AN: it's been a while since I've read the book (I'm rereading it now) so this is more film based (don't hurt me plz) any spelling mistakes are my own, enjoy!
Enjolras wakes to the soft rustle of sheets beneath his splayed fingers. For a few moments he's blinded by white, he wonders if this is the paradise the drilled into him in Sunday school but he quick,y pushes those thoughts away, neatly stacks in a box for examination later.
He hasn't had sheets for a long time.
He blinks and his throat is raw, there's a stench like gun powder clinging to his nostrils and a weight on his chest. His breath comes in ragged gasps and there's a moment, a brief moment where panic rises in his throat but he pushes it down to the pit of his stomach, concentrates on breathing. When he closes his eyes again he can see the lifeless eyes of his friends, the red of his flag, the shower of bullets.
"You have glass in your hair."
Enjolras jumps, turns his head slightly. "Grantaire," he rasps.
(Do you permit it?)
Grantaire offers him a tired smile.
(His hand is warm in his)
"We're alive," he whispers because its ridiculous. Because its ridiculous and impossible and dizzying, because Enjolras never really planned on this. Not once he knew they were the only barricade left.
Grantaire nods and Enjolras notices the thick swathe of bandages around his chest. Grantaire's skin is paler than usual, and dark circles hang under his eyes. "We're the only ones, you know."
Enjolras' eyes widen and it takes a few minutes for that to sink in, "All of them?" He croaks.
Grantaire nods, eyes fixed on the wall beyond the bed. "All of them."
He makes to stand but Grantaire pushes him back down gently, "Easy, easy." He says softly.
This wasn't the plan. The plan was glorious, justified, beautiful. Now, in his tiny hospital bed he sees it for the fools dream it was. "H-How did we survive?" He asks, throat dry.
Grantaire's blue eyes fix briefly on him. He snorts, shakes his head and there are tears in his eyes, "By the grace of God," he says mockingly. "There was a man, the man who dragged away Marius and killed the Inspector. He came back and brought us here."
"Marius?"
Grantaire looks at him.
"I'm sorry," Enjolras gasps, without quite knowing why.
Grantaire throws him an unreadable look as he stands, "You should rest, Enjolras."
When Enjolras next wakes the man who saved he and Grantaire is sitting beside his bed. The man smiles at him, "It is good to see you up. We feared you would not survive, you had eight bullets in your chest."
"I should not have survived," he says softly. "I'm sorry."
The man shakes his head sympathetically, "Why do you apologise, boy?"
"You came for Marius," he swallows. "He did not make it. Why did you save him?"
"He won my daughter's heart, I had to bring him back to her."
Enjolras laughs a little, breathless and wet. He remembers the far away look in Marius' eyes when he told them of her, how he'd resented that nameless girl, how he'd hated her for taking Marius' heart from the revolution. The man is watching him with tired eyes and a strange half smile, the kind of smile a father might give a wayward son. The thought of his parents makes something twist painfully in his chest, he'd been dead to them for years.
"I dismissed his love so quickly," Enjolras says. "I thought him so misguided."
The man smiles, "So your friend was telling me. What did you fight for, if not for love?"
Enjolras chuckles, "For France. For the belief we could change things. For freedom. It sounds so foolish now, now all my friends are gone."
"They died for what they believed in."
"I should have died as one of them."
The man stands, claps him on the shoulder, "Clearly not, lad."
It is a month before he is able to stand again, a few more weeks before he is allowed to leave, the man who saved them- Jean Valjean- tells them they are believed dead, there will be no reprimand for their actions. Grantaire is waiting for him in the street, a half empty bottle of wine grasped loosely between his long fingers. At any other time he would have wrinkled his nose at the stench of alcohol that hung about his friend but today he welcomes it. Grantaire gives him a messy salute, "Enjolras," he greets.
Enjolras makes a few unsteady steps, falls against his friend who giggles drunkenly, "Steady on." He says and for a moment they're just school boys again, but then the bullet wounds in Enjolras' chest twinges and he's drawn roughly back into the present.
They stumble back to their flats in the roads behind the cafe, when they make it there Grantaire (who has sobered up considerably) has to all but carry him up the dark, quiet steps to his small room. He is dumped unceremoniously on the mattress and Grantaire eyes him, a smirk playing across his lips. A pang of anger builds up in Enjolras' chest, "Does it please you to see me like this, Grantaire?" He growls weakly.
Grantaire sniggers, "It suits you ill, Enjolras. But I must admit, it is refreshing to see our once glorious leader in such a state."
Enjolras snarls, tries to clamber up to hit him because how dare he? but his arms tremble and his legs fail him so he flops back down onto the thin mattress much to Grantaire's amusement. He takes a lazy swig of his wine and much of it splashes across his shirt. "Don't hurt yourself, Enjolras. I'm not carrying you back to the hospital." He says scathingly.
Enjolras closes his eyes, breathing heavily. "It would be a shame, Grantaire, for you to have survived the barricade only to be felled by me." There is silence then, like the silence after a barrage of gunfire, eerie and somber.
"Do you blame me?" He asks and Grantaire turns to him with wine-hazed eyes.
"Sometimes."
"I didn't mean to," he begins, trails off. He didnt mean to survive.
Grantaire stiffens and looks down at him with something akin to anger, his jaw is set and in the half-light Enjolras isn't sure if he is imagining the wetness in Grantaire's eyes. "I'll be back in the morning to see if you're still alive." He says stiffly.
"I'm sorry," Enjolras whispers, "I'm sorry!" but Grantaire is already by the door. "Grantaire!" He calls, a desperate plea. Grantaire doesn't turn back.
He lies awake for hours after Grantaire has left. It was a stupid thing to say.
He sits up with some difficulty, stands unsteadily and limps across to the door. He slips into the darkened corridor, Grantaire's room is on the floor below. He passes Marius' door, valiantly ignores the burn behind his eyes, the feeling of his stomach plummeting into the depths of hell. He makes his way down the stairs, leaning heavily against the wall, pushes in to Grantaire's room (he never did remember to lock it.) When he finds the room empty he's overcome by a sick rush of fear he's gone, he's gone, he's gone. His knees buckle and his vision clouds.
All of them.
All of them are dead and gone.
It's his fault. They followed him.
He led them to their deaths.
He should have let them go, told them to stand down. He knew they'd die, he knew they would. He kept them there to fight for his foolish dream. They weren't soldiers or politicians, they held no sway over the way things were, they were just little boys throwing stones at the corrupt establishment. They'd looked to him with such hope, such trust. If he had told them to stand down they would still be alive and Marius would be marrying Valjean's daughter and- and-
His breath is coming in ragged gasps, his chest throbs with each beat of his hollow heart.
The world starts to spin.
He didn't hear the door behind him sweep open, he didn't hear Grantaire fall to his knees beside him, didn't notice him until there were a pair of arms around him pressing him into a chest. "You idiot," Grantaire says softly. "You utter idiot." He smells like sweet-wine and absinthe and cool night air and he rubs small circles into Enjolras' back.
"Thought you'd gone," Enjolras murmurs, gripping too tightly to his friend. "Thought you'd left."
"I went for a walk," Grantaire smiles, cards a tender hand through his hair. "Next time I'll ask your permission first, my liege."
Enjolras musters up a short little laugh because it seems the decent thing to do. "I'm sorry, Grantaire. I'm sorry."
Grantaire looks down at him, "For what?"
"I should never have..." He begins. "I should have...it was my fault." He finishes.
Grantaire shakes his head, "Ever egoistical." He murmurs. "Come on, you can't laze around on my floor all evening. What will the neighbours think?" He hefts Enjolras up and over to his bed. "And since you're so desperate you can spend the night here."
Enjolras weakly protests and Grantaire smiles weakly at him, pushing him back down on the bed. "It was my fault though," he mutters as Grantaire gently presses his palm against Enjolras' forehead. "It's my fault they're dead." He half sobs, weakly pawing at Grantaire's chest, trying to push him away, trying to pull him closer, Enjolras isn't sure.
Grantaire catches his hands in both if his. "No, it isn't. It wasn't. I shouldn't have said that, it was the alcohol speaking." He says firmly. "Everyone on that barricade was there because they wanted to be. Now calm down, you'll tear your stitches. You've already got a fever."
"No," he mumbles. "No, I should have-"
"Enjolras stay still!" Grantaire implores. He crosses the room to the kitchenette to draw a basin of water that he sets down by the bed before turning again to retrieve a cloth. "You gave everyone a chance to leave," he says quietly, pressing the damp cloth to Enjolras' forehead. "They stayed because they believed in the cause."
"You didn't," Enjolras says, thinking back to that day, to the determination in Grantaire's eyes. "You never believed in our cause." Grantaire is busy checking the thick bandages that cover Enjoras' chest but he looks up briefly, an unreadable look in his soft blue eyes.
"I could have left," he says quietly, wringing out the cloth to re-soak it.
Enjolras groans at the cooling touch of the cloth. He feels like he's on fire. "Why didn't you?" He asks blearily, "Why did you stay."
"Do you not know?" Grantaire whispers.
Enjolras stares back, "No."
Grantaire smiles softly, "You are the most oblivious genius that I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, you know."
"Tell me," Enjolras insists, reaching up to grab at Grantaire's wrist.
He smiles wryly, "This is a conversation for an unfevered mind, Enjolras. You need to sleep."
Enjolras turns his face away and closes his eyes.
He thinks maybe he imagines the cool lips pressed to his forehead.
Grantaire:
When Grantaire awakens there is a dull burn in his chest and the cafe ceiling is riddled splattered with crimson blood. He gasps for breath, his body is cold, numb, panic clutches at him and the dull ache in his head for once is not just the remnants of a few too many drinks. His mouth no longer tastes of wine.
He tries to sit but his body protests and a ragged moan of pain is torn from him. He flops back down and something is warm and wet beneath him. He knows instinctively that it is blood. His blood. He chuckles wetly but it soon turns into a sob.
He is dying.
Here, in a bullet-riddled cafe filled with cadavers and the stench of blood and sweat, less poetic than he would have liked.
Here amongst his dead friends.
Beside Enjolras.
Enjolras!
He twists with a pained gasp to see Enjolras' boots caught up in the shattered window. Their glorious leader reduced to an empty body flapping in the wind like his beloved flag. He feels sick. Dizzy. He had only just realised the depths of his feelings.
Just memories now.
The memories of a dying man.
"Hello?"
Grantaire freezes. Surely he must have imagined...?
"Is anyone alive up there?"
No, that is definitely a voice.
He tries to cry out, it comes out a breathless whimper that makes him curl with shame and then there is a man leant beside him, the man who shot the Inspector. "Hold still," the man hisses, "I will get you out."
No,he wants to say. No, leave me here. Let me die with them as was intended. But his mouth disobeys and it comes out garbled. The man doesn't heed him; instead he hefts him with ease onto his shoulders. Grantaire tries again to talk. "No," he mumbles. "No, my friends..."
"Quiet, boy," the man says gently carrying him down the stairs.
"Please," Grantaire begs. "Please. They cannot... They cannot all be gone." His breath hitches, the rest of his words are swallowed by a dry sob. For if they are all dead what has he left?
There are bodies strewn around. Bodies with wide eyes and pained looks.
The man sets him down in a carriage outside and as he bends away Grantaire sees for the first time Enjolras hanging fro that window like some great fallen angel. "Gods, please," he whimpers with anguish. "Please, Monsieur, please. He cannot be dead... He cannot be..."
The man's eyes are wide and empathetic. "Okay, lad. Okay."
When he next claws to the surface of consciousness he finds himself in a neat little hospital bed.
"You were touch and go there, for a while," a soft voice to his left says. Grantaire turns to it with some difficulty to find the man who saved his life seated beside his bed. "You are a lucky boy."
He takes Grantaire a few moments to recall what happened, the memory piecing itself together like a shattered mirror. "Monsieur," he rasps. "My friends?"
The man smiles tiredly, "Your leader, quite a fighter he is. They pulled eight bullets out of him and still he lives."
Abruptly, Grantaire finds himself sobbing, "Thank you," he whispers. "Thank you." He collects himself, taking a few steadying breaths. "Is it... Is it just he and I?"
The man sighs.
It is all the answer Grantaire needs.
There is glass in Enjolras' hair.
The sisters hadn't had a chance to clean him up properly, they had many wounded to tend to.
He and Enjolras the only two left.
He picks it out shard by shard and shushes him when he cries out in his fever-dreams.
The man who saved them is Jean Valjean, the man whose daughter stole Marius' heart. The girl is soft and beautiful; the kind of girl Marius' grandfather would have loved him to marry.
Grantaire feels guilty for surviving when Marius who had so much to live for didn't.
When he gets out of the hospital he visits them on occasion.
It's better than sitting alone in his quiet flat in the building he and his friends called home.
He thinks sometimes, as he watches Enjolras battle his wounds, that he hates him. If Enjolras hadn't spurred them on, had commanded them to leave as soon as he knew their war was lost, they would still be alive. They would still be school boys, drinking and laughing and Enjolras would still be brilliantly alive and dreaming.
He reads one day that they found the body of Inspector Javert in the river, a suicide. He points out the article to Valjean. Valjean only sighs, "He was just doing to his job. He had done nothing wrong. I couldn't kill him, I couldn't even be angry at him."
He thinks about this the next time he sees Enjolras who is awake now, but there weren't soldiers, Enjolras wasn't their captain.
(Except he was and he was glorious.)
His head is a hurricane. A blur of memories and contradictions and dreams of wine-laced kisses and blond locks under his fingers.
He goes home and drinks his body weight in wine.
He watches Enjolras fight off his fever, twisting and moaning in Grantaire's own bed.
It was my fault he'd said (sobbed) and Grantaire had been shocked by how vehemently he'd protested. It wasn't his fault (but it was because Grantaire had stayed for him, had stayed to die beside him, to die for him.) He sighs and presses a soft kiss to his leader's forehead, runs a hand through his sweaty blond locks. It reminds of his home, his real home, his family before all this talk if revolution tore them apart. His mother used to do this for him, his father too on occasion, he wonders whether Enjolras' parents did this. They must have, he assumes, no matter how cold and distant Enjolras made them out to be.
He wonders suddenly whether his friends parents have been told.
The police would have taken care of it, surely.
He wonders if they blame Enjolras too. He wonders if their hatred burns in stomachs and keeps them up at night. He supposes its easier for them to hate him - he's just this faceless boy who lead their sons in to war and lived, easier than believing their children grew up to be rebels.
Grantaire doesn't hate him.
He can't.
They made their choices as he made his. The bullet wound in his chest is healed, it will scar nicely, a tiny patch of puckered skin. Enjolras' chest will be a glorious mess. At least Grantaire will be able to say his body is more appealing than that of his friend.
He stays awake until Enjolras' fever breaks, just as the sky outside begins to turn pink with dawn's early hues. It's easier than sleeping and jerking awake to the feel of a bullet thudding in to his chest (even if it's the feel of Enjolras' hand slipping limply out of his that has him gasping in abject terror.)
He tries to imagine what it would be like if it were just him in the clearing smoke, just him alone and dying in the cafe. The thought makes his chest constrict alarmingly and he reaches out to grip at Enjolras' hand praying his thanks to whatever god is up there for giving him this mercy, for giving him his reason to his exist, he reason for staying at the barricade that day.
He leaves at around midday, a hastily penned note pinned to the door for when Enjolras awakens. He picks along the maze of streets, head bowed, his feet know the way without any guidance. He has four bottles of wine in his hands, a bottle of absinthe in his bag.
The barricade has been cleaned away, the blood scrubbed from the cobbles but in his minds eye he can see it all as it was that day.
The cafe is still a wreck, there are still dark stains and bullet holes here and there. Broken furniture strewn across the floor. The tables upstairs are empty and Grantaire shouldn't be surprised. He pushes through the ghosts to the one table still standing. He raises a bottle to his fallen friends.
Enjolras appears midway through the third bottle. He is marvellously disheveled; his cheeks a beautiful red from exertion, his legs trembling ever so slightly but his eyes are bright and determined as ever. This is the man who survived eight bullets, Grantaire was foolish to think for a minute Enjolras would wait for him at home.
"Why are you here?" Enjolras asks a faint tremor in his voice.
At some point Grantaire has slid off his chair on to the hard wood floor. He grins and gestures for Enjolras to sit beside him, "Drinking to the dead, Enjolras. Will you not join me?" He is not as drunk as he wants Enjolras to believe but it is easy to pretend.
Enjolras' expression clearly dictates his disgust but he sits anyway, lifting himself delicately on to the ground. "I had not thought to come back here," he whispers, haunted eyes darting about. He turns to look behind them at the shattered window and his hand searches out Grantaire's. Grantaire squeezes back reassuringly pretending not to notice.
Grantaire wordlessly offers him the bottle of wine which Enjolras accepts with shaking hands. He lifts it to his mouth and takes a healthy gulp, some of it dribbles down his perfect chin and Grantaire resists the urge to lick it away. After a few more gulps the bottle is drained and Enjolras is trembling and pressed to his side. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "Do not spare my feelings, this is my fault-" he begins.
Grantaire cuts him off with a raised hand, "Don't, Enjolras. Do not deprive them of their glory, their honourable deaths. They died believing they could change the world."
Enjolras swallows thickly, "There is no glory in death. You yourself said told me that."
Grantaire smiles tiredly, "Of course that would be the one piece of advice you recall."
Enjolras stares for a few moments before he breaks clutching at Grantaire as young child does its mother. His tears are wet against Grantaire's shoulder, "I should be dead," he moans. "Gods, of all of us it should be me. I wish I was!"
Grantaire grips him tight, tangles his fingers through Enjolras' thick hair. "Don't you say that, don't you ever say that. You are all I have now." He snarls.
"If it were not for me you would have them all." He whimpers.
"No," Grantaire whispers. "No." Enjolras' body is wracked with sobs and whatever he says next is too muffled to make out (if it was indeed intelligible.) Grantaire holds him as he cries, pets his hair and hums tunelessly.
When his sobs have quieted to little hiccups Enjolras looks up at him, eyes red rimmed and bright, "Why did you stay, Grantaire?"
Grantaire rolls his eyes, "This again..." Truthfully he hadn't believed Enjolras was remember their conversation the night before.
"Tell me," Enjolras insists, his grip tightening on Grantaire's shirt. "Tell me, please."
Grantaire swallows, the wine has loosened his tongue. "If I had left what would I be?" He says softly.
Enjolras blinks, "You would be you." He says uncertainly.
Grantaire shakes his head, "No. I would not be me. Not without you, not without our friends. I stayed to die with you, as I was meant to."
Enjolras stares, "You never believed in our cause," he murmurs.
Grantaire sighs despairingly, God give me strength. "I stayed because if I had run and lived I would have been alone and I do not believe I would have made it a week before throwing myself into the Seine."
Enjolras sighs, leans back against Grantaire's shoulder, "Sometimes I wish I had never left home."
"No, you don't," Grantaire tells him firmly. "Then you would not be you."
"There is nothing great about me."
It is so ridiculous that Grantaire chuckles, "Come now, Enjolras. You are the very embodiment of greatness." He says, far too tenderly.
Enjolras stiffens against him, sits back a little so that they see eye to eye, searching his face. Grantaire tries to school his features into something more neutral but it is too late. "Tell me once more," Enjolras says, in a voice barely above a whisper, whatever it is Enjolras was searching for it seems he has found it. "Tell me once more why you stayed."
And Grantaire sighs, "I stayed because when I saw you standing alone against those men I knew I needed to be with you, I knew I couldn't not let you die alone."
Enjolras' eyes go wide, almost comically. He reaches a hand up to brush Grantaire's cheek. "You love me," he says, with such a tone of wonder in is smooth voice that Grantaire finds himself smiling. He laughs bitterly and searches his mind for a witty response but he finds none. "Unfortunately," he breaths. "Unfortunately I do."
Enjolras stares as though he had never entertained such a possibility (but Grantaire reasons that Enjolras probably hadn't entertained such possibilities before, his heart belonged to France after all) His mouth moves soundlessly and Grantaire takes pity on him, pulling him into a messy kiss.
It is not the perfect clash of angry teeth he'd dreamed about before life tore them to pieces. It is hot and messy and desperate but it is right.
"I stayed," he whispers against Enjolras' lips, "because I could not bare the thought of life without you."
Grantaire wakes in the pale morning light, snow spirals down across the soft winter sky. Enjolras sleeps pressed up against him, one arm slung possessively across his torso. In his sleep Enjolras looks softer, younger, cherubic. Later, they will wake and attend dinner with Vajean and his daughter as they always do on a Wednesday, Enjolras will listen to Valjean's tales with the rapt attention of an eager school boy and Grantaire will drink too much and they'll stumble home and fall back in to bed. Maybe they will go for a walk before then and bicker along the maze of streets, perhaps they'll stop by the cafe and stare at the unofficial memorial for their friends, the row of scratched names along the back wall and they'll get sad and reminisce together.
But that will be later.
For now Grantaire will tug the blankets off his lover, roll over and go back to sleep.