will consider my words and, should you have to in future, handle situations like that better.”
Combeferre sat at some point during Enjolras’ lecture, listening to it quietly as he spoke. The words made sense, and Combeferre nodded once he was finished speaking.
“You are right. I should not have been so short with him, and I should not have left. I’ll keep your words in mind.”
He stood up, putting a hand on Enjolras’ shoulder with a faint smile. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you. Sit, I’ll make some tea to make it up to you.”
Enjolras returned his smile before he sat, resting his chin in his hand as he watched Combeferre move around the room. There was no need for further words. Everything that needed to be said had been said, and they were content with the silence.
Combeferre was never content or satisfied with not knowing every detail of a topic. His interests were wide and often time consuming, and sometimes days would go by before Combeferre would emerge from his apartment after an experiment. And so it seemed that Combeferre’s current situation was just that, as Enjolras had not seen the other for roughly two days when he decided to make a visit to the other man’s rooms.
He knocked lightly, clasping his hands behind his back as he waited for Combeferre to answer. He heard a few thuds that sounded like something heavy being dropped onto a wood surface, presumably Combeferre’s table, before his friend approached the door and pulled it open. Combeferre immediately grinned widely at the sight of Enjolras, pulling the other inside by the arm before he shut the door once more.
“I’m attempting something; it may help us in the weeks to come.”
That was the only explanation Combeferre gave before he returned to the table, returning to his work as he leaned down to study it carefully before lifting a small container to show it to Enjolras with an almost pleased smile.
“Black powder. Far simpler to make than I thought it would have been, but I found out the parts that you need to make it. I haven’t tested to see if it works yet, but it looks accurate.”
“It’s a black powder,” Enjolras noted with a sarcastically raised eyebrow, arms crossed as he watched Combeferre. “Have you really been holed up in your rooms for two days working on this? I know you had classes, but you didn’t attend them. You’re going to be removed from the program if you continue that route. I thought that you were the responsible one.”
Combeferre shrugged in response, scooping a small pile out onto the middle of his table and placing a string in the center, running it out a few inches. “Shall we test it? See if my risking my attendance was all for naught?”
Enjolras watched the scene before him warily as Combeferre grabbed a candle, and he approached slowly to put a hand on his arm. “Are you sure it’s wise to test this here? Doesn’t black powder explode? That doesn’t seem the wisest thing to do in such a small space.”
Combeferre shook his head in response, “That’s barely enough powder for a spark. I just want to test if I can actually manage a reaction from it.”
With that, he lowered the candle to light the string that he’d placed in the powder, watching the flame slowly reach to the powder. He was leaning forward eagerly when the flame reached it, rearing back when the resulting “spark” was larger than he had originally anticipated. Enjolras’ arm immediately shot up to cover his face, coughing slightly as the room became smoky from the reaction before looking at the large charred spot in the center of Combeferre’s table.
“At least it didn’t light it on fire,” Enjolras sighed in relief, frowning when he felt how warm his arm was, twisting it to get a better look..
The resulting look of shock on Enjolras’ face at the sight of the large hole in his red jacket would normally have caused Combeferre to laugh, had he not been staring in bemusement at the table.
“I suppose it worked then…” he murmured, turning to look at Enjolras.
The blond stared for a moment before laughing, leaving Combeferre staring in confusion and unaware of his half signed eyebrows.
With how quickly their lives seemed to be moving, it wasn’t often that they got to simply enjoy the calm, and spend quiet moments together. But they managed to grab them, every once in a while— so when they were lying together, limbs tangled loosely together among the sheets, Combeferre took those moments to memorize every piece of the other, treasuring it.
He thought that Enjolras was asleep when he rose, padding softly across his rooms quietly to get a drink. Combeferre paused on his return, catching his reflection in the looking glass and taking a moment to study himself. With thoughts of Enjolras, and his perfection fresh in his mind he couldn’t help but look at himself more critically. He pinched the extra weight that had settled around his middle, brows furrowed as his gaze roamed over the imperfections that he could see. Imperfect eyesight, a too large nose, plain features, weight that wouldn’t disappear no matter his efforts.
Combeferre started when he felt arms wrapping lightly around his middle, relaxing when Enjolras pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder. “You are beautiful,” Enjolras murmured softly, splaying his hands across Combeferre’s stomach as he met the others gaze in the mirror, “If I had a way with words such as Jehan I would write you sonnets to describe just how you are. No matter the imperfections you may see in yourself, you are perfect to me.”
Combeferre smiled softly at the others words, reaching down to cover one of Enjolras’ hands with his own. “You don’t need to,” he murmured softly, “Those are plenty.”
Enjolras smiled, reassured for the moment. He took Combeferre’s hands in his own, pulling the other gently back to bed and holding him close.
The last few weeks of preparation went quickly, which Enjolras felt was bittersweet. It was the moment he had been working towards for his entire life, but it also meant that, should they fail, their time would be ending. He found that his time beyond preparing was limited, with both he and Combeferre absorbed in the work that was still left to completed.
But to see the barricades erected fully left Enjolras nearly speechless, as all his planning and preparation had finally come to fruition. And while they were in a peaceful moment, Enjolras knew it wouldn’t last— knew that the National Guard would return for them eventually.
And that all of this could be torn from him in a single instant.
So when most were settled down to catch rest when they could, Enjolras searched for Combeferre and gently pulled the other aside, hand clasping his as he pulled him to a quiet corner of the upstairs room. As soon as they were alone he wrapped his arms around Combeferre, closing his eyes when Combeferre’s hand cupped his cheek and pressing their foreheads together.
He didn’t speak, simply letting the quiet speak for itself and treasuring the moment— one that could possibly be their last. Enjolras didn’t want to waste it by fumbling with his words. Eventually, Combeferre felt the need to speak, taking a soft breath before he did so.
“Thank you,” he started softly, his voice a quiet murmur in the room, “I know that at times, I am not the easiest to deal with. But you have never once left, nor have you treated me harshly when even I have done so. You have always been there, and I am beyond grateful. I think that if there were such a thing as a soul mate in one’s life, that you would have been mine. You were sent to help me when I am not on proper course. And I would not have had it in another way.”
Enjolras listened quietly, a smile gracing his lips before he pressed a soft kiss to Combeferre’s forehead. “It has been my honor. And I intend to continue to do so, as long as I possibly can. Please, stay safe.”
And with one final clasp of their hands they parted, separating to continue to keep their fellows in check, and spread encouragement when needed.
The quiet peace that had settled over them was firmly shattered with the next day, as the battle resumed around them and their world began to fall apart. For how could one barricade expect to last against the entirety of the National Guard?
But there was no time to think on that as the chaos raged around them all, and Enjolras’ attention was entirely focused on the tasks at hand, fighting tooth and nail for himself and those around him. But it was a shot to the heart each time he watched a comrade fall, tears pricking unbidden at his eyes as he continued to fight.
But then it happened, and the one person he was hoping to survive most fell to the ground. A vicious cry was torn from Enjolras as he rushed forward, clearing the area surrounding Combeferre before he knelt next to him.
It took Combeferre a moment to register that his head was no longer resting on the ground, but on someone’s lap. It was Enjolras’, he realized, when his vision focused on the blond halo surrounding the bright blue of his familiar eyes.
“En..jolras,” Combeferre reached up for him, pain shooting up his chest as he did so, to cup the other man’s cheek gently. It was only for a moment, a light fluttering of his fingers over the skin before his hand fell, one last breath escaping in a rattle before he was still.
And Enjolras could do nothing more than stare for several moments at the motionless form in front of him. Because Combeferre couldn’t be dead, Combeferre was the solid one, the one who was always there.
Without him, Enjolras realized how small he felt.
And how lost he was without the one person who could complete him.
Poème, symphonie, orage,
fic by kingedmundsroyalmurder
art by nisiedrawsstuff
(A/N: set in the Nothing Hurts AU, where Fantine traveled to Digny with Cosette. Warning for canon-era political violence)
14 February, 1831
Riots always felt like storms. They rolled in across the city, beginning at one end and spreading until the entirety of Paris was engulfed in rage, a maelstrom of anger and violence and terror. A riot cleansed the people of fury as a storm cleansed the streets of filth, sweeping away grievances and tearing down rotten walls and leaving the city in even greater disrepair than it had been beforehand. Storms left the gutters caked with mud and shit, left puddles of stagnant water in dips and turned downward sloping streets into rivers in their own right, water racing down the cobblestones as it raced towards the Seine. After a storm, the river turned brown, coating riverbank properties in a thin layer of grime.
Feuilly stood at his solitary window, face pressed against it despite knowing that he would never see anything, not from here. He could only hear the distant shouting, a constant rumble sometimes broken by the lightning crack of gunshots. A few paces away, curled on his bed, Cosette trembled, jumping at each gunshot, peering up occasionally only to bury her face once more in his only blanket when the shouting returned. Lights burned in a few of the other windows in the building, hinting at men and women also sitting awake, maybe keeping watch like Feuilly, maybe trembling like Cosette, maybe continuing about their routine as though nothing were at all out of the ordinary. After all, Feuilly had told Cosette earlier, his tone laced with the bitterness of recently dashed hopes, the people of Paris had had ample time to grow accustomed to riots.
*
Feuilly met Cosette three days after the last of 1830’s riots, on the coldest day of the winter. He arrived early to work, his recently acquired bruises aching with every step he took, and found the door to the workshop unlocked and the fire already started for the day. A young woman, barely more than a girl, sat as close to the fire as she could, so near that he half feared she would go up in flames at any moment. She wore a heavy woolen dress, one even his untrained eye could see was several years out of style, and had yet to remove either hat or gloves. When she looked up, he saw that her face was still red from cold.
“I’m sorry,” she said, ducking her head a little. “I know I’m not supposed to be here, but it’s so cold in my rooms, I couldn’t stay there an instant longer. I was raised in the south; I’m not used to winter yet.” She spoke with the faintest hint of an accent, a touch of the south that would have given away her origins even if she had not disclosed them outright.
Feuilly, having spent the previous winter in the company of Courfeyrac, who could barely tolerate an autumn’s chill much less the worst winter in living memory, had to smile at that. “I understand,” he told her, white puffs of air accompanying his every word as he exhaled. Then, a little reluctantly, he added, “Did someone let you in?”
“Oh yes,” she assured him. “M. Baudet was very gratified to see that I was so enthusiastic about beginning work.” She grinned, displaying very white teeth, and Feuilly laughed. “I’m Cosette,” she continued. “Is it always this cold here?”
“Last year was worse,” Feuilly told her, shedding his coat and stuffing his own gloves into the pockets. His scarf joined the gloves, and he shivered slightly, rubbing his hands together to remind them how to warm themselves. Cosette shifted a little to make room by the stove. “I’m Feuilly,” he added, and moved to stir the fire, coaxing it to give off at least a little more heat.
The door opened again, letting in two of Feuilly’s coworkers and a blast of frozen air. The fire flickered wildly, and Feuilly winced at the sudden cold. Cosette yelped a little, moving even closer to the fire. Feuilly hoped it was just his imagination that made the fire’s smoke look like it was coming from her rather than from the grate.
Slowly the rest of the workshop’s employees trickled in, their presence helping to heat the room even more than the fire. Feuilly ceded his place by the fire to the other women, allowing them to make Cosette’s acquaintance and instead taking his usual spot at the workbench nearest to the door, effectively making himself into an extra protection from the cold for his fellow workers.
The door slammed open for the final time, admitting M. Baudet himself, his face contorted into a grimace that could have been due to the temperature or due to the necessity of spending any time at all in the workshop. M. Baudet preferred to receive his clients in the warmth and relative luxury of his shop, and he resented every moment he had to spend in the rather less comfortable workshop. He held his pipe firmly between his lips as he spoke, delivering his instructions for the day in an accent rendered nearly incomprehensible by the resulting muscle contortions. Out of the corner of his eye, Feuilly saw Cosette frowning, clearly struggling to understand a word their employer was saying. One of the other workers, a widow who supported four children on a fan painter’s meager salary, a sympathetic brother-in-law’s occasional contribution, and a mother’s iron determination, caught Cosette’s eye and, as M. Baudet finished his instructions and hurried from the workshop, repeated his words in an accent that did not require several weeks intense study to understand. Feuilly looked away, pleased that his intervention would not be needed, and reached for his first fan of the day.
*
The cold snap broke on the first Friday of the new year, the temperature creeping back up above zero to create a thin coat of water on every patch of ice, invisible in all but the right light and deadly as any epidemic. In the first week alone three of Feuilly’s colleagues injured themselves badly on the suddenly treacherous streets, showing up limping and battered to work if they were able or scrambling to make ends meet if they were not. Feuilly himself found his feet abruptly losing their grip on the ground on multiple occasions, and had to reluctantly thank Bahorel and Grantaire for their insistence that he learn to dance and to box when each time found his body reacting instinctively and contorting itself in such a way that he received no injuries greater than bruises for his clumsiness. Neither of his patrons were so lucky, and Feuilly found it hard to keep from smiling as both Bahorel and Grantaire found themselves laid up, the latter with a pair of sprained wrists and the former with a broken nose, fractured ankle, and promise of eternal vengeance against the cobblestones which had betrayed him so.
Cosette, suddenly radiant with the return of the sun, feeble as it was, arrived at work the next Monday wearing a dress of pale blue, its sleeves each larger than her waist, trimmed with just a hint of lace. From the way she moved in it, Feuilly could tell that it was new, something she had purchased with her first set of earnings and not yet become accustomed to seeing. She smiled brilliantly at him as she passed, her steps light on the workshop’s worn floorboards. Seeing her, Feuilly felt his heart sink a little. He had spent enough time among women to know their language, to interpret their signals, to understand their intentions. Cosette, young, pretty, well dressed, had come from the provinces not to work but to love, or at least to play at it until she had exhausted her youth. He could not begrudge her the ambition, not when he had only to look around him to see the fates of women whose ambitions had gone in other directions, but he could not suppress the disappointment at seeing her so attired. He looked down, not returning her smile. Women seeking to attract men wanted either a purse or a heart free from distractions, and Feuilly could offer neither.
*
"What are you reading?"
Feuilly jumped a little, his head jerking up to find Cosette looking curiously at him. Apart from him, she was the only one of the workers who had not taken advantage of their mid-morning break to bask in the winter sunlight — an odd choice for her — and now she stood a few paces away from him, her hands clasped in front of her.
"Dante," he said, looking back down at his book. He had not spoken more than a few words to Cosette since the first day, nor indeed had he given her much thought. She infused the workshop with cheer and seemed to carry her own light, but Feuilly preferred the radiance of justice to the gleam of youth and so had kept his distance, too near to the flame of political discontent to be distracted by her more localized glow.
"I haven’t read that," Cosette said, apparently determined to engage him in conversation. "Monseigneur always spoke very highly of his work though. Do you like it?"
Feuilly shrugged. “I only just started reading,” he said. “If you’re interested in discussing it properly I can refer you to the friend who loaned me his copy.” He turned a page.
He heard a slight rustling which, even without looking up, he identified as Cosette moving closer. A moment later she had sat down on the bench across from him, ankles tucked demurely under her skirts, gaze open and terribly, terribly young. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked, and Feuilly swallowed a sigh, looking up at her once again.
"No," he said, not entirely untruthfully. "But I very sincerely doubt that our goals have much in common, and I would not like to encourage any false ideas of me that you may have."
Rather than discouraging her, this earned him a peal of laughter. “Shall I stop thinking of you as a terribly serious man who has made it his personal mission to bring light to the darkest corners of the Earth?” she asked. “Have your fellow workers been spreading untrue gossip about you while you sit in here and expand your mind?”
"I wish to deliver the world from ignorance," Feuilly informed her. "And if in order to do that I am required to travel to each of its corners myself and bring the light of knowledge then so be it."
"So they were telling the truth after all," Cosette said. Then, her voice taking on a more thoughtful tone, she added, "You would have liked Monseigneur. He had a similar dream, though he brought his light with the gospel rather than with Italian poetry. But each man has his own tools, I suppose." For a moment she was silent, and Feuilly thought that would be all. He looked back down at his book, eyes scanning the slightly faded print in an effort to recover his place.
"I am curious though," Cosette said, speaking precisely as he had managed to find where he’d left off. "What makes you say that our goals are so different? What have the others been saying about me that led you to that conclusion?"
"Nothing at all," Feuilly said with another shrug. "Or, rather, I’ve no idea what the others say about you, though I imagine several are jealous enough to be unkind. Do you mean to imply that your ambitions do match mine?”
She laughed again. “I could never oppose anyone who aimed to bring light into the darkness,” she said. “Though your approach could use work. How can you expect the people to listen to you if you will not meet them first?” Then she shrugged, a graceful little movement that caused the top of her sleeves to brush her neatly pinned hair. “But each man must find his own path, I suppose. I only wondered if I had offended you somehow — you have quite assiduously avoided me for weeks now.”
"You haven’t," Feuilly assured her. "I did not mean to imply otherwise." Then, because he was not a dishonest man, he added, "Though if you are considering pursuing further acquaintance with me, I should warn you that I am hardly wealthy, nor likely to ever become so."
"Monseigneur always said that those who were materially rich were the poorest men he’d ever known," Cosette said.
"Your Monseigneur sounds like a clever man," Feuilly said, and she positively lit up.
"He was," she said. "He was the wisest man in the world, and the kindest." She sighed, looking down at her lap. "I miss him," she said quietly. "Though I don’t think he would want me to."
"If you loved him then it would be strange if you didn’t miss him," Feuilly said, thinking as he spoke that he was entirely unqualified to make such a statement, not when he could count on two hands the people he loved and all of them still lived.
"His time here was done," Cosette said. "It would be selfish of me to begrudge him the chance to be with God, not when there are none who deserve that chance more than him." Then she shook her head, and looked up once again, meeting Feuilly’s eyes and smiling again. "I’m glad you don’t think badly of me after all. I hated to think that I might have caused offense and not realized it; things are so different here than they are at home, and I’m still so off balance."
"You’re fitting in well," Feuilly said, and she beamed at him, rising and shaking her skirts back into place.
"I’m glad to hear you say that," she said. "I hope you find Dante to your taste."
"Thank you," Feuilly murmured, then swallowed a grimace as the door opened to let in the other workers, sign that it was time to resume work. Jean Prouvaire’s book disappeared back into Feuilly’s coat pocket and he went to prepare his brushes, steeling himself for the rest of what promised to be a very long day.
*
"What are you reading?"
Feuilly felt odd asking the question, but he and Cosette were once again the first people in the workshop and he had arrived to find her curled up in the room’s only patch of sun, head bent over a small volume whose cover was entirely hidden by her voluminous skirts.
As he had a few weeks earlier, Cosette started at the interruption, shaking herself from her state of concentration and offering him a smile of welcome. He returned it, the gesture still not quite reflex.
"Jeanne lent it to me," she said, lifting the book from her lap to show him the title. A romance, by the look of it, and not an especially sophisticated one at that. Feuilly fought to keep his expression neutral.
Clearly he did not fight hard enough, because she laughed. “Not as illustrious as Dante, I know,” she said, nodding to the lump in his pocket. “But it’s more enthralling by far.”
"If you enjoy that sort of thing," Feuilly said.
"What is there not to like in stories of love and tragedy?" Cosette wanted to know.
"I prefer history to fantasy," Feuilly said.
"Monseigneur always said they were one and the same, if you knew how to tell them," Cosette said. "And my mother taught me that there is nothing more important than love, and that love inevitably leads to tragedy."
"And what do you think?" Feuilly asked, raising his eyebrows. "Or have you allowed your mother and your Monseigneur to form all your opinions?"
The words came out more sharply than he had intended, and she frowned, setting the book aside. “I think there is nothing more important than love,” she said, voice fierce. “And I think that if you want to change the world you’ll have to think so too.”
"You said yourself, love leads to tragedy," Feuilly said. "We have more than enough tragedy already."
"Some tragedies are worth experiencing," Cosette informed him. She picked up the book again and resolutely bowed her head once more over the page.
*
February crept through the city like a thief at midnight, bringing with it a monstrous storm that sent torrents of rain cascading through the streets and through innumerable roofs. Feuilly sacrificed every vessel he could find to the task of catching water, and spent as much of his time as possible either in the workshop or in the Musain, both of which had sturdier roofs than he could afford to rent for himself. With the rain came a return of the cold, less sharp than it had been earlier in the year but more insidious. Wet clothes refused to dry, and manipulating the paints needed to decorate M. Baudet’s fans became increasingly difficult as both they and the fans reacted to the inescapable damp. All but the irrepressible gamins and the equally irrepressible Jean Prouvaire spent as much time as possible indoors or huddled under awnings or umbrellas. Those who did choose to enjoy the rain as nature had intended them to walked about with their hair plastered to their skulls and their shoes squelching with each step, so soaked were they with rainwater and mud. Even Enjolras, usually as oblivious to the caprices of the weather as he was to anything else not related to the country’s political temperament or the moods of his friends, commented on the sudden foul turn the skies had taken, and Combeferre wondered aloud about ill omens and angry Gods. Feuilly, less prone to flights of philosophic inquiry than his friend, sat as close to the Musain’s fire as he could stand and did what he could to keep his books drier than he was.
*
"I’m terribly sorry, I simply can’t make it tomorrow." Combeferre, his face haggard and hair in complete disarray, looked up at Feuilly for an instant before returning to his slightly frantic rummaging through his desk. "We’re overwhelmed at the hospital, and we need all the help we can possibly get. If it were any other time I would make the effort to find someone to take my place, but even the doctors are catching this fever and we don’t have anyone left to call."
Privately, Feuilly thought that what Combeferre actually needed to be doing the following evening was retiring early and getting some sleep, but he held his tongue. He knew as well as any that the needs of society often did not leave room for the needs of the body, and Combeferre was the type who would push himself until he collapsed from exhaustion if it meant that he could save just one extra person. So instead he smiled. “It’s all right,” he said. “You can make it up to me later.”
"I will," Combeferre promised, pulling open a drawer and removing a thin book with a sudden, "A-ha!” He reached for his spectacles, failed to find them, and promptly put the book back in the drawer as he began searching once more through the piles of papers and assorted miscellanea that entirely covered the desk’s polished surface. Feuilly had once thought Combeferre the very picture of restraint and organization, but several years of acquaintance had quite thoroughly cured him of these illusions. Combeferre had all the qualities of true genius, including the ability to memorize a book in a few hours and the inability to ever find the physical volume again once he’d set it down.
"I’ll tell Courfeyrac not to bother you for a few days," Feuilly promised, picking his way to the door. Combeferre sent him a distracted smile of thanks, most of his mind still focused on finding everything he needed for his classes the next day. Feuilly left him to it.
*
"Cosette?"
The young woman paused in adjusting her bonnet, twisting to look at Feuilly. He hesitated, still not certain quite why he thought this would be a good idea. The thought had come to him the night before, returning from Combeferre’s lodgings, and, when a night’s sleep had not cured him of the inclination, he had decided to go forward with it. Now, faced with the task of actually offering the invitation, he wished he had not been quite so hasty.
"Did you need me for something?" Cosette asked. They had not talked much since nearly quarreling about romance novels, and now she looked at him with faint confusion and wariness.
"Have you plans for tonight?"
She blinked, surprise washing over her face before being replaced once more with slight confusion. “Not at the moment.”
He took a breath, attempted briefly to convince himself that he had no reason to be apprehensive, as he was extending the invitation strictly as a friend making up for a potential offense, failed utterly to do so, and said, “I had made plans with a friend to attend a concert tonight, but he can no longer make it. I have a spare seat, and I wondered if you might be interested in joining me.” He paused, then added, “It’s a symphony about love.”
She blinked again, then laughed, confusion vanishing in the face of her sudden mirth. “Were you anyone else, I would accuse you of attempting to seduce me,” she said when she had recovered her breath a little. “But your friend really did cancel, didn’t he?”
"Of course he did," Feuilly said, a little annoyed. "I do not make a habit of telling falsehoods."
"No, it’s true, you don’t," Cosette said, sobering again. "Dare I ask why you asked me and not one of your other friends?”
"I’m forbidden from attending the theatre with nearly all of them," Feuilly admitted. "And I wanted to apologize for offending you the last time we spoke."
"And you just happened to have a free ticket to the symphony," Cosette said with a grin. "How entirely convenient for you." She finished fiddling with her bonnet and offered him her arm. "I would be delighted to accompany you to the symphony this evening, even if you are only doing it to win back my good opinion of you."
"I’m not…" Feuilly began, then shook his head and took her arm. From the way she laughed again, he suspected that this had been the best possible response.
*
Feuilly could feel the unrest in his bones hours before the riot itself started. Despite his late night he woke early the morning after the symphony, restless in a way he had come to recognize all too easily. Feuilly knew Paris like a sister, knew her moods and her sorrows, read her moods like he read her newspapers. He had felt her creeping towards eruption for days, but when he woke on the morning of the 14th he knew with a certainty he could not even begin to explain that this would be the day it boiled over.
The gamins in the streets knew Paris even more intimately than he did, and he passed more of them on his way to work than he had in months, all scampering to and fro with an urgency he did not usually associate with their kind. He kept one hand on his purse, but not one of the city’s children even gave him so much as a glance, too busy scurrying from place to place, bickering with each other in their own private argot, half pure Parisian dialect half the language of children. Feuilly could no more decipher the argot of gamins than he could Combeferre and Joly’s medical textbooks, but he could catch the urgency in their communications, the wildness of anticipation like the charge in the air just before a storm. He pulled his cap down over his forehead and quickened his step.
The day passed in fits and jolts, with everyone in the workshop on alert to every single noise, every new passerby, every sign that something had happened. M. Baudet himself had to come into the workshop several times to reprimand them all for not working quickly enough; his words would have had more effect had the pipe he been furiously chewing not been upside-down, sign that he was as distracted as any of his workers. No one talked, all too filled with nervous energy to expend any of it on conversation. Even Cosette, who had not had the time to become accustomed to the taste of politics, seemed on edge, her usual good cheer muted and hesitant.
They received word at six. A mob had broken into Archbishop’s Palace, the breathless gamin told them, his hands extended for coins as a reward for the information. The concierge had gone to fetch help from the police, but the mob was determined to wreck everything they could find until they got their hands on the Archbishop himself.
Cosette was not the only one who turned pale at the news, her hand joining a flurry of others to make the sign of the cross in horrified sympathy at the Archbishop’s plight. Feuilly, who had never been particularly fond of either the Archbishop himself or his position in general, focused on the expectant gamin. “Will it spread, do you think?” he asked.
"Who knows?" the urchin said with a shrug. "Can’t predict a riot M’sieur."
"I know," Feuilly said, digging through his purse and dropping a few sous into the child’s still waiting hand. "You stay out of it, understand? Mobs are no place for children."
The gamin, having made his newly acquired cash vanish into his ragged clothing as though by magic, gave Feuilly a supremely unconcerned shrug. “If you say so M’sieur,” he said. “Good place as any, I say, and you can make a fortune if you try.”
"And no one will think to look for you if you get crushed," Feuilly pointed out.
"No one looks for us now,” the gamin retorted.
To this Feuilly had no reply, and a moment later the gamin raced off, no doubt going to spread the news and beg for coins at the next workshop. Feuilly watched him go, trying almost unconsciously to memorize his retreating figure, just in case.
"What will happen to him?"
The voice was Cosette’s, who had come up next to him sometime during Feuilly’s brief exchange with the gamin.
"God willing he’ll come out of tonight intact and a few francs richer," Feuilly said. "Not all his companions will be so fortunate."
"That’s awful," Cosette said, hugging herself tightly. "Someone should do something."
"Would you lock them up for the duration?" Feuilly asked with a weary sigh. "Or chain them as though they were convicts?"
"No! But we shouldn’t let them get themselves killed either!"
Feuilly sighed again. “You heard him; we let them get killed anyway, mob or no mob. It’s one of the greatest tyrannies of the age.” Then he shook himself, turning to focus more fully on her. “Can you make it back to your lodgings safely tonight?”
Cosette bit her lip. “I… I’m not certain,” she admitted. “I don’t know Paris well enough to be sure of finding my way through something like this. Does it happen often?”
"Often enough," Feuilly said. Around them, the workshop had erupted into conversation, their fellow workers sorting themselves into camps based on their opinions of the republican rioters and shooting censorious looks at each other as they compared this potential riots to all the others in previous months. Feuilly noticed with disappointment but not surprise that the anti-republican camp was the larger of the two by far. He turned his attention back to Cosette. "You’ll learn to deal with it soon enough, but for tonight you’d better come back with me instead of trying to make your way to your rooms. It’ll be safer that way."
He half expected Cosette to protest that she did not need protecting, as both Bahorel’s and Joly’s mistresses would have, but she only nodded, her face very white and her eyes very big. Feuilly was abruptly reminded of how very young she still was, womanly attire or no. He pulled on his coat. “Let’s go,” he said. “Before it gets any worse.”
The gamin’s announcement had effectively signaled the end of the day, and Feuilly did not take the time to alert M. Baudet of his departure before he and Cosette left, though he did scoop up the last of his fans for the day, slipping them into an inside pocket of his coat to finish once he reached his rooms. The need for fuel to stave off winter’s deadly chill had eaten nearly all his savings, and he could not afford to let even a few fans go unattended.
Outside the streets were nearly deserted. Feuilly took Cosette’s arm and quickened his pace, alert for any ruffians who might choose to take advantage of the city’s disarray to ply their trade more openly.
"Where is everyone?" Cosette asked, her voice unnaturally loud against the surrounding stillness.
"Either inside or participating," Feuilly said. His own friends, he knew, would likely be with the mob, gleefully destroying the Archbishop’s possessions. Were it not for his self-imposed duty to Cosette, he might have considered joining them, if only to ensure for himself that they all made it out alive. He tightened his grip on Cosette’s elbow and kept walking.
It did not take long to reach his rooms, and his landlady let them in with an obvious look of relief. She knew his proclivity for participating in civil unrest, and more than once he’d been forced to hide injuries from her, less she declare him a dangerous tenant and throw him onto the street. He gave her a nod now and guided Cosette down the hallway to his room.
Once inside, Cosette all but collapsed onto Feuilly’s bed, trembling. Feuilly, after a moment’s hesitation, went to the window instead and pulled it open, sticking his head out. Only the faintest shouts could be heard, sign that the mob had not yet decided to abandon their plump target and come surging towards the poorer end of Paris. He lit a candle and carefully shut the window once again. When he turned back towards the bed, Cosette had hidden her face in her hands. A little awkwardly, he sat next to her.
"It will be all right," he said, his words sounding hollow even to his own ears.
"How can it be all right?" she demanded, voice muffled but still fierce. "People are dying!”
"We don’t know that anyone has died," Feuilly said. "Sometimes no one does."
Cosette raised her head to glare at him. “My mother lived in Paris before I was born,” she said. “She told me about riots. No one ever gets out completely unscathed.”
"Injured isn’t the same thing as dead," Feuilly said, then sighed. "But you’re right, someone probably will die tonight, and likely several people. But we can’t do anything about it now, not after it’s already started. It has to wear itself out."
"How can you sit there and say that?” Cosette demanded. “How can you not care about the people who might be trampled?”
Feuilly swallowed, fighting not to let her words conjure up vivid memories of precisely that. “I do care,” he said. “But caring won’t help, not if you’re one of the ones who ends up killed because you tried to tame the hurricane.” He swallowed again and kept his eyes fixed on a point on the wall above her shoulder. “When it’s over we can provide aid to the injured and comfort to the families of the dead. Until then the only thing to do is to wait.”
"Monseigneur always said that waiting was the hardest thing any person could do," Cosette said. "I always hated when he said that."
"You should listen to him," Feuilly said.
She scowled. “I know that,” she snapped. “He knew everything and he was always right. But it’s not easy to do something that you feel in your heart is wrong, you know.”
"You think I don’t want to be out there as much as you do?" Feuilly demanded, crossing his arms. "But I know that it’s not my place, and I know that I would only put both of us in danger if I did go." He paused, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "If you want to try and stop the next one be my guest, but I cannot let you get yourself killed when you are my responsibility, particularly not since your mother and your Monseigneur are no doubt watching the both of us even as we speak."
Cosette didn’t answer this. She was still trembling, shaking even, though from which combination of emotions Feuilly could not tell. After a moment, he rose and went back to the window, keeping it closed but holding the candle in a vain attempt to see something other than his own reflection.
At last, her voice numb, Cosette said, “Last night we were laughing at the hats of bourgeois, and tonight there are people dying in the streets.”
To this Feuilly had no reply, and once again Cosette fell silent.
*
Neither of them left the building the next day.
*
"Thank you," Cosette said, as she and Feuilly stood outside the door to her rooms. She looked impossibly weary, her clothes wrinkled and her hair half undone from its careful pins. Feuilly knew that he looked no better — neither of them had slept the previous night, too filled with nerves and fear to even contemplate resting.
"It was nothing," he said. "Any friend would have offered the same."
"But you’re the one who did," Cosette said. "So thank you."
He nodded, too tired both physically and emotionally to think of a response.
She took her basket from him and unlocked the door, her key hanging on a ribbon around her neck. Just before entering her room she paused, turning back to look at him. “Monseigneur would have been proud of you,” she said. “For taking care of me instead of joining the crowd.”
Feuilly looked away, not quite certain what to do with that statement. At least he said, “He’d have been proud of you too, I think.”
The smile she offered him was a far cry from her usual sunny brilliance, but for the first time Feuilly felt as though he were sharing in her light. “I hope so,” she said, and stepped through the door.
A Union of Hearts and Mind
fic by teddyferre
art by acesius
interior illustration by aworldbeyondthebarricade
Rating: T
TW: gun violence, blood
Notes: AU (“His Dark Materials” crossover, daemon-verse)
The pamphlets he had been holding in his hand scattering on the cobblestones, Combeferre surged forwards, pushing people out of the way in his haste to reach his friend. Oriana, who had kept close to his side all this time, snarled and bounded through the forest of legs surrounding her, making her way towards Kendra, who had spiraled down from the sky, hitting the ground somewhere amongst the crowd.
Enjolras was laying curled up on his side, bright red blood seeping out between his pale fingers and soaking through his shirt and waistcoat.
“Enjolras!”
Combeferre crouched down next to his stricken friend, carefully laying a hand on Enjolras’ uninjured shoulder. Enjolras rolled onto his back, his hand still pressed to the wound, hissing with pain.
Without a second’s thought, Combeferre ripped the sleeve from his shirt, rolling it up and handing it to Enjolras: “Press this to the wound.”
The moment Enjolras removed his hand from his shoulder, Combeferre first gasped, then let the air out with a small sigh of relief.
“Combeferre? How bad is it?”
He had not even noticed Courfeyrac crouching down besides him, but now he looked over to their friend, frowning slightly while shaking his head: “Not as bad as it could have been. It hit too high.” He closed his eyes, drawing a shaking breath: “It hit too high, thank God.”
Courfeyrac reached out and stroked a lock of hair from Enjolras’ face, which was pale and clammy with cold sweat. Then, he swallowed and set his jaw, looking back over his shoulder: “We have to get him away from here. If they see the pamphlets, I doubt they will care about him getting shot.” Courfeyrac snorted, his eyes lighting up with anger: “They might even applaud it.”
Combeferre nodded, never taking his gaze off Enjolras, who echoed both their sentiments with a weak nod, his jaw clenched and eyes glazed over with pain.
“Courfeyrac, where’s Bahorel?” Combeferre said, tearing off his second sleeve and handing the wad of fabric over to Enjolras, who exchanged it for the other. Combeferre frowned once more at the sight of the blood-soaked rag, but it seemed that the flow of blood was slowing down.
“Alexis and him took off after the gunman,” Courfeyrac said, getting up. Fists balling at his sides, he lowered his voice: “I hope she rips the flesh off his bones.”
Combeferre couldn’t fault his friend for the dark sentiment, seeing how angry he felt himself. Still, they needed to keep calm right now: “Courfeyrac, you should go see after Kendra. I could see her fall down. Ori’s with her.”
Courfeyrac nodded: “As is Freya.”
While Combeferre, Joly and Bossuet all helped Enjolras get back on his feet, Courfeyrac hurried over to where their daemons were gathered. Oriana was standing over the stricken kestrel, her tufted ears laid back and the fur on her back raised. The lynx was snarling at everyone who dared come nearer than a few steps, while Freya was standing with her long body half-curled around Kendra, both protecting and supporting her.
As soon as Courfeyrac was by their side, Oriana backed away a little, giving him room to examine the bird. Freya took the chance to run up Courfeyrac’s arm and perch on his shoulder, her watchful eyes never leaving Kendra.
Courfeyrac frowned as he looked down at the kestrel. Kendra was crouching, panting through an open beak, her left wing hanging limply from her body. Courfeyrac reached up to run his hand over his ferret-daemon’s back, trying to calm her.
“We need to go.”
Oriana nodded, then gingerly took Kendra into her mouth to carry her, careful to not hurt the kestrel with her sharp teeth. Kendra didn’t resist, though Courfeyrac wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
As quickly as possible, the small group made their retreat. Courfeyrac took the rear, with Freya occasionally standing up on his shoulder or hopping onto his head to keep a lookout for anyone following.
They reached Combeferre’s rooms without further incident. Enjolras had been quiet the whole time, uttering not even as much as a whimper, but one look at his ghostly pale face was enough to see that he was in severe pain.
As soon as they had laid Enjolras down on the bed, Combeferre turned to Courfeyrac: “We need to cut him out of his clothes. There should be a pair of scissors in that drawer over there.”
While Courfeyrac was rummaging for the scissors, Oriana silently slipped through between them and gingerly placed Kendra down near Enjolras’ head. Usually the picture of grace, the kestrel looked almost pathetic as she tried to get closer to him, her wing dragging uselessly behind her.
Enjolras turned his head, looking at his deamon through eyes clouded with pain: “Are you badly hurt?”
“Nothing that won’t heal on its own,” Kendra replied, “so don’t waste any strength worrying about me.”
“Kendra’s right. Leave the worrying to us,” Courfeyrac said, stepping up to the bed, scissors in hand. “I apologize for ruining your garments,” he went on as he cut first through Enjolras’ vest and then through the shirt underneath. “Then again, seeing how there’s a hole in them, they couldn’t be saved anyway.”
Enjolras gave Courfeyrac a weak smile: “I think I’ll survive this part of the procedure.”
“You, my friend, are a much stronger man than me,” Courfeyrac replied with a grin that looked a lot more cheerful than his voice sounded. “And you’re going to survive the rest of this ordeal, too.”
With that, Courfeyrac slowly pulled the fabric away, careful as to not tug too much at the edges of the wound. Then, he turned to Joly and Combeferre: “He’s all yours.”
Combeferre moved to Enjolras’ side, taking a long, careful look at the wound. Enjolras flinched every time his shoulder was touched anywhere near it, but still didn’t utter more than the occasional hiss of pain.
“We need to get the bullet out and wash the wound,” Combeferre finally said, turning to Joly. He bit his lip: “He’s fortunate that it didn’t penetrate too deeply.”
Joly nodded: “And quickly. Do you have your instruments at hand?”
“In the lower left shelf over there. There’s also a bottle of brandy” Combeferre turned back to Enjolras, pushing a few locks of hair out of the other man’s forehead: “You’re going to need it.” Then, he turned to the others: “I would ask everyone else to leave.”
“You heard him,” Oriana growled, herding the other two men and their daemons out of the room.
“Kendra…” Enjolras croaked, looking at Combeferre with an almost pleading gaze.
“I am staying,” the kestrel cut in, her tone harsh. “I will keep my composure, and if I should be unable to, Combeferre may remove me from the room. But until such is the case, I am staying.”
Enjolras smiled weakly: “I guess it is no use arguing with you?”
“No more than it would be if things were the other way around,” the daemon replied fondly.
–
Courfeyrac had spent his time worrying most of the nails on his right hand to the quick and, when the door finally opened, sprang up from the chair so quickly that Freya tumbled out of his lap and to the ground: “How is he?”
Combeferre threw the rag on which he had been haphazardly wiping his bloodied hands into a basket in the corner, then gave his friend a short, relieved smile: “We removed the bullet and debris from the wound.”
Through the door, Courfeyrac could see Oriana pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed, and he turned his gaze to Joly, then to Esmé. The rabbit was keeping close to Joly’s feet, shaking her body to remove the tension. In an instant, Bossuet’s daemon Nia was at her side, and Esmé crouched down to let the sparrow sit on her back.
“If his blood isn’t infected, he should heal in due course,” Joly said. “But he has a few critical days ahead of him. He will most likely develop a fever.”
“Then I will stay,” Courfeyrac said, looking at Combeferre.
Combeferre nodded, then turned to Joly and Bossuet: “You should go home and get some rest. I might have to call on you again, Joly, depending on how it goes.”
“If we hear anything from Bahorel, we will let you know,” Bossuet said, then placed a hand on Combeferre’s shoulder: “Take good care of him. And you, Courfeyrac, take good care of Combeferre. Make sure that he sleeps. I know these medical students, they always think they are impervious to such mundane things as sleep or hunger,” he added with a fond smile in Joly’s direction.
Joly just shook his head and bent down to pick Esmé up, cradling her in the crook of his arm: “You can call on me any time, day or night, my friend.”
After the two men had left, Courfeyrac let himself fall down onto the chair again and ran his hands through his hair, looking up at Combeferre: “Jesus Christ. It’s not as if I’d never thought about that something might happen to us. After all, our ideas are not exactly well-received in some circles. But it’s always been, well, us.” He drew a breath, casting a gaze towards the door to the bedroom, and his voice dropped a little: “Us, not him. He always seems so invulnerable. As if nothing that is of this world could touch him, let alone do him harm.”
Combeferre nodded silently, his eyes following Courfeyrac’s gaze. A little off to the side, Oriana and Freya were lying curled up around each other, with Ori occasionally running her tongue over the ferret’s back.
“I know,” Combeferre said, pinching the bridge of his nose as a wave of exhaustion rose inside of him. But he couldn’t rest. Not right now. He sighed: “In the end, Enjolras is flesh and blood, just like the rest of us. Which might be why his assailant shot him in the first place,” he mused. “Show him, and everyone else, that he’s flesh and blood…”
“Well I’ve seen enough of the blood part today to last me for the rest of my life,” Courfeyrac said, frowning, his brow furrowing in anger: “And if I ever lay my hands on that man, he will get a glimpse of his own mortality, you can be sure of that.”
Combeferre went over to put his hand on Courfeyrac’s shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze: “Don’t think I do not have the same impulse. But we’ve got to focus on Enjolras now. He needs all our strength and care to help him get better.”
Courfeyrac reached up to cover Combeferre’s hand with his own, giving him a smile: “Yes. And we won’t desert him.”
–
“He’s burning up.” Courfeyrac pushed a lock of damp hair out of Enjolras’ forehead and looked towards Combeferre, his eyes dark with worry. Enjolras’ skin was hot to the touch, even though his body was being wracked by shivers. “Is there nothing more we can do?”
Combeferre shook his head, his mouth a tight line. They were taking turns wrapping Enjolras’ legs with cold, damp strips of cloth, and Joly had come by with a syrup made of herbs and willow bark which they were giving Enjolras, but in the end all they could do was pray and let the fever run its course.
“At least the wound doesn’t seem infected,” Combeferre said, removing the dressing to put on a new one. The flesh around the hole the gunshot had left in Enjolras’ body was swollen, put there was no pus, no necrotic smell or the tell-tale lines of blood poisoning.
Courfeyrac lifted Enjolras’ hand to his lips, kissing it gently, then looked at Combeferre: “He’ll survive, right?”
“He’s strong,” Combeferre said. He would love to be able to reassure Courfeyrac, but he wouldn’t lie to him.
Courfeyrac drew a shaking breath, then focused his attention back on Enjolras. Freya, who seemed to have permanently attached herself to Courfreyrac’s shoulder, chittered soothingly and rubbed her head against Courfeyrac’s neck.
Combeferre finished dressing the wound and, for a moment, laid a hand over Enjolras’ rapidly beating heart, a gesture which seemed to calm the other man a little: “Kendra. Are you hungry?”
The kestrel hadn’t left her perch on the headboard since Joly and Combeferre had extracted the bullet, not even to hunt. She would have to eat something soon. Still, she ruffled her feathers and clicked her beak: “No.”
It was the first thing she had said in almost a day. Usually, she was the chattier of the pair, something that was a bit unusual for a daemon. But then, she was as unique a creature as Enjolras.
“Still, you should eat. Courfeyrac,” Combeferre said, turning to the other man, “do you think you could go to the butcher and get her some meat?” Not only did Kendra need to eat, Courfeyrac needed a spot of fresh air.
Courfeyrac nodded: “Of course.”
When Courfeyrac returned, he found Combeferre dozing in his chair, Oriana laying at his feet. The lynx’ eyes were half closed, and Courfeyrac couldn’t help but smile. For the first time since Enjolras had been shot, the pair looked almost peaceful, and he couldn’t really be angry at Combeferre for falling asleep on his watch, not after he had been awake for over a day now. Should something have changed for the worse, Courfeyrac was sure that Kendra would have woken his friend up promptly.
Looking at Enjolras, Courfeyrac gave a quiet sigh. Enjolras’ eyes were open, but glazed and shining with fever, and Courfeyrac was quite sure that his friend didn’t even know he was there.
“Stay here, Freya? I’m going to cut up Kendra’s supper.”
The ferret scurried down his arm and onto the bed, curling up into a ball next to Enjolras’ head.
It didn’t take Courfeyrac long to cut the meat into thin strips. Kendra ate them with relish, her haste betraying her former insistence that she wasn’t hungry. Once she was done, however, she settled back into her watchful position above Enjolras’ head, the only movement an occasional tilt of the head or click of the beak.
Freya slowly loped back to Courfeyrac and began licking his fingers: “Don’t worry. He’ll make it. It would take an army to bring those two down.”
“I hope you’re right.”
–
“We almost had him,” Bahorel said, the anger in his voice echoed in Alexis’ deep growl. “But we lost him in the crowd.”
“Him and his little rat,” Alexis added. She turned her head towards Bahorel: “I could have sniffed them out.”
“Yes, and what good would that have been?” Bahorel retorted with a sigh and picked up his wine to take a deep swig. They were sitting at a table in a corner at the Corinthe, the glum that everyone was feeling like an invisible barrier between them and the rest of the crowd that had gathered in the wine shop.
“Bahorel is right,” Esmé said, looking up from cleaning her face with her paws. “You can hardly maul a man in broad daylight.”
“He shot Enjolras!” Alexis barked back.
“Which would be a good defense if it weren’t for the fact that Enjolras, and you two for that matter, are known for harboring revolutionary sentiments. Which I guess wouldn’t help you with the authorities,” Joly said.
Bahorel reached out to stroke and knead the back of Alexis neck, and slowly, both him and the painted wild dog calmed down.
“And that, gentlemen, is the state of the law in our country,” Grantaire remarked almost flippantly. “Note that I said the law, not justice. I highly doubt that the Lady Justicia would agree with a murderer running free just because his would-be victim is an idealist whose utopian dreams don’t mesh with the general sentiment. Joly, how is he, then? Enjolras?”
At the last bit, Clio, who had been restlessly winding around Grantaire’s legs for as long as they had been sitting here, stilled in her movement.
Joly stroked his chin, then looked down at his hands: “The fever hasn’t broken yet.”
Silence descended over the table, only broken by a sorrowful mewl from Clio. Almost before Grantaire had even moved his chair back, the gray cat had jumped into his lap and pushed her head into the crook of his arm.
Draining his wine, Joly stood up from the table: “But speaking of, it’s time for me to go and check in with them. I shall inform you if anything changes.”
Esmé stretched her limbs and shook herself, then hopped off the table onto the floor. Before following Joly, she turned, lifting herself up on her hind legs and gazing up at the cat that was still crouching in Grantaire’s lap: “Don’t worry, Clio. He’ll be fine.” Loping off behind Joly, she added under her breath: “I hope.”
–
“Courfeyrac?”
“You’re awake!” Courfeyrac whooped, then called over his shoulder: “Combeferre, he’s awake!”
Enjolras’ smile was weak and a little confused, but Courfeyrac would be damned if it wasn’t the most wonderful thing he had ever seen in his life. Bending down, he pressed a kiss to Enjolras’ forehead, noticing that the fever had gone down a bit. Freya had hopped down from his shoulder and was doing an excited little dance on the foot of the bed.
“For how…” Enjolras paused and swallowed, trying to get his voice to rise into a bit more than a pathetic croak, “how long was I…?”
“Three days,” Kendra said softly, hopping down from her perch and landing directly next to Enjolras’ head.
“Hopefully, that’s behind us now,” Oriana said with a gentle rumble, padding in from the other room, Combeferre at her heels.
“I feel terrible,” Enjolras said, frowning and blinking up at the ceiling. Raising a shaking hand, he reached for his wounded shoulder and gave it a careful poke. The pain that shot through his arm and up his neck made him hiss and drop his arm immediately.
“How about you leave the prodding of wounds to those of us who know what they’re doing,” Combeferre said, shaking his head fondly. “I brought you some water. You need to drink as much as you can, now that you’re once again lucid. And before you get any ideas,” he added, pointing a finger at Enjolras, “even after the fever has receded, which is hasn’t, you’re going to need at least another week of rest before I let you get out of this bed, or do any task that is more strenuous than reading a book. And no arguing.”
“You listen to him,” Kendra said, momentarily interrupting her task of disentangling some of Enjolras’ locks from each other to nip gently at his ear. “Else, you shall find yourself with a hole in your ear as well as your shoulder,” she said, her voice carrying a hint of mischief as well as warning.
–
“Will you at least let me look over Courfeyrac’s pamphlet?”
If Combeferre hadn’t known better, he would have interpreted Enjolras’ expression as a pout. He shook his head fondly and chuckled: “No. You have to rest, and that includes your mind and your soul as well as your body. No working yourself up.”
“Combeferre, I am already worked up. If I do not engage in some kind of useful, productive activity soon, I shall go mad.”
“No.”
Enjolras huffed, but the finality with which the word had been uttered made it clear that Combeferre would not give in to any kind of argument.
“Just for a few more days,” Combeferre amended, “you will be back to your full strength much sooner for it.”
Enjolras nodded, then reached up to gently run a finger over Kendra’s head. The kestrel had just returned from outside, having gone back to hunting or simply hovering above the streets of the city. “I envy you. At least one of us gets to be free to come and go as they please.”
The daemon closed her eyes, tilting her head underneath the gentle touch: “Don’t worry. Trust in your friends’ judgment and soon, your spirit will once again soar alongside me.”
“That I do,” Enjolras replied, but his gaze sought out Combeferre and Courfeyrac, “always.”
Silent as the Grave.
fic by estelraca
art by ellevante
(warning for canon violence,blood,canon major character death)
“And now for the moment of truth.” Prouvaire keeps his voice solemn, the thrill of expectation thrumming through him as he pries loose the last nail holding the crate shut.
“After all this drama, who wants to bet we’ll get a heap of sand and a handful of fake coins or some such?” Bossuet is sprawled out on the ground next to the box, his eyelids half-shut as he watches Jehan pry loose the nails.
“Even if that’s true, it’ll still be interesting.” Joly raises one hand in surrender as Jehan turns his glare on the aspiring doctor. “Not that it is true, mind you. I’m sure there will be some fantastic occult goods in the crate.”
“Right. As I was saying.” Prouvaire grasps the edges of the crate lid and pries upward. It takes more force than he expected, even with the nails already pulled. Whoever prepared the crate for transport did an admirable job.
Eventually the top comes loose, though, and Jehan holds his breath as he peers down…
At a very fine collection of straw and unfamiliar dried plants, packed carefully into the crate, filling it to the brim.
“Or plants.” Bossuet sits up a bit straighter, peering down into the box. “We could end up with a collection of desiccated plants from Africa.”
Jehan throws a handful of the dried plants at Bossuet’s smirk. They make poor missiles, fluttering down around his friend’s head. Joly grabs two pieces of dry yellow grass and shoves one behind each of Bossuet’s ears.
Carefully pulling straw out of the box handful by handful, Jehan begins uncovering the actual contents. A lacquered box is revealed first, a beautiful piece of workmanship, the ankh displayed prominently on the lid. Jehan hands the box to Joly before continuing his digging. A handful of small statues, heavier than they appear at first glance, emerge next—some human, some animal, some human bodies topped by the head of a bird, a dog, a lion. These he passes out to whoever holds out a hand, listening with a contented smile as his friends exclaim over the artifacts and he continues digging.
A dagger emerges next, a stone blade with a lion-headed crouching human figure as the handle. Before Jehan has a chance to study it too closely Bahorel is reaching out to touch the blade.
Jehan hands it over without fuss. He’s only halfway through the box, and there will be plenty of time for them all to examine each piece.
An intricately carved scarab beetle with what appears to be a skull motif worked into the center disappears into Grantaire’s eager hands. An urn with glyphs in red and black, a cap in the shape of a jackal’s head, and an affixed tag in English that reads ‘heart’ is snatched by Joly. A ring with the same lion-headed cat-woman carved atop it as the dagger drops into Bossuet’s hand, and he tries it on his own finger, smiling as he elbows Joly and asks if Joly thinks Musichetta would appreciate it. A collection of texts—some scrolls falling apart, some beautifully painted pieces of art filled with glyphs that are incomprehensible—goes into a pile for Combeferre. Jehan wonders idly how long his friend will spend deciphering them—and if it will be as disappointing as Champollion’s deciphering of the Rosetta Stone.
Not that Jehan begrudges Champollion his success—certainly not to the extent that some of his fellow Romantics do. While he can understand where his fellows feel let down—the glyphs of Egypt were supposed to contain arcane knowledge, hidden and lost wisdom, channels to talk with gods and demons and creatures beyond all human comprehension—it isn’t Champollion’s fault that the Egyptians instead recorded family lines and royal history. Though Prouvaire is glad, for the moment, that all he can see are beautiful symbols full of infinite potential.
Yes, better to see them like this, art and magic and the unreadable tales of an unknown people, than to know that they are a genealogy and record of kings.
Always royalty, no matter where they go, the great killer of romantic notions of enlightenment and esoteric potential.
Shaking the thought free, Prouvaire reminds himself that not all writings of Egypt are about royalty. There are tales of gods and monsters, instructions on how to navigate the afterlife that have been found, and if those exist, what else might there be? Better to focus on that rather than delving into the melancholic disappointment that had been the uncovering of Egypt’s true message to future generations. The thrill of the unveiling rekindled, Jehan pulls the last piece from the box, cradling it to him for careful study. It is a box, a much smaller plain wooden box with a simple latch. Flicking the latch open, he reveals the last artifact.
The mummy is small, perhaps two hand-spans long, the linen that binds it woven tightly together in an intricate pattern of white-and-black that is striking. The head retains the shape of the original body—or so it seems, at least, pointed ears and the rounded feline face. Jehan runs his fingers gently over the cool, dry wrapping, tracing the eye sockets, the cheeks where whiskers once sprouted, the muzzle, rubbing it under the chin. Someone—the black is so deep that Jehan is uncertain if it was the original preserver of the mummy or one of the middle-men through which he purchased the crate—has drawn in features. They have given the tiny cat too-human a face, though, eyebrows rather than whiskers, the round human pupils rather than the slitted cat’s eyes, though they are faithful in the recreation of the muzzle and the feline’s perpetual smile. The combination of cat and human features sends a little shiver down his back as he studies them, raises the hairs on his arms.
“What a terrible creation.” Joly stares at the mummy in undisguised horror. “You’re not going to keep that, are you?”
“Joly, you keep pieces of dead bodies in our house. You’ve no right to question others’ tastes in interior decorating.” Bossuet reaches out to touch the lower half of the mummy, then draws his hand quickly away, rubbing his fingers together.
“Those bodies were used for medical study, and I always kept them in particular locations so they wouldn’t bother you or Musichetta.” A pout crosses Joly’s face, though horror rises again as he continues to study the cat. “And once I was done with them, I saw they were properly disposed of. I didn’t wrap them in sheets and draw a grin on them for eternity.”
“He’s a cat. They always smile, it’s how their faces are made. A bit of cruelty from their maker, and perhaps that’s why they enjoy toying with the rest of creation so much.” Jehan cradles the tiny, surprisingly light body closer to his chest. “And yes, I do think I intend to keep him. What else could we do? Bury him? Throw him in the catacombs?”
“He might be at home in catacombs, if he’s from one of those pyramid-tombs.” Bahorel also reaches out to touch the creature, looking less disturbed than Bossuet but still uneasy.
Joly looks between the crate and the cat, a new worry replacing the horror on his face. “You don’t suppose he’s from a cursed tomb, do you? There weren’t any curses on any of these artifacts, right, Jehan?”
“I don’t know.” Jehan allows a smile to creep across his face. “There’s no one fluent in the Egyptian glyphs left living—even Champollion is still learning. Perhaps all of us are now cursed to die terrible, horrible deaths, all the moisture drained from our bodies—”
Grantaire snorts. “I wish someone could drain the moisture, all the rain the last few days has left me feeling sodden no matter my clothes.”
Jehan ignores him. “—and there will be stories told of us, and perhaps one day, when someone least expects it, our impossibly mummified bodies will rise again—”
“But without moisture it seems the body would have a very difficult time getting muscles to work.” All evidence of discomfort fades from Joly’s face as he rubs at his nose, excitement rising in his tone as he considers the problem. “I mean, Galvani’s experiments worked best on muscle that was still in a relatively fresh state, not dehydrated—I shall have to discuss with Combeferre if there are possible connections between this and the weakness that is seen in patients who are lacking in water due to fever or blood loss, perhaps there is potential there for experimentation and improvement of current techniques…”
Jehan sighs, giving up on continuing the hypothetical since his audience is clearly not interested in it at the moment.
Grantaire strokes one finger gently along the cat’s head. “It’s softer than I expected. Feels… breakable. And if you’d like, I can draw a sketch of you as a horrible mummified monster from the bowels of the underworld.”
“If you wish.” Jehan returns his friend’s smile before looking down at the cat mummy again.
He does want to keep it, and it does seem fragile. He will have to find somewhere to put it.
Retreating for a moment from the crate and the items that his friends are once more perusing and commenting on, Jehan hastily clears a stack of poetry books, a skull with the cranium missing but the jawbone wired into place, and a vase filled with drooping flowers from his nightstand. He will have to find more flowers. The space cleared, he carefully arranges the mummy, standing it upright, its eyes facing the door of the bedroom, on alert for trouble.
“Is that what you were, little one?” Jehan once more gently strokes between the cat’s ears, finding a strange comfort in the gesture, though he is careful not to damage the linen. “Were you a child of Bastet, a guardian? Ah, but if you were a guardian, what became of your guardroom? Were you a servant of Ozymandias, and ‘round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretched far away’? Perhaps you could finally tell us the truth of the ‘powerful but unrecorded race, once dwelt in that annihilated place’. Though Egypt was not annihilated, and the records are there, they are just unreadable or disappointing now.”
The cat mummy simply stares at him with its inked-on eyes.
Perhaps it hasn’t liked his suggestions. “Or maybe you weren’t a guardian. Maybe you were a warrior, Sekhmet’s cub, not given a chance to grow in a cruel world? There are many like that now, unfortunately.”
Still the cat continues merely to stare at him.
“Ah, well.” Jehan grabs the wilting flowers, leaving everything else on the floor. He’ll find places for the rest later. “Whatever you were, little one, you will be treated well here, this I promise.”
Rejoining the rest of his friends, Prouvaire joins in the eager considerations of his comrades, delighting in the shivering sense of eyes following him from the nightstand.
***
A small platter of milk.
A human skull, the spirit long departed.
A handful of flowers, their fresh, clean scent mingling with her own dry scent of ancient age.
An image of her Lady Bastet.
A carven image of a fox-headed, fox-tailed god that she doesn’t know.
A chattering young man, the giver of the offerings, praying in words that only slowly become comprehensible, his spirit shining bright with hope and belief.
It has been a long time since any have called on her, a long time since she has had a purpose.
Stretching slowly, languidly, enjoying the movement of each muscle-that-is-no-longer, she ventures out to explore her new home.
***
Jehan dreams.
He knows it must be a dream, because cats can’t talk.
Though it could be a hallucination. He will allow for that, because he did a fair amount of drinking with his friends when they were done dividing their treasures, and he and Bahorel may have shared a bit of something stronger.
Dream, hallucination, he doesn’t care. Kneeling on the bed, he studies the creature before him. It looks almost exactly like the cats and kittens that he has fed and played with throughout his life. Its body is a dark buff color, with a black stripe down the center of its back and dark stripes providing markings on its face, sides, and tail. Stretching out one hand, he offers it for the cat to sniff.
The cat does so, face bent down, tail curled regally around its paws. It yawns, displaying tiny fangs, and then studies him with green, green eyes. You worship me?
“I might.” Jehan turns his head, his gaze sliding over the nightstand and its burdens. “I tend to keep an open mind. Though I didn’t think cats could talk.”
Old. The cat stretches, butt in the air, tail arched, front claws digging into the bedding. Very old. Talk for purpose.
“For purpose…” Jehan’s fingers itch to bury themselves in the cat’s fur. “What purpose?”
Guard. Guard for the Lady. The cat butts its head—her head, if the voice is anything to go by—against Jehan’s hand, and he scratches under her chin. But then dark. Nothing. Now…
“Now me.” Jehan scratches his way from the cat’s chin to her ears to her neck, working his way down her back as a purr begins to echo. “What can you guard?”
Tell me. Might guard. The cat turns in a tight circle before collapsing on its back, belly to the sky, green slitted eyes piercing through Jehan’s. Boring in dark. Bad.
What did one tell a tiny cat-guardian to guard? What did one tell a hallucination to protect? Certainly nothing too big, since the mummy had not been able to stop what happened to its former home. “Protect my friends. I have no problem giving you milk and keeping your shrine, and if I could ask for anything, that’s what I’d want. Protect my friends from harm if you can.”
Friends? The cat pulls his hand down and gently nibbles at his smallest finger.
“Friends.” Jehan smiles, thinking of his friends. “I’ll tell you about them, and you decide what you want to do.”
He talks of his friends. He talks of his country, his world, his place in it, what he wishes for the future, how frightened and excited he is that the fervor for revolution is growing once more as it becomes apparent to more that the 1830 changes will not be enough. He talks and the cat doesn’t mind, so long as his hand continues to stroke it.
He talks until he sleeps, an exhaustion of body and a lightness of soul, and his cat-hallucination sleeps with him, purring curled against his chest.
There are no bite marks on his hand when he wakes, no fur in his bed, but he offers a small amount of fresh milk in the tiny saucer he had placed in front of the cat mummy anyway, and smiles as he strokes it between the ears.
***
He keeps the shrine.
He prays, though his prayers are strange, his gods many and varied.
He sings, even when there is no music, his words lilting in beautiful rhythm.
He gives her milk, and scratches between her ears, and is warmth to curl against as cold such as she has never known descends on her new home.
He asks only that she guard his friends, and though she knows it is a hopeless task, she follows them anyway, learning more of each as time passes.
***
Grantaire is the first to mention the ghost to Jehan.
“I’m only telling you this because out of all of us you’re the least likely to call me crazy or say I was just drunk. Which I was, but only a little bit.” Grantaire edges closer to Jehan, his voice dropping in volume so that Jehan has to lean closer to hear. “And I have proof, you know. Though it’s proof I could have faked, so I know that Combeferre wouldn’t believe me, and Courfeyrac would say I was just having a lucid dream, and if I tell Joly and Bossuet it might end up in one of their plays…”
Jehan nods, agreeing with Grantaire’s assessment, expression eager as he waits for Grantaire’s rambling to spiral around to the actual story that he wants to hear.
“So… well… yes…” Grantaire rubs at the back of his neck, expression reddening as he takes a gulp from his wine glass. “So I was painting, as I said. It was late—perhaps one, two in the morning? Not the ideal time to be painting, but sometimes I’ll get interesting color combinations or shadow work, and any way I was just glad to have the urge to paint something. And… well I suppose I should admit this isn’t the first time I’ve thought there might be something a bit… odd around the house recently. It’s not every day, mind you, but sometimes I feel like I’m being watched, or like something has grabbed at the laces on my clothing and is pulling on them, or… very rarely… will find myself petting a very soft creature only to look down and, of course, have no creature there. I’ve been dismissing the events—foolery, drunkenness, wistfulness for the idleness and simplicity of childhood with pets who believed you controlled the world.”
Jehan can see Grantaire’s expression darkening, and as much delight as he occasionally has in delving into the depths of despair with the man, right now he wants to hear the rest of the story. “But last night was different?”
“Last night…” Grantaire lets out a half-chuckling sigh. “I was drawing the Amis—it’s for Courfeyrac, if it turns out right. And I was talking to myself, as I’m wont to do when it’s late. And after a bit I noticed that every time I asked a rhetorical question, I got an answer. Just quiet at first, a little bit of a prrr or sometimes a mra, but as time wore on the answers became louder, until I swear it sounded as though a cat were meowing at me in these very demanding tones that clearly indicated agreement or dissent!”
“Fascinating.” Jehan finds himself smiling, thinking of the tiny mummified cat on his nightstand. He hasn’t had dreams of speaking with her again, though he does dream sometimes of petting her, fur silky beneath his hand, whiskers firm and prickly. “Did you ask anything important? Did it tell you anything of value about the mysteries of existence?”
“And I know for certain that it wasn’t a cat outside or a stray that crawled inside the building, not unless it was lodged in the walls somehow because I checked… though mundane explanations seem not to interest you. Right.” Blinking, Grantaire stares up at Jehan with a puzzled expression. “I did mention it seemed to be a cat ghost, right? It didn’t say anything other than cat-noises.”
“Ah. Pity.” Jehan takes a drink from his own glass. “But it did something else, something that made you certain it was real?”
“Yes.” Staring down into his almost-empty glass, Grantaire shakes his head. “I was just starting to add color to clothing. I was working on your image, actually. And I was debating between blue and green when a very precise paw print appeared on your chest in bright blue paint. Just the one print, no others, nothing leading to or from. And after that… nothing. No cat noises. Strange, eh?”
“Fascinating.” Jehan smoothes his cyan waistcoat, a smile spreading slowly along his face. “Anything since then?”
“No.” Grantaire drains his glass in one smooth motion. “But I’ll tell you if there is, believe me. Maybe it’ll make a good topic for one of your poems—the cat who decided to stay and drive artists mad.”
“I think this particular cat may have already appeared in my work.” Jehan pulls out a small notebook where he keeps random lines and snippets of work, but before he can find the pages he wants Enjolras stalks into the room, a harsh set to his eyes that means there will be work to take up shortly. “I’ll show you later. Keep me apprised of any new developments as soon as they happen.”
“Of course.” Grantaire nods his assent, gathering his empty glass and fading to the back of the group, clearly recognizing from Enjolras’ expression that interruption will not be welcome in the near future.
Jehan doesn’t get a chance to talk with Grantaire about the ghost again until the following day, and when he does Grantaire shrugs off the whole experience as most likely a dream. Jehan doesn’t push the matter, certain that further evidence will come his way given time.
***
“Do you believe that animals have souls?”
The question comes from Feuilly, and it takes Jehan by surprise, jarring him up out of concentration on a particularly troublesome couplet attempt in his latest work. “Pardon?”
Feuilly blushes, a dark red undertone to his skin, but meets Jehan’s eyes evenly. “Do you believe that animals have souls?”
“I do.” Setting aside his pen, Jehan turns his full attention to his friend. “I most certainly do. Why should man be blessed with a soul when all other creatures are not? The dog, at least, is capable of more loyalty and devotion than many men. Who would we be to deny him a soul?”
“That’s… somewhat like I’ve always believed, though I know it’s heresy.” A faint smile tugs at the edges of Feuilly’s lips, and his eyes drop to where his fingers are clasped together in front of him. “Not that heresy means much to you, I know.”
“Not in the Church’s definition, no.” Jehan finds himself smiling in turn, thinking of the horror with which most men of the clergy would view his outlook. “But I do enjoy considerations of the spiritual.”
“I’ve noticed.” There is nothing hidden or half-hearted about Feuilly’s grin now, and he straightens a bit in his seat. “It’s why I decided to ask you first. Combeferre would approach it as an opportunity for experimentation. Joly and Bossuet would find it comical. Grantaire would talk in circles, as is his wont. Enjolras… is given to a different kind of spirituality.”
Jehan has to suppress a laugh at the loving, half-awed way with which Feuilly considers Enjolras’ spirituality. There is something pure and beautiful in the way Enjolras adores Feuilly and Feuilly adores Enjolras, a meeting of kindred minds and spirits graced with very different experiences by the world, and on second thought there is actually nothing entertaining about it. Perhaps he will have to find verse to put to the emotions he sees from both men. Not now, though. Now he is to be Feuilly’s gateway to gaining information, a vessel by which the highly intelligent man will find the resources he needs to answer his questions. “Could I ask what the ‘it’ in question is? I suspect something prompted this foray into the realms of the spirit.”
“You’ll think I’m being foolish.”
“You’ve seen me being foolish. It isn’t a terrible way to be.” Jehan’s fingers toy with his pen, dancing it from finger to finger. “Though I find it difficult to imagine you being foolish at all, I must say. At least, not without provocation from others in our group.”
Feuilly grins again, relaxing a bit more. “I was going to say that you’ve seen me being foolish, but I suppose that caveat covers it. All right, then. I’ll give you the whole silly tale. Over the last few weeks, there’s seemed to be a cat coming and going from my apartment. I didn’t mind—it never showed itself to me, but it never destroyed anything, never left any unwanted presents, and cats can be a good way to keep vermin at bay.”
“How did you know a cat was about, if you never saw it?”
“Something would brush against my legs in the night—not often, just a handful of times, but I’ve lived with cats before, so I know the feeling.” There is a pleasant story before that, Jehan can tell from the softening of Feuilly’s face, but he doesn’t press for it now. Later, when he’s allowed Feuilly to share this story. “There’s also been noises, on occasion—you know the questioning mrow cats will make? I’ve heard that a few times. I never could find where the creature was hiding or where it might be coming and going from, though I looked. After last night… well, I don’t think this cat needs a hole by which to come and go, and I doubt I’ll have to worry about it freezing as the winter worsens.”
Jehan makes an encouraging sound deep in his throat.
“I’ve had nightmares on occasion, ever since the fighting a year and a half ago.” Feuilly half-turns from Jehan as he makes the confession, though Jehan knows that almost all of them have had dreams of battle and death on occasion. It’s a part of the price they pay for their beliefs and the potential cost of bringing their principles to a live birth in the world. “They don’t happen often anymore, but when they do… anyway, I was dreaming. Things were just starting to… go poorly for us. I was shouting—for you, I think, though the dream itself is hazy now. I think I was actually shouting, too, because my throat hurt when I woke.”
Jehan is sitting straight in his chair, his fingers tight around the pen, already knowing the answer to the question he will ask. “What woke you, Feuilly?”
“The cat.” Feuilly again meets Jehan’s eyes evenly, a hint of awe in his voice, touching his expression. “It batted my cheek until I woke, stared into my eyes with its round green ones, gave one very self-satisfied mao, and vanished. I could feel it sitting on my chest when I woke, but as soon as I moved to touch it, to pet it, it was gone. Into thin air, as though it didn’t exist, though I saw it as clearly as I see you.”
A prickling sensation runs up and down Jehan’s arms, the hairs standing on end. “You searched the room?”
“Nothing. Not even any cat hair on the bed.” Feuilly spreads his hands open. “But I trust my eyes. I know what I saw.”
“I believe you.”
“And that’s why I wanted to ask you about animals and souls, because it seems to me that to have a ghost you would have to have a soul, yes?” Feuilly frowns. “The priest who used to preach at the orphanage told us that animals have no soul, that they simply return to the earth when they die, but that never seemed quite… right to me.”
“It never did to me, either. One of my favorite bits of the Bible as a child—For the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them—would make very little sense if there are no animals in the Kingdom of God, no souls for Him to save from the depredations of sin and deterioration that make up the mortal world of the Church.” Jehan watches Feuilly give a slow nod of agreement before charging on. “Plus look at all the saints who have ministered to animals—would any decent God allow Francis to spend so much time teaching to birds and wolves only to tell him his beast friends have no place in Heaven, no soul that may be saved?”
“Given the Church’s response to many things, it could be argued whether their God is decent.” Feuilly mutters the comment more to himself than to Jehan. Religion has too often been a point of contention amongst revolutionaries, and Jehan knows Feuilly has been almost constantly re-evaluating his own beliefs over the last few years. “I agree, though, and find it comforting that there are passages to support our position. Thank you.”
“There are, of course, also non-Christian ways of considering animals and their souls.” A bit of a wicked smile slides onto Jehan’s mouth as he waits for Feuilly’s reaction.
Raising his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, Feuilly shakes his head. “Out with it, then.”
“Oh, but where to start. Well, let’s start with reincarnation. It’s a belief in India, in both the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Buddhists believe that every living being has lived multiple times, that there is a consciousness that shapes and is shaped by the world over each life as it attempts to reach a state of nirvana. So a cat could become a man or a man become a cat. The Hindus have a very similar belief, though they agree more with the Christians that there is a soul, a distinct unit of the individual, that moves life to life, the circumstances of that life dependent on the karma accumulated through previous lives. It’s certainly a fascinating concept…”
He and Feuilly spend the majority of that night in philosophical debate, Jehan providing most of the textual references and promising to bring Feuilly books on the morrow, Feuilly providing very sound arguments for and against various portions of the beliefs. (Truly, how had Jehan managed to miss the blame clearly directed at the individual inherent in the concept of karma controlling ones’ birth and position in society? And the parallels that could be drawn with the divine right of rule!)
They don’t speak of the ghost-cat again, but Jehan makes sure to leave an extra bit of milk at the cobbled-together shrine the mummy shares with Inari and images of Wodin’s crows, a gift in gratitude for the solace given a good friend.
***
“Are you a spirit?” Jehan runs his hands through the cat’s beautiful fur, relishing the softness and the warmth as the chill of winter presses in on his bedroom. “Are you a ghost or a god or something else entirely?”
I am me. The cat arches against his hands, urging him to scratch more strongly at the base of her tail. Me, only me.
If she is a god, she is a taciturn and surprisingly laconic god. If she is the ghost of a cat, as seems more likely, she is a surprisingly verbose cat. Or perhaps she is simply better than most cats at making herself understood, aeons that he can barely imaging living through having passed before her eyes.
He is dreaming again, lost in a world halfway between wake and sleep, as he always is when he can see his mysterious guest. She doesn’t come often—or at least doesn’t come often as more than a brush against his shins, a faint trill somewhere in the night—and he treasures all of her visits.
“What did your original people think you were?” Rubbing under her chin earns a rumbling purr that vibrates through his fingers and up to his wrist. “What did they think they were?”
Guardian. Rubbing her head against his finger, twisting around until she flops onto her side, she gazes up at him with slitted green eyes. I am me. Guardian. You are you. Alive.
All very true, at least as far as he knows. Also not very helpful, and he frowns as he continues to pet her.
Guardian. She presses forward, clambering up his chest, forcing him to either lie down so she can perch on him or suffer claws in his skin. Good?
“Very good.” Jehan continues to stroke her fur, smiling and closing his eyes as she butts up against his chin. “Thank you.”
Good priest. A tongue, warm and wet, laps gently at his chin. Good priest, good friends, good guardian. I like it.
“I do, too.” He can’t seem to open his eyes again, sleep calling him inexorably down, but that doesn’t stop him from stroking her. “Change is coming, and if we have our way it will be change for the better, but there are many beautiful things in my life right now. So beautiful…”
She doesn’t say anything more, and he drifts into unconsciousness with her purr still rumbling in his ears.
***
“But I swear, it’s the first time I’ve ever been saved by the family pet!” Courfeyrac’s cheerful voice, clearly mid-story, catches Jehan’s attention, and he wends his way between tables to the one that Courfeyrac, Joly, and Bossuet are currently occupying.
“I sense a tale in the making.” Jehan settles himself, books on the table in front of him, and smiles at his friends.
“Courfeyrac’s latest dalliance almost ended in a duel.” Bossuet brandishes one finger on each hand as though it were a sword. “He was nearly caught in flagrante delicto with a fellow aristocrat’s wife.”
“I do protest being placed in the same category as de Chardin!” Courfeyrac places a hand to his heart, turning wide, innocent eyes on Bossuet. “And it is not my fault if he is unable to provide the stimulation that his wife desires—stimulation I think he would find rather easier to come by if he would consider her a person instead of the matrimonial equivalent of a nice coat rack.”
“From other accounts you’ve given of her, it seems that she was the equivalent of a coat rack, sold to an older man to tie the family fortunes together and hopefully provide both families with more stability.” Joly spreads his hands apologetically. “Not saying it’s right to consider her as such, but when that’s how her own family treats her…”
Courfeyrac’s glare only intensifies. “It still makes him a bore and a lout, concerned with his own fortunes, unable to even consider his wife as a fellow human being.”
“And you come in as the star-crossed lover, saving her from her fate?” Jehan raises one eyebrow. “That is both alike and unlike you.”
“She is a friend, a gorgeous woman, and a fellow believer in our vision of the future—she could be quite useful in the future as a source of information and a way of disseminating our views amongst those most resistant to them. But you all are distracting me from my story!” Courfeyrac leans forward, eyes dancing. “Do you truly want to make me defend the merits of my choice in partners, or would you rather hear about excitement and adventure?”
Bossuet finishes his glass and waves for a refill. “I’m sure stepping on the cat’s tail in the dark was quite the adventure, worthy of an epic poem. Prouvaire, get started, the rest of us will fill in as the muse strikes us!”
“I think I’d prefer to hear what actually occurred.” When it seems that Courfeyrac might decide to pout rather than continue his story, Jehan pats his shoulder. “And we all know that there is more to your relationships than just a romp between sheets—you are a man of honor and compassion, respectful of those most likely to be ignored even by voices agitating for change.”
“Well, that’s a bit more praise than I deserve, and certainly more buttering than is needed to let the rest of the story slip out. I think there are many here who share our love and admiration for the fairer sex in a more than corporeal sense.”
“Musichetta is one of the most intelligent people I know.” A hint of chagrin enters Joly’s voice, and he bows his head. “If I implied otherwise, or insulted your lady friend, I apologize.”
“I know it was just a bit of sporting.” Courfeyrac shrugs off any last vestiges of annoyance with a bright smile. “But it truly was amazing. She and I were right there, as Bossuet so charmingly put it in flagrante delicto, when the most hideous screeching noise came from the staircase! I think de Chardin must have been expecting something… similar to what was occurring, because the man had been silent up until that point, but oh, when that cat began yowling did he scream! To be fair it sounded more like he was on the stair with an angry tiger than with our usual feline friends—I didn’t know that cats could make such loud sounds! While he was cursing in the hall, clearly collecting himself after his encounter with the beast, Renee shoved me and my clothes into a servant’s stair.”
“Naked?” Bossuet’s interjection is amused.
“Of course, all my clothes in hand, me in the pitch dark, trying to fumble my way forward without making a sound.” Courfeyrac shudders, his face the picture of misery. “I swear, that corridor was home to a thousand spiders! And the places that I acquired splinters… but I consoled myself with the idea that if I just kept creeping forward, I would find my way to a safe area from which to vacate the premises. And I did end up downstairs, at least… but downstairs still in the dark, at a crossways with three choices of direction and no idea which to choose. What do you suppose happened then?”
“You put your clothes on to avoid more splinters?”
“You waited for your lady love to send directions, somehow?”
“You were discovered, and the feline’s good deed gone to waste?”
“You gave up and spent the night in the dark, sleeping standing up?”
“You—”
“The little cat came to my rescue again!” Courfeyrac interrupts Joly and Bossuet’s back and forth. “I think it was more that I was in the beast’s way as it used the servant stairs to escape the bedroom and what must have been an unhappy owner, but it brushed by my ankles in the dark—ah, the self control it took not to scream at that! I decided that the cat likely knew a good way to escape, or at least had a better idea than I did, and when I followed it I was able to find my way out without notice. It was a bit strange, though.”
“What was?” Joly smiles as he asks the clearly desired question.
“Well, I know the cat wasn’t very far ahead of me—I could hear it making little sounds most of the way, mrrrs or a bit of purring. But when I finally emerged, I didn’t see the beast at all. Just gone. Vanished.”
Bossuet smiles. “It was dark where you emerged?”
“Oh, most definitely, though not so dark as in that infernal corridor.” Courfeyrac shrugs. “I know it was likely a dark-colored cat who just blended into the darkness, but it was curious at the time.”
“Most likely. Though the eye is capable of amazing feats, it can also be fooled by the oddest circumstances.” Joly leans forward. “Plus there is gathering evidence that the eye, though exactly the same in appearance, has microscopic apparatus that can be deficient in certain individuals. It seems there are others who share Dalton’s inability to differentiate between colors that are, to the rest of us, quite obvious.”
Bossuet grins. “So perhaps when certain people say they cannot see the reason in our arguments they are not being intentionally obtuse, they are merely microscopically flawed?”
Jehan joins in the banter that follows, though Courfeyrac’s story remains at the forefront of his thoughts.
When he gets home that night he places a small amount of meat in front of the shrine that houses his cat. The meat stays there, seemingly unchanged, for the next twenty-four hours, until he offers it to a half-starved dog.
He dreams that night that a cat is purring against his side, biting gently at his hand, and wishes that he could still see the cat when he wakes in the morning.
***
“Someone searched my rooms last night.”
Combeferre whispers the words quietly, his lips barely changing shape from the bright smile with which he had greeted Jehan, Bahorel and Feuilly as he settled at their table.
“Did they take anything?” Bahorel also continues to smile, though his hand tightens on his glass.
“Do we need to get you out of the city for a bit?” Feuilly’s smile has disappeared, his expression settling into one of grim determination.
“No.” Combeferre shakes his head, allowing his own smile to fall. “There was nothing terribly incriminating, thankfully—Courfeyrac has our latest manifestos, and Enjolras moved the ammunition to a safer location two days ago, and my own weapons were kept successfully hidden, I think.”
“But we all need to be aware.” Bahorel claps a hand to Combeferre’s shoulder. “I’ll look into avenues for disappearing, in case the need arises, but hopefully you’re right.”
“I’m sure I am. As I said, there was nothing incredibly incriminating to be found. If there was, I doubt I’d be speaking with you now. Honestly the part that bothers me most is that they weren’t gentle with some of my collections.” Combeferre’s hands clench into fists, a snarl pulling at the corner of his mouth for a moment before being carefully suppressed. “They broke a wing off my striped albatross.”
Bahorel blinks. “You have an albatross in your room? As in the giant sea bird? Please tell me you mounted it with the wings extended, going across the length of the ceiling.”
“No.” A hint of amusement pushes some of the darkness from Combeferre’s eyes. “I mean, if I were to acquire an avian albatross I would most likely pose it with wings outstretched if possible—their wings are one of the more fascinating aspects of them, biologically. But this albatross was of the butterfly variety. It was part of my India collection, and it’s going to be quite annoying to acquire another. They also tore apart several of my articulated skeletons. Did they believe I was hiding incriminating documents in the finger bones?”
“We could.” Joly scratches idly at his nose. “If we were to hollow out the long bones of that human skeleton of yours, there would be room to hide things in it.”
“No.” Combeferre narrows his eyes. “We are not damaging my collection. And even if the long bones would be a decent hiding place, what did they think I was going to hide within the dog skeleton? Or the rat? They completely disarticulated the rat by throwing it against a wall, and though I’ve searched I haven’t been able to find all the little bones. I doubt I ever will.”
“Barbarians.” Jehan places his hand over Combeferre’s. “I suppose it should come as no surprise that those who don’t honor the struggles of the living would have no respect for the dead, but truly, what harm did they think it could do?”
“They might have just been surprised. Not that I’m condoning the destruction of your skeleton, I’m sure it was a lovely skeleton.” Feuilly gives a small sigh as Combeferre’s glare fades away. “But I know that if I were searching someone’s rooms and unexpectedly picked up the skeleton of a dead rat—which I suppose it must be dead if it’s a skeleton… anyway, I would find it rather… disconcerting. And probably not assume it was something that was meant to be there.”
Bahorel’s laugh rings out. “Oh, I can imagine that! ‘Let’s see, we have clothes, books, so many books, dear heaven this man is going to drown in books and paper, it’s going to be a flood, and are there supposed to be live insects in that box, I think I won’t check it, and that skeleton in the corner is watching me, the human one not the dog one or maybe they both are and what’s this flat smooth—God preserve me!’ I imagine it was quite the sight to see.”
The left side of Combeferre’s mouth twitches upward slightly. “I suppose, when imagined that way, it could have been entertaining to see. I would be more entertained if I could find all the pieces and try to put it back together again.”
“Then let’s go find them.” Jehan stands, pulling on Combeferre’s arm. “You’re all willing to help, yes?”
Combeferre stumbles to his feet, following the tension Jehan puts on his hand, but his tone is uncertain. “It may not be the safest thing for all of you to do—if they’re searching my rooms someone is suspicious—”
“And if they’re suspicious of you, they’ll already be suspicious of us.” Bahorel links his arm with Combeferre’s free one. “Especially me. I am an extremely suspicious man, after all. Besides, what harm is there in reassembling skeletons? Seems very scholarly and normal, not at all dangerous or degenerate.”
Feuilly shakes his head, though he follows behind them eagerly enough. “You students have a very odd sense of normalcy.”
They spend the next four hours helping Combeferre right his room, gathering papers and books into stacks, finding the small rodent bones and placing them in a neat pile on his desk. Combeferre instructs them, his voice rising sharply on occasion when he takes umbrage at how Bahorel is posing the human skeleton or at Jehan arranging some of the butterfly display cases inside the dog skeleton. Feuilly, perhaps wiser than them, manages to avoid being the target of these outbursts, instead helping arrange the tiny bones properly for Combeferre to glue.
When finally everything has been reordered to Combeferre’s specifications, the night has grown late, all the light provided by lanterns that Combeferre has set up. He studies the tiny skeleton before him, shadows thrown by the bones striping his hands in darkness and light, and sighs. “Not too bad, I suppose. Now she’s only missing two ribs, the tail vertebrae, and the mandible. Ah, I suppose I’ll just have to create another if I want a complete set again.”
Feuilly straightens abruptly, his face paling, and points toward the bed.
Jehan doesn’t turn fast enough to see the cat. He knows it is a cat, though—knows it is his cat, though that is madness—because he recognizes the self-satisfied mrr-prr.
“A cat.” Feuilly is the first to approach the bed. “I swear there was a cat—a cat just like I’ve seen in dreams—but where…”
Bahorel takes Jehan’s hand in his, his skin warm against Jehan’s trembling grip.
“Likely just a stray, gone into the shadows somewhere.” Combeferre stands, setting the skeleton down very carefully as he does. “I doubt it’ll hurt anyone—it hasn’t done anything so far, and with how small…”
Combeferre trails off as Feuilly turns back to him, face still pale, palm held out. Settled in Feuilly’s palm are three tiny bones and a set of vertebra on a hair-thin wire—the missing pieces of the skeleton.
Jehan can feel himself grinning, a mixture of pride—his cat, his ghost-visitor, his dream has done this—and fear—for it never bode well, interacting with the dead, having one foot in both worlds, it never ended with the living pulling back the dead but always with the dead claiming the living—vying within him. “A spectral vision clear, thrills every hair with fear.”
“The dead were wrathful found, ‘gainst those that slew.” Bahorel skips the majority of the verse, though he keeps the words in their proper cadence as he whispers them. “Though cats tend to be the slayer of rodents, I suppose.”
“Again, it could very easily just be a cat, they are swift and clever creatures who are good at disappearing at night…” Combeferre carefully takes the bones from Feuilly. “Or perhaps it’s not. I think, my friends, that we’ve all done enough work today. If you don’t mind giving me a moment to place these in their proper location so they won’t be lost, I’d like to treat you to dinner.”
They spend the evening discussing ghosts and ghost stories, trading beliefs and conjectures. Jehan finds, to his surprise and delight, that none of his friends are against the idea of ghosts existing—though Combeferre has an annoying penchant for wishing to prove their existence and the rules by which they work, completely destroying the mystique and majesty of the spiritual.
“We don’t need to prove anything about ghosts.” Jehan changes the water in the little saucer for a dash of milk as soon as he arrives home. He rearranges the flowers, not removing any of them but shifting where the wilting ones are. He will have to find a way to forge flowers from paper or something else that won’t die, if he wants to continue to have them at the shrine. “We just have to let you exist, and accept what you are. To thank you when you do kind things, and fight you if you do bad things. Just like you do with people and things of the physical world. There is a difference between mortal and spirit, yes, but if we can see it’s wrong, any being worthy of respect should also know it’s wrong. Not that you’ve done anything wrong. You’ve been amazing, and I thank you. And I should probably go to sleep, before I fall asleep right here on my feet. Thank you, little one, and rest well.”
He strokes her gently between the ears, above her painted, beautiful eyes, and stumbles his way to bed, a thousand questions and answers and questions for the answers sliding in colored verse through his mind.
***
He is one of the best priests she has ever had.
He doesn’t pray appropriately, but he prays avidly, daily, and he leaves offerings with such zeal and regularity that she almost remembers times long past.
Almost, but not quite, because she doesn’t want to remember.
She wants to be here. She wants to be with him. She wants to watch his friends, strange creatures that they are, and purr against him in the night, and learn what it is that he is trying so determinedly to do.
All priests have purpose, after all, and his is all-consuming, that she recognizes, even if she can’t understand it.
***
“Just stop by, if you can. Help a bit, or just… anything.” Bossuet’s voice trails off, and there is a dark dejection in his eyes, a dimming of the light there that cuts through Jehan. Bossuet, who has faced trial after trial with a smile, is frightened by something.
“Joly isn’t—”
“Not sick, God be thanked, though he was worried about it for the first week or two—every little tremor he had, every ache and pain from sleepless nights, he thought he had caught it and was going to give it to Musichetta and I.” Bossuet runs both hands through his hair. “But it’s… this epidemic is taking a toll on him. On Combeferre, too, I’m sure on everyone trying to work miracles while Death stalks the streets, but… I don’t know what else to do for Joly, other than bring him distractions and helping hands.”
Jehan nods, understanding dawning. Placing a hand on Bossuet’s shoulder, he squeezes gently. “I’ll be glad to stop by and do what I can.”
It is a promise easy in the giving, hard in the keeping.
The sick pile into the hospital in droves, their symptoms varied, their prognosis always grave. The cold that still lingers from winter does no one any favors, and the smells of vomit and feces and death permeate the hospital despite the best efforts of all those involved. For long minutes Jehan finds himself merely standing as out of the way as he can, watching the chaos and madness, bits of verse too morbid to write flitting through his head.
“Help or go.” Joly’s words are short, but his eyes are kind, still, despite a dark haunting shadow that clings to him as it clings to all working in the hospital. “I appreciate you coming and bringing food, but I don’t want you standing idle inhaling the horrible miasma here unless you need to.”
Pulling himself together, straightening, Jehan makes the only choice he can. “I will help. Just tell me what to do.”
He cleans beds, he moves people, he brings water and distributes as evenly as he can the broth that is supposed to help keep their patients wet and perhaps push back the tendrils of cholera wrapped in their essence. He recites verse as he works, taking requests when the men and women and children he assists are coherent and literate enough to give them, choosing those most hopeful for the future when the ones he works with aren’t able to make requests.
It is exhausting work. It is disheartening work, and he finds himself appalled once again at how quickly it becomes a matter of course to call one of the medically trained to confirm death.
There must be some better way to do this.
There must be some way to prevent this.
There must be something, anything—
“Come with me.” Joly’s hand on his shoulder draws him away, back from the madness and out onto a street that seems somehow too calm and too cool and too dark to belong to the same world as the hospital. “Come, Jehan, let me take you home.”
Jehan nods, feeling the motion too jerky and mechanical, and places his own arm around Joly’s shoulders, holding his friend tight, providing and getting support in equal measures.
Jehan doesn’t ask why Joly follows him home, why Joly follows him up the stairs, why Joly stands silent in the center of Jehan’s living room, staring in seeming confusion at the chairs. Instead he pours them both a glass of wine.
“Thank you.” Joly takes the proffered glass, staring down at it without seeming to actually see it.
“Was that… about usual?”
Joly’s head rises slowly, and he blinks a few times before giving a tired nod. “Since this started, yes. I hate epidemics. Not that this is news, I’m certain, but we always feel so… helpless. Like there are never enough hands, and even when there are like the work we do is never quite enough. And today wasn’t even the worst. Today…”
Jehan nudges Joly’s glass with his own, coaxing the man’s head up again. “Today?”
“Today… you’ll think me mad.” Joly meets Jehan’s eyes, a half-smile on his face, but over the next few seconds the smile fades. “Or… given that it’s you…”
Judging that silence is the best way to coax whatever Joly wishes to say from him, Jehan stays still and quiet.
“I lost two children today. We did. The hospital did. The old and the young are usually the quickest to die, the hardest to save. The worst to watch, too. I don’t know which is worse… when the parents are there, pleading with words and eyes and hands for you to do more, to work miracles, or when the children are alone. Frightened. Confused. Abandoned.” Joly takes a deep drink, grimacing as he does, either at the taste or at the memories Jehan can’t tell. “These two were like that, alone, but they became friends despite their sickness. Strange, how some can do that… continue to reach out, right until the end.”
“I’m sorry, Joly.” Fetching the bottle, Jehan refills both of their glasses. “I can only imagine—”
“They asked me for string and a bit of fabric this morning… right after you came. I couldn’t imagine what for. Then they said that there was a cat that they wanted to play with. A little striped cat, they said, crawling around them, purring, looking for something to play with. It must have been a fever dream, some kind of shared delirium, but it made them smile.” Joly drains his glass again, a slight tremble to his hand. “I gave them the toy, and they played with their invisible cat, pointing right at an empty patch of air, and they smiled. They laughed. They were happy. And somehow that makes it better, that they were happy, even though they were dead four hours later.”
Joly goes completely still, his eyes filling slowly with tears. “They died, but they smiled, and God, Jehan, what does it say about me that this makes it better?”
Jehan is prepared for the tears. He is already crying himself, tears trailing silently down his face as he watches his friend grapple with the horrors he has dedicated himself to fighting. He allows Joly’s wine glass to fall to the floor, not caring that it breaks, spilling red wine like the too-thin blood of a sacrifice across the hardwood. Wrapping his arms around his sobbing friend, he simply pulls him away from the broken bits of glass, making sure neither of them will be hurt, and holds him tight.
“It makes you human, Joly.” He whispers through his own sobs. “It makes you something beautiful, someone who has seen wonder and love shining even in the darkest time. Would it be better if all you did was cry? Would it be better if all you did was see the darkness, the loss, the hopelessness, and allowed that to consume you, slowly, one day at a time?”
His words only seem to make Joly cry harder, the man’s knees going out from under him, and Jehan allows them to sink slowly to the floor.
What else can he say? What else can he do?
Nothing. There are no words of comfort that Bossuet and Musichetta won’t have spoken, no platitudes about the good that he has done that Joly won’t have heard from others in his own profession.
What Jehan can do, right now, is hold his friend, and give him a place to cry, and cry his own tears onto Joly’s shoulders, because the world that is so beautiful can also be so, so cruel and awful.
After a time both their tears are spent, and Joly straightens. “I’m sorry, Jehan. I didn’t mean—”
“To trust me?” Jehan raises one eyebrow. “To be honest with me?”
“Well, no.” Joly blushes. “I didn’t mean that, of course. I just…”
“You needed to cry.” Jehan brushes Joly’s hair back into a semblance of order. “You needed to let go of all that you’ve seen over the last few weeks. I needed to cry, as well, and I only saw it for a day.”
“Yes, but you’re also… you. You’re not afraid to cry or laugh or whatever else you feel like doing.” Joly scrubs at his face with one hand. “You’re not a doctor. You didn’t join the profession knowing that this is what you would be facing.”
“Even doctors are human, my friend. And just because you have to be calm in front of your patients doesn’t mean you need to be calm in front of your friends.”
“I know.” Joly sighs deeply. “Bossuet, Musichetta, they both keep insisting on that, but I don’t want to be a burden on them. A burden on the rest of you.”
“This is not a burden. This is a privilege.” Jehan stands, holding out a hand to help Joly to his feet. “And even if you insist on considering it a burden to us, think of this: the more shoulders to carry a weight, the less placed on each. The less you have to carry alone.”
“If you’re certain it isn’t a burden.” Taking the proffered hand, Joly allows himself to be pulled to his feet. “And you don’t think… I’m not terrible…”
“It is not terrible to take comfort in the joy that others feel.” Pulling Joly into another embrace, Jehan speaks firmly. “You call it a fever dream; perhaps it was something else. The cat gave comfort to those children. Perhaps it was also meant to give comfort to you—what horrors does Death hold if He comes with a cat chasing string at his side?”
“Many. Death can hold many, many horrors.” Joly sighs, closing his eyes. “But you’re right. Thank you, for everything today.”
“No need for thanks.” Jehan squeezes Joly’s hand. “Just promise me you will come to me again if you ever need me.”
“I promise.” Joly smiles. “Come out with me for dinner? We can pick up Bossuet, Musichetta, maybe Bahorel or Grantaire and have a good evening still, if you’d like.”
“I would like that very much.”
The evening passes too swiftly, Joly calling it a night earlier than he normally would have, but it is a pleasant evening in good company.
When they part for the evening, Bossuet takes him aside, whispering quietly in his ear, “Thank you. I don’t know what you did, but thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything much. Nothing you haven’t done, I’m sure. Sometimes it just takes a different face and voice on the same message to help it get through.” Jehan gives a small smile. “And perhaps a small cat frolicking between worlds.”
Bossuet gives him a puzzled frown before shaking his head. “I should know better by now than to expect simple answers from you.”
“I can give straightforward answers to simple questions. If you ask a complicated question, though, expect a complicated answer.”
Bossuet grins. “And what about a simple question? If I ask you to get rid of the rat that’s been giving Musichetta so much trouble lately, will I get a maddening response?”
“Depends.” Jehan returns the grin. “Do ghost cats hunt living rats?”
He gets his answer two weeks later, when Joly comes into the Musain wincing, saying he had a very long night after Musichetta found a dead rat on her pillow.
Apparently ghost cats, just like living cats, liked to leave their presents in an obvious locale. Jehan makes certain to mention that he doesn’t need any rodent gifts when he makes his offerings that evening, though he suspects telling a cat what you want is unlikely to get the desired effect.
Still, it never hurts to ask.
***
“Stand still.”
“Sorry.” Bahorel finally stops fidgeting, his muscles locking down tightly as he offers Jehan a half-sheepish smile. “Still coming down off the fight.”
“Clearly.” Jehan’s tone is acid, though his hands are steady where they go about their work, wrapping bandages around the shallow wounds covering Bahorel’s forearms. “I still don’t understand how you managed to get into a brawl you weren’t prepared to win. You’re usually better prepared than this.”
“Accident. I wasn’t expecting a brawl, just a good night’s worth of drinking, but tensions are starting to run a little high.” Bahorel flexes both hands, testing the tightness of the bandage and wincing a bit. “How was I to know that calling the snot-nosed brat a Royalist would lead into a tavern-wide fight?”
“And I suppose you just called him a Royalist?” Jehan finds himself fighting a bit of a smile as he checks the bandages, confident that they’ll do their job for the night. “There were no other, more colorful terms flung about?”
“Oh, you’re the one to go to if colorful terms are needed!” Bahorel’s grin is wide and bright, undeterred by the injuries he sustained. “But I may have done my level best to explain to him why his views were wrong.”
“Of course. You were just trying to help expand his horizons, yes?” Taking a step back, Jehan gestures for Bahorel to have a seat while he fetches glasses and a bottle of wine.
“I’m glad that you understand.” Bahorel waits for Jehan to finish pouring the glasses and then raises his in a toast. “To the education of the populace, by discourse or duel, whichever proves more pragmatic at the time.”
“Next time try to be armed when approaching a duel.”
“It is not my fault that he had a sword-cane! A properly disguised one, too.” Bahorel scratches idly at the top of his right bandage.
“I’m certain you did everything in your power to prevent the altercation.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far.” Bahorel’s grin fades a bit, to a more gentle smile. “I am sorry for interrupting your evening. None of the scratches seemed terribly bad, though, and unlike Combeferre or Joly, I suspected you would still be awake and willing to assist.”
“It’s no trouble. I was doing a bit of writing, but it wasn’t going well, anyway.” Staring down at the dark red liquid in his glass, liquid turned black by the dim light thrown by the candles carefully situated around the room, Jehan thinks back on what Bahorel had said. “You think things will be coming to a head soon?”
“I do.” Bahorel nods, the smile disappearing completely. “Tensions are rising, both sides digging their feet in and refusing to budge. For some, there is precious little room left to budge. Between the winter and the cholera epidemics, quite a few are getting desperate. In others, the desire for freedom is being fanned higher with every decree that seeks to stamp it out, to silence our speech. Something will happen, soon.”
“You’ll tell Enjolras what you heard tonight?”
“Of course.” Bahorel tips his glass in a small salute. “But he knows. We all know. It’s just waiting for the right spark, choosing the right moment to help fan the flames into a conflagration. We don’t want any half-victory like we had before. Winning the battle only to lose the war leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth.”
“But if we win the battle, at least we can continue the war.” Jehan tilts his own glass.
“True. It will be exciting, either way.” Bahorel sits in silence for a few moments.
Jehan dips his finger into his glass, rubbing the liquid along the rim of the cup, watching the way it beads and rolls off his finger. Even those rare times when liquor approaches the color of blood, it never manages the consistency, the thick stickiness that is unforgettable, that can only be touched upon in words. How soon will he see blood again, true blood, bright red of flesh wounds, dark cherry-wood red of clots too thick to mean anything good? How many of them—
“There was something odd about this fight.” Bahorel’s voice, contemplative, pulls Jehan from his reverie.
“Oh?” Jehan puts honest curiosity into the exclamation.
“The way it started. I was having my… discourse with the Royalist, and I knew that things were heating up. When the boy grabbed his cane, I assumed he was going to strike at me. Imagine my surprise when he pulls out a blade—I think he surprised himself just as much, though. The look on his face when he saw me staring at the blade but not backing down—ah, I think he expected me to run screaming at the mere sight, and the thought that he might actually have to do something with the weapon was quite distressing for him.” A chuckle, low and warm, rolls out of Bahorel’s mouth before the mirth fades from his face again. “There were others less inclined to worry about the escalation of the fight, though. I didn’t see the man draw a blade—just a small thing, a dagger, but it would have done damage enough if he got it into me from behind. What do you imagine happened?”
A delightful prickling runs up Jehan’s arms as he leans forward to match Bahorel’s stance, knowing that anything he guesses won’t be correct. “Someone got to him first?”
“Not someone, something.” Bahorel raises his left hand, laying four fingers across his face. “The first I knew of him was when he started screaming, and I turned to find him standing with both hands pressed to his face, the dagger quite useless, blood oozing out around his fingers. He stood like that for only a moment, and then he lowered his hands and I could see the gouges down his face. Some beast must have gone at him—a cat from the size of the claw marks, though the depth was more akin to something a tad more impressive. The man’s lucky he didn’t lose the eye, though I doubt he’ll see out of it in the morning given the swelling he’ll develop.”
“A cat?” Jehan’s eyes dart toward the door to his bedroom. “Did anyone see it?”
“No.” Bahorel’s eyes follow his gaze. “That’s the oddest part. When I talked with those who aided me after we’d all been kicked out of the tavern, they all swore that no beast had been there. One moment the man was preparing to knife me in the back, the next he had a beautiful set of claw marks down his face. It’s not the first I’ve heard of cats, particularly invisible cats, helping the Amis, either.”
Jehan hesitates only a moment before standing. “Come.”
Bahorel follows, silent, eyes bright and expectant.
“This is her shrine.” Jehan gestures toward his nightstand, where the cat mummy and the saucer sit packed in with other religious relics. “Well, the little trappings of various religions that have caught my eye, but since she came I’ve begun to think of it as her shrine. I think… she’s doing what I asked.”
Bahorel kneels in front of the shrine, his eyes on a level with the painted cat’s eyes. His voice is low and reverent when he speaks, as Jehan knew it would be. “And what was it that you asked?”
“Protect my friends.” Jehan kneels by Bahorel, his hands falling into a clasped position in his lap, the sign of prayer that he was taught as a child. “I… don’t think she can do much. I sometimes wonder if it even is her, because we’ll go days, weeks sometimes without any sign, and heaven knows between our companions and us we tend to see trouble on a more regular basis. But I think she does what she can, and I show my gratitude for that.”
“Does she have a name?” Bahorel doesn’t move his eyes from the cat.
“Not that she’s told me. And she says she isn’t a god or anything like that. Just a cat. A very old, very smart, very lonely cat.” Reaching up, he strokes at her head, at the spot that he’s worn smooth. He’s been trying, lately, to avoid touching her, worried that something in his skin is damaging her, but sometimes he finds it impossible to resist. “If it was you who saved him, little one, then I thank you.”
“Not so much as I thank you. I’m rather attached to this body and life, no matter what others will try to tell you my actions say.” Bahorel inclines his head, his eyes closing. “If you did save me, if you’ve done things for the others, then thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
Jehan closes his own eyes, reveling the scent of candles and incense currently threading through his room, the warmth of Bahorel’s body at his side… the brush of a furred head against his hands, whiskers thicker, prickling at his skin.
Bahorel’s hand falls on his shoulder a moment later. “Since we’re both still awake, what do you say to a bit more fun with the evening?”
“Fun like you just had?” Jehan raises his eyebrows, gaze going pointedly to first one wrapped arm and then the other.
“I was thinking more fun like crafting some rhymes to distribute for our cause, drinking with friends and perhaps sharing a bit of hashish, but I’m sure I can find a brawl if you want one.”
“No to the brawl, yes to the adventure.” Scrambling to his feet, Jehan pulls his waistcoat into better alignment. “Give me a moment to get dressed, and I’ll join you.”
They don’t find a brawl, but they do find good company, and Jehan returns to his rooms as the light of dawn is just touching the sky. He is greeted by a haughty meow, and stumbles his way through his morning ritual at the shrine, replacing the milk with water, rearranging the flowers to release their scent better, wiping dust and stray leaves away.
When he collapses into bed, he sees a flash of brown and gray, feels the scape of a sandpaper tongue against his cheek, and smiles.
Strange priest. The cat’s voice is exasperated. Half-mad priest. Two-world priest.
“Oh yes. I like that last one.” Jehan strokes his fingers through fur that is and then isn’t and then is there. “Two-world priest. One foot in this world, one in the other. What counts as the other? What counts as this? Is your world the other? Is the future the other? Is this world the world we see or the broader world, the one that includes you and yours? So many worlds, to narrow down…”
He trails into sleep with purring in his ears and a smile on his face.
***
Careful.
She does not beg, but her voice is rough, hoarse.
Careful, priest. Her head rubs against his chin, her whiskers prickling, her purr rumbling deep in his own chest. Even strong I only do so much, and not strong now. Please. Careful.
“I am as careful as I can be.” He rubs his fingers gently down her belly. “There is nothing to be gained by silence, though. I would gladly lay down my life for my cause.”
Yes. Sorrow coats the word. I know, priest. So go careful.
He can only promise her so much, knows that it will not be enough, so instead he turns to stroking her, burying his hands in her fur, enjoying the time that they have together.
***
“It will be very soon. A matter of weeks if not days.” Enjolras is mildly disheveled, his clothing dirty, his blond hair flying about his head. “We’re going to have to be very careful how we move, and make sure our weapons’ caches are easily accessible.”
“But not so easily accessible that our enemies will get to them first.” Courfeyrac slides a glass in front of Enjolras. “Because I think any of us would be very distraught to be in prison when the revolution comes.”
“If that’s where we are, we will fight for the cause from there as well. But yes.” Enjolras relaxes, a faint smile touching his face. “I think any of us would be missed when the barricades go up.”
“Especially you.” Combeferre scowls at their leader. “You are very lucky to be here tonight. Now is not a good time for us to be leaderless.”
“I know. And I didn’t exactly intend to be caught handing armaments over to allies.” Enjolras takes a small sip from the glass. “Though if I had been caught—or killed—I would expect you all to continue on with our plans undaunted. I know that you would. But I was not caught, thanks to a very patriotic band of felines.”
“Felines?” Jehan perks up.
“Cats avoided a catastrophe?” Bossuet dodges the smack on the shoulder that Feuilly sends his way. “Well this is a story that we must hear.”
“So I had successfully handed over the parcel when a group of gendarmes appeared. It was clear someone had tipped them off—something we will have to look into. My contact and I both ran—and no, he has nothing incriminating on me.” Enjolras studies his glass. “There were many alleys and side-streets, and I was doing my best to lose those following me but not having much by way of luck. I was getting rather desperate, considering trying to find a way into the sewers or the catacombs—don’t make that look, Joly, there were very few options left.”
Joly doesn’t back down. “We can save you from prison more easily than we can from cholera.”
“Well, you won’t have to save me from either. Just as I turned a corner, this unholy wail came up from the cross-street—the way I hadn’t gone, though it sounded for all the world as though I had gone that way and trod on a cat’s tail.”
“Caterwauling?” Joly offers the word with a far too innocent expression on his face.
“I was half-deafened by it—I imagine those chasing me were, too. And once one cat began screaming, others too up the challenge.” Enjolras pushes his glass aside. “All the streets echoing with the forlorn cries of wounded beasts. A fitting prelude to what is coming, yes?”
“The catabolism of the old world to create the new ushered in on the ululations of cats.” Grantaire’s speech isn’t touched by a slur, his eyes dark as he studies Enjolras, the English words sliding off his tongue easily. “Appropriate. Far more appropriate than you being captured, at least.”
“I am fine.” Enjolras’ eyes scan the close-packed table, meeting each of theirs in turn. “And it is time for us to get back to work, because the next few days will be busy. Ready?”
They all set to with grim determination.
The next morning Jehan trades the flowers at the shrine for an assortment of reds, knowing what is to come.
***
Jehan is going to die.
He is falling, stumbling down the wrong side of the barricade with a guardsman’s arms tangled around his feet, and he knows that this will be the end.
Except something stops his fall. In wild ecstasy he latches onto the arm that grabs his shoulder, kicking frantically until his legs are free and he can stumble back to his proper place on the barricade.
Bahorel shoots over his shoulder, and Jehan takes a few seconds to catch his breath before taking up his own weapons and returning to the fray.
He fights on Bahorel’s right side, providing extra protection for the man’s injured arm. Bahorel took a bayonet in the shoulder during the first fierce round of fighting, and blood still oozes sluggishly from the wound when he moves too quickly.
It could have been worse, though. It could have been so much worse. Jehan had seen how it should have been worse, seen the soldier pressing in to take advantage of Bahorel’s wound, the thrust that would have punctured lungs or heart or both.
He had also seen the man fall back, hands pressed to his face, blood spurting from a mass of lacerations given by invisible claws. If the man survives the fighting, he will be scarred for the rest of his life, with no knowledge of how he came by the injuries.
Jehan knows, though. He knows that his tiny, ancient friend has given him what gift she can this day, saving one of the Amis from what would have certainly been a killing stroke. And Bahorel, in turn, has saved Jehan, and perhaps together they will help make this revolution the success they have been dreaming.
Perhaps.
He will hope, and he will envision it, and he will stand with Enjolras and help ensure those who stand with them continue to see it despite all the horror that they will wade through to reach it.
But if they fail, if he dies, at least she will have granted him this, a few more minutes or hours or days fighting at his friends’ sides, and the dignity of dying with them instead of being executed by the enemy.
It is a great gift either way, and he thanks her, out loud as the crick-crack of guns and the clang of blades drown speech, in his heart as he wonders if he should have left instructions on how to care for the shrine should he die.
By the time the battle is over he decides that he should not have. If he lives, he will see to it himself; if he dies… if he dies, another caretaker will find her, some day, and hopefully give her the respect and friendship she deserves.
***
He died.
He died as all her priests have died—better than most, true, fighting for his ideal, but he died all the same.
She warned him. She told him she could make only small changes, small tweaks to the world.
He thanked her for them, even as he died.
It is dark in his room. Even when the sun rises it is dark, no one to draw open the curtains, no one to dust the shrine, no one to remove the drowned insects from the little saucer that is his small offering bowl.
How long? How long will it be dark and lonely again? How long until another priest comes?
She does not want to wait. She wants to yowl her grief and frustration, but she has no focus, no priest through which to channel the energy that is given her—no one to give her energy, drop by drop—and so her grief is silent.
“Not silent.”
She knows his voice. Spinning around, she dashes to where he stands in front of the window, prancing on her hind feet as she stretches up to place her front paws on his thighs.
“Ah, little one, I am glad to see you too.” He scoops her up, his hands as gentle as they have always been, and though she didn’t give him leave to she is so happy to see him that she only gently chomps on his arm. “We’ve both a choice to make now, though. Do you want to stay here, as you were bound… or do you wish to come with me and my friends, to whatever waits?”
She should not go. She has been forbidden from leaving. She is a guardian, and it is a guardian’s duty to stay and protect.
But she is tired, and lonely when she has no priest, and his hands are kind as they scratch between her ears.
“I can’t promise it will be better than this.” His words are a soft whisper in her ear as he rubs his chin against hers. “But all of us will be there, all those you’ve protected, and if you want to come…”
“I will come.” Licking once at his forehead, tasting the emptiness where there should be salty sweat, she knows that he should not stay here. He is meant to change worlds, not hang helpless between them. “Or, rather, I will go, and you will follow me.”
“As you wish, my lady.” He gives her a courtly bow, following as she trots out of his house and into the gray-darkness that leads away.
She pauses when she hears the others begin to gather, looking back over her shoulder to watch them. Bahorel throws himself on Jehan, demanding answers as to where Jehan had gone and how he had managed to travel so easily. Feuilly makes a soft, pleased sound as he catches sight of her, and she thrashes her tail for him, saucy and certain, the guardian of his dreams. Combeferre and Joly debate where the soul may be stored in the body; Courfeyrac tells Bossuet that this will be a fine adventure, throwing his arm around the other man. Grantaire tells Enjolras that he is sorry it took him so long to see; Enjolras very quietly tells him that he is happy to have had the time they did, clasping the other man’s hand tightly.
All of them ready, she stretches, gives an imperious mrow, and leads the way forward, into a future that none of them can predict but all of them are certain will be beautiful.
TITLE: Let Me Bid You Farewell
fic: sashaatthebarricade (satb31 on AO3)
Art: clenster
SUMMARY: On the night before the barricades fall, Combeferre reminisces about his past relationship with Joly during medical school.
WARNINGS: Brief sexual references and discussions of death, both barricade-related and otherwise.
NOTES: My source of information about the lives of medical students in 19th century France was Florent Palluault’s dissertation Medical Students in England and France, 1815-1858: A Comparative Study (University of Oxford, 2003). It was an absolutely invaluable resource to me as I developed my vision for Combeferre and Joly’s lives as medical students in Paris in the late 1820s and early 1830s.
I must express my deepest thanks to maraschinocheri, crazyinjune, and clenster for serving as betas.
The title comes from the Dire Straits classic Brothers in Arms.
Combeferre knows that every man in that room will soon see death.
And Combeferre steps outside, unable to watch any longer.
Once on the street Combeferre reaches into his pocket, where he has a packet of tobacco and some rolling papers. His fingers are swollen and trembling as he rolls himself a cigarette and lights it, waiting for the head rush to kick in and help him push aside all of his concerns about the gunpowder, about the National Guard, about Enjolras’s fierce and unpredictable temper.
“Combeferre?” comes a familiar voice.
Combeferre turns toward Joly, noticing even in the darkness how pale he is — and how extraordinarily calm he is.
“May I?” he asks, gesturing toward Combeferre’s cigarette, his voice barely above a whisper.
Wordlessly Combeferre passes it to him, his fingers brushing up against Joly’s as he does. Joly inhales, gazing off into the distance, watching the sentries at the top of the barricade.
Why is Joly here? Combeferre cannot help but wonder. He should be in his rooms right now, tucked into his perfectly aligned bed, worrying about the color of his tongue, not sharing Combeferre’s lingering concern about the status of their gunpowder supply.
Combeferre does not fear his own death.
But he is already mourning his beloved Joly’s.
**
They met as first-year students at medical school; two men newly arrived from the south in a quest to adopt medicine as a profession. They initially bonded over their common origins, but they were complete opposites — Combeferre, haughty and austere, a man who loved learning and philosophy and books, and the garrulous Joly, his good humor tempered by a brow permanently crinkled with worry about the state of his own health.
Many times they ended up sitting next to each other at lectures, exchanging vague pleasantries while waiting for the speaker to arrive. But despite the warm autumn weather, Combeferre noticed that Joly’s nose seemed to be perpetually runny — he was constantly sniffling into his handkerchief. Most days Combeferre shook his head as he walked out of the lectures and headed toward the hospital, wondering how Joly even managed to get himself out of bed and to lectures each day. He was convinced that there was absolutely no way Joly would survive until winter.
But then winter came — and they were paired together for dissections.
In the abstract, Combeferre was aware that medical school would require him to work with corpses. But from the first moment he walked into the room where the dissections took place, the stench of death overwhelmed him so much he had to pull his cravat up over his nose and mouth. And when he was faced with his first cadaver — a man, and a young one at that — he found himself sweating profusely despite the chill of the room itself. Feeling light-headed, he had to beat a quick retreat to the corridor, where he collapsed on the floor, leaning up against the wall. He drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his arms, willing the nausea to pass.
“Are you all right?” came a congested voice he instantly recognized as Joly’s.
Combeferre jerked his head up and tried to compose himself in front of his colleague. “I will be fine in a moment — no need to worry about me,” he said, hoping he did not look as weak as he felt.
Joly took a seat next to him, sitting as closely as he could to Combeferre without actually touching him. “You should probably know I specialize in worry,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up in a reassuring grin.
“I must get used to it, is it not so?” Combeferre asked, realizing what the answer would be even as the words left his mouth. “If this is to be my life’s calling, certainly.”
“Indeed,” Joly nodded. “I am very fortunate in that the sight of the dead does not bother me in the slightest. But I cannot seem to master the material in the lectures as you do. Perhaps we can study together, you and me.”
Combeferre managed a wan smile, despite the bile that still churned in his stomach. He hesitated only briefly before he pronounced, “I believe that is a brilliant idea.”
Joly reached over and tentatively patted him on the knee.
And a friendship began.
**
After that day they started to spend more and more time together — traveling from the hospital to the school together each morning, and dining together every evening. Combeferre tutored Joly in the academic subjects as they huddled together in Combeferre’s cramped rooms going over their notes and reviewing the textbooks, while trying to calm Joly’s nerves every time he insisted that he suffered from whatever ailment they were learning about.
For his part, Joly helped Combeferre overcome his squeamishness as they worked together on their dissections, distracting him with humor and freshly laundered handkerchiefs throughout each lesson.
In their free time they explored the city together. On Sundays they would take excursions around the city, observing the flora and fauna on lengthy walks that lasted for hours — inevitably they would be so engrossed in conversation that they would wander very far from their section of the city, and would have to find creative ways to get themselves back home. Once or twice they ventured to the Louvre, where they would talk excitedly about the works on exhibition, or they would partake in the theatre that Combeferre was falling in love with. They frequently spoke in agitated tones about the political situation in France, and of their common commitment to the ideals of the Revolution – ideals that had played a part in both of their decisions to pursue medicine as a career.
Neither man engaged in the love affairs that were so common among their fellow students — Combeferre demonstrated no interest in such matters, while Joly’s attempts to meet a young grisette were half-hearted at best. Their fellow students sometimes teased them that they were like a married couple themselves, teasing that irked Combeferre and amused Joly.
“I do not know why they insist on saying those things,” Combeferre huffed one evening, as they were finishing their meal.
Joly shrugged. “Let them have their fun. We both know it is far from the truth,” he said as he signaled for more wine. “We enjoy each other’s company. What is wrong with that?”
Combeferre busied himself with adjusting his napkin. “Nothing at all,” he mumbled.
But in the far recesses of his mind, he worried that perhaps their colleagues realized something he and Joly did not.
**
On a sultry early summer evening in their second year, Combeferre was sitting at his desk, carefully transcribing his notes while he waited for Joly to return from his rounds at the hospital. Twilight was approaching, as was a thunderstorm — and the arrival of both without Joly’s return concerned Combeferre, who knew his friend would have been eager to complete his work and meet for dinner before the cloudburst.
The rain had just begun in earnest when Joly appeared, entering Combeferre’s rooms without knocking, as was his custom. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes were soaked through.
And his eyes were full of tears.
“Joly?” Combeferre leaped out of his chair at the sight of his friend’s distress.
“I lost her,” Joly whispered.
Combeferre felt certain he knew exactly who Joly was referring to — it was a young woman, although he was not familiar with all of the details of her case. But this was the first time Joly had lost a patient he had worked with so closely, despite all of his efforts on her behalf.
Their conversations about death had been frequent and clinical — after all, they spent so much time among the deceased and the dying, it was something from which they had detached themselves, something they joked about in the full knowledge that it was something they would witness every day in their chosen line of work. Joly always boasted that he was acclimated to it.
It was clear that Joly was wrong.
Impulsively and awkwardly Combeferre embraced him, holding his shaking body as Joly began to weep into Combeferre’s shoulder. Combeferre was helpless to do anything more than stroke his back gently, and listen to his cries.
Combeferre was not a man who demonstrated emotion — but the sight of this good man, his friend and companion, destroyed by the death of a complete stranger, made him forget himself.
And he kissed Joly softly on the top of his head.
Joly pulled back at the touch of Combeferre’s lips, searching his face with red-rimmed eyes. Combeferre had never thought of Joly as anything more than his closest friend and study partner — but now he was wondering if they could be something more.
And from the look in Joly’s eyes, Combeferre felt sure he was wondering the exact same thing.
In retrospect Combeferre could never remember who kissed whom first, or how they wound up on his tiny bed, tugging at each other’s clothing with a need neither of them knew they had bottled up inside them.
But he remembered the sight of Joly’s face, completely at peace as they came together as one — for once not worried about examinations or the cholera.
He remembered how good and safe and warm it felt to lie there afterwards, his head on Joly’s bare chest as the thunder and lightning raged and the rain beat down on the roof above them.
“Check my pulse,” Joly whispered as he stroked Combeferre’s hair.
Combeferre wrapped his fingers around Joly’s slender wrist, touching his index finger to Joly’s artery. “I think you will live,” he murmured, just before he drifted off to sleep.
When he awakened the next morning, his body still entangled with Joly’s, he felt sure he could do this every night.
And every night for the next year, they did.
Until the revolution eventually beckoned.
**
The next spring, on a cool evening toward the end of the academic year, Combeferre was dining with Joly at a favorite restaurant when they happened to encounter an old and beloved friend of Combeferre’s — a man by the name of Enjolras. They invited Enjolras and the friend he was with, who introduced himself as Courfeyrac — to join them for dinner. The four men spent the evening in debate at an ever-increasing volume about the political situation in France.
And Les Amis de l’ABC was born.
The early days of their group were heady ones, as others joined them in their cause and their collective excitement and agitation took root. Combeferre found himself an accidental leader of the group, his intellect and reason serving as a model for the other students. Enjolras saw him as his right hand man, while his debates with Courfeyrac helped each man hone his arguments. He also found himself spending more and more time with Prouvaire, the young poet, who would banish his initial shyness and reticence at Combeferre’s encouragement, speaking of love and death and beauty with an unparalleled eloquence.
For his part, Joly was an enthusiastic member of Les Amis, but he was also occupied with other things — theoretically, he and Combeferre were both supposed to be preparing for exams, but instead Joly spent far too many evenings drinking with Bossuet, a perpetually unlucky law student who often found himself homeless. Joly frequently took Bossuet in, sharing his rooms whenever his friend was down on his luck. He thrived on Bossuet’s company; his good nature and infectious optimism was a balm to Joly’s nerves.
Combeferre and Joly continued to see each other at school — they still studied together, still dissected together, still dined together.
But after dinner they would go to the Musain, and retreat to their separate corners; Combeferre would join Prouvaire and Courfeyrac by the fire, where they would spend the evening huddled close together, discussing obscure philosophers, while Joly would seek out Bossuet and Grantaire’s table, where they would drink copious amounts of wine and pepper their political conversations with talk about their various exploits around Paris. Grantaire and Bossuet had each had numerous lovers since their arrival in the city, and Joly was intrigued by their experiences.
At the end of the night, Combeferre and Joly would reunite, and sometimes they would return to Combeferre’s rooms.
But more and more frequently, Combeferre would go to his writing desk, giving the excuse that he had books to read or treatises to write, and Joly would nod agreeably and return to his rooms, sometimes with an inebriated Grantaire — or more and more frequently, the luckless Bossuet — in tow.
Even as they were coming together in a common cause, they were coming apart as a couple.
Joly himself did not seem unhappy with the situation; in fact, more often than not, Combeferre noticed Joly displaying an intimacy with Bossuet that he had previously demonstrated with Combeferre. For his part, Combeferre told himself it was natural — after all, relationships just ran their course, he assured himself. He had a higher calling, he believed — the future of the revolution depended on him, after all, and he could not let his relationship with Joly distract him. Deep down, though, there was another reason he started pushing Joly away.
Combeferre knew that if things went as planned, he was going to die.
And he wanted nothing more than for Joly to live.
**
For a long while after their relationship withered, Combeferre always thought that when the barricades eventually rose, Joly would allow his anxiety to get the best of him. He envisioned a scenario in which Bossuet would convince Joly to stay away, or that Joly would choose of his own volition to wait out the violence with the grisette he was rumored to be courting.
But Joly was a man of his convictions, and when this fight began, he stepped up right beside the rest of the group — and now, Combeferre cannot understand why he ever doubted him. He knew better than anyone that Joly’s desire to heal the sick was borne of the revolutionary belief in liberty and equality — and that it was a belief he would fight for.
And now here they are, behind a barricade — awaiting the inevitable.
As they stand in the darkness, passing the cigarette back and forth in silence, thunder rumbles in the distance.
And as a light rain begins to mist around them, Joly smiles slightly at Combeferre, the cigarette dangling from his lips as he extends his arm toward his friend and former lover. “Feel my pulse, Combeferre,” he says, the voice as familiar to Combeferre as the back of his own hand.
Combeferre wraps his long fingers around Joly’s slender wrist, feeling his heart beating. To Combeferre’s surprise, Joly’s pulse is completely normal.
“I think you will live,” Combeferre says quietly, aware that they both know he is lying.
And without thinking, he pulls Joly into a long and hard embrace. Combeferre strokes Joly’s back, feeling each muscle and bone that is as familiar to him as his own, trying to convey with touch what he cannot convey with words.
And as the rain begins to fall harder, they come together as they once did in Combeferre’s rooms.
Pas de Deux
fic by saintjustified / Germinal on AO3
art by bootsssss
(warning for discussion of abuse)
****
For Marius, being introduced by Courfeyrac to Les Amis de l’ABC had only confirmed in him longstanding suspicions regarding his own innate unsuitability for society.
Made desperate by boredom, he had taken to reading his aunt’s editions of the etiquette books of Madame Celnart, which related in meticulous detail how to arrange, organise and behave at social and domestic visits, soirées and salons. His aunt, to judge by her cloistered lifestyle, used these volumes more as a form of escapist literature than a practical guide. Having little else to read, Marius had become uncomfortably and alarmingly familiar with the rituals enumerated on their pages, and, having read little else on current social niceties, he had taken far too much of it too deeply to heart. The recommendations on the rules of dancing, in particular, had stayed imprinted on his mind, and still rose to the surface at inopportune moments. There had been, for instance, this advice:
“Never hazard taking part in a quadrille unless you know how to dance tolerably. If you are a novice or but little skilled, you would bring disorder into the midst of pleasure. Beware also of taking your place in a set of dancers more skilful than yourself… refrain from great leaps and ridiculous jumps which would attract the attention of all towards you.”
Marius had long regarded dancing in general and the quadrille in particular as an outlandish terror to which he hoped never to find himself subjected. But, in broader terms, he often felt as though his entire life had been spent failing to abide by this advice – not merely in the ballroom but in the street, the salon, and the lecture-hall alike.
As a metaphor, it was advice that Marius wished he had heeded when he was first brought into the company of Les Amis. Instead, Marius’ pro-Corsican outpouring and its embarrassed reception had made him feel as though he had recklessly taken the floor at a ball, his hand at the waist of a partner he was especially keen to impress, and then, having found himself stepping to an unfamiliar air, tripped on an over-polished floor and fallen on his face, to the mingled horror and hilarity of all spectators.
He had avoided the Café Musain for weeks following the episode which Courfeyrac insisted on referring to as the shortest-lived battle of annihilation history had yet witnessed. These weeks of avoidance had by now stretched into months, but Marius in his more despondent moments could still hear Combeferre’s reproachful tone, and could still picture Enjolras staring fixedly past Marius with his hand pressed to his forehead. He only wished that any of them had been of a turn of mind to heed another line of Madame Celnart’s on the matter:
"When an unpracticed dancer makes a mistake, we may apprise him of his error; but it would be very impolite to have the air of giving him a lesson."
-
Nevertheless, having left the hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques for his tenement building in the Gorbeau, and having then discovered the need to leave his tenement building with a certain urgency, Marius did not hesitate in seeking refuge with Courfeyrac again. In doing so he was conscious that, while he had rejected the assistance offered by his grandfather and delivered by his aunt, he found himself quite able to request it from Courfeyrac – perhaps because it seemed in the latter case to be offered unconditionally, in recognition of need, and not as what Marius took his grandfather’s offer to be, a claim of continued influence and ownership on him. So it was that, over three years since their first introduction, he returned to living with Courfeyrac in circumstances even more reduced than when they had first met.
Courfeyrac’s politics had been further sharpened in the move to a more insurrectionary part of town, and by lodging with him Marius had placed himself back in the orbit of radicalism, although he continued to feel like an inconvenient satellite whose trajectory could have no possible end apart from some eventual spectacular collision. He dined and drank sometimes with Courfeyrac in the vicinity of the rest of Les Amis, but made an effort to evade direct conversation or eye contact, and on one evening bolted out of the room entirely in order to avoid being asked a question by Combeferre – who, despite his solemn expression when approaching their table, had merely been about to enquire whether either of them wished to share the cost of a bottle of wine. Marius had nevertheless shot to his feet and through the side-door with such alacrity that he had overturned his chair, leaving it to hit the floor with an air of finality. It was three weeks before he could be convinced to return to Corinthe.
Courfeyrac, for his part, had privately expected that Marius would graduate, after a night or so, to sleeping in a bed of his own, or at least on the upholstered chair set just outside the bedroom, rather than continuing to sleep with only the spare mattress between himself and the cold comfort of the floor. At first this persistence had bothered Courfeyrac on Marius’ behalf rather than his own – these conditions could surely not be satisfying to any individual, even one with an outlook more Spartan than he suspected Marius’ to be. However, Courfeyrac began to be troubled on a more personal level after repeatedly coming home in the early hours, on the verge of consummating the night with a charming new acquaintance, only to discover Marius once again asleep at the foot of his bed with the attitude of an abandoned Bichon Frisé.
On one occasion, he was forced to explain Marius away as being a visiting eccentric cousin, whose religious vows of asceticism obliged him to spurn all material comforts. On more than one occasion, he had had to decide whether to tactically retreat to the lodgings of his paramour, or to move proceedings less than gallantly to the curtained alcove beside the door, and hope that Marius would not be woken by the rustle of his companion’s skirts being hitched around her waist – or indeed by anything else which might follow. In the mornings after he had opted for the latter course, the vanity of this hope was invariably demonstrated in the determined set of Marius’ jaw as he refused to broach the subject, and his deep blush and resolute nod in response to Courfeyrac’s enquiry, framed with equally resolute innocence, as to whether he had slept well.
There were other evenings, when, returning home alone and seeing Marius asleep on the mattress or over his books, his face pale and sharp with frugal living, Courfeyrac had been moved only to an inexpressible affection, and found himself kneeling to gently stroke his friend’s disarranged hair into some semblance of order before settling to sleep himself.
-
Courfeyrac concerned himself with style rather than ostentation, and was not as wedded as some of his contemporaries to the idea that to look the best one must spend the most – although the two conditions were of course apt to combine with merciless precision, meaning that the most fashionable hat in Paris was frequently also the most expensive. Still, Marius’ determination to maintain a parsimonious lifestyle, in the face of Courfeyrac’s efforts to feed and clothe him in a more substantial manner, left him nonplussed. Seeing one evening that Marius was attempting to darn the lining of his coat-pocket by candlelight for the third time that month, Courfeyrac made his habitual offer of financial assistance, and Marius, with habitual awkwardness, refused.
“Or, if not from me,” Courfeyrac ventured, “why not from your grandfather?”
Marius gave an almost violent start, as though the needle in his hand had pricked his fingertip rather than his darning, and shook his head.
“I fail as usual to fully understand you, Pontmercy. You are currently sharing with me a fairly top-end red, for which I’ve no objection to paying, and we inhabit a world so upside-down that serviceable coats can be had for less money than that. Why not accept the price of a bottle, or of a coat, from a man, Ultra or not, who will clearly not miss it?”
Marius was quiet. He had been troubled for some time by this same conundrum – or, more properly, by the question of how, if he did not allow himself to accept his grandfather’s support, could he reasonably accept Courfeyrac’s? The fact that Courfeyrac himself had now outlined the problem quite so starkly set the cap on his discomfort.
He had no option but to swallow the remainder of his mouthful of wine, but, having done so, he pushed his glass to a far corner of the table with a baleful look towards it which was, Courfeyrac noted with astonishment, almost worthy of Enjolras.
“I am perfectly capable of supporting myself, and don’t require assistance from another, relative or otherwise. And if it comes to that – de Courfeyrac – when you refuse to be defined by the status of your family, why do you insist that should I be dependent on that of mine?”
There was a moment of silence. Marius, suddenly mortified, was reminded of the exchange which had precipitated his dramatic departure from his grandfather’s house.
Courfeyrac set down his own glass, and raised an eyebrow, and Marius, looking miserably at the badly-darned coat bundled in his lap, awaited being insulted in return and then ejected from the building, which he considered to be no more than he deserved. He held his breath.
“When you have quite got this out of your system,” Courfeyrac said mildly, “come and take a drink with me at the usual table. Have no fear, I shall be glad to split the bill with you.”
-
At the corner table in Corinthe, Marius ignored the full glass that Courfeyrac set before him while he gradually unburdened himself.
“I do not, as you state, accept anything from my grandfather, and in view of this I should rightly be ashamed to accept anything from you. I am only sorry to have prevailed on your charity for so long and taken advantage of your generosity.”
Courfeyrac sighed. “Do you think I’m any more deserving of my family’s wealth than the wretch in the street? Or than yourself, who has certainly been in a condition near to that before now – what with starving until your face is paler than your shirt, and wearing your hat until it falls apart, and watering your wine not from abstemiousness but in order to make it last? At close quarters it is very nearly heartbreaking to witness.”
“There is no need to mock,” said Marius unhappily.
“I am sincere. It isn’t as though you’re forcibly expropriating my family’s estate, and obliging me to change my name to something like Egalité’. Families acquire wealth by chance or force, and not through merit. Bossuet, of course, by sheer bad fortune has lost his estate, and by sheer good fortune I have kept mine. There is no divinely-ordained place in the hierarchy to which families are entitled, and those who are pleased to find themselves in a comfortable position materially should do everything to make themselves uncomfortable at heart.”
“But I cannot in all conscience let your wealth support me, and give you nothing in exchange.”
“Not at all. I can’t give my money away quickly enough, and I long for the day when we will gain for everyone sufficient bread, land, wealth, and coats which do not give their wearers the aspect of having just come from a funeral. Until that day dawns, please accept the occasional meal and the use of my bedroom floor, and you may pay me back in whichever coin you wish, or not at all.”
He sat back in the chair, as though the matter had been settled. “And now, come with us to the dance this evening – and stay longer than you did at Sceaux. Who knows, you may even secure a girl fit to make you forget your lady of the Luxembourg for the evening.”
“That is another thing,” said Marius.
Drawing a deep breath, he explained that his horror of debt was outweighed only by his aversion to dancing, and that he felt himself both incapable and unworthy of dancing a quadrille with any woman he might encounter.
“Nor,” he concluded glumly, “can I even be sure of the right conversation to make while doing so.”
“The right conversation, indeed – while dancing a quadrille! Marius, have you been reading,” and Courfeyrac pronounced his next words with a singular and emphatic distaste, “manuals of etiquette?”
Marius looked askance and bit his lip. “I may have been.”
Enlightenment passed over Courfeyrac’s face. “So you have been basing your conduct on the rigid and restrictive ways of the Baroque ballroom? You’re no longer in your grandfather’s house, as you must be aware, and you must stop behaving as though you are there still. To know the most judicious way of knotting a cravat is one thing, but this is a matter of personal judgement – not of trimming one’s own cloth to fit a preconceived pattern. There are as many correct ways to dance as there are models of reciprocal friendship. It is only necessary to know the rules of etiquette in order to discard them.”
He got to his feet and offered Marius his arm. “Come, I shall teach you the waltz. It is the most informal and heathen of dances, which makes it naturally the most worthwhile.”
Marius stood, linked his hand with Courfeyrac’s, and, with a hesitancy that eventually gave way to assurance, let himself be led.
by cyan-013 for kerrypolka <3 THANK YOU FOR SUCH A LOVELY FIC TO WORK WITH
Incanta iacta est
gen (Amis + Eponine + Marius)
written by kerrypolka
aer by cyan-013
Summary: Magic AU! Technically a crossover with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but you don’t have to be familiar with that canon to read this. Gen (Amis, Eponine and Marius).
***
"I’ve been bewitched."
Courfeyrac looked up from his book. “Is it serious?”
"Her eyes," said Marius in rapture, "spoke to me."
"Don’t be metaphorical at a time like this."
"I’m serious."
"Literally?"
"In every sense."
Courfeyrac closed the book. “Marius Pontmercy. Are you or do you have any reason to suspect you may be under a love spell, of the kind identified by Neuvillette or Villiers or any other yet undiscovered or unknown.”
"Would I know if I were?"
Let us take a moment to discuss French magic. For several centuries it was thought such a thing did not exist, but that was only because it is nearly invisible. French magic is in essence Parisian magic. Parisian magic is panache. What turns a gamin’s crust of bread into a feast? What makes the flower in a seamstress’s hair more radiant than the diamonds on a queen’s neck? What opens the locked door of a lady’s chamber to the gentleman thief? Magic, only, no one notices it. Paris looks at the exceptional, the superlative, the truly unusual and the genuinely supernatural, shrugs her shoulders and says “Yes – that’s me!” Only when the English magicians you have heard of became notorious did France lift its head to pay attention; and Bonaparte, though in every other way a genius, did not have any sense of magic. He had no use for anything that could not be known, and French magic is most of all in those four words: je ne sais quoi. That was in 1815. In 1831 France was in a prosaic mood with a prosaic king, and magic was being studied at the Ecole Polytechnique, which is to say, leaking out of the city. These are the circumstances in which Courfeyrac and Marius went to see Combeferre.
Combeferre opened the door. He was wearing flat spectacles with iron frames. Courfeyrac swiped them off his face immediately and pocketed them, saying: “You look ridiculous.”
"They’re supposed to see past any enchantments," Combeferre said.
"Wouldn’t they need to be ferrous lenses, then? Anyway, the shape doesn’t suit your face."
Marius had not even thought to open his mouth before Combeferre, very much failing to suppress a smile, said, “Don’t apologise for him, you know it only makes him worse.” He held the door open for them, and Courfeyrac entered with his nose in the air.
Combeferre’s front room smelled like cinnamon and gunpowder, and around it were basins of various metals filled with various liquids, mostly water, some not. Combeferre located two empty cups and one not empty, which he tipped away and sniffed, then filled all three with white wine. He handed the last to Courfeyrac, who wrinkled his nose.
"What was in this before?" he said. "Am I going to lose all my hair? Or become irresistible to women? Or both?"
"Rosewater for cleaning," Combeferre said, "sit down and drink your chardonnay."
There were only two chairs, and both were covered in books. The three young men sat on the floor.
"Marius is in love," Courfeyrac said without further preamble.
"That’s unfortunate," Combeferre said.
Marius was not paying attention. Combeferre’s wallpaper was the pale blue of a February dawn, which happened to be the exact shade of the dress She was wearing last Tuesday when Marius saw her at the Jardin de Luxembourg, and when he entered the room he had fallen into a reverie on this memory. When Courfeyrac pressed the wine into his hand he accepted it mechanically, lifting the cup to his lips. He swallowed and came back to life, a Romeo reviving rather than expiring by his draught. “Why, Combeferre, you know how to do magic!” Marius said.
Combeferre, amused and pleased, made only a modest demurral. “I’m really only a theoretical practitioner. Or a practical theorist. What do you want to know?”
"Is he under a love spell?" Courfeyrac said, stretching his legs out among the clutter. "He was behaving very vaguely this morning."
"Behaving vaguely," Combeferre said. "That sounds like cause for concern." He turned to Marius. "Open your mouth and say ah."
Marius complied.
"Is this necessary?" Courfeyrac said.
"Certainly not. But it is entertaining. Before anything else, do you have any reason to think the lady wishes to be found?"
"I’m sure of it!" Marius said. "Her eyes told me so."
Combeferre looked alarmed and intrigued. “Literally?”
"No."
"Ah." Combeferre rose to his knees and began pushing through the books on the chair nearest him. "I’ve never tried to find someone I don’t know before," he said.
"Oh."
"Which means it will be a very interesting project."
"Ah!"
He had found the volume he was looking for, a first edition of Mabeuf’s Incantata des environs de Cauteretz, and ran his finger down the index page. “Have you anything of hers? I expect not, but it would make things easier.”
Marius grasped in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small piece of white fabric. “This,” he said feelingly, “is her handkerchief, which I found on a bench.” His tone and expression would have been the same if he had said, “This is Juno’s diadem, which I personally recovered from Mount Olympus.”
Courfeyrac looked at him sideways. “You keep it with you always?” he said. “Oh, Marius.”
Combeferre examined it. “Monogrammed, excellent,” he said. “Well, let’s have a go, shall we?”
"Now?" Marius sprang to his feet. "Here?"
"Why not?"
Marius looked from friend to friend, unsure where his good fortune had come from.
"There goes the rest of the chardonnay," Courfeyrac said as Combeferre filled a basin with the end of the bottle. [Although most magicians use water, for reasons of cost as well as the obvious, but French magic, it has been found, is generally most effective with a good vintage. – Ed.]
The magic was not, as Marius had expected, accompanied by anything so prosaically romantic as bells chiming or the scent of roses; but a faint silver light did reflect from the dish onto Combeferre’s face when he leaned over it. Marius could scarcely breathe. “Do you see her?”
Combeferre frowned, and gestured, and frowned again. “I must have got something wrong,” he said. Marius could not restrain himself and peered over his shoulder.
"Oh!" he said. "Monsieur Leblanc!"
"You know this man?" Combeferre said.
"Yes – he’s her father, I think."
"Hang on," Courfeyrac said. "This girl you’re so worked up over is Mlle Lenoire?"
"Shut up," Marius said. In that state at that time, he could have seen off a regiment of hussars if they had insulted her.
Courfeyrac searched his memory and said, “She does have very fine coloured eyes.”
This was intended to be pacifying, a confirmation of his friend’s good taste, but Marius bristled even more and said, “You shouldn’t even think of her!”
"Indeed I don’t usually," Courfeyrac said amiably, and Marius somehow found himself more offended than before.
Combeferre meanwhile was taking notes in a small quarto with his left hand, while his right hovered over the basin, holding the vision in place in the basin. “At least it’s a family member, I suppose it picked up on the blood relation,” he said. “But why not her? Ah – he’s going to a row of houses. Maybe the illusion just has a dramatic sense of timing.” This was delivered dryly. Marius nearly knocked over the bowl as he looked again.
Monsieur Leblanc moved to a door and looked subtly over his shoulder, first to the right, then to the left, and it seemed to Combeferre he made eye contact with him, though he knew that was extremely unlikely if not impossible. Suddenly the image vanished, swiftly fogging over before the bowl went clear again. “Oh!” Marius said. “Oh, where is he?”
Having failed by magic, Marius went back to trying to find Her the old-fashioned way, but here he was disappointed as well. He went to the Jardin du Luxembourg for three weeks straight; but it was an unseasonably rainy three weeks, and he succeeded in nothing but developing a callus on his heel from wearing his best boots every day, and several on his hands from cleaning them vigorously every night. Courfeyrac, who was careful to say nothing to Marius on the subject, privately resolved to try his best to divert his flatmate from what was clearly a failing quest.
But unknown to Marius, help was near from a different quarter.
When Eponine’s father asked her to look into the house on Rue Plumet, she encountered the same difficulty as Combeferre had, and for the same reason. So when the sun set, she left the puddle she had been peering into and went to ‘scope it out’ in person.
The garden, which was overgrown, seemed abandoned; but there was light in the upstairs window, behind the shutters. Eponine sat and waited. It was darkening. The light went out.
Eponine was about to give up when Cosette appeared in the twilight, slipping out into the garden to sit on a bench. Eponine said nothing. She watched to see if anyone was with her. She watched to see whether it was really Cosette: she was wearing green, her hair was clean and her cheeks were pink, she looked like a wood nymph. And yes, it was the Lark.
Eponine watched her for nearly an hour and did not move. Cosette passed through the garden, humming under her breath, standing still to look up at the stars; and when it was too dark to see she returned inside. Eponine stood up slowly, then acted quickly. She pulled a rock out of the wall and a nail from her pocket, scratched “NO GO” on the rock, and replaced it, and fled down the street, away from the garden gate.
Across town, the words “NO GO” appeared in her writing on a stone in the wall of Thenardier’s cell at La Force. When he came back from dinner he saw the message. “Damn,” he said, “I could have used a good job.” He went to bed early, and in a mild sulk, but after that did not think any more about the house on Rue Plumet.
Because Eponine did not want to alarm Marius by communicating through the same means, which she thought he would consider very low, she looked for him to meet him in person. He was easy enough to find when she searched for him in a puddle below a street-light, near the river, and she spent a happy hour watching him and his friend, whom she thought very agreeable if obviously less handsome. They were dining on pain et vin in their shirtsleeves at home, and both were flushed and laughing. Eponine propped her chin on her elbow to watch. This is what she saw:
Marius, whose elbow had slipped off the table, steadied himself with a hand on his friend’s arm and protested again, “Courfeyrac, you know it isn’t that! Must you make me say it? I owe you at least six louis – no, your face just now says even more – “
"I haven’t been counting. It isn’t important," Courfeyrac said.
" – which is insulting in itself – "
"Although now that I know it hasn’t been going on a mistress, I’m even more curious where it disappears to." He finished his glass and reached for the bottle. "Clearly not waistcoats."
Marius ignored this with the dignified enthusiasm of one who has consumed a half-pint of red. He continued, “It’s, you know. Drinking water while everyone else in the room drinks wine.”
"Are you being metaphorical again? I’d be happy to lend you anything to read up on – "
"No! Actual water. Actual wine."
"I’ll buy your wine!" Courfeyrac, having refilled his own glass, reached to top up Marius’, but Marius stopped him with a hand over the brim.
"Don’t be stupid, you bought tonight’s. And I owe you enough already."
"It’s not only you – Enjolras always drinks water," Courfeyrac offered.
"Enjolras does so by choice."
"Marius." Courfeyrac stilled him. "I’ve been joking but I mean this seriously: I’d rather have the pleasure of your company than not, particularly if the alternative is you sitting here alone by the light of a single wan candle getting boot-black all over the floor. If a few cups of wine is all it takes to secure your presence for the evening, I’m happy to do so. Truly."
"No wonder you’ve got such a collection, if that’s the kind of thing you say to them," Marius groaned, and allowed Courfeyrac to pull him to his feet.
Eponine watched them walk to the Musain; she was not well practiced at weather magic, but she amused herself by making a breeze blow and ruffle Marius’ hair, which was very becoming.
In the back room Marius and Courfeyrac found Grantaire and Prouvaire arguing. Marius could not tell whether they were in earnest disagreement or simply exercising. (This was a problem he often had. No one ever had this problem with Marius; Marius was never not in earnest.) Jehan had verses half-written and had evidently been reading them aloud to himself, prompting Grantaire to impromptu criticism:
"But your magical is tragical, no two ways about it,” he was saying. “Do not misplace me. When I say tragical, it is a great compliment. Most of us should be so lucky as to achieve tragedy, rather than the gods simply using us for tennis-balls, watching Oedipus blind himself with blind indifference. In fact, not even watching! That’s what I mean. Tragedy achieved is an opus, and nearly impossible for anyone lower than the third stratum of heaven. It means making a difference to the creaking clockwork of the universe, reaching into the mechanisms and setting something right or wrong, clicking the machine into place or out of joint, which for mortal men is out of our ken and beyond our capabilities.”
"But that’s exactly what magic isn’t!” Prouvaire said. “Just because something is beautiful beyond our comprehension doesn’t mean it’s beyond our power to achieve.”
"True, true!" Marius cried. Courfeyrac, who liked his friend very much, made a great effort to be silent.
Prouvaire continued, “I can think of no greater illustration of what we’re gathering here to work towards than magic. It is transcendent and ineffable – yet man can still channel it, it illuminates him. It illuminates the world! From the ancient masters to today’s workman magicians, and to the future’s – who knows? Magic is greater than ourselves, but it also belongs to us, every one.”
"So does Mlle Floraison at the Champ de Mars brothel," Grantaire said.
Prouvaire shook his head, smiling. He lifted his hand and, concentrating, caused the wine in Grantaire’s glass rise like a vine and seem to bloom into a translucent, many-petalled blossom. “A rose from rosé,” he said. “There’s your floraison. Where’s the indifferent clockwork in that?”
Grantaire, with an identical expression of concentration so fierce it must be mocking, waved his hand in parody and reshaped the floating wine into an obscene gesture.
Prouvaire laughed and leaned forward, and as they both attempted to form the liquid into another joke, the glass shattered. Wine ran all over the table and their clothes. “Now look what your magic has done!” Grantaire said. “Your pantomime has ruined my trousers!” Prouvaire, still laughing, ordered another bottle of wine from Louison, who had appeared immediately with exasperated unsurprise at the sound of the glass breaking.
Bahorel entered at the same time as the new bottle. “Ah, a much-needed voice of earthy reason,” Courfeyrac said, commandeering the drink and pouring five even glasses. “Tell me, with the aim of starting or at least diverting an argument, what do you think magic’s for?”
"Winning fights," Bahorel responded immediately. He considered. "And practical jokes."
Grantaire clapped his hands. “No greater tragedy than that.”
"Or poetry," Prouvaire said, smiling, and returned to his verses. He had dried his paper with a wave of his hand after the spill, though neglected to do the same for their clothes.
"Marius, what do you – oh, for heaven’s sake," Courfeyrac said. Marius was staring at the table where the rosé had spilled, with a vacantly rapturous expression.
A half-hour later Combeferre and Enjolras arrived, talking low.
"No," Enjolras was saying, "it’s simply too risky."
Courfeyrac excused himself to join them; anything Enjolras thought was too risky was something he had to hear.
"It wouldn’t have to be a real dragon,” Combeferre said. “Just a moving image of one. I don’t know where we would get a real dragon. I don’t even know if they exist. There have been rumours of sightings, of course, but you know I don’t find those reports from the war in Spain very reliable for obvious reasons; and even if there were a dragon in Andalusia I don’t see how we could transport it here. Never mind that the climate is likely to be entirely unsuitable, unless we were to build some kind of – hothouse, or maybe a very large kiln, for it to keep warm, and that would defeat the point of bringing – Courfeyrac! Why are you laughing?”
"As ever," Courfeyrac said, "I am simply genuinely delighted to call myself your friend."
He returned to the table and brushed Marius’ leg as he sat down. Marius nudged him back playfully. The table’s expressions made it clear they had been listening to Combeferre too. “My father’s company was supposed to have seen a dragon once,” Marius said. “It was in Le Moniteur.”
"We are not," Enjolras said, speaking slowly and with great precision, "using dragons to guard our barricades."
It was one of their more pleasant meetings in months; the advent of summer had brought warm weather, the end of exams and the feeling of revolutionary consolidation, lifting everyone into a good mood. As Marius and Courfeyrac left, Marius stumbled on the stairs, and took Courfeyrac’s arm to avoid falling. He left it there. Courfeyrac enjoyed the weight and warmth of it. The night was clear and starry as they skirted the Jardin du Luxembourg and strolled towards their flat.
Just before they crossed the river, a figure slid out of the shadows below the bridge and stood before them.
"Good evening, Marius!" it said in a low voice. "I’ve been looking for you, and now I’ve found you!"
Marius’ fingers tightened on Courfeyrac’s arm. “Who’s there?”
She stepped forward, beaming and smudged. “Ah – Eponine!”
Eponine looked closely at him, and told him what she had discovered, and watched his face become luminous.
"Why – that’s – you’re sure? – Courfeyrac, do you hear? She’s – and so near – I’ll go at once! Who knows, she may be – oh, Eponine!"
And Marius was gone, bounding off into the warm night.
Eponine held onto his sublime expression, which she herself had put there. It was more than she could have imagined; she found it perfect. She wanted to close her eyes and never look at anything again.
"How annoying," Courfeyrac said. He lifted his arm, the one Marius had been holding, and ran a hand through his hair. "Now who knows what hour he’ll come home, with that same ridiculous hangdog look. How incredibly annoying."
"Don’t say that!" Eponine said. "It’s not ridiculous. It’s sublime."
"Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of his string of silently pining conquests," he said, mostly joking. "Honestly, you should see – "
"As if you aren’t!" she said. She said it crossly, without thinking. But she watched his face fall, and then she remembered watching him and Marius together. Oh, she thought, maybe he hadn’t even realised it yet.
He stood still, very still, with only a breeze moving through his hair and rustling his sleeves. After a moment he whistled, then laughed, resigned and cheerful. “I suppose we’re both fucked, then,” he said. He held out his hand. “Courfeyrac.”
She hesitated, then shook it. “Eponine.”
"D’you want to go try to drown our sorrows in cheap wine?"
