Before dawn at the barricade, Enjolras encounters Grantaire alone in the Musain.
Most are able to stagger a few paces to sleep in shelter. Their resolve has drained with the onset of weariness and wildness and despair, and they greet the shadows with prayers for themselves rather than for the future of France.
Enjolras lets this go. They will have time enough to remember the cause they fight for in the morning. They will be reminded, whether or not the rest of Paris rises. And they will lay down their lives if they must. Tomorrow.
But tonight they may find solace in friendship, and peace in sleep.
He, of course, cannot. The wheel of revolution churns too fiercely now, it is fire in his body. To subdue the adrenaline that circles in his bloodstream or control the pace of his throbbing heart would be to stop the sun from rising and setting.
He has watched in earnest for signs of a surprise attack, but none appear. The hours pass, a few men begin to stir. Enjolras does not tire, but he allows himself the opportunity to be briefly removed from scrutiny and stillness, simply to nourish his anticipation of the dawn.
He climbs the stairs at the Musain as if they are the steps of a pulpit.
It is unrecognisable now that memories of their usual meetings have been physically stripped away. The floors are strewn with bullet casings and torn papers, but little else.
There is a lonely table, one too pitiful to warrant lending to the cause.
A breeze carries the smell of damp and of death far off so that Enjolras may still breathe.
And there is a silhouette at the open window, hanging precariously over the railing. In one hand, he holds a bottle.
Grantaire and the bottle are twins, inseparable. Each as inclined to disaster as the other. Together, they double the familiar feeling of disdain. Tonight, it swells up in Enjolras, worse than it has ever been. Is this the time? Is this the place? How can anyone be so callous?
A slurring speech wafts through the air. "- and revolution is the way! Liberté, égalité, fraternité, it is for you we fight! May France tear itself from tyranny and corruption, may the people see the change we can enact in this noble cause! Lay down your lives, in the hope that in the future may there be freedom..."
He raises a hand to his mouth and hiccups, then sees Enjolras out of the corner of his eye. "And wine all round."
"To whom are you speaking?" Enjolras simply asks. It seems clear that Grantaire is mocking him and mocking the cause, but what sense is there in doing so to oneself, with no one there to take offense?
Grantaire has never made much sense at all.
"I address my devoted followers and patriots; the last of the brandy, the cold air, the barricade, the ghosts of the night and the children of France, and yet I hope no one will listen."
He takes an ungainly swig, smiles crookedly. "As fortune may have it, no one does."
Enjolras stands immobile, brow creased.
"But you. They listen to you," Grantaire continues. "When the words spill from your lips, the world believes you. No matter that you tell the same lies."
"That is where you are wrong." Enjolras interjects, his pensive gaze betrayed by a more impassioned gesture of his hand towards Grantaire.
"I speak of man and of right, and these are incontrovertible truths, so absolute that nothing in the world can alter them. And if you would simply express these statements with some sincerity towards another, you would find that they would lend you their ears and begin to comprehend. It matters not who speaks, only what they say. Truth cannot be ignored forever."
Grantaire is smiling, but not without incredulity. "Ah! Enjolras essays a new technique of persuasion... you are capable of this, Grantaire, he tries to say, but alas, he is mistaken. Does not one have to believe in his argument - truth or lie, tragically flawed it may be - before he might impress it upon anyone with half a mind?"
"Of course." Enjolras retorts. "And though you seem so reluctant to confess it, you unbeknowingly express your faith when no one is here to hear it. You have an exceptional talent as the devil's advocate, but your mockery melts away when there is nothing to be mocked."
"You would believe that I - I shed my cynic's skin in secret? That my faith is simply hidden? My speeches reek of sincerity beneath my brandied breath?" Grantaire barks out a laugh, venturing nearer, bottle swinging from his hand as dastardly evidence.
"They are done too well to be fashioned entirely from falseness." Enjolras argues, unflinching.
"You simply underestimate my prowess as an actor." Grantaire offers him a roll of his eyes, and yet affects Enjolras' accustomed matter-of-fact tone once more. "One may be a masterful imitator, free with imagination and ideas, rife with alternate perspectives of the world. It is not necessary tobelieve, only to pretend well enough." He smirks. "It seems I have done well, acquired the perfect balance of conviction. Enough to fool you without fooling myself."
Enjolras is abruptly accusatory. "Oh, but you do deceive yourself. You crucify conviction with a deluge of pessimism and a flood of fatality, as though you might blanket yourself from risk and pain and loss, just as much as from gaining anything of worth. Do you not comprehend? It has only buried you."
Grantaire clamps his hand on the other man's shoulder, steers him to the window with sudden force. He begins with loud urgency, and yet ends in a whisper. "Of the two mortals standing in this room, staring down dawn's approach, only one of us has chosen to make this sunrise their last! Only one of us throws away the - perhaps meagre - pleasures of life in favour of unceremonious death and wasteful sacrifice, of unrelenting darkness. Only one of us will be buried, and it shall not be me." The drunkard makes a brave attempt to sound contemptuous, but his disparaging snort subsides as soon as it arises.
For the longest time, Enjolras' expression is impassive, but he does not launch down the well-worn path of justifying the sacrifice or chastising Grantaire. At least, not in the usual sense. Instead, he turns from the window, throws off Grantaire's hand, and picks apart the words, a touch of sharpness in his voice.
"Two mortals, you say? Perhaps I ought be glad! You have progressed more than I presumed, discovered such realism you always claim to be master of. No Apollo, then? Am I a god no longer? Have I stepped from my pedestal, fallen from the summit of Olympus?"
"You must have fooled me as I have you. I thought you had all the zeal of a deity... but you lack the wisdom of a god. Make the mistakes of a common man. You place yourself among us. You throw your life away."
"And that is not something a god, too, would do for the greater good? Perhaps not the Apollo you mistake me for, but you cannot claim the tale does not sound familiar. You, Grantaire, must have devoured the Bible once in your life; if only to dismember it, to feed your arguments and your own savage disbelief. But do the words not ring true?" Enjolras has turned from scathing to serious. "No martyr is comparable to Christ... but our deaths will do some good yet. We give all for the sake of France. Others will take our place, the people will fight, and Progress will succeed."
His eyes have drifted to the horizon through the window once more, but his azure gaze drinks in the buildings below rather than the slowly-lightening heavens above. Be that as it may, he seems to remember to whom he is speaking and turns his focus inside again, hair and eyelashes and pale skin newly awash in golden light.
Enjolras approaches Grantaire slowly.
His voice, of course, possesses the weight and warmth of marble.
"But I am wrong, I believe, to refer to 'we'. You have already made that plain, perfectly so. For you have no part in this. You are a bystander, a neutral entity. No, worse still, you are but a parasite. Perhaps even like the crow searching for some carrion, a constant reminder of death and despair, a stain on the ideal. You are a carrier of the old human plague, hopelessness. You are the dark star; you are the black hole, consuming light and reflecting nothing. And we have no use for you, just as you must have no use for us. We need no further reminder of the pitfalls of a chosen fate, no notion of futility explained. We have no occasion to drink in companionship now. We have made our choice, and when we are gone there will be nothing left for you here."
Grantaire soaks this in, staunchly solemn. He consumes light, reflects nothing.
It is Enjolras who shatters the silence, and he sounds altered.
"But it is not too late. Perhaps you are not so proud as you pretend. Perhaps you will cast off your cowardice when the clock finally chimes. Will you join us? Will you stay?"
"Do you wish it?" Grantaire is now too close for comfort, his voice too soft, his green-eyed stare ensnaring Enjolras before he has a moment to escape.
"I wish you would not ask that."
Their gazes entangle further, mingling in beseechment and admonishment, abhorrence and clemency. They are speaking in a different tongue, attempting to bridge an abyss, trying to communicate that which cannot be fathomed.
Grantaire resorts to words again, but they are wretched.
"I must ask it; what other reason should I have to stay?"
"I wish you present in full commitment, or not here at all. If you cannot believe in anything, you must leave."
His answer is harshly uttered, forced from his lips. It is final. Enjolras has nothing more to say to Grantaire, who is beyond reproach.
Grantaire's silence stretches the hours, an answer unto itself.
Enjolras has gone, footsteps disappearing into the distance, lost in the fray of earth-shattering explosion and gut-wrenching shouts and revolution.
And at the end of the day, Enjolras has come again.
So have the soldiers.
Bullets rain across the room.
And then, once more, silence reigns.
Grantaire has not yet left.
I think I just needed an excuse to do some canon-era word vomit, I have no idea! All I know is that E/R has consumed my soul.
'Tis my first attempt at this ship and fandom, and my first fic in forever, so apologies for any ooc-ness or rusty writing. I'd love to hear feedback.
Hope you enjoyed!