A/N Hey everyone! This is a little idea I've been playing around with for a while, but have been really struggling with. That is, until today when I sat down in my Creative Writing class and wrote this is about an hour.
Enjoy!
The light that filters through the gap in the thick drapes is grey and feeble, a reflection of yourself. The room, filled with dark, imposing furniture, is silent, save for the sound of your ragged breathing, your lungs working like a set of exhausted bellow to draw the last breath of oxygen into your failing body.
How did you end up here? It seems so little time ago that you were young and full of fire and going to save the world. The barricades arose, the people sang, and then everything went so very wrong. Your fingers, still long and elegant even after seventy years on this earth, clutch at the embroidered bedspread to try and help anchor yourself as your mind drifts away, away towards memories you have long supressed, whispers you have tried to ignore.
Brown eyes alight with mischief, a long, tangled mane of brunette hair. The whisper of her name forces itself to your lips as you allow yourself to speak it for the first time since that humid, blood-stained, June day when your world tumbled down around you.
"Eponine."
There is, of course, no answer for she has been dead for nearly fifty years and there are too many memories of your life barricading the way. The woman you married and the children you had; two things you thought you would never have, except perhaps, with her. It had been a tiny hope that you had cultivated; a dream that had been killed by the single piece of lead that had torn her away from you.
Your eyes, still the same cerulean blue of your youth, fill with tears. Fifty years may have passed, but the pain of her death and the death of your friends, friends that had been more than brothers, that pain had never truly faded.
With their deaths and the crippling guilt that you felt, your life had lost its purpose, adrift on a sea of loss and shame. The fire had left your eyes, the passion gone from your voice, the belief gradually drained from your bones.
Another name forms on your lips and another face stumbles into your mind.
"Grantaire."
The drunk, the cynic, the unbeliever. You had scorned him in life, tearing him down and drawing bright blood with your words, yet he had returned, night after night, to soak up your words, to secretly share a glimpse of your dream. You thought him uncaring, a thorn in your flesh. But then he saved you, offering his life in place of yours. You wonder if it had been worth it; if you had wasted his sacrifice and a sudden surge of guilt crawls up inside you, the unpleasant sensation writhing around the slowing rhythm of your heart.
"Don't beat yourself up about it." The voice is dry and slightly slurred, so familiar yet as if from a dream. "You did more with your life hardly trying, than I ever would have."
The face is transferred from your memories into solid flesh and bone, inky curls framing sea blue eyes, a crooked nose above a smirking mouth. He studies you, looking you up and down, taking in the aged skin, the frail limbs, the rattling in your thin chest as you breathe. He nods once and takes a long draw from the compulsory bottle in his hand.
"Yep, for once I look better than you do."
You are too stunned to speak, not that you have the strength any more.
"What! Speechless as well?" He snickers when you try to glare at him. Obviously it does not have the same effect as it once did.
So many words crowd your mind, yet you only find the will to make one statement. "I always thought it would be Combeferre to come to me in death."
Grantaire shrugs. "He's waiting to see you, but he was up to his eyeballs in books when I last saw him." Another inch of liquid disappears from the bottle. "Turns out upstairs has a seriously impressive book collection." He stands and begins to circumnavigate your room. "Besides, I'm not here to pick you up." He studies the picture of you and your family that sits atop the dresser. "Your daughter looks like you." He stills and stretches. "Ah well, see you in a bit." Like smoke from a dying fire his image drifts and curls into the weak beam of light until he is gone completely, leaving you confused and once again alone.
A low, husky chuckle sounds beside you, causing your heart to let off a burst of rapid beats, before stilling completely. Of course it would be her. She, who invaded your every dream, infiltrated your waking thoughts.
She is more alive now than she ever was in life. Her cheeks are full and rosy, her teeth even and white. Her hand is stretched out towards yours and a smile plays around her lips.
"Come on, bourgeois boy. Everyone is waiting for you."
You rise from the bed, and glance back briefly at the shell you inhabited, comparing it to how you look now. You are twenty-two again, strong of limb and full of heart. Even the red jacket that you loved so well is in place around your broad shoulders.
She smirks up at you, her fingers reaching out to flick a golden curl away from your face and it is then that you realise how much you have always loved her. Despite how the rest of your fire flickered and faded, she was always the flame that never died.
A/N Okay for those who were confused, this was Enjolras. He survived the barricades, but lost his belief and fire and almost turned into Grantaire.
This is probably my favourite thing that I have written so far, so I'd love it if you could give me a review. Much appreciated!
Libz
(Oh, and for those interested, the next chapter of A Different Version of Events is coming, just very slowly. Oh, and another thing, I started a community for Les Mis stories with well written OCs. Check it out if you want, it's called No Marie Suzettes Allowed! Complete with exclamation point.)