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one - R
he's a god walking the earth.
with a single word he can command crowds, and they fall hushed at his feet like the second coming. it's blasphemous, and everyone knows it, but so temptingly holy to follow him.
the curve of his neck is poetry and the flush in his cheeks, along his décolletage when his cravat falls open, is unspeakably magnetic. you stare at his mouth and you smell the revolution on his breath, and you imagine how it would taste to kiss this more-than-a-man.
it makes no sense that a person like this should exist. they don't allow angels like this one to fall. so you watch him endlessly, because somewhere inside there must be proof that he is human. there must be a place where he fails, where he hurts and cries and bleeds.
but so far you have found none.
two - e
each meeting he slinks into the cafe a few moments late, already ruddy with wine and sporting that infuriating smirk. his eyes pierce you through the whole meeting and you feel it, almost painful in its physical sensation. it reminds you of the butterflies that combeferre showed you once in the building of the sciences, their lifeless bodies pinned in place against the creamy paper lining the display case like the rosettes attached to the jackets of all the boys sitting the cafe.
except him, of course; you're still partially convinced he only shows up to challenge you and drink until he can't stand up anymore. he's never worn the rosette, never helped to plan, but he's always studying you like he's waiting for you to slip.
it's unnerving, and not even the weight of adoration from everyone else can make you forget about it.
three - R
it was bound to happen sometime, but you still flinch when he falls away from the policeman, stumbles back and half-lands in your arms. you've never touched him before. he doesn't feel like you thought he would. instead he looks small in your arms, and scared for a second, and it reaches into your ribcage and moves something deep inside you. the blood is sticky and sickening where it's started to trickle from his head.
it's all a tableau frozen in time until joly shoves past you. "don't just stand there! what in the hell is wrong with you, grantaire?" he hisses as he bends to staunch the bleeding that soaks the lovely curls. even courfeyrac, sweet courfeyrac who always has a kind word to spare, looks at you sideways in a way that makes you feel dirty.
you rip a strip off your shirt and hand it over numbly. you wish you had more to give.
four - e
he's drunk, again, and slurring angrily at you like you put the bottle in his hands and forced him to drink. he doesn't often talk like this, but you haven't been paying attention to the number of empty bottles that sit by his feet on the floor. combeferre is trying to argue, feuilly is hovering anxiously by his elbow like he's ready to hold him back, but you're laughing, spitting your retorts in his face. he calls you pretentious, lofty, too concerned with your precious revolution to notice that nothing we do means anything, and you say drunk again, as usual, do you ever wake up from your stupor long enough to recognize that the world is ending?
he lunges at you and you can smell him, wine and sweat and cologne and something musky, something you haven't smelled since you landed in his arms and saw in his eyes that he was cracked open like a sunrise sky. and you're stuck in place like you've been turned to marble until feuilly catches him and steals the bottle out of his grip, tosses it to bahorel, who catches it and slides it deftly behind the bar. "you're cut off, grantaire. go home."
he finally has the decency to look slightly ashamed. for some reason something unknown is stirring inside you, something you feel even more when his eyes find you. before you can stop yourself, you step forward, towards him. "i'll take him home."
"enjolras." feuilly moves towards you as if to catch your arm. "i don't know if -"
"he can't get home on his own, he can barely walk in a straight line," you say, and your tone is derisive enough that he lets you pass. shrugging on your coat, you can feel the eyes of the others on you as you make your way across the room to him.
courfeyrac pulls you close, leans on your shoulder as he whispers, "don't hurt him, enjolras. he thinks you're the sun," and it makes you shiver before he disappears.
swallowing, you loop the arm, gone limp from wine, around your shoulder, and help the drunken man down the stairs and into the cobbled streets. the streetlights cast his face into deep relief and sparkle brilliantly off the snow, but he keeps his eyes (still bright despite the alcohol) fixed on you, and your breath gets caught in your throat. "where are we going?" you manage eventually.
with his nod to the north, you proceed up rue saint-denis, supporting him as he half-stumbles along the few blocks. beneath his damp shirt, his muscles shift, reminding you that he's a boxer and a gymnast and it's not worth the fight, as satisfying as it would be to punch him straight in his mouth and shut him up for a few seconds.
when you reach his building, you let go like his skin burns to the touch and watch him slump against the door, seeking the warmth emanating from behind the wood. you hadn't noticed how cold it is until he left your side. "grantaire, where's your jacket? did you leave it in the cafe?"
"it's in my apartment. i'm a drunk, enjolras, not a forgetful old man."
"why didn't you bring it with you?"
"why do you care?" he laughs. "you're looking for reasons to be angry with me now. if you want to scold me then say what you're really thinking."
but your mind is too full to answer him, and you stand in frustrated silence for a moment before turning on your heel and starting away. his hand catches your sleeve and you're yanked back, towards him across the ice that clings to the street. you're left breathless and standing so close you can feel grantaire's breath as it puffs against your cheek. from the outside it must look intimate, like two lovers sheltering from the cold. "who would need a coat when they stand with apollo himself by their side?" he murmurs with a sincerity that takes the ground from under your feet; courfeyrac's words echo in your mind and you jerk away with a start. the february air rushes against your skin and breaks a silent spell.
"you're drunk," you spit, but your hands are shaking.
he just laughs, again. "most of the time, mon chéri."
the door slams, and you're alone in the starry paris night.
five - R
february and march pass in snow and frigid rain, and april's sudden warmth brings the smell of the streets drafting back through the windows as the days float into may. you spend almost all of your time at the cafe now. the people are restless and the police pack the streets, leering at those who pass, bayonets gleaming with the dawning summer sun.
and all the while, he is borne on the tide of the growing revolution. ever upwards, ever towards his beloved patria. ever away from you, and you've never felt so low, like an insect confined to crawl in the dirt. the people clamor around him. everyone sees what you see in him. so you drink, and you pull girls onto your lap and whisper in their ears, and you watch him constantly for any sign of recognition.
marius comes in one night like he's lost, eyes big as a newborn deer's, and after a cup of wine it comes out that he's met a girl. and he loves her, and he knows even though they only locked eyes from across the marketplace. before you can prevent it, your gaze flits over to enjolras, propped against the table, scorn in his eyes but a rush of blood creeping up his face.
has he ever been in love? does he know what it is to look at someone and feel your heart try to leave your chest?
gavroche is standing on a table and shouting something, and when their jeering dies down his little voice, hoarse from screaming, declares, "general lamarque is dead."
your stomach drops horribly. this is how it starts.
six - e
out of the windows they come crashing, chairs and tables and bureaus, down to the street until there's a pile waist-deep in some places. the street is filled with shouts and people as they push the debris towards the intersection. everywhere there are eyes on you, and you try to keep your heart from your throat as you direct your friends. even jehan has his mouth set in a hard line, sweat beading on his gentle brow from balancing on top of the precarious stack of furniture.
more than anything, you want to not be afraid, but there is a place deep inside where you're terrified, and you wonder if it will hurt. you wonder how many of these young men will die tonight, or tomorrow. and you wonder if it is your fault when they do.
marius comes barreling in and yanks grantaire out from under some woman perched on his lap. you're trying to focus on the barricade as it grows in size, or on calculating the distance of the gunfire, but instead you're distracted by the bobbing head of black curls as he goes and starts collecting the debris from the stones of the street. in quiet moments in the cafe, when everyone else is gone, his words echo in your mind like a prophecy. no one's ever spoken to you so reverently before, and it's dizzying. did it mean as much, did it mean anything to him?
before you can lose yourself there, bahorel calls your name from the opposite side of the street. a man has volunteered himself to go behind enemy lines, and you gladly send him. as soon as you turn to climb the pile in front of you, combeferre taps you on the shoulder and hands you a gun, smooth wood weightier than you expected. the sight, out of the corner of your eye, of gavroche peering down the barrel of a pistol makes a sick feeling curdle in the pit of your stomach. joly brings in stout barrels of gunpowder and for a few moments the only sound at the base of the barricade is the sliding metal-on-cotton-on-metal of loading.
then one by one, everyone picks their way up, giving hands and hoisting others until you crown the top like flowers on a grave. you can see almost into the next arrondissement from the peak. wordlessly, marius hands you a scarlet flag, and you shove it in the air, met with a shout from the other boys stationed along the barricade's shoulders. instead of cheering along, grantaire tips his bottle back until it's drained, like he doesn't want to remember what's coming next.
in the distance you could swear you hear marching feet already, as regular and uniform as the ticking of a clock.
seven - R
the ringing in your ears grows louder with each gunshot, so loud you can barely hear it when jehan screams and pulls you downward just in time for a bullet to whistle above your head. everything is chaos in the street, and there are bodies already lying on the stones, the smell of blood mingling with the tang of the gunpowder in the air. you reflexively look over your shoulder every few seconds to watch him and make sure that he's still alive, breathing and fighting another hour.
the battle seems to go on forever. you've never been so tired, deep to your bones, but you keep going, hauling gunpowder up to your friends and switching out to take over the guns. your shoulder aches from the recoil and you barely register it.
it's getting dark and still the army comes up the barricade in waves. you've all kept up a fight, fueled by pure emotion, but you're flagging, and if you let your guard down they will kill you. marius beckons from above to the barrel in your hand, and you toss it up to him and rest your forehead for a split second against the cool wood of the chair in front of you until you hear shouting and your head snaps back up.
the flames from marius' torch are licking dangerously close to the lip of the open barrel. "back or i blow the barricade!" he shouts, voice raw with desperation. you turn and half-fall, half-stumble backwards down the stack of chairs in blind panic, and at the bottom enjolras catches you, takes your weight and momentum in his chest and sets you upright. he's gone before you can thank him, but his hands burn where they laid on your bare arms.
"blow it up and take yourself with it," the soldier facing marius sneers across the bars of a chair sticking up between them. beside you, combeferre swears under his breath. your heart is barely beating.
"and myself with it," marius counters. feuilly shouts, unable to hold himself back despite the hush fallen over everyone else. someone, you cannot tell who in the dark, is murmuring a prayer. a little hand finds yours and holds fast, and you can hear gavroche's huffy, tear-stilted breathing. without thinking you pick him up and cradle his head like you could save him if the torch met the keg.
after a moment of deliberation the soldier calls "fall back!" and the men clamber down and away. marius tosses the gunpowder far from his still-lit torch as the first drops of rain start to hit you, and you let gavroche gently down out of your arms. it's only when you see marius kneel by a dark huddled mass at the base of the barricade that you realize something is wrong.
eight - e
the body is so covered in blood that you thought there was no way it could still be alive, and yet now she stirs as marius takes her in his arms. vaguely you remember seeing a hand grab a musket barrel and turn it away from him. it makes sense now, and you watch him try to staunch her bleeding with his bare hands, turning red as the ragged flag still pinned to the top of the barricade.
you're all trapped, you can't look away as she beams up at him with the dying light of love in her eyes. and you all hear her confess, watch her shake violently with her last breaths, witness the kiss marius presses to her forehead like a sacrament as the life leaves her. it's gut-wrenchingly, terribly beautiful.
in the low torchlight your eyes sweep over the crowd. at the corner gavroche stands weeping, tear tracks making clean his grimy face. grantaire rubs his back slowly as if he's trying to draw the sadness out. before you can stop it your eyes meet and his gaze is so full that you're forced to look away. what if it was him lying in your arms and seeing beyond the barricade? what if it was his blood washing through the cracks of the cobblestones and turning them red?
with a jerk of your head, feuilly steps forward by your side and moves to pick up the body. marius lets out a choked cry of "éponine" and your chest tightens painfully. courfeyrac, the one who brought marius to you and asked you to let him join up, walks to him and embraces him, holds him close as a brother might. marius leans against the comfort and lets the sobs take over, tears mingling with the rain that's falling harder and harder now.
then a cry from jehan breaks the silence like a glass crashing to the floor. "more! there are more! back to your stations!" the students lurch up into motion, wiping the warm rain from their faces and reaching for guns. the boots of the soldiers are sounding loud now and you force yourself up on your aching feet to scale the wood again.
your blood is hot in your veins and you feel so lightheaded, like you could pass out any moment. at one point, a soldier thrusts his bayonet at you and you grab it, trying to turn it away and receiving a four-inch slice down your palm for your troubles. yet in a daze you keep fighting, and when you run out of bullets you bash the end of your gun towards the soldiers' heads until feuilly hauls you backwards by your arms. "enjolras, it's over, they're retreating."
you almost fall down the barricade as your legs go limp, and when you reach the bottom joly tips water into your mouth. "is everyone alive?" you gasp.
he holds you down as you try to struggle up. "sit for a moment, please, enjolras. some other men died. we're all fine."
relenting, you sprawl against a piano sitting on its side in the street. "the bodies?"
"courfeyrac and lesgles are taking care of them now."
a commotion breaks out and you're up on your feet again in a second. the red epaulettes of a soldier's uniform appear from between the gaps in the barricade, but as soon as combeferre has his musket up the man pleads, "don't shoot!"
when he makes it behind the barrier, no fewer than five pistols are pointed at his head. you've never seen grantaire look so serious as he is now, jaw set, spitting, "you see that man in the tavern? he calls himself javert. he told us the same as you. and if you're a spy like him, you'll get what's coming." he pulls back the hammer and levels the gun at the man in their midst, and even though he's been drinking, surely, his hand is completely steady. behind his eyes there's nothing, like a sheet dropped down to hide his soul.
they shove this man towards the tavern until gavroche pipes up, "don't shoot him! i know him!" begrudgingly, joly lets go of his arms and the newcomer walks free.
before anyone can take a breath combeferre shouts, "the roof! they're on the roof!" and you're frozen, staring down the barrel of a sniper pointed right at you. several things happen at once; strong arms close around your waist and push you out of the way, two gunshots, a flash of light, and the man behind the rifle falls, picked off by the man dressed in soldier's clothing. a bullet pings off the side of the cafe and takes a chunk of plaster with it. in your periphery you think you see the familiar head of black curls but you can't be sure if you imagine it or not.
"monsieur, how can i thank you?" you ask, dusting yourself off and feeling the burden settle back onto your shoulders.
"do not thank me." he shakes his head. "just do for me one thing."
"if it's in my power, you shall have it."
"the prisoner. javert." a gesture with his chin towards where the policeman still kneels with hands bound, noose around his neck.
"enjolras, no," combeferre whispers, but you ignore him.
"he is yours. do with him what you will." without your prompting, gavroche hands the man a pistol and nods so solemnly he looks for a second like he's ancient.
the night is truly fallen now, and though the moon is bright the stars seem to be hiding. a few seconds after the two strange men disappear behind a building, a gunshot sounds. you try not to feel sick to your stomach as you remember you've just sentenced a man to death. before today you'd never killed anyone and now there's so much blood on your hands you can't tell if it's yours or others'. around you a few people clap, lamely, like the first act of a show has finished. tonight will be the intermission.
nine - R
in what seems to be the first time he's let down his guard all night, enjolras gently touches marius' shoulder and finds him a place to rest among the nooks and crannies of the barricade. he cuts a christ-like figure against the framing glow of the lamplight as he leaves his friend to sleep and leans against the side of the building, with his hands bandaged by joly but seeping through and his golden hair wild around his head like a crown of thorns. he thinks no one is watching him, so he allows his weariness to show on his face, and it looks almost painful its sudden intensity. "courfeyrac, take the watch," he mumbles as he rubs the bridge of his nose with two bloodied fingers.
from the cafe, feuilly returns with armfuls of wine, and doesn't waste time in popping a cork and drinking right from the bottle. he passes the rest out, and slowly the color comes back to the grimy faces of the boys at the barricade. for precious minutes, the horrors of the day disappear and are replaced by memories of better times. with a little prompting jehan delivers a poem so fantastically dirty that courfeyrac claps his hands over gavroche's ears even though they're sitting twenty feet away. bahorel cuffs you around the shoulder and starts to sing drinking songs you remember from muscle memory alone, and everyone joins in like these bittersweet refrains will knit a shield around your bodies.
eventually, heads begin to drop to chests as the night stretches on; midnight, one, two in the morning. the only reason any of them stay awake is because they nudge each other. jehan and feuilly sleep propped up against each other, muskets still in their laps. you're the only one still drinking, as usual - except for enjolras, who is nursing his first bottle, though it's getting low. at two he takes over the sentry position from courfeyrac, and you climb up higher and perch on a chair just to watch him as he gazes out through the streets.
by and by he finishes his bottle, and to your surprise he holds a hand out to you like he's waiting for something. your eyes don't meet.
"what do you want?" you say.
"another bottle," he replies, a touch of impatience in his voice.
"i don't think that's your best idea," you answer, and take a swig from your own. some part of you wants to be upset that he thinks you have alcohol on you at all times, but he's not wrong; there are two more bottles wedged by the side of your chair.
"how many have you had? three?" now his head whips around to look you in the eyes. "don't patronize me, grantaire."
"you can't be drunk for this!" you protest.
he scoffs. "what, and you can?"
"you're important." it bursts out of your mouth of its own volition.
"i am no more important than any other man who stands here beside me," he mutters. "give me a bottle. i want to forget."
"forget what?" he shouldn't be speaking like this, as if he's stolen the words from your mouth. only silence meets your ears, so you press on. "and you can't truly believe you're not worth more than me in this revolution." there's an unexpected sincerity that comes through in your voice.
"who am i to say that my life is more valuable than yours?" he asks the horizon, leaning back.
"it's not just you," you say so quietly you hope he can't hear, but he turns to look at you instead. and you hear a creak.
then the coffin he sits on slides backwards down the barricade. you barely manage to catch a hold of his arms, and he clings on as his knees hit the side of a table and the coffin reaches the bottom and cracks in two, nothing inside but a pile of dust that puffs out over courfeyrac. "are you all right?" he whisper-shouts. neither of you answer, but he sees you moving and settles back against combeferre. you're staring down at the man in your arms and seeing him, whole and real, for the first time since you caught him in the street months ago. brushes with death expose people. he looks so much younger than he does when he's waving the flag, he looks like the schoolboy that he is. that you all are.
"that's the second time i've saved your life tonight, monsieur," you say without thinking. "i'm beginning to think you owe me something."
you're so close, you could count his eyelashes or the flecks of gold in his eyes. there isn't a single part of his being that hasn't been blessed by the sun.
e
you should stand up, you really should. but instead you stay where you are, kneeling with grantaire holding you like an anchor. bathed in the moonlight he looks like a classical statue, a satyr or a grecian priest that walked straight out of the museum. the sheet from before has been pulled away again and his eyes are full of wonder. the knowledge that it's from you is making your stomach feel as if there's a bird flitting about it. and the wine is whispering its siren song in your ear.
so just like odysseus, you listen, and you lift yourself up to kiss the man who sees light in everything you do.
R
it's like being struck by lightning. a determined look in his eyes, a quick movement, and your world shatters apart. you've never felt so much at one time, bliss and agony and a relief so profound you could weep.
his hands are hanging loosely by his side, as if he doesn't quite know what to do with them, but yours have automatically moved to the small of his back and pulled him closer. no sooner have you done so than he breaks to breathe. "you kissed me back," he says, wild-eyed, and you don't know how to answer without saying i love you so you press your mouth to his again.
enjolras kisses like an argument, fighting for the upper hand, but you're more knowledgeable than him for once, and when he sighs against your mouth it's more important than the victory against the national guard. you stand there, kissing, holding him, hidden behind a bureau turned on its side for what feels like hours. every time you break you expect him to get up, to walk away, but he comes back for you again and again.
the only thing that stops you is the sound of someone climbing the barricade. for a second your heart stops in panic, and you feel enjolras still against you as he hears it too. it's coming from your own side, though, and you relax and take a drink from your bottle. across from you, in the young baby-blue light just beginning to streak the sky, enjolras touches his lips with a still-bloody finger and smiles. because of you.
combeferre's head appears, shortly followed by the rest of him as he reaches the summit. "enjolras, grantaire, i can take watch. you've done your shift."
slowly, you extricate yourself from among the pile and begin to climb carefully down, tossing a "thanks" over your shoulder at him. enjolras does the same and follows you, grabs your sleeve for balance.
at the street, gavroche sleeps - morbidly - in an open coffin by courfeyrac's side. for his part, marius is awake, but courfeyrac dozes on his shoulder. next to them, feuilly and jehan are having a quiet conversation, and bahorel, struggling to stay awake, joins in occasionally. it all looks so normal but you know it's not, and the day and night hit you all at once in this small contradiction.
"do you need to sleep?" enjolras asks, and it's like he can read your mind.
you nod. "do you?"
he looks at the ground, the red stains there. "i can't." that hangs in the air for a few seconds before he lifts his head again and points to the window of the cafe. "go sleep there. they can't shoot in the windows unless they cross the barricade." though he chopped off the rest of the sentence, your brain supplies it anyway - and if they do that then it won't matter anyway, because then we will be dead.
you wish you could have an ounce of the passion that rallies him now, but when you reach inside yourself you come up with nothing except devotion to this man who you'd follow with the faith of the martyr if he was leading a revolution or if he was walking off a cliff. so you give him one last glance as you head up the stairs to the musain, and his eyes are filled with a fire so fierce it spreads light through your body. he raises a fist and your hair stands on end, and you can feel his warming gaze on you as you close and lock the windows and slump against the wall of the bar. your last thought before the blackness of sleep claims you is of an angel in red, blindfolded, guiding you with surer step than any with the gift of sight could possess.
ten - e
it's over.
the day has been black and cursed and tainted with unimaginable grief since its dawn. gavroche was the first, his little body lying so small in death on the stones of the street. it was the sign that every prayer whispered, every wish sent had gone unanswered or unheard. you were alone, every other post abandoned or wiped out, and though you fought with the fury of men with nothing to lose, twenty men are no match for an army in any world, under any circumstances.
each time you looked around another was dead, and you felt each death like a wound as you moved your friends' bodies. you bent to vomit more than once when you saw their empty gazes or the way they lolled and made no resistance to your crude, unholy movements. your chest is caving in.
the only body you haven't found yet is that of grantaire, and though you know it's childish you still hope that means he is alive. though you do not fear death, not anymore, every time you think about his one-sided smile or his eyes you feel a sharp stab of fear at the idea of losing more days with him. they back you into the cafe; your head is throbbing from heat and blood is sliding down your temple - from who, you do not know, but you are unhurt. the flag, torn from its pole but still in one ragged piece, is clutched tightly in your hand.
as fast as you can, you block the entrance with the small and useless tables left in the cafe, but the soldiers push them aside and face you. you lift your chin, and acceptance washes over you like last night's rain. the remains of your broken gun are in the hand not holding the flag. you drop them at your feet and they echo in the sudden silence.
"he is their leader, he killed our artillery-man," the soldier in the front says over his shoulder to his troops. "and now he stands defenseless in front of us."
you lick your lips and swallow the last of the panic threatening to claw its way up your throat. "shoot me. i am that man."
now the soldier blinks in surprise. "do you not want your eyes covered?"
"no," you reply with a voice that doesn't shake, and wrap the flag tighter around your fist, tensing for the bullets.
"long live the republic!" the voice startles you until you see grantaire pacing his way from behind the bar towards you. your stomach soars and plummets, unable to decide between happiness or preemptive grief. you do not know how he is still alive, but when he stands beside you, you feel like weeping and shouting and holding him at once. and when you look in his eyes you see, finally, your own devotion to the republic reflected back in a mirror, towards you. he is willing to die because you are.
"both of us at one time," grantaire says, voice ringing clear and strong. then he turns to you. your heart is breaking. "do you permit it?"
you take his hand and you smile the same beatific smile you wore at dawn when he was last with you and you had pretended this might not be the last time you saw the sun rise above the horizon in the reflection of his eyes. the bullets come in a flash so bright it could be lightning, striking you both, the star-crossed lovers dying in heaven's purest punishment.
Ici repose Enjolras, qui mourut pour être se souvienne. Et ici repose Grantaire, qui mourut pour être aimé. Laissez-les dormir le sommeil des amants pour l'éternité.