Author's note: This was inspired by a comic by PlayThatSadTrombone on tumblr which joked that Bahorel must be immortal, given that he took part in the 1820 revolt. The comic can be found by going to playthatsadtrombone dot tumblr dot com and finding the comic for April 19th. (It's worth it, I promise.) Though the comic was obviously meant to be comedic I took it and ran with it and came up with this.
Disclaimer: Les Miserables belongs to the estate of Victor Hugo. No money is being made from this story.
He goes through names only slightly less quickly than he goes through clothing and picks them with far less care. He was Caderyn for a time, christened by his friends and fellow soldiers as he led them into battle against the Roman invaders. Later he became Claudius, a non-descript name to hide a unique man, a name he chose at random when it became clear that bearing anything but a Latin name would get him executed again. As the Roman presence in Paris faded so too did his use of the name as he selected others, becoming Estienne and Raoul and Amé. For a time he cycled through the Christian gospels, choosing names that tickled his fancy. When the King of France married Maria Antonia of Austria he called himself Clement; shortly after he dropped the name after being involved in one too many scuffles with the law.
By 1832 he has been Bahorel for nearly 20 years.
In his time he has built more barricades than most of his fellow revolutionaries are years old. He takes over directing the construction, instructing the others on the proper placement of furniture to ensure structural integrity. He catches Enjolras watching him and grins, hopping nimbly down from his position halfway up the wall of discarded chairs to clasp their chief on the shoulder. Enjolras' answering nod conveys both greeting and thanks, and Bahorel strides away to continue his preparations. He has been here before; he knows what this night will bring.
He has, over the centuries, become a close friend of Death's. He has lost friends, comrades, enemies, strangers, has witnessed every form of murder currently known to man, has watched people die of nearly every disease. It has never become easier. Bahorel knows the quickest way to kill a man with his bare hands and he knows too how monstrous it is to commit such an act. To take another's life is deny them all future potential; to offer one's own is to make the highest possible sacrifice.
Occasionally he wonders how he would choose to spend his death, if he had only one to offer; more often he lacks the patience for such philosophical questions and throws himself recklessly into dangerous situations to save his more fragile companions. He laughs off their concern and their scoldings and slings his arms around the shoulders to better steer them to the nearest cafe. He turns a deaf ear to their protestations against his assumptions of personal immortality and later, alone in his apartment, bandages his wounds with a careless ease born of centuries-long experience.
There are others like him, others for whom death is a temporary inconvenience, who roam the world restlessly and endlessly. Some he speaks to regularly, others he studiously avoids, some he has never seen at all. They cope with their predicament differently, though all but a few chose long ago to remove themselves from human society. A handful chose to be worshiped as Gods, while others appear as demons in the night to prey on humans like wolves. Some dedicate their innumerable lifetimes to studying their existence, unraveling the secrets behind their immortality and meditating on the purpose for which they were created. They have no more luck distilling this purpose than do the human philosophers, and with time all but the most dedicated have given up.
Bahorel is one of the few who still finds potential in the human race.
He has died more deaths than any of the others, has thrown himself into more fights than he can recall, has allied himself to more idealists and visionaries and leaders of the populace than he has had names. (He remembers every one, remembers their faces long after their bodies have turned to dust, carries their causes in his heart as reminders of why he still cares.) To each cause he brings knowledge and eagerness and funds. From each insurrection be takes experience and scars and a renewed sense of anger against the tyrants that force his friends to give up their lives in protest.
As much as possibly he avoids despair. There is nothing romantic or valiant in cynicism or apathy, nothing glorious about watching the world rot. When the temptation to turn his back on humanity and give up the fight becomes too strong he throws himself into brawls, feels his skin split like overripe fruit with every blow, loses himself in the heady sensation of pain, however false its promise of mortality.
In the night air of early June he fights with his comrades, fights for their liberty and his humanity. He fights for the slender poet who used his death to scream his values defiantly into the face of his oppressors. He fights for the whip-sharp woman who shares his bed, for Musichetta with her brown curls and wicked smirk, for Grantaire who is so lost to drink and despair that he cannot fight for himself.
Bahorel fights for Enjolras' fire and Combeferre's kindness and Courfeyrac's charm, for Joly's joy and Bossuet's luck, for Feuilly's passion. He fights to give their deaths as much meaning as their lives, to give them the ending their bravery deserves. He watches them fall around him, blood pooling on the streets and soaking the dirt where pave stones used to sit and he throws himself all the more intensely into the chaos.
He never sees who kills him. One moment he stands, braced against the crumbling barricade, the next he falls to the ground as white-hot agony sears every part of him. A shout goes up next to him as someone notices his body and he feels hands reaching out to staunch his wounds. He lacks the strength to tell them not to bother; he has died countless times by now and he knows how it feels for his life to be bleeding out. (He knows too how it feels for it to trickle back, creeping into his veins at a fraction of the speed it left.)
With the last of his energy he reaches out and clasps Joly's arm. The doctor's face is bone-pale but his hands do not shake as he struggles to bandage the hole in Bahorel's side. He meets Bahorel's eyes, blinking away tears that would obstruct his vision. Bahorel can only smile as his own vision dims.
When he wakes the barricade has been torn down and the bodies removed. No more blood pools in the streets, though the holes remain from where they desperately removed pave stones to throw at the National Guard. He returns to the site of the barricade and stands there for a long minute, head bowed, shoulders bent. Then he turns and walks away, steps slow and measured, once-rash waistcoat still stained with dirt and with blood. He returns to his apartment and packs his things, turns in the key, pays the last of his rent, vanishes into the city.
He does not use the name Bahorel again.