Disclaimer: It's not mine. None of Les Mis or any of these characters is mine. I dunno who they belong to, but it's not me. And the idea really isn't mine either. One, it's obviously the Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Python – that's not mine. The idea for turning it into a fan fiction came from Nixers over on gwaddiction dot com. Her fic is called "Duo and the Dead Parrot." You should go check it out. I'm really sorry, Nixers, for not asking your permission for this fic.

Author's Note: This is a gift fic for kchan88. I'm proud to say I got her into writing fan fiction, and E/R is her first-ever slash pairing! I'm so proud! Y'all should go over and read her work too. It'd make me happy.

Just Resting

Enjolras should have known something was out of the ordinary when he approached the café and saw his comrades milling about. He couldn't think of anything that had happened in recent days or weeks that required a particularly revolutionary approach. Courfreyac and Combeferre were moving the tables… again… That could only mean one thing – Grantaire had talked the lot of them into some sort of party… again. As for Enjolras himself, he had no idea what would be all that worth celebrating with the still-current state of France. He increased his speed and marched up to the café, intent on finding the cause of the kerfuffle but knowing better than to try and put a stop to it.

"Can one of you gentlemen explain to me what's going on here?" he asked the lot of them in general as he collared Jehan in particular. "Jehan, have I missed something?"

The red-haired man shook his head and continued shoving a table out of the way.

"Not really, no," he told his fearless leader, kicking a chair aside and catching it to stand it up against the wall. "Just that's its Grantaire's birthday. We're having a bit of a to-do tonight and they've insisted we shift the furniture so nothing's broken. I'm sure you remember last time!"

Jehan said this quite gaily, but Enjolras shuddered – he DID remember "chair jousting."

"Well then," he said almost brusquely, turning from the activity in the room. "I do suppose I had better get him something."

Combeferre called after him something about a bottle or two.

"Absolutely not!" responded Enjolras in a shout. "I will not be encouraging any of this… habit of yours! Least of all his!"

Before any of the boys could give him any ribbing, he beat a hasty retreat from the café and set out to explore the streets of Paris for a gift.

It was actually quite lovely out today, with the street hawkers and vendors out in full force. Enjolras couldn't walk five meters down the street without being accosted. One woman waved a load of smoked sausages in his face with an offer of certainly the deal of the day. When that failed, a man right down the way from her called out about fresh eggs. Enjolras has no interest in sausage or eggs – Grantaire would eat just about anything. He grumped at the man selling beer from a barrel perched on top of a cart drawn by an extremely smelly donkey. What in the world would Grantaire even want on his birthday, besides something he could get drunk on? A peanut hit Enjolras on the shoulder and he turned around to see what that was about.

"No, no, Graham!" a man with a very British accent jovially chastised a monkey. "Mustn't chuck peanuts at the nice gentleman!"

Something about this man simply exuded distinct dottiness.

"Ah, speaking of, sir!" the fellow continued, his manner still entertainingly amiable. "Looks like you're looking for something and I have that very something!"

Enjolras looked skeptical, but did approach the cart, seeing as the man wasn't attempting to brandish anything at him.

"And what is it you sell, monsieur?" he asked, eyeing the cart and receiving the stink-eye from a goat tethered to it. "Pets, is it?"

The goat made a rather menacing sound and the man with the cart smiled blithely.

"Yes, yes, pets it is!" he confirmed, and before Enjolras could say anything, he launched off into his sales pitch. "You see, you've got your cats…"

When Enjolras followed the man's hand, he raised an eyebrow – the man gestured at a cage containing what looked like a rat wearing little felt ears and with fluff glued to its tail. At "dogs" he saw a couple of calves wearing leather collars. Every time one of them went 'moo', the cart-man coughed loudly and made a barking sound. The rabbits did seem to be actual rabbits, to Enjolras's gratitude, but they appeared to be… doing what rabbits did. He averted his eyes and followed the man, under the glare of the monkey with the peanuts, to a large cage on the end of the cart. Inside, he caught a glimpse of splendid blue feathers. It was a parrot – quite a sizable one at that! It did have lovely feathers and an impressive hooked beak, but there seemed to be one problem with it.

"Now, this here's the Norwegian Blue!" the cart-man announced, waving a proud hand at the cage. "Europe's finest bird, this is – terrific pet, lovely plumage!"

Enjolras blinked at the man and considered rubbing his eyes to be sure he wasn't simply hallucinating. No, that couldn't be it, he decided. There stood the man in his dirty white overcoat, smiling quite unconcernedly at the cage and the bird in it. As for the parrot, it must have certainly been an impressive specimen at one point. Now, however, some of the feathers stuck out in odd places and the blank eyes, not that you could say birds had much expression, stared eerily in separate directions. There was a wooden bar across the center of the cage… and the bird dangled from it by one tenuously-wrapped claw. Clearly, it was-

"Monsieur, this bird is dead," Enjolras said flatly, wishing not to waste any more time.

The man seemed affronted.

"No, it's not!" he ejaculated, waving his hand round again. "He's just restin'!"

This couldn't be happening, thought Enjolras – people did not attempt to sell deceased animals as pets.

"I'm quite sure that it is," the revolutionary insisted to the salesman. "I mean… take a look at it."

A breeze blew by and the parrot swayed gloomily – the man with the cart remained undeterred.

"Well, of course it's not!" he insisted, still gesturing – Enjolras wondered about this man's grasp on reality. "The Norwegian Blue always kips like that!"

Enjolras set his jaw, unsure of why but determined to set this man straight.

"My dear sir, this parrot is upside-down," he tried to explain patiently, indicating the cage. "Now, I'm no expert but I am given to understand that birds choke if they are upside-down."

The Englishman smiled brightly, looking madder – if possible – than he had before.

"Yes, yes, yes, sir!" he boomed encouragingly. "Just like bats, they are, always sleepin' upside-down!"

Leaning in closer, Enjolras felt a vein in his temple start to throb dangerously.

"Sir…" he started in a rather menacing tone. "The only reason that this bird is in any way attached to its perch is because it's been nailed there!"

A flapping hand served to wave his allegation away.

"Well, of course he's been nailed there!" the Brit insisted. "Otherwise he'd have muscled up to those bars and voom!"

The claw gave way, separating from the rest of the foot, and the sizable bird hit the bottom of the cage with a noticeable whud noise. Enjolras stood there staring at it, wondering how in God's name he had gotten himself into the insanity of this day. He reached out once more, unhooked the latch on the cage and seized the blue-feathered thing, brandishing it at the obviously-"tetched" Englishman. With that same hand, he whacked the bird several times against the surface of the cart, making more whud noises. The sound of one solid object hitting another at high velocity attracted the attention of other vendors and passerby. For one who tried to keep up appearances, this, for once, did not phase Enjolras in the slightest.

"Monsieur!" he thundered, waving the sizable bird carcass around rather madly himself. "This bird wouldn't voom if it were struck by lightning! It's stone-dead!"

Behind spectacles, the Englishman's eyes surveyed the young revolutionary as though he were a mildly interesting stage production. Enjolras had gone very red in the face, all of a sudden acutely aware of all the attention he had attracted. People had started to cluster and stare. Small children whispered to their mothers and even several grown men commented, pointing. Still, he felt the intense need to make his point! This man clearly had something very wrong with his head, not to know that this bird had clearly been dead for quite some time!

"I still say it's just restin'," the Englishman told him blithely. "Beautiful bird, the Norwegian Blue, innit? Lovely plumage!"

Finally, Enjolras tugged in frazzlement at his hair with his free hand, his eyes sort of popping from his chiseled face.

"Monsieur, I have run out of ways to convince you that this parrot is most certainly not resting, except in peace!" He continued to brandish what, to his eyes, was quite obviously a dead parrot. "This bird is no more! It has ceased to be – reached its expiration date, so to speak!"

The Englishman now looked somewhat worried, as though Enjolras might be suggesting something outlandish and possibly quite dangerous.

"Now see here, young man!" he upbraided the Frenchman. "Are you implying that I sell less-than-quality parrots?"

Enjolras now wanted very much to kick the man!

"Implying?" he all but cried at the Brit. Blue feathers flew in all directions as he continued waving the dead parrot about. "Implying, no! I'M SHOUTING IT! This bird, for whatever reason you refuse to acknowledge, is very clearly deceased – a stiff! Bereft of life, and if you hadn't nailed to the perch, it'd be pushing up the daisies! This is a late bird! No… this is an EX-PARROT!"

Now a contemplative frown had set over the Englishman's face, like he had somehow discovered a previously-unexplained truth of the universe.

"I'll let 'im go for 'alf-price, then?" he offered pleasantly. "Shall we say ten francs?"

Later on, the boys sat round the table, waiting for Grantaire's arrival. Leave it to the sot to be late to his own birthday happenings! However, no one groused or commented. For that matter, no one seemed willing to speak. Even Gavroche kept quiet. It all had to do with the object in the center of the table, Enjolras's… gift for the birthday fellow. There had all but been a riot when he returned with it – the landlady insisted she didn't want it in the building, but relented as Enjolras looked rather frightening. Something had most definitely happened out there and no one particularly wanted to ask what, curious or no. Finally, Combeferre ventured to speak his mind.

"Remind me again…" he said quietly, casting side-eyes at all his friends. "Why we are sitting round a table featuring a dead parrot?"

Enjolras nearly exploded from his own seat, where he had remained in that same forbidding silence for two hours now.

"IT'S JUST RESTING!" he shouted quite abruptly, his tone announcing that he would simply brook no argument on the subject. Then he shifted in his chair, repeating to himself quietly, "It's just resting…"

No one said another word on the subject, though still wary eyes fixed on the cage and its bedraggled contents.

"Why is everything so bloody dark?" yelled Grantaire a moment later – everyone could hear him stumbling up the stairs. "Has something happened? Is it serious?"

Marius smacked a hand to his forehead.

"It's your birthday, you drunken twit!" he called back, rolling his eyes at the ceiling while the lads started putting matches to lamp-wicks.

The pounding on the stairs got instantly louder and a smiling Grantaire appeared, with a bottle in each hand and arms flung wide.

"Eh, I knew that!" he announced, taking a deep swig from the bottle in his right hand and chasing it with one from his left. "Now what have we here, lads? Something for me?"

Enjolras, his movements stilted and jerky, rose from his seat and crossed the room, picked the cage up from the table, and approached Grantaire with it. The drunk looked politely puzzled at first, but then his face split into a wide smile. However, the expression vanished when Enjolras thrust the cage into his arms with a grunted birthday wish. Something about the beloved leader radiated borderline insanity. Grantaire looked round at their companions, who all looked decidedly nervous. It dawned on him very gently – something about the outcome of this exchange was important! He took a look in the cage. Blue feathers stuck out in all directions, claws curled morosely, and he might have been imagining it, but the bird in the cage seemed to have X's for eyes…

"Enjolras…" Grantaire began carefully. "This bird is..."

There came an immediate rush of bottoms leaving seats as their friends charged.

"NO!" exploded every other occupant of the room.

Grantaire looked round as if every one of them had lost their minds.

"He's… lovely!" he finished, trying not to let the strain show in his voice. The second intonation, however, came out genuine. "I'm… so glad you remembered!"