Sequel/prequel to You're The Only Reason I Stay (This Coward's Melee) and We Can't Change Our Course, Our Fate's Sealed Long Ago.

A/N: Originally this was all going to be one big one-shot but, I don't know, the format didn't work for me or something? Anyway, it all felt disconnected, so instead everyone gets their own little chapter.

Summary: Enjolras is inordinately attached to his phone wallpaper and the political theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Combeferre tends to pay the price for these things alongside him.

Enjolras has had the same phone wallpaper since he was 17: a grainy snapshot of a photograph he found going through some albums of his early years that, despite its poor quality, he has transferred onto every new phone he has gotten over the years and is the first personal setting applied to each; before he even adds his contacts or changes the ring tone. His walllpaper is Combeferre at about 6 or 7, his eyes crossed and two front teeth missing from his delighted grin, a butterfly settled daintily on the end of his nose. The print photo had been shoved hastily into the album at some point and the corner had folded over so that there is a crease in Combeferre's head. The original snapshot had been taken hastily on a bad camera phone. But there is no photo that Enjolras likes better, and no picture that makes Combeferre blush harder than when he picks up Enjolras' phone to send a message or set a reminder.

Enjolras doesn't recall meeting Combeferre. Nor does he recall a time when Combeferre wasn't a part of his life. Combeferre's parent's have albums stuffed full of photos of the two of them growing up; their first day of Primary School grinning identical smiles, as pudgy toddlers pulling each other around by the hand, all the way back to a time before either could walk or talk, but still sleeping curled against each other on Combeferre's parent's couch, like ying and yang. Enjolras' parents do not have a similar photo collection. They do not even appear to have any photos of just Enjolras alone, or at least none that they liked enough to display. The walls in Combeferre's house are covered with the photos and achievements of him and his sisters. There's a family picture sitting on the table opposite the front entrance, Combeferre front-and-centre, with his arm slung around Enjolras' shoulders. Enjolras is not overly bothered by the lack of acknowledgement in the house his parents live in.

When they had been children, Enjolras' teachers had pushed him towards team sports as a way of expending his seemingly boundless energy. He had liked the idea of playing on a team in theory. But in practice, the other kids had been unable to hold any conversation with him, seemingly losing their words when he tried to speak to them, or ignoring him when he tried to give them advice. Enjolras soon grew tired of it, and went back to spending all his time fidgeting in the library, with Combeferre.

Combeferre has always been a voracious reader, and their early school days were the worst for it, offering nothing else to distract him from every book he could get his hands on. He didn't have any particular preference. He was as interested in fantasy as much as mathematics and history, believed in ghosts and the supernatural as much as he did in science. And he shared everything he read with Enjolras. Enjolras appreciated his friend's knowledge, of course, but at times he would have preferred being out doing something.

However, it was that insatiable appetite for learning that led Combeferre to make the discovery that changed their lives forever.

He is 14 the first time he stumbles upon the term "social contract" in one of his sister's politics books. The two of them are locked behind the door in Combeferre's room. Technically speaking, Combeferre isn't allowed to read any of his sister's school books, but they waited until the rest of his family were sleeping to take the book and read it by torchlight. Enjolras is reading something about history or science, he won't remember when he thinks of this later, but he will always remember the quiet little hum of agreement Combeferre makes when he reads about Rousseau for the first time.

After that, the two of them devour any book on the ideology that they can find. Often, Combeferre reads aloud to him from library books that they can only find one copy of; holed up in corner with their heads bowed together. Combeferre's voice still cracks on occasion, when he reads something he finds particularly exciting. Enjolras lies awake at night, thinking of all the ways the world could be better, all the ways that people can be more equal and free. He feels as if he has found his life's purpose.

-00000-

Combeferre may have been the first to read the term, but it's Enjolras - still a few months short of his 14th birthday himself - who first gets the two of them in trouble in the name of it. Their school is conservative, to say the least. It had not been Combeferre's parent's first choice, but it had been Enjolras', and Combeferre had followed him there as he follows him in everything.

When the topic of the social contract is raised, their history teacher calls it an idealistic and immature theory - created by a hypocritical and unfaithful man - that caused greater bloodshed than was necessary. One that is unrealistic in the current political climate.

Emboldened by his new knowledge of an idea different than the norm, Enjolras leaps to his feet to argue for the virtue of Rousseau and his theory. He gets himself and Combeferre their first school suspension when he calls their teacher a "close-minded bourgeois apologist" at the top of his voice and Combeferre steps in to back him up.

As they're marched to the principle's office, Enjolras can see other students in their classrooms turn their head to watch them walk passed through the small windows on the door. Near the end of the hallway, one girl actually cracks the door to poke her head out and get a proper look at the person she had heard shouting about political change.

Enjolras wants them all to look. He wants them to see a different way; see a change.

-00000-

Today, Enjolras looks back on that moment strangely fondly.

He is the first to admit that, at the time, his knowledge of the subject had been lacking; he had been a bratty little kid who didn't like to be told that his ideas were suspect, arguing antiquated ideas he didn't fully understand, on behalf of a man who abandoned his family. He can shake his head now, at the boy he had been. Who had read maybe four or five books on a subject positioned from one side of political leaning, and thought he knew everything about it. Over the years he has discovered that there is always new things to be learnt; he would never speak about something now without months of careful planning and research and talking to people who know more about the topic than himself. He wants to change the world through knowledge and education and he approaches every matter with a seriousness that reflects that desire.

But that first suspension - the first time he had been formally punished for speaking his mind - is what lights the flame in Enjolras' heart, and it has burned bright and harsh ever since.