Work Text:
Funny, it’s the night of the full moon when he gets caught in the trap. Not one of his own, he’s not stupid. He has them marked, has them scent-set for the pack to know what they are and who set them. This is one from the hunters that got called in to kill his pack. A trap this close to the house meant close to the pack.
Grantaire twisted, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in his throat. They were tracking closer to the pack now than ever before, and he’d be the first victim. It was kind of fitting. Though why they were using bear traps for wolves, he had no idea.
It was a lot of blood, more than he thought there should be, and the night chill did nothing to keep him from shivering. He’d stop shivering soon enough when the shock set in. He just hoped it wasn’t Marius that found him. Marius didn’t deserve that.
Fuck, it was cold. The frost had set early this year and stayed, settling into his bones in a way it never had before. The moon through the line of trees was huge and beautiful and he hurts so badly he wanted to scream, but he didn’t want to call attention to the pack.
Grantaire knew without a doubt he was going to die out here, and strangely, it didn’t bother him as much as it should. He was protecting his pack, and that was a better reason to die than the despair that clutched at him last winter, that drove Marius and Grantaire to cling to each other like children in the night for fear the monsters would reach them.
He was cold, but it was distant now, and he really wanted to sleep.
And the moon rose higher in the sky.
They stumbled out of the woods mid-morning, naked and shivering, to find Marius on the back porch, pale and drawn and unmoving.
Cosette reached him first, shaking finger brushing at his cheeks where tear tracks had dried a couple hours ago.
Enjolras is the first to ask. “Where’s Grantaire?”
“He’s dead.”
And then Enjolras is shaking from more than the cold. “What?”
“He got caught in one of the traps last night. They found his body this morning a couple hundred yards from here.”
“Oh, Marius,” Cosette murmurs, wrapping herself around him.
“He didn’t tell me where he was going, just that he had to protect you, and I thought-”
“Oh god.”
“They’re being recalled now. The trackers.”
Enjolras is on his knees in the grass, and Combeferre pulls him back to his feet.
“Let’s get into the house.”
Jehan is crying and leaning heavily on Courfeyrac, his leg where it had gotten caught in a rope trap earlier in the winter still painful and scarring over. Eponine dashed upstairs to find everyone close and blankets.
No one asks why they changed back during the middle of winter.
There’s a wolf on the edge of the tree line.
Enjolras can see it looking up at him from the window in (their) his bedroom. It’s long dark hair nearly making it invisible in black night of the new moon. Enjolras thinks it has blue eyes.
He doesn’t know if he’s dreaming, but he doesn’t think so, as the wolf seems to nod at him before melting back into the darkness.
It’s the first time in a long time he sleeps without nightmares. Instead, he dreams of running through the forest with another wolf, smaller and darker but so very familiar and so very his.