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Combeferre no longer startled when a quick triple-rap on his door was followed by a presence whirling, without warning or introduction, into his room. He supposed that could come back to haunt him; if it was, for once, not Courfeyrac invading his space with his careless (yet well-intentioned) bluster, any thief would find him caught totally unaware (though without much to offer). As Combeferre could now discern the blur of brown curls out of the corner of his eye, the quickened pace skittering around his floor, the flash of a red coat flying across the room, he didn’t lift his eyes from his notes.
“Must you always undress as soon as you enter?” Combeferre asked as Courfeyrac’s cravat landed on his desk.
“You keep it so ungodly hot in here, I can’t bear to be fully clothed.” Courfeyrac plopped down onto Combeferre’s mattress, unbuttoning his waistcoat as he sat.
“Paris weather doesn’t suit me. I’m chilled.”
“It doesn’t suit me either. I’m a southerner as much as you are. But the fire’s a little much, don’t you think? It’s April, after all.”
“If if irritates you, you could always leave.” Combeferre looked up. Courfeyrac was grinning at him, as Combeferre knew he would be.
“My dear Combeferre, what kind of friend would I be if I did that?” Courfeyrac fell backwards, throwing a dramatic hand over his eyes. “I shall endure the inferno for you. Will you guide me, oh Virgil, to my earthly paradise?”
“You’ll have to climb Purgatorio on your own tonight.” Combeferre leaned closer to his notes, running his finger along the ink scrawls. He could barely decipher anything he’d written during his medical botany lecture, though in a pinch, he had a few books on the subject, and could certainly glean enough to pass his examination.
“Oh, woe is me. Shall you let me fall into temptation?”
“You’d do so with or without my help.”
Courfeyrac laughed and rolled over, propping his head up in his hand. “Indeed. But sinning is more fun with a comrade.”
“Examinations, Courfeyrac. As I’ve told you every day this week.”
“Every day!” Courfeyrac leapt to his feet, and Combeferre wondered how he failed to make himself dizzy with his constant motion. “You should rest, then, let your tired eyes gaze on something more lovely than…” Courfeyrac looked over his shoulder. “I can’t read a word of that.”
Combeferre groaned and pushed his glasses on top of his head, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “To the books then. I’ll have to read at least two if I want to absorb all that was covered in lecture, there’s certain to be facts in one and not in the other. Not to mention deciphering my midwifery notes. I was writing so fast, I can’t imagine they’re going to be legible.” He reached out for the first book, but Courfeyrac’s hand halted his in its tracks.
“In all seriousness, mon ami. You look like you could use a rest.” Courfeyrac smiled at him – not his usual smile, all teeth and innuendo, but a softer shade, thinner, which dimpled his cheeks and crinkled his eyes. This was the smile that had convinced Combeferre, all those months ago, to take the boisterous boy from his introductory law seminar as a study partner. Combeferre was no longer taking law classes, but Courfeyrac remained ever-present in his home. Despite his complaints, he didn’t mind so much. The first few months in Paris had been quiet, Combeferre retreating to his studies when the city’s conditions – its economic failings, its educational failings, and all that rain – made him too miserable to socialize. Courfeyrac had, unknowingly perhaps, pulled him from all that, and Combeferre had been overjoyed to find an equal – both intellectually (for his tendency to skip lecture, Courfeyrac was whip-smart) and politically.
“A small rest,” Combeferre said, pushing his notes aside. Within seconds, Courfeyrac had a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread sitting in their place. “I thought you wanted to go out?”
“Perhaps later,” Courfeyrac said, and Combeferre noticed his was pouring the wine into three separate glasses. “Tonight, we have company.”
“Company?” Combeferre took a sniff of the wine. “Have you drugged me?”
Courfeyrac looked confused. “You haven’t taken a sip.”
“It’s the only explanation I can find for having heard you say you invited company to my rooms.”
“Well I couldn’t take them to my rooms. My roommate’s a nightmare.”
“What sort of company?”
Courfeyrac waggled his eyebrows comically. “What sort of company did you have in mind?”
Combeferre shot Courfeyrac a glare that seemed to shrink him.
“Just a friend I met in my lecture,” Courfeyrac said, tearing off a piece of bread and offering it to Combeferre, who eyed it warily. “He’s an amiable fellow, if slightly in the clouds.” He waved the bread at Combeferre and smiled.
“The place is a mess,” Combeferre said, taking the bread and chewing on the end. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. In fact, he was just realizing he’d skipped eating entirely that day…
Which was probably something Courfeyrac knew, as he wasn’t taking any of the bread himself.
“Don’t worry, he won’t even notice,” Courfeyrac said. “As I said, a little preoccupied, but I think you’ll find his ideas quite, ahem, radical.”
Before Combeferre could ask Courfeyrac if that meant what he thought it meant, someone knocked on his door. Courfeyrac bounded from his chair and nearly ran to let their guest in.
“Enjolras,” he said to the shadow in the door. “Come in.”
The man named Enjolras stepped into the room, his hands clasped behind his back, and immediately started surveying the bookshelf to his right. He was wearing a rather drab grey coat, and his boots were caked with mud, which was now streaking Combeferre’s floor. His blonde hair, once curly, Combeferre could tell, was now limp and plastered to his high forehead. Drops of rain were running down his face. Enjolras seemed to be unaware of all this, however, unaware that there was another presence in the room, unaware of the fire he could warm himself by, unaware of everything but the towering, disorganized shelf of books before him.
Combeferre decided he and this Enjolras fellow might get along after all.
“Erm, this is Combeferre,” Courfeyrac said, placing a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder and steering him toward the desk. “The one I told you about.”
“The one with all the books.” Enjolras gave him a distracted smile and offered his hand.
“I’m afraid Courfeyrac’s told me nothing about you,” Combeferre said, giving Enjolras’s hand a brisk shake and Courfeyrac a pointed look. “Nothing at all.”
“That’s alright!” Courfeyrac pushed Enjolras into his own chair and took up residence on the bed. “We’ll all become fast friends I’m sure.”
There were a few moments of awkward silence, in which Enjolras looked dazedly back at the bookshelf, Combeferre stuffed some more bread in his mouth, and Courfeyrac watched them expectantly, the smile never leaving his face.
“How did you meet Courfeyrac?” Combeferre finally asked, breaking the silence for fear Courfeyrac’s face might split in two.
“Courfeyrac is in my introductory law seminar,” Enjolras said.
“Is that so?” Combeferre asked, and Courfeyrac had the wherewithal to look sheepish.
“He offered to help me study. I have a tendency to get horribly distracted, even during lecture, and Courfeyrac told me he could teach me the art of focus.”
“What a wonderful proposal,” Combeferre said dryly.
“I do so love the introductory law seminar!” Courfeyrac said. “I would take it twice if I could, to always watch young minds at work.”
Enjolras watched this exchange with a placid smile.
“A first year law student, then?” Combeferre asked Enjolras, offering him a piece of bread.
Enjolras took it, but began picking at it rather than eating it. “Yes.”
“From Paris?”
“The Midi, actually.”
“Ah, what a coincidence,” Courfeyrac said, though his tone indicated no coincidence at all. “Combeferre and I are southerners, as well.”
“Is Paris to your liking?” Combeferre asked.
“Some of it,” Enjolras said, his gaze suddenly darkening, seeming to focus for the first time since he’d entered the room. “Some of it infuriates me more than I can say.”
Combeferre tensed. He’d circled this conversation with other students before, sometimes to embarrassing or disastrous consequences, once getting him and Courfeyrac suspended from Blondeau’s lecture for an entire week. “Yes. Paris has its light and dark.”
“And the dark grows darker every moment.” Enjolras’s eyes met his over the table. They were blue and blazing.
“And the food is excellent, the weather dreadful, and can you believe that monarchy?” Courfeyrac said. Both Enjolras and Combeferre started and looked away. “Oh, you don’t think I’d bring Enjolras here if I didn’t know his politics, do you Combeferre? Have a little faith.”
Combeferre cleared his throat, still a bit uncomfortable with the directness of the conversation. “Your political leanings, then?”
Enjolras sat up straighter in his chair, his eyes aflame once more. “Republican. Revolutionary.”
Courfeyrac beamed.
Combeferre hesitated, then smiled at Enjolras. “You’re in good company.”
Enjolras seemed to come alive, then, leaning forward, his hands abandoning the bread to gesture as he spoke. “Were you at the Champ de Mars last year, for the review of the Garde Royale?"
“I’ve never felt such a chill,” Combeferre said, and Enjolras smiled, a small smile, but none the less dazzling. “Were you in attendance?”
“Still south, I’m afraid.”
“Pity. To see the people unite under such silence was near sublime. I believe you would’ve enjoyed it most ardently.”
“We will see them unite again soon enough, should Charles X continue as he does. But this time they will unite on a barricade.”
Combeferre stilled, then shook his head. “I pray you’re wrong.”
Enjolras’s forehead creased in confusion. “You don’t wish to see the people rise against their oppressors?”
“Of course. But there are better ways to fight injustice than with guns and cannons.”
“How do you suppose?”
“Education.” Combeferre held up his medical botany book as an example. “Literature in the hands of the people will set them free.”
“Yes…” Enjolras sounded wary, as if he was thinking twice about arguing with a stranger in his own home, but pressed on. “But that is a slow progress. Urgency is upon us. Our choice to embrace it or ignore it will ultimately decide our fate.”
“Slow progress, I would argue, is our natural state.”
“But the natural is sometimes eclipsed by the unnatural, which has enveloped Paris in – ”
“I knew it!” Courfeyrac cried, leaping off the bed and placing a hand on both Combeferre and Enjolras’s shoulders, laughing. “Ten minutes in and you’re already debating. This was one of my better ideas, for certain.”
Combeferre blinked. He hadn’t realized how quickly his conversation with Enjolras had intensified. He felt his cheeks flush, embarrassed that he’d allowed himself to be so passionate with a stranger, but one glance at Enjolras told him the younger man matched his fervor equally, if not surpassing it.
“My apologies,” Enjolras said, standing. “But I must take my leave. I told Courfeyrac I could only stay for a moment, and that moment has come and gone.” He smiled at Combeferre. “It was excellent speaking with you.”
“Perhaps we can finish our conversation at a later date?” Combeferre said.
“Of course!” Courfeyrac agreed for Enjolras. “We will have meetings and such. They will be great fun.”
“And productive,” Enjolras said. “I feel as if the three of us could accomplish something great.”
Combeferre felt himself blush again at the earnestness of Enjolras’s statement. He had to admit, though, he felt the same. There was a spark in the room, a steady thrum of energy that made Combeferre feel strong, complete and whole for the first time since he’d arrived in Paris.
“Why stop at three?” Courfeyrac said as he led Enjolras to the door. “I know a marvelous fellow who shares our sympathies and frequents a café…well, most cafés…who can talk politics while playing a rousing game of dominoes.”
“Please don’t introduce Enjolras to Bahorel,” Combeferre said. “You’ll scare him away.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of!” Courfeyrac sounded outraged. “Bahorel is splendid. Quite charming, a riot, a good man to have on your side of a brawl, of course…”
“…a man who once knocked another unconscious for insulting his waistcoat.”
“To be fair,” Courfeyrac leaned toward Enjolras, “this was preceded by a rather heated dispute about the merits of studying law and a particularly zealous political shouting match.”
“And Bahorel is quite fond of his waistcoats.”
“And of his new companion.” Courfeyrac helped Enjolras put his coat on, much to Enjolras’s bewilderment. “A little poet fellow, goes by Jehan. Dreamy sort, Romantic, but quite the spitfire when roused.”
“I should like to meet them.” Enjolras paused with his hand on the door, seemingly reluctant to leave, and Combeferre thought he suddenly looked young, eighteen or nineteen, whereas he'd previously seemed to surpass age, defy any attempts to label him of this earth. He looked hopeful, excited, and Combeferre felt a warm wave of fondness wash over him. “I should very much like to meet them all.”
“Until next time,” Combeferre said kindly.
“I look forward to it.”
As soon as Courfeyrac closed the door on Enjolras, he turned and grinned at Combeferre. “Was this not a better way to spend your time than reading horribly dry medical texts?”
Combeferre shook his head, but smiled. “Where did you find him?”
Courfeyrac threw himself back onto Combeferre’s mattress with a satisfied sigh. “Arguing with some fool outside the law school. I was so inspired I followed him into his lecture and convinced him to befriend me.”
“So you refuse to attend your own lectures, but attend others’ – others’ that you’ve already completed, mind you – in the name of friendship.”
Courfeyrac placed his hand solemnly over his heart. “’Tis my duty.”
Combeferre shook his head and replaced his glasses on his face, adjusting them on his nose before pulling his notes back to him with a sigh. He found he was even less focused than before, thinking only of their next meeting with Enjolras, what points he would try to make, what texts he would bring to support his theories, what books he could lend…
“I see there’s no distracting you any longer,” Courfeyrac said, gathering his cravat and coat and reassembling himself. “I’ll be off.”
“The bread…”
“Keep it,” Courfeyrac said.
“You brought too much. If you knew Enjolras was only staying for a short while – ”
“Ah, silly me,” Courfeyrac said, in a voice that assured Combeferre he knew exactly what he was doing. “When will I ever learn? You must take the whole loaf, then, as I’ve had a marvelous bisque not hours ago and couldn’t possibly eat another bite.” Courfeyrac smiled another of those tender smiles. “You’re looking peakish, as it is.”
“Thank you,” Combeferre said, feeling his heart swell a bit. Courfeyrac seemed flighty on first impression, but only recently had Combeferre come to realize the depth of his concern.
“Think nothing of it, mon ami. Consider it gratitude for being as excellent as you are.” Courfeyrac kissed Combeferre’s temple roughly, quickly, and made for the door. “We’ll win you friends, yet.”
Combeferre felt the chill disappear from the room, and reminded himself to extinguish the fire before Courfeyrac and Enjolras came around again. There was enough light in a room full of them to warm the coldest Parisian heart.