This is the first chapter of what will hopefully become a multi-chaptered story, which deals with what may have happened post-barricades had the Amis survived, but not voluntarily. I will attempt to style the writing for whoever POV it is, so in this chapter, I apologise if Jehan is a little over-Romantic! From the title, you may be able to guess what the main theme of the story concerns; redemption. There will be slash later on, so sorry if you don't like that. Review, if you'd like, and read on, if you can bear my bad writing.
Jean Prouvaire contemplated the night sky as he hastily advanced to the Café Musain for a meeting. A single clause of Isaiah was called to his mind after he scoured the heavens for a trace of illumination and brilliance amongst the smoky Parisian empyrean; Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. Indeed it seemed as though Paris was a begrimed garment, with destitution at its aiguille amongst the vast mountains of despair and starvation. Jehan knew though that judgment day advanced, clear on the horizon, where the destruction of those who dared to declare sovereignty would be ousted, with all it's ferocious, bloody splendor. Tomorrow he would take his place next to Enjolras, Bahorel, Combeferre and all the rest of his dear friends, and have France and its reviled progeny blossom into an exquisite paradise like fields of violets amongst azure skies, bereft of the rotting sea of royal corpses and the death-fires of their defendants.
Jehan contemplated all of this while walking, sometimes jogging, at quite a pace. He was late to a meeting at the Musain, which had started half an hour ago, and was sure that Enjolras would disapprove of his tardiness on the eve of the barricades, much to Prouvaire's distress. He wished he had a valid excuse. A service to the Cause perhaps, collecting ammunition or funds from the masons. But he was certain that his actual engagement would not sound as reasonable to Enjolras as it did to Jehan. He had been lost amongst the light perfumes of Lamartine passion, all concepts of time forgotten and neglected as he absorbed himself in the amour of Le Lac. He blushed slightly at the thought of explaining his selection of poetry to his chaste leader. Well, at least it had not been Aeschylus.
He approached the Musain from the Rue de Grés, hoping to slip into the backroom largely unnoticed by its occupants and take a seat at his usual table, perhaps with Bahorel. However, upon entering the room he realised that all of its occupants were absent. Jehan's first thoughts were, naturally, morbid. Had death in the form of some strange inferno found it's way prematurely to the café and consumed his friends to prevent their role in the deliverance of Elysium? Logic, albeit an unfamiliar trait to the poet, defeated this explanation in the end though, however morbidly fascinating it was. It was more likely that the meeting had been arranged to a different destination. Jehan felt slightly hurt, though not all together surprised, that he had obviously been the only one not informed about this decision; indeed, even Grantaire was absent from his usual seat in the Musain. It could have also finished earlier of course, though meetings did not tend to last the short time of half an hour, especially one the day before such an important event as the funeral of Lamarque. So Prouvaire made his way to the Corinthe, this time not allowing his surrounds to distract him.
But all he found in the Corinthe was a morose Grantaire, who had obviously spent the day sleeping off the affects of absinthe and wine. Still one out of nine was better than none at all.
"Grantaire! I am glad to see you!" Jehan announced.
"You are?" Grantaire asked, slightly surprised.
"Yes! For if you are here, then you are not dead!"
"…Dead?" repeated Grantaire, confused. "Why should I be dead? I didn't drink that much, did I?"
"Well, when I arrived at the Musain for a meeting this evening, there was nobody there. I was late, because I was appreciating the allure of Lamartine prose…" (Grantaire rolled his eyes, but being in a surly mood, did not comment), "…but not more than half an hour and the meeting should have still been taking place. I thought that they had simply rearranged a new meeting place and forgotten to tell me. But they are not here"
"A meeting? At the Musain? I was not informed of this. Enjolras must have neglected to tell me" Grantaire said with an air of disenchantment.
"Grantaire! Listen! They were not there! The eve of the funeral and they are missing!" Jehan said, his face looking frantic.
"And I am sure that they simply finished the meeting early. Perhaps Courfeyrac finally convinced Apollo to accompany him to the Opera. He wanted to see Halévy's La Tentation, remember? It's playing at the Salle Le Pelletier. Though for what reason I cannot say. Must have something to do with the fact that its fashionable, for the opera itself is duller than Combeferre's tirade on secular education at a parish level that he broadcasted across dinner at this very table a few nights ago"
"I cannot believe that they all would have just gone to the Opera"
"Why not?"
"Enjolras would not have, not the night before Lemarque's funeral. Nor Bahorel. He can't stay still in his seat for more than the first act on a normal occasion."
"Prouvaire, there could be several reasonable explanations for their absence at the Musain. Perhaps they simply finished their antics early for a good night sleep for the funeral tomorrow. Now, how about a glass of wine before leaving?"
Jehan at last looked reasonably reassured.
"No thank you" he said, with a polite smile. "I best do the same as the others and return home. Goodnight, Grantaire. Perhaps I'll see you at the funeral tomorrow?"
The last statement was presented as a question, but he received no answer. Grantaire simply raised his eyebrows. Jehan left then, and returned home.
Grantaire shook his head after Prouvaire had left. He had offered him a drink knowing that he would refuse, but it seemed the polite thing to do anyway. Prouvaire hardly ever drank, which was quite unfortunate in Grantaire's opinion, as he knew that the bashful façade hid numerous idiosyncrasies beneath, at least according to Bahorel's stories of experimentation with hashish. Generally, the boy just appeared slightly bemused around Grantaire as if he didn't know what to make of him. What surprised Grantaire the most was that he hadn't formed the same opinion of Grantaire as Enjolras, who Prouvaire admired very much, although granted, the younger man was far more wary around him than the likes of Bahorel, Bossuet, Joly or Courfeyrac.
He was very wary indeed tonight, thought Grantaire. But perhaps frantic would be a better word to describe it? Trust Jehan to be frightened at the thought of his friends disappearing. He could not live without them. And neither could you, a small voice said in his head. No, he could not live without his friends. But they could live without him, as proved tonight. No invitation to their meeting. He was unsurprised that the leader of the group had not informed him about it, though it did pain him still, but he was slightly offended that Bossuet or Bahorel had not mentioned it. Although, come to think of it, had Courfeyrac said something about it over dinner the other night? Perhaps he had, as he had hardly been in a state to remember it. In fact, the longer Grantaire attempted to recollect the evening, the surer he became that he had been told about this meeting. And while he had been drinking in the rather cold Corinthe (Mme. Hucheloup had long neglected the ailing fire), his friends were probably out enjoying the Opera. Perhaps even Enjolras had gone. Bravo, he thought to himself. It is your own fault that you are here, and that you forgot about the meeting. Now you must brave the cold, sitting here, with wine as your sole source of warmth instead of the arrows of sunlight from the bow of a God, which you would have found at the Musain. And you are usually so very good at finding a place to drink…
He longed for the oblivion and ignorance that the weak wine upon his table was not granting him. Corinthe, much to its disgrace, was not serving absinthe that evening, waiting for a delivery of the La Fee Verte that would not arrive until tomorrow. Being short on sous, he debated whether or not the serving-maids at the nearby Café Pharamond on the Rue de la Grande Truanderie could be convinced to put his bill on the tab. But he decided against it. It was newly opened so perhaps it would be a bad start to owe debt to them, though normally he had no problem with such a position. Anyway, he knew that the owner was Norwegian; who is to say that they even served absinthe, even though, foreign owned or not, every self-respecting Parisian café should. So he did as he so often did, and decided on a far simpler resolution; he would return home and enjoy his own bottle in in cupboard before sleeping.
A light pocket forced him to walk rather than taking an omnibus, which he would have much preferred. Besides they did not pass the Corinthe. The night was chilly and the hike hardly helped his sore head. As he passed nearby Rue Serpent in the Monnaie Quartier, he had a sudden fancy to call on Joly's apartment and to ask whether or not they had gone to opera, and if so, ask them to reassure Prouvaire that they were not only alive and well, but that they would see him at the funeral tomorrow.
He knocked on the apartment. The concierge downstairs had fallen asleep, so Grantaire had no trouble in entering. To his surprise, it was neither Joly nor Bossuet who answered the door, but a young pretty Grisette.
"Monsieur Grantaire", she said with a smile. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
It was Musichetta. Grantaire had met her before on several occasions. It was a forward greeting that she presented in this instance, for it was not her apartment that he visited and she was not really under the impression that he had come for her, but Grantaire liked her manner of social intrepidity so no offense was taken.
"I wondered if the men of the house were in?" he asked, returning her smile.
She frowned then, her face becoming more serious.
"No, they are not. In fact, I have begun to grow worried. You see they were to go to meet their friends at that café on the Place St Michel that they usually frequent. My Joly promised that both of them would return by eleven but it is not so. Oh do come in!"
Grantaire entered the warm apartment. The warm fire was much to his liking.
"It is not like them to tell me one thing, than do another. I would never allow it," she said, her eyes twinkling. "I suppose I should not be worried. It's just with the funeral tomorrow, I… But it's silly. They probably found a nice place to eat and stayed there for the evening"
Musichetta knew more about tomorrow's events than he expected. He doubted Courfeyrac's mistress of the week even knew about the funeral, let alone be concerned for the potential events that may involve her lover. But it was Musichetta, it was Joly and it was Bossuet. Unconventionality was hardly novel to them.
"I doubt you have reason to be concerned", he said slightly awkward. Women were strange and lovely creatures, and Musichetta was the strangest, and perhaps one of the loveliest. Flirtatious advancements he was comfortable with, though hardly talented, but in matters of sympathy and consolation, he was unfamiliar. In fact, he did not like to deal with women at all unless inebriated and in the company of his friends. At the current moment, he was neither.
"Perhaps their meeting finished early?"
"Perhaps" Grantaire agreed, though, privately, he thought that wasn't very likely. Being the day before his revolution, Enjolras would hardly cut the meeting short. The closer the day of the funeral drew, the more passion and vision he seemed to vent. The last meeting he really and truly had soared. His voice had lifted to the heights of Olympus, and Grantaire merely watched as Apollo charged his golden chariot through skies of absolute belief, so foreign to the lowly cynic. No, he would not have cut the meeting short. But that brought to light a question; where were Les Amis de l'Abaissé?
"You may wait for them here, if you like. In fact, I could even make up a bed for you" she offered.
Grantaire smirked slightly at the unusual offer, distracting him from his train of thought. He had stayed at Joly's many times, though never in the company of Musichetta, and certainly never without Joly or Bossuet present. Highly improper, a more genteel person may of found the offer. But that was not Grantaire. Who was he to judge the mistress and her two lovers? With a grin and a shrug, he accepted her accommodation.
Grantaire awoke the next morning, in the living room of the Joly's apartment, to find Musichetta looking at him.
"They aren't back yet"
Grantaire blinked from his position on the sofa, slightly disorientated. That's right, he thought, there's a missing revolutionary group on the day of their revolution. He frowned then.
"How strange" he remarked. Perhaps Prouvaire had been correct.
"Well there's only one thing for it I suppose. I had better go to that funeral to find them" Musichetta said.
"You can't do that!"
"But I am passed concerned now!"
Grantaire considered his options. Though he would dearly like some wine, he supposed that if his friends really were in danger, he should know about it. In danger? Of course they are, with their barricades, he thought. But this was strange. And he could not let Musichetta go to the funeral. Bossuet would probably kill him (though he doubted that he'd succeed). There was only one thing for it. He'd attend Enjolras' funeral after all, if only to confirm that he was alive.