I feel like everyone has their own little Enjolras groove, and once they find it they can actually write in his POV. I found it. I feel so much more confident about this one-shot than I did about the other one.
So, if you've been following these one-shots, you know the drill: tell me what you think, request more scenes from the musical/movie for me to write one-shots about.
This is The Final Battle from Enjolras's POV. Enjoy reading about everyone dying.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Les Mis. If I did at least one of my favorite characters would have lived.
"You at the barricade, listen to this!"
Enjolras's eyes snapped up, staring intently at the barricade as if he could see through it to the army waiting beyond. Those on his side of the barricade were silent, with only two exceptions: Courfeyrac, mourning the loss of little Gavroche after his desperate attempt to save the boy, and Combeferre, who was trying unsuccessfully to comfort him. The dark red snake of anger reared its head within Enjolras. Why would they stoop so low as to kill a mere child? And to laugh while they did so, as if this were all some game instead of life and death!
"The people of Paris sleep in their beds!"
Enjolras nearly laughed aloud. They had been well aware of this fact already. They were the last barricade, and the people had not risen to join them, despite Enjolras's firm belief that they would. Why bother telling them what they already knew?
"You have no chance—no chance at all. Why throw your lives away?"
Enjolras had always known that the failure of his revolution was a possible outcome—even more probable than he had cared to admit. He had told those who followed him that those who joined in his cause might not survive—multiple times, in fact. He clenched his jaw, features stony.
Why throw their lives away?
Because unlike the soldiers that waited for the answer that they knew they would receive, Enjolras and his friends had something that was worth fighting for. They weren't fighting simply because they were ordered to do so.
He turned from his place at the foot of the barricade and bounded up until all could see him, and he could see them. "Let us die facing our foes!" he cried, his determination rising. "Make them bleed while we can!"
Slowly but surely, eyes met Enjolras's. Light and renewed determination began to return to them as well as to him.
"Make 'em pay through the nose!" Combeferre called from his place near Courfeyrac, rubbing his fellow student's arm sympathetically.
"Make them pay for every man," Courfeyrac added, voice fierce but eyes distant. It took Enjolras a moment to realize that his friend's gaze was fixed on the café, where Gavroche's body had been taken.
With a deep breath, Enjolras readied his weapon and turned to face the approaching army. "Let others rise to take our place until the earth is free!" he shouted.
He wasn't sure who it was who fired the first bullet, but he did know that as soon as the first gun went off, all was chaos. And it didn't take Enjolras long to realize that they would not—could not—win this battle. The army advanced steadily, only a few stopped by the students' bullets. Enjolras fired a few more shots with increasing desperation, but as the man on his left was shot down, the yells of men in pain reached him. So many were wounded already.
With a curse he turned from the barricade, taking in the scene before him. Men were pounding on closed doors, shouting up at closed windows, covered from head to foot in blood, dirt, and debris. Even their own side was beginning to abandon them, for they knew as well as Enjolras did that they would not live to see another sunrise. There was only one place left to turn to for solace, as short-lived as the respite would be.
He leaped to the ground and put the arm of the first man he found over his shoulders, yelling for everyone to retreat to the café. But in this cacophony of gunshots and screams, who could tell how many had actually heard him?
Enjolras reached the café just before Courfeyrac and Combeferre did, darting inside along with him. Enjolras, however, turned back. The army was just reaching the top of the barricade. Man after man fell in their own blood, life violently extinguished. His fellow students. His friends.
In the center of it all stood Marius, who clearly hadn't heard Enjolras's call to retreat. Marius fiercely continued his doomed assault on the approaching soldiers. His face was set as he reloaded his weapon time and time again.
And then he was on the ground, pierced by a bullet and soon unconscious—whether by blood loss or by pain, Enjolras did not know.
Marius's name ripped itself free of Enjolras's throat. However, before he could move to retrieve his friend, a man picked up Marius's unconscious body and disappeared. Breathing ragged, Enjolras could only hope that Marius, at least, would escape the fate that he knew would claim him.
He threw the door to the café shut, and Courfeyrac and Combeferre helped to pile chairs against it. Enjolras set the unconscious man he was helping down next to the dead, futilely hoping for him to be mistaken as one already deceased, so as not to be disturbed anymore.
The shouts grew louder as the soldiers began to pound on the door, seeking to break it down, knowing they would eventually succeed. The three students sprinted up a flight of stairs, hardly noticing a body that lay about halfway up.
Would anyone actually rise up after they were gone? Enjolras could not help the questions that ran through his mind as they stood silently on the second floor. Would they simply hide, as they were now? Would the earth ever be free?
The door beneath them crashed open. Courfeyrac and Combeferre wore matching expressions of terror. Though they had known the possibility, had accepted it, they had not been prepared for it to become a reality. Even Enjolras himself wasn't entirely prepared.
'I brought them into this,' he thought bitterly. 'If they wanted to strike down the revolution, why not just kill the leader and leave the rest alone?'
Out of nowhere came the sounds of a dozen guns going off all at once. Enjolras lunged for his friends as they fell. He was entirely unscathed. His friends were killed instantly.
One thing to be grateful for, he supposed.
Enjolras turned slowly as the soldiers came up the stairs. He kept his face carefully blank. 'Come what may.'
His friends were dead. Gone in a heartbeat.
They aimed their guns at him, faces as stony as his.
At least he would soon follow them.
The leader gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"Vive la République!" cried an unexpected, though entirely familiar voice.
Grantaire shoved his way through the dumbfounded soldiers to stand next to Enjolras. "Vive la République!" he repeated firmly. He turned to Enjolras, all but ignoring the soldiers standing before them. "Do you permit it?" he asked quietly.
Inexplicably, a stream of faces ran through Enjolras's mind. Eponine. Gavroche. Marius. Courfeyrac. Combeferre. Finally, the man standing in front of him, willing to lay down his life for the Republic, just as they all were.
And in that moment, as he heard the crack of bullets and knew that he was about to die, Enjolras could not hold back a smile.