A/C There really areint enough Joly/Combeferre fandom stuff out there and their an incredible couple. Unfortunately this is a death fic, almost exactly based off of cannon with slight alterations, but I promise there will be some fluff soon in later.
Rated T for death
Everything was happening so fast that Joly couldn't even get himself moving quickly enough to help any of the friends around him. Hell, he couldn't even manage to keep himself afloat on top of his own absolute terror that fled through every muscle of his being. What use was he? Really? Amongst the gunshots and cries of falling friends, he was simply another target, trembling with gun in hand and medical kit on his belt. But Joly didn't even have a chance to help anyone out here, where the raw terror was both keeping him alive and confusing his mind into instincts. Here the wounds meant death, and pounded into their skin in such agony. And that's what Joly was supposedly there for, to save the lives of those around him, but he couldn't do anything in this bloodbath. If he stopped for long enough to even examine someone, he'd get shot just as badly as they had been. Besides, Joly couldn't even properly breathe. He was so panicked that he felt like he was going to faint, and he hated himself for even thinking this might happen. He was a revolutionary; a medic in training; Joly could do far better than this. Then how come he couldn't move? Could barely stand and watch what was happening? All these thoughts terrorized his mind as he stood there, frozen.
"Joly," the voice breathed in his ear, causing the medic to jump. Combeferre had ran to his side, and was suddenly pulling him out of the line of fire, towards the Musain. "Come on, we need to get undercover."
"Combeferre," Joly breathed in response, attempting to move and feeling the weakness in his legs shake beneath him. "I can't-I'm-" He took a deep breath and shook his head. "Combeferre I think I'm going to faint again." The words leave his lips in a desperate squeak, one that he barely spends enough mind power to hate, the adrenaline rushing through his head and making him feel all the more feeble.
"It's fine, Joly," Combeferre assured him, his presence unbelievably calm even now, directing Joly by the tug of the hand, to the door. "Would you like me to carry you?"
"I think I can-" Joly forced his legs forward, before stumbling forwards into Combeferre's arms.
"Joly, it's fine," Combeferre repeated, wrapping his arm around Joly to steady him, gripping the medic to his side. Joly was finally able to move, and took several tentative steps forwards before completely collapsing into the stronger man's grasp. "I've got you, okay?"
Joly nodded into Combeferre's shirt, once again hating how utterly useless he was being in all of this. "You should leave me. . . you have a better chance fighting without my weight."
Combeferre continued to move, going up onto the second floor of the cafe. "I'm not leaving you anywhere. We're going to get through this. Joly, look at me. We're going to get through this, okay?" Combeferre placed him down on the ground in the corner of the room, positioning Joly to sit up against the wall, before readying his gun and aiming it out the window to shoot a few soldiers who were climbing the barricade.
"How?" Joly whimpered, his head lolling against his shoulder. "There's no way out of here alive."
"We'll find a way," Combeferre growled, with forced calmness. "Joly, I promise you."
"Why?" Joly breathed, his voice losing air. "...Is it so important to you?"
Combeferre shot a few more soldiers, before turning distractedly at Joly, his eyes flickering across the man before him, his face a mask of confused pain and defiance all jumbled up together. "Because I love you, I always have, and I'll continue to."
Joly sat there in stunned silence, their eyes glued to one another. "Comb I... I do too." The words flicker from his mouth in a desperate sort of scorching happiness, that's so damn fleeting.
A shot rings out that isn't from Combeferre's gun. The blast shot through the broken window, penetrating the revolutionary where he stood, plummeting into his chest. With a yelp of pain, Combeferre fell to the ground, his hands reached up to grasp at the massive wound that's bleeding through his shirt.
Joly yelled out as though the pain were his own, a hollow screech that tumbles in the air that was already so thick with agony. He forced himself from the wall, scampering towards Combeferre. "No, no, we're gonna make it," Joly found himself whimpering through the tears that were springing to his eyes. He reaches forward and examines the wound; he didn't have to complete his medical training to know how deadly such a direct heart wound was. But he couldn't admit this to Combeferre, or even himself, so Joly instead reached into his pouch with shaky hands, taking out a cloth and starting to wrap the bandage to stop the bleeding.
"Joly, it's okay," Combeferre grunted, desperately trying to comfort his love even in such dying breaths.
"Yes, yes it will be in a second," Joly gasped, continuing to furtively work at the injury. "Comb I love you, I love you so much. Hang in there. Keep fighting. I promise we'll get out of here."
"It's okay," Combeferre repeated himself, his voice leaving his mouth in such breathless gasps. "We're together-you're here, that's all that matters."
"And you'll stay here with me," Joly prompted, with a sob, running his free hand up over his cheek and up into his hair. "We'll make it out together, we'll find a way."
"Yes," Combeferre attempted to nod, but winced in the pain that it brought. "The two of. . . us. . ." The last word is barely traceable, such a thread of a sound darting through the air. And Joly wished with all his being that his hands weren't already on top of the place where his heart was, he wished that he hadn't been able to feel the precise moment that it stopped beating.
"No," the first word is a whimper, a silent mouthing that belongs only to him, but the second in a screech to the world, a cry that echoes through the battlefield cursing this damn battle and everything in it, because Combeferre's gone. "No!" Joly relapsed into strangled sobs, falling over the empty body of such a good man. He had been so kind, so constantly, and so brave.
It's lucky really, that Joly didn't have too much longer to suffer. The second bullet searched out the screeching, driving itself through his head and ending such anguish that completely was devouring him from inside and out.