Work Text:
Before
1832: evening
A small flat, the windows open to let in the last of the spring
"Will you mind it?" asks Enjolras. "Dying?"
If he was living another life, Courfeyrac's sure this would be an alarming question; at the very least, a less than ideal way to disrupt the lull in the conversation. In this life, it's a valid and worthwhile thing to ponder. Besides, there has surely been a series of conversational segues that have taken them to this: the next logical topic to turn to. So it's better just to accept the question. Combeferre doesn't seem eager to reply, so Courfeyrac finishes the dregs of his cheap wine and starts them off. He speaks softly; the world outside is noiseless.
"I mean, I can't know that." And Enjolras concedes the point with a little nod. "But the thought of it? Sort of. Obviously. But it is nice to know that I won't live long enough to become everything I fear by inches, I suppose. No more worrying that I'll take up my father's politics and my mother's disdain, get distracted by pretty ballrooms and easy answers-"
"You would never have done any of that."
Sometimes Courfeyrac wonders what it's like to be Enjolras, but whenever he's tried to ask, Enjolras never quite understands the question: how can he be anything but what he is? How would he know what to describe? How can he contrast himself to anything when he's never been anything else? Elegant, articulate points. Bad conversation. He'd pointed it out. Enjolras had smiled and touched his hand, apologetically.
"Well, regardless," says Courfeyrac, "I'll try anything once." It gets a brief breath out of both of them. He sits up a little straighter and says, "You know what would be really terrible."
"Mm?"
"Say we do go to some kind of heaven, yes? Or a spiritual pool, or some ethereal realm, or what-have-you. Say we get to watch the planet spin without us. Think about it: we won't be able to meddle. We'll just have to watch it, like a play. What if it's a bad play?"
"Perhaps our perspectives would be changed by our newfound circumstances," says Combeferre, without the zeal that implies he's looking to play devil's advocate; he's merely pointing something out. "Perhaps we'd find our investment in the mortal coil much different."
"That is not heaven," says Enjolras, "that's hell."
"Have to agree," says Courfeyrac.
"So do I," says Combeferre. "From this perspective."
"I do not care for another," Enjolras replies, shortly.
Combeferre glances at Courfeyrac, who glances back. They have discussed this interesting Enjolraic dichotomy of transcendence and stubborn attachment to his view of the world time and time again: his vision is beyond this world, but he is not a Combeferre and prefers not to imagine visions which do not suit his expectations or scope. Nor is he a Courfeyrac, willing to adapt to the multitudes of possibilities, so long as he can make the occasional earthy wisecrack. He's of his own kind.
Enjolras, who has overheard one or two of these discussions, looks irritated.
"Then perhaps it will be everything you want it to be," says Combeferre.
"Don't patronize."
Combeferre sighs, taking off his spectacles and examining the lenses, but not seeing enough dust or oil to warrant cleaning them. He puts them back on. "That was not my intent," he says, "but I apologize. This is, however, a difficult discussion to have when you are so adamant about… the constants of morals through the limitlessness of all existence, levels of which we cannot imagine."
"If they are not constant," Enjolras replies, "why have we bothered with this attempt? If there is a grander truth, more perfect morality, why do we not pursue that?"
Courfeyrac would be flinching under such fire, but Combeferre only shrugs. "Perhaps we cannot comprehend it, let alone enact it."
Enjolras cuts in before Combeferre has even closed his mouth. "Then why exist on the earth at all? Why bother with life when there is your grander, final reality to consider?"
Combeferre finally looks him in the eye, frowning a little. "It is not my reality, Enjolras. Nor is it yours."
"Perhaps we could talk about other things," says Courfeyrac, mildly and about a minute too late, "things which are not horrifying questions about the meaning of our existence."
Combeferre, thank God, takes the cue. "Such as?"
"I don't know. The tangible? We don't discuss it often, we could give it a try." It's a fruitless effort, especially when Enjolras is looking down at his hands like the lines on his palms will spell out an answer. "Yes," says Courfeyrac. "I don't know where to start, either."
"If the doors of perception were cleansed," says Combeferre, "every thing would appear to man as it is."
Enjolras cannot resist completing a quote: "Infinite."
Courfeyrac dutifully supplies, "For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern." He leans his head back against the wall and shuts his eyes. "Impossible, really. Asked for tangibility, and we reply with Blake. Impossible. We're impossible."
After
Elsewhere
They did not mind it, dying.
It hurt. It was difficult. In the seconds between dying and death, it seemed to take a very long time. Bullets crawled into their bodies and nestled there, or tunneled all the way through to find another target to hit. Bayonets dipped in and out of their chests. Their skins flushed purple where they were hit too hard.
In the seconds between dying and death, they found something to look at: a blue sky, a determined face, a piece of reassuring graffiti. They thought that maybe they could've lived and done something else. They thought there might have been another way, and they were right. But they knew that what was happening was happening, and that happening meant something. Not everything, but something.
In the seconds between dying and death, their plans did not come to fruition. They had hoped to end something terrible, but understood that they had started something good. They had hoped to prove idealism, but understood that they had challenged cynicism. They had hoped to die together. They didn't think it would happen, but they'd hoped. None of them died alone, however. And it was important.
In the instant of death, there was no argument.
And it is not at all what they expected, which was, perhaps, to be expected. It's spherical where they had imagined flatness. It’s simple where they expected complexity. They weren't wrong about it, but they had never found the words for something like this. It would've been like expecting an ant to speak to a man. There is a nobility in the tongue of ants, but a different nobility in the tongue of humans. It doesn't translate.
The lovely, terrible play is above and below, around and within, and it does not end in 1832.