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Enjolras dragged the café’s patio chair back with his foot. Combeferre didn’t look up. He had his head down, nestled into the crook of his elbow, and a steaming cup of coffee in one hand.
The fact that it was coffee told Enjolras everything he needed to know about the severity of the situation.
He sat down.
“Croissant, or pain au chocolat?” He asked, putting both plates he was carrying down.
Combeferre mumbled something unrecognisable.
Enjolras slid the pain au chocolat across the table top.
Eventually Combeferre did lift his head. His expression was sombre — shockingly so — but he pulled his coffee to his mouth and took a sip.
Enjolras pulled off a piece of his croissant and said nothing.
Combeferre pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. “I’m in the wrong school.”
There was an immediate ‘No, you’re not,’ waiting on the tip of Enjolras’s tongue, but he gave his best friend a chance to explain before he launched into his inevitable rebuttal.
“Am I a good teacher?” Combeferre asked, straightening his glasses before sitting upright.
“Yes,” Enjolras answered. He tore off another piece of pastry.
“Then I’m at the wrong school.” There was so much conviction in Combeferre’s tone that anyone else would have been startled — but not Enjolras. His faith wasn’t a political ideal. He stopped picking at his food, but his expression didn’t shift in the slightest. Combeferre leaned back, folding his arms over his stomach. “If I’m even slightly good at what I do, then I’m— what I’m doing is disgraceful.” His mouth twisted into a frown and his eyebrows furrowed, but he was staring into his own memories.
Enjolras reached out and pulled the coffee away from him.
“I’m obligated to be using my skillset in an environment that benefits society, but I’m not— I’m not. I’mactually a complete sell-out. I’m furthering the needs of a community that already has everything.” He exhaled in a rush and put his head in his hands again. “I have to find a different job,” he said, swallowing back the feeling that he was going to be physically sick.
“Why didn’t I keep going with my medical degree?” He asked. “I’m not even that good of a teacher— I was good at science! Even if I’d stayed with engineering, or kept going with medicine, it would have mattered. I could have been a doctor, I could have done Medécins sans Frontières, or even just worked in a clinic. Any of that would have been better than what I’m doing right now. At least I’d have been doing something helpful to someone. ”
“Are there no underprivileged students in your classes?” Enjolras asked casually.
“Two, but they’re in an elite school. They’ll have opportunities that others— people like Feuilly,” he gestured with his hand before tugging on his dark, curly hair. “—have never had. It’s not enough to be useful to just two people who have opportunities — especially when doing this is just servicing capitalism in the first place.” He pulled his glasses off completely and put his head down again. In an act of long-perfected synchronisation, Enjolras just barely managed to pull the chocolate pastry away before Combeferre face was pressed against the table.
Not that Combeferre noticed. He was hot — he was too hot, and the table was cold, because it was freezing outside, but it still wasn’t enough. It felt good against his cheek, but it just wasn’t relaxing. His stomach was turning, and if he’d been listening to anything other than the nagging, bitter voice in his head, he’d have heard his heartbeat thudding unpleasantly.
Enjolras pushed everything on the table to the side and reached out, putting a hand on Combeferre’s shoulder. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m at the wrong school,” Combeferre repeated. “I’m in the wrong job.”
Part of him wanted to shrug away from Enjolras’s touch. Another part of him was grateful it was there. And the war between those two feelings was only adding to his nausea.
Enjolras was considering calling Courfeyrac, but he didn’t reach for his phone. He kept talking. “You’re more adamant about education than you’ve ever been about engineering,” he reminded Combeferre. “You’re the one who always says education keeps hearts beating.”
Combeferre made a sound somewhere between a snort and a groan.
“Why did you pick that school?”
“The money,” Combeferre replied, sounding as self-loathing as it was possible for Combeferre to be. “This is ridiculous.”
Enjolras glossed over the fact that they’d talked about money half a dozen times already. He was wealthy, Combeferre wasn’t. He couldn’t actually count on both hands all the times he’d offered every penny he had and then some to his best friend — as a gift, as a loan, as anything that would get Combeferre to accept, even though he never did.
In part, Combeferre refused because he wasn’t in the same position as Bossuet or Grantaire — he didn’t really need it. Like Marius and Feuilly, he carefully tallied up every penny he earned (and kept next to none of it for himself). But he also — as he explained over and over again — felt that it wasn’t helpful to take Enjolras’s money, which went to funding their educational society more than anything, away from one good cause only to invest it in another. It just didn’t make sense.
He’d taken the job because it was an opportunity to draw a significant amount of income out of the upper echelons of monied society, and to redeposit that excess among the people who needed it.
He did it because there were books he wanted to provide for his siblings. And toys. And clothes.
Because there were things he could do with money — there were services he could provide, and people he could help. And that was something.
“You picked it because it gave you an opportunity,” Enjolras told him. “And a good one.” He squeezed Combeferre’s shoulder again. “You’re a great teacher — not just good. You’re gifted. You have the ability to inspire people, and that matters more than anything.”
Combeferre made the same sound again. “That makes you a better teacher than I am.”
Enjolras smiled.
“You’re in the right school,” he countered. “Think about the people you’re educating.”
“The rich and famous.”
“The privileged and the obtuse,” Enjolras retorted. “They’re not going to get these lessons from anyone else. You’re at the source, with the right information, and you’re the best man for the job, because you know how to engage.”
“Yes, and that would be great, if I were actually allowed to teach them things that matter,” Combeferre protested, sitting up again. “But I’m not— every lesson plan is approved by the department heads. Every single one. And it’s fantastic that so many parents help with homework, but it means they have critiques about everything that happens in class, because these are kids, and they tell everyone everything. I had one mother actually wait for me after her son’s class this afternoon because she thinks it’s inappropriate that I didn’t correct a drawing her own child had made of him holding hands with his best friend.”
Enjolras blinked.
“It’s a boy and a girl. Apparently they were too close together— the mother felt it was too suggestive.”
Enjolras snorted and rolled his eyes.
“It’s impossible to do anything. I could get fired for expressing any of my opinions. Even they even knew about la societé…”
“If anyone knew,” Enjolras replied drily. He didn’t finish the sentence — it wasn’t exactly in their best interests to publically bring up the actual purpose of their so-called educational group. But the meaning was there, and Combeferre looked down at his lap.
“This is what we do,” Enjolras insisted. He took Combeferre’s hand without hesitating, squeezing just as emphatically. “This is deliberately subversive. This is our purpose — and you’re doing it in ways the rest of us can’t.”
“I’m not!”
“You are.” Enjolras’s tone was fervent. “None of us can do what you do. None of us have the patience. Even if Courfeyrac could spend every hour of every day with those kids, he’d just insist that it was only every playtime.”
The faintest trace of a smile tugged at Combeferre’s mouth.
“Bahorel can’t keep his opinions to himself. He’d get fired before he set foot in the door.”
“And you don’t like children.” There was less tension in Combeferre’s tone than before.
Enjolras scoffed. “Be realistic. I’d probably set fire to the school after meeting the other teachers.”
The tension broke — Combeferre laughed.
The woman at the table next to them have them both equal-parts-horrified-and-disdainful looks, but they shrugged it off with identical smiles.
Combeferre gripped Enjolras’s hand tightly.
Only then did Enjolras quietly ask, “Are you okay?”
Combeferre nodded.
He still felt ill. He still wasn’t sure that the money was worth it — but the simple truth was that he wasn’t ever sure of anything. It just wasn’t in his nature to affirm when the world changed every single day, right in front of his eyes. But he knew — even through the slowly-fading, irrational fear in the back of his mind — that what he was doing was good. Enjolras was right about that. There was a difference to be made, and he was at the heart of it.
And that was something. It was something very important.
He let go of Enjolras’s hand and reached for the pain au chocolat. “I think I might need your help with a few lesson plans.”
Enjolras was practically grinning, his expression was so devious. He pulled his hand back and reached for his phone. “I’ll tell Courfeyrac,” he answered. “It’s time for another group meeting.”