"Do you permit it?"
He could have run away. He had been hidden from sight, indistinguishable from the corpses of his companions, and clothed in shadow. He could probably still run now. None of these soldiers cared about him, an inconsequential, stumbling wine-case. They were all focused on the breathtaking god in the window. He could still escape, and a part of his brain was screaming for him to do so. But it was a tiny voice, hardly a breath to him, and easily dismissible among the noise in the rest of his head. No, he would not run. Maybe it was some misplaced desire to prove himself, to do something meaningful. Maybe the wine finally had gone to his head. Or maybe… No, not maybe. He saw clearer in this moment than he had perhaps in his whole life. He saw clearer the one thing keeping him rooted to his spot, calling forward, seducing him to his death. His fatal, golden Apollo.
He stood alone, silhouetted in the café where they had spent so many afternoons. The mocking sunlight shone through the window upon him. He must be Apollo, he thought. Here was the proof! Even on the verge of failure, despair and death the sun could not be parted from him. It fell prey to his beauty, becoming quickly ensnared in his golden curls. Those fortunate sunbeams, lucky to weave through his hair, with no desire to ever leave, forming a halo around his head, revealing a visibly aura of the power that always seeped from him. The sun paid its due to the rest of his body as well. It crept over the red fabric on his shoulders, lightly tracing down his arms to his hands, clenched tight with determination and fire at his sides. It inched down his legs to the bloodstained boots he had never gotten the chance to blacken. He gazed at his fearless leader, taking in his full, glorious form one last time. He was perfect in every way, from the way the dirt and blood smeared across his knuckles to the way he stood, tall and imposing, without fear, from the tattered red sash that hung around his hips to the way his neck flexed with hidden stress. He let his eyes trail across his face—the jaw, the straight nose, the full lips, and the dark, deep set eyes, which he noticed with a gentle lurch, were finally locked on his own. Even his eyes seemed red and black in that moment, and filled with a passion that seemed to pierce directly through his soul.
He had never looked so fearsome.
And he had never looked more wonderful.
"Do you permit it?"
He was not emotionless. Despite the façade he put up, the brave, stoic face he had trained himself to wear, he was still a man. He was determined. He was stubborn. He was proud. But he was not ready. He still felt fear, slowly icing over his insides as the soldiers raised their guns. It was a complex emotion. He did not fear death. He feared, rather, the loss of life. He could do so much, for the people of France, for Patria herself. He could do so much more. And yet now it seemed he had only a few seconds to resign himself to the fact he would never get to.
And then a voice had run through the darkness, and his nearly settled stomach had dropped once more. A survivor, someone to carry on the fight. There was hope. But the voice approached, and suddenly he was filled with another kind of fear. Fear of the needless death of his friends. He could barely stand to watch. And yet, even farther down, a terrible anticipation began to rear it's head, sick in twisted that in this last and most desperate moment, he would not have to be alone.
The voice continued to advance, and as it reached the line of soldiers, it began to present physical form. His heart clenched, and he gave little thought to the cause, whether it was relief, pity or disappointment. The poor fool stumbled through the lines, yet he seemed more alert than ever.
His clothes were dirtied and askew, but not as torn and ruined as his own. His vest pressed flat with creases from leaning too long over a table, his boots nonetheless scuffed and glinting with the blood of comrades. His cravat was loose as always, and his hair was, as he, wild. The dim, early sunlight seemed to barely reach out to him in pity, casting his skin in a pale and eerie glow. He seemed already a ghost of the lively man he was the day before. His mouth was slightly agape, either in shock or merely hanging in a habitual shape regardless of the missing bottle, which also emphasized its absence in worn skin between the fingers of his shaking hand. His dark eyes seemed to have lost all mist of mischief, all shine of surety. But as they locked on his own, he was still able to spot the one emotion that mattered, the one that had never wavered in all the time they had known each other. And he told himself that was loyalty.
"Do you permit it?"
His head seemed to move of its own accord, for without any action he was aware of, his companion had seen his cue to move forward. He took to his side, and even in the dark space cold with the dead, he was able to feel his presence beside him, a warm and comfort that soothed his mind. The rays from the window seemed a little brighter, seemed to stick to his fly-away raven hair, to warm and color his cheeks once more with blood that he still guarded in his face. Sensing the gaze he turned to look up at him one more time. He could see through the mask, the marble bust of a face. He raised his hand, offering the same smile he had given up every day, as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing had changed.
He gripped his hand firmly, taking comfort in the way it moved within his own, how he could feel the pulse of angry blood under the surface, how it seemed to beat faster under his skin. And he dropped the façade. The abandoned mask fell to the ground and shattered, the invisible pieces pricking at their shoes and scattering around them like fallen friends. He smiled.
In that one smile he poured all the emotion he had ever held back. The fear and the fondness. The apologies and the anger. The sadness and the shame. The guilt and the glee. The relief and the remorse.
In that one smile he acknowledged the wine-case's existence, his loyalty, his unwavering belief, and his love.
In that one smile he gave in, and entertained the possibility that maybe a life with this hapless and devoted drunkard wouldn't have been bad after all.
The smile was shared. The message received. If things were different, he would have tried.
And then it was over.
The guns' reports rang through the haunted café, and Enjolras and Grantaire fell, joining their fellows at the eternal barricade, with a new song and a new promise.