le_centre | (no subject)

Entry tags:

enjolras

(no subject)

Courfeyrac slept long, and without moving much. It felt so good to be clean, and lying flat, after so many hours at the whim of adrenaline, and rain, and only stones to rest on. But here he is with a friend, and there was food and clean clothes, and then water that ran hot out of taps....truly, a remarkable thing. He was thinking about it when he lay down, and then he was gone.

Now, it is morning. He wakes slowly, disconcerted. The energy from the night before, finding himself dead and yet strangely alive - it is gone. He lies still, trying to collect his thoughts. But they do not move much further than Enjolras, and Bossuet, and Gavroche.

And everyone else, who is not here. Them too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He leans into him gratefully. Enjolras is a rock, and always has been. Nothing will move him.

'We will all follow you anywhere.'

They had all made their own choice, but Enjolras...if Courfeyrac were to choose any of them to stand with the giants, there is no doubt who it would be.

'And there is no need for forgiveness of any kind. We all readied ourselves for death. I am glad I am here with you - I had just not realised it, perhaps, until this moment. But I am not sorry.'

He has no trouble conveying his resolve when meeting his eyes.

'And no matter what Bossuet can do, or say, in the living world - I will do it all again.'

"I have never doubted it."

This is only simple truth.

His heart is full. Love, grief, pride, regret, fierce determination. He meant what he said to Bossuet with all his soul: no man could ever ask for better comrades than those Enjolras has been blessed to stand beside. And now two of them are here, Bossuet with a second chance, Courfeyrac with understanding of the first.

The only way to save them is to change the entire course of the battle. They all saw their options, and chose with open eyes. He can only venerate them for it, and for so much.

(Yes, Enjolras thinks about his friends in superlatives all the time. It seems to him only reasonable.)

Milliways has been a drought to him. Now, rain.

'I know. And I have never doubted you. Nor has anyone else.'

This is only simple truth.

He sits quietly for a moment, and then slips off the bed and walks to the wall. His fingers are tentative on the hem of the flag, respectful and with no little awe.

'How did it come to be here?'

Enjolras sets his empty cup aside to watch, hands folded together on his knee.

"I was holding it when I was shot."

In his voice is no distress. Merely the same reverence for the symbol.

He shrugs slightly. "When I arrived, it was still in my hand."

A grin flashes briefly over his face, and he lets his hand drop.

'I find I am not surprised.'

But it is gone when he adds, 'you were still on the barricade? That is where I last saw you.'

It is more than strange to be asking about another man's death with the man himself - and when he himself shares the state.

'...no, you cannot have been. Not if Grantaire-'

Well. It is not important, perhaps.

Enjolras shakes his head.

"The barricade fell. We fell back to the Corinthe as planned, I with the others still on their feet. The other leaders had fallen."

It's only on the word leaders that his voice catches slightly. He pushes ruthlessly past.

Most of this doesn't trouble him to speak of, particularly not with a friend. In truth, even for those aspects which do, it's as much a relief as a difficulty; he has borne the barricade's last hours alone inside his heart for a long time now. It's only hard sometimes, with little warning.

"We barred the door, hacked down the stairs, made our stand upstairs with what we had left to hand. Every man there fought and died bravely. They were tigers. It was there -- I was the last standing when the Guard finally broke through."

They knew at dawn that this would happen. Defeat was not always assured, but by then, when the last plans were laid, it was an inevitability. Outmanned, outgunned, before the combined might of the Army and the National Guard and the Municipal Guard, and all their armories -- the only question was how long each man would be able to fight before death caught him.

His mouth quirks, without much humor. "I hope Mother Hucheloup will forgive us the ruin of her wineshop."

A sacrifice to the Republic. She knew the politics of the students she fed; she and her waitresses stayed to make bullets and bandages while they could. Still. This is the tollgate of a revolution: conviviality turned to a charnel-house.

'Did you use the bottles?'

He does not sound eager for the answer to be 'yes', but not shy of it either. They knew what they were doing when they filled them. And he would surprised if Enjolras had not used every weapon they had put by, no matter how awful.

His own attempt at a smile is in the same vein as Enjolras'.

'I am sure Mother Hucheloup knew full well what to expect when the barricade went up. Which I suppose will not offer much in the way of recompense. Perhaps the sight of our bodies will remind her that it is sacrificed in the name of higher cause.'

"Yes."

Strong nitric acid in wine-bottles, flung down into the faces of the soldiers. Awful to contemplate, awful to use, awful to see.

People in extremity will use horrors. They knew what they were doing when they took those bottles from Pepin's friends who had brought them, and put them aside for the last, worst need.

At Courfeyrac's words, he inclines his head slightly, not so much in assent (which seems to him unnecessary) as in reverence for the higher cause they share. Still sacred, and always.

Edited 2014-06-06 20:10 (UTC)

Yes.

He nods, and looks down. He is not sorry to hear it, but also not sorry he did not see it. He would have thrown them himself, but not laughed about it afterwards.

'I do not know whether to feel sorry about it, or not,' he says, eventually.

'No, I should not say that. I am sorry you had to do it, but there would have been no point taking them if we had no intention of using them.'

Enjolras spreads a hand, an abbreviated shrug. "It was necessary."

That word again, necessity. It justifies much, and absolves nothing.

Courfeyrac knows his thoughts on that.

"Our deaths will be remembered. We made certain of it."

'I should hope so!'

He seems quite indignant - not with Enjolras in particular - that there could be any doubt.

'If we were to die and not advance the cause at all I would be rather upset, I should think. Though I suppose we'll never know.'

Enjolras is silent for a moment. He's thinking of '48 -- sixteen years, and again instantly suborned -- of '52, of '71's brief triumph and Bloody Week, of all the long slow slog he read of.

But there's joy in that tale too. He never lost the hope, never lost sight of the goal, but with Courfeyrac and Bossuet here, it's easier to find that joy too. When he looks back at Courfeyrac, and smiles a little, it's entirely real.

"There are those here who come from other centuries as well. And there are books in a vast library."

"It's a slower course than we dreamed, and a more painful. The betrayal of '30 wasn't the first. But France will establish a republic, a true one, which will hold and last. And not only France. Germany, Russia, Italy, Poland -- most of Europe, by the twentieth century."

"The cause was advanced. We laid our bricks in that road."

For that, any sacrifice was worth it. All they did, all the loss. However long the road might have been.

'A true Republic.'

He repeats the words with a kind of quiet awe. He looks at the flag, and touches the edge of it once more. And then a smile spreads over his face.

'Then any deed, any death, was worth it. For they would all count - all these revolts, all these setbacks - they would all come together until the people shouted 'enough!' and made the final leap.'

His resolve has never wavered. But the uncertainty over the possible outcome of Bossuet's influence ceases to matter. Live or die, they have laid the bricks, fired with their own lives.

'Whatever happens with Bossuet, I am not concerned. There are clearly others who continue the fight. Perhaps we died so they might succeed. It is enough.'

Enjolras doesn't answer aloud. He doesn't need to.

Courfeyrac has always known his heart; in this, they agree utterly. But even without that, his face would say it all.

He nods, and comes to sit back down next to him.

After a moment, perhaps he leans on his shoulder a little. Knowing the eventual outcome is good. In the here and now, sitting with a friend is better.

There's more coffee on the desk, slowly cooling in its pot. But for now, Enjolras has no desire to get it.

This is all he needs, all he's wanted: a friend beside him, shoulder to shoulder, in fraternity and in the certainty of hearts in deep accord.

He clasps Courfeyrac's hand in his. Courfeyrac is a warm weight against his shoulder, an easy support for his own weight leaning in turn. Impatient and ever-burning though Enjolras's heart is, in this moment, he's content.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only