Title: The Back Room
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own Les Miserables in any way, shape or form.
A/N: Just a sad little one shot I dreamed up. Slight Enjolras/Éponine.
The Back Room
From the table in the corner, they could see a world reborn, and they rose with voices ringing...
I can hear them now, the very words that they had sung, became their last communion...
On the lonely barricade...
At dawn...
It is the same as it always was. The weak daylight filters through the chipped glass of the window, sending the dust motes spinning as the sunlight hit them, like little planets orbiting in the frozen air.
But then again, it is so irrevocably different. A thick layer of smothering dust covers the wooden surfaces, obscuring the knotted, stained wood. The air does not ring with laughter and cheers, glittering in the vibrant light of the young.
Enjolras will never at his table in the corner, his head of golden curls bent over a work on education, or liberty, or equality. His blue eyes will never again blaze with the fire of revolution as he speaks of lofty dreams from a table-top in the centre of the room; never again glare at his drunken friends with the terrible wrath that only an angel could possess.
He can still see Grantaire, sitting in the opposite corner to Enjolras, calling out crude jokes and obscene gestures, a bottle of absinthe faithful in his hand. And there's Combeferre, debating a point with Feuilly, whilst telling an exuberant Courfeyrac crossly that chairs have four legs, not two, and that he's going to end up in the fire if he's not careful.
Jehan's slender fingers plait delicate purple violets into his long, mousy plait, half-listening as Bahorel speaks eagerly of the latest bar-brawl he got himself into, and Bossuet, the firelight glinting off his bald head, teases Joly about the spots that magically appeared on his tongue that morning.
Éponine sits cross legged by the fire, with a piece of bread in her hand. He can almost see her frequent glances towards him, hear her scathing tone as she denounces Enjolras' next noble idea. He sees the two of them bent over a map of Paris, their heads inclined towards each other, the sweep of her tangled dark hair just touching his shoulder whilst Gavroche runs around in the background, his little laugh bouncing off the walls.
When he had asked Enjolras if there was anything between the two of them, he'd been met with a raised eyebrow, and a look of feigned confusion. I don't know what you mean, Marius, he'd said.
But that fateful night, as Éponine lay dying in his arms, he watched her eyes flicker between the two of them, the golden haired archangel and the mortal boy whom she'd thought she loved.
"If only you'd lived to fall in love with him, 'Ponine," he murmurs, the sound of his voice disturbing the stillness, the silence. It could be the echoes of long-forgotten laughter, but he swears he hears a girl's chuckle from the corner of the room where Enjolras used to sit all those nights ago.
"'Ponine," he calls, tentatively. "Are you there?" He is not frightened, instead, feels the first stirrings of hope in his heart, hope that he may see his friends once more. Tell them how much he misses them.
No reply. It was too much to ask for.
He shakes his head sadly, unbidden tears springing to his eyes. It would make sense for his friends to haunt this room of spinning dust motes and happy memories, with the French Republic on the wall, and the pile of empty, shattered bottles on Grantaire's corner table.
Their unquiet ghosts could be sitting here all around him; once again, he sees the brightness of their eyes in their youthful faces, full of hope and dreams that never came true. He sees the stars twinkling, benevolently silver in the night sky outside the window as they talked of revolution, sang of their better tomorrow.
In the end, they never really left.