The nightmares didn't come at first. It might've been easier for him if they had started afterwards, directly afterwards, so that it was in his own bed-not a shared one-where he awoke in a cold sweat, shaking and nearly sobbing, with the the names of his friends on his lips, and the guilt of survival heavy in his chest.
Whether he'd have coped with it better on his own is up for debate, and he does wonder it. Perhaps it would've been worse if he'd been forced to stew in his own mind with their ghosts. Left simply to bathe in the guilt, and the regret, and the thousands of "if"s that always haunt the ones who didn't die.
Of course, at the odd hours of the night he wakes, his wife-a strange thing to think-only manages to keep herself awake for a few minutes of his near sobbing explanations-perhaps describing his near-suicide, just before Eponine died in his arms, or watching Gavroche fall beneath the bullets as Grantaire sobbed behind him-before sleep claimed her again.
And he was left all the more guilty again, for not only was he left alone with his mourning, he was reminded that after the deaths of his friends he was rewarded for his flight with a beautiful girl and the forgiveness of his grandfather.
Most nights, he did not fall asleep again.
Perhaps if Cosette had not tried so hard to help him, he would've been happier. But she would make such attempts to cheer him from his foul moods, putting her hand on his arm or his shoulder or his face and nearly begging him to explain, to talk, she just wanted to understand ...
It was that that made him snap, even if he regretted the words even as they left his mouth. How could she want to understand such torment, how could she even come close to knowing what it was like to watch all the friends you've ever known shot and destroyed and murdered all around you?
He stormed out and left her in tears, nearly wanting to apologize, but finding no words for it. His feet knew the way, and he was far too aggravated to bother considering where he walked, and he found himself at the ruins that were once the ABC Cafe.
He slept there that night, and didn't return to Cosette and his grandfather until nearly midday the next morning.
Cosette's face was a strange mixture of worry and relief that he was surprised didn't affect him more. But he could still feel the bitterness from the day before, and the guilt and anguish in a blended mess in his gut, and the fawning se bestowed upon him that normally would've warmed his heart only ignited the annoyance a cat may feel towards a fly.
It was his grandfather that really brought about a reaction. Staring him down from the stairs above him, with a cold, sharp glare that held clear disappointment. All the animosity between them, carefully held under wraps, appeared again, and a flame of anger rose in him.
Why the older man tried to hide his contempt for his grandson, Marius could not say. Perhaps the man liked Cosette and Valjean-out of respect for them? Perhaps an attempt to coax his relative back into high society? A new wife, a new family, a new leaf, as well. Perhaps simply pity for the failed revolutionary? But he was finished with that pretense now, and his true feelings resurfaced.
Marius' hands came to his wife's shoulders to push her away. Fury boiled in him-that he might be coddled, be doted upon, be pitied by people who had never felt what he'd felt. People who would speak of the ABC with words of regret and disappointment, that they'd "thrown their lives away."
Rich bastards who had never felt the passion he'd felt, never had something to die for. Never known the ties built by those who waged a war side by side.
But then, those ties were severed, were they not? Dead and gone, every one of them. Enjolras, and his rallying speeches, he who had brought them all under one flag. Eponine, and her quiet teases and comments. They'd never again walk to the cafe together. Hell, there was hardly a cafe left to walk to.
And such, the fire of anger fizzled away, and the tears tung behind his eyes again. Still, it was not quite sadness which filled him. No, it was much closer to regret. Regret that he'd survived the barricade. Regret that, of his friends, his amazing, kind, brave friends, it was he who was the sole survivor, he who hadn't been killed.
The hands on Cosette's shoulders, which had been put there with the intent to be rough, moved her gently to one side. Gentle, but not warm, more the way one would shift a chair that was in their walking path.
He moved up the stairs, turning slightly to push past his grandfather as he continued on his way.
The man's gaze had become confused, and he had no words to offer the near panicked girl as she called for her husband. He murmured something vaguely cruel about his grandson's nature, and advised her not to follow him. Always was an odd boy, and it's best to let the odd figure out their own problems.
Unbeknownst to him, Marius had already sorted them out, and it was with a quiet clarity that he shifted through his bags. Honestly a bit unsure as to whether or not he'd kept the relic-but ah, there it was. The pistol he'd used.
Someone had apparently bothered to unload it-or had he simply used it entirely,when he had used it? No matter, he filled it again easily enough.
Even as he lifted the gun to his temple, he thought he could hear his friends again. Their voices ringing out, missing only one to complete the army who'd stood behind the barricade.
They wouldn't be missing it much longer.