Hey! So this is basically going to be a junk drawer for all my Les Mis one-shots. About 99.9999% of them are Enjonine, so yeah.
As I post a chapter, I'll take the original story down. I'm going in chronological order, so I guess you can see how my writing has improved since I started writing!
(since I'm vain I'll be posting the original reviews at the bottom as well)
Title:He Will Never Forget
Summary: Some of the accounts of the final battle at the barricade were not entirely correct. For, as luck would have it, there were two other survivors who went down in Marius's memory as being dead. One of them was only a subject of his morbid dream, the other was saved by a drunk's insane idea.
Rating:K+
All things in italics belong to Victor Hugo, not me, whereas the normal text belongs to me alone!
The barricade never lost hope, not even when Enjolras spoke of the nonexsistant possibility of survival that came with their fighting. Despite their hope that radiated in every crevice in the walls, every piece of wood on the barricade, and every cobblestone on the street, most of the men were unable to sleep the last night of their lives.
A youth of whom none of Les Amis d'ABC seemed to know went to the smaller barricade to try to get some sleep. He squirmed into a small space between the barricade and the wall, for it was all-too often that he'd been forced to slumber in more uncomfortable places. He looked up at the stars, mostly bright but for spots in the sky that were covered in factory smoke. Here, through the smell of blood and death, everything seemed cleaner than the boy was accustomed to. Though the heat was strong in this time of the summer, such an issue was easily resolved by unbuttoning a few of the top buttons on his smock. Now comfortable, the boy allowed a little smile to grace his pretty but dirty face. He could get used to this little niche on this battleground. It was a good place to die.
It was with that thought that the peculiar boy allowed himself to be pulled into the trance of sleep, the dreams of which consisted of times from long ago, times of warm beds and gifts on Christmas.
However, Marius thought of the smaller barricade and went to inspect it. It was unguarded except by the lamp flickering on the pavestones. The Mondetour alleyway, and the small streets running into it, the Petite-Truanderie and the Rue de Cygne, were entirely quiet.
As he was leaving, having concluded his inspection, he heard his own name faintly spoken in the darkness.
"Monsieur Marius!"
He started, recognizing the husky voice that two hours previously had called to him through the gate in the Rue Plumet. But now it was scarcely more than a whisper.
He looked about him, but, seeing no one, thought that he had imagined it, that it was no more than an hallucination to be added to the many extraordinary vicissitudes of that day. He started to move away from the barricade and the voice repeated:
"Monsieur Marius!"
This time he knew that he had heard it, but although he peered hard into the darkness, he could see nothing.
"I'm at your feet," the voice said.
Looking down, Marius saw a dark shape crawling over the cobbles towards him. The gleam of the lamp was enough to enable him to make out a smock, a pair of torn corduroy trousers, two bare feet, and a trail of something wet upon the ground. A pale face was turned towards him and the voice asked:
"Don't you recognize me?"
"No."
"Éponine," The voice said, and through the darkness Marius could see a movement much like someone removing a cap, and shadows in the dark suggested the cascading of hair as it tumbled to cover the shoulders of the smock.
Marius bent hastily down and saw that it was indeed an unhappy girl clad in a man's clothes.
"How do you come to be here? What are you-" Marius began, and she sadly realized that he was to scold her and force her to leave. However, in the middle of his words, his foot caught on a piece of debris and he gave a little yelp before crashing to the ground. Startled, Éponine lept to her feet.
"Monsieur Marius? Marius!" She cried, poking his motionless body with her toe. "What on earth have I done?"
Marius moaned a little, allowing the smallest weight to be lifted off Éponine's damned heart. However, her brows still stitched with worry and her lips turned down in an unsatisfactory manner. Now that she knew he was alright, she found herself to be quite cross with him. How dare he fall! They could have a last conversation together, which in Éponine's mind would play out quite nicely, perhaps with her earning a kiss from him. She knelt down to his side to scold him, but when she did she saw a terrible dark liquid that she knew far too well.
"Help!" She screamed, her voice reaching a girly pitch that it hadn't since she was quite small. "Somebody help! Monsieur Marius is hurt!"
Calling out the voice of the barricade's savior proved more effective than she perhaps had wanted it to be. Footsteps pounded the pavement and lanterns came into view, blinding her with their sudden light. She flinched and covered her face protectively with a scratched arm.
A man came forward with a bandage, one of the students with whom Marius was friends, and he dropped to Marius's side. Relieved, Éponine made her way to push through the crowd, but someone stopped her with a gentle yet firm hand.
"Who are you?" He asked, and she recognized the voice of the leader. "Having the urchin here is one thing, but a woman is another."
She pulled back, surprised and flattered for a moment. She clung to that one second that someone thought that she was too pretty to be a boy; it may have been the only compliment she'd received since Cosette was taken away and she lost her father's love. Then she remembered how she'd unbuttoned the top buttons of the smock in the heat, promiscuously displaying what little cleavage she had. And her hair tumbled out of the cap, framing her face and bringing out what innocence remained through the dirt. She drew up her chin, much like she had when she confronted the Patron-Minette at the house on Rue Plumet.
"And why," She began, her voice back to its regular husky tone, "is that? I will let you know, Monsieur, that I've faced a great many brushes with death, far more than you'll receive before death claims you here! Perhaps I'm tired of such a life, did you think of that? Or maybe, I just wanted to see something grand, like the people fighting for freedom. Plus, had my hair been beneath my cap and my smock properly done up, you would not have recognized me as a woman! Perhaps I should take this as an insult, Monsieur, and for insulting me so cruelly you should allow me the right to stay!" Éponine pouted sweetly at the handsome leader, whose stony face did not crack at this.
A man stepped forward with a lantern to look at her closely. She vaguely recognized this student as the one with whom Marius was residing. The one with whom she'd come to the barricades. He laughed a kind laugh, and her heart ached knowing that this handsome young man would soon meet his doom with the rest of them. The sooner the better. "Oh, alas Mademoiselle, you are quite mistaken. When I saw you waiting for Marius I thought you looked awful girly to be a workman, but it was when you spoke with that voice of yours I thought that you must be a man! I hope you take no offense, for I understand that such a voice must come from an unhappy childhood filled with liquor and cigarette smoke."
"You are not entirely wrong, Monsieur." Éponine said, a little smile gracing her chapped lips.
"But the point remains. Courferyac, if I may," The leader intervened, setting his hand atop the shoulder of the kind young man, who stepped back immediately. "Citizen, already a harmless bystander has met his doom! It is bad enough that Gavroche insists upon staying-"
As he said the name of the urchin, Enjolras noted that he lost the girl's attention. Her eyes widened and her expression seemed one of distress. Enjolras, who was used to being able to finish his speeches without losing the audience, looked at her with annoyance.
"What? What is it?"
"Gavroche is here?" She asked, dumbly, causing some of the simpler men in the group to laugh. Courferyac silenced them with a dangerous glare, and turned towards the girl.
"Why does this bother you so?" He asked, and Éponine looked down, embarrassed. Sure, she and Azelma had lived their lives without Gavroche, but when he stopped by it filled her heart with joy, knowing that at least one of them was spared the criminal life. And she cared for him in the distant way that bickering siblings do. She knew that he must be bitter towards her for managing to cling onto what little love their mother had left to give, and she didn't blame him. There was a certain amount of bitterness on her part to, for he was able to escape. If she tried to, it would be only a matter of time before she was found again.
"My brother," She mused aloud, and Enjolras cracked the smallest smile at this. As did Courferyac, and the two comerades exchanged a glance.
"By God, I can see the resemblance!" Courferyac whooped, and some of the more relaxed (and more drunk) men laughed.
"Well, they share their stubbornness and bravery as well as their noses." Enjolras chuckled, but he placed a careful hand on her shoulder, and the heat of his palm reached through the thin smock. "Alas, another innocent should not die. It is awful enough that young Gavroche will most likely die here."
"I am anything but innocent!" She exclaimed, ducking out from under his hand. "Do you know what kinds of things I've been made to do for my father? I know a world that none of you do! It is awful work, you know, real terrible and dirty. My father would do it himself but he's much like a rat, he enjoys retreating into a dirty hole in the wall and waiting out the storm." Éponine drew some laughs from the crowd at this, but she continued talking in her distracted, rambling way to the leader. "The only good part about it is that I get to walk alone most of the time. At first it was scary, but as I grew accustomed to it, I became more welcome of the night. Do you know what kind of people haunt the streets at night, Messieurs? Bad ones, that's right. But the Parisian night is so beautiful! If it weren't for those damn factories, the stars would shine like diamonds on a bride's ring!"
A workman interrupted her, spewing out names at her, following his outburst with a simple statement, "Those damn factories are the only reason many of us are alive!"
There were some grumblings in agreement, but most of the men found themselves transfixed in the girl's heartrending monologue that never seemed to end.
"Pay close attention to the night right now! It may be the last time any of us get to see its beauty! I knew that coming in, but I think that many of you have yet to realize this. Surely you have something, someone to live for? You speak of studies and jobs and sweethearts and yet you are here, with wretched souls like me, who chose to end their pathetic lives for the greater good! I think you would do well, Monsieur, to let me stay," Éponine said, directly to Enjolras, who appeared to be relatively unmoved. "I am no stranger to a gun, I can fire as well as any of you petty schoolboys!"
The term 'petty schoolboys' lost what audience remained, and the crowd dispersed, frustrated and annoyed with the girl who should know her place. Enjolras remained, though, and he shook his golden head at her, who kept her chin up and her glazed eyes at him. A young voice pierced the night, and she began to tremble. The sudden realization of who would die that night reached her. Marius, who she brought here of her own selfish reasons, these kind, smart boys who would make wonderful husbands, and her brother.
"Enjolras, what's going on? I heard a ruckus. 'Ponine, what are you doing here? I thought you were in jail," Gavroche said simply, no love in the words that he spoke so monotone. Éponine felt herself drawn to him, and she felt for him in the dark until her bony hands lay across his shoulders. She couldn't see his face, but she could imagine it, and that was comfort enough.
"They released me and Azelma early. Maman is still in jail-"
"And father has escaped." Gavroche finished, with a grim undertone to his young voice. "I am more aware than you think, 'Ponine. I helped him escape."
For once, she was at a lost of words. As far as she could tell, Gavroche felt no love for any of them, and their father seemed to show particular disinterest towards him. Finally, her active tongue discovered the searched-for words and she asked him, "Why would you do such a thing? You know what kind of man our father is!"
Gavroche remained silent on the subject, and they stayed in this soft darkness for several moments before he finally said, "I think you should leave."
"What? Why? Gavroche, you silly boy, why are you ordering me about? I can handle as much as you can! Even more! You are so small even now, and how much you've grown!"
He snorted, his good humor returning to his voice. "I am nearly as big as you are, 'Ponine!"
"You are, aren't you? Well, no matter. I refuse to leave. Unless..." She trailed off, as if she was scared to say what she wanted to. Enjolras, who still stood beside the siblings, leaned in to hear her next words.
"Unless what?" the boy asked, and Éponine sighed a raspy sigh, one that emerged from the depths of her soul. She glanced back at where Marius was being tended to by candlelight, and she felt some comfort in knowing that he might not be well enough to fight.
"If you come with me and leave the barricade, then I will go and bother these men no longer." She said, and Gavroche's protests rose immediately but were silenced by a few words from Enjolras.
"Maybe it is for the best, boy." He said, and Éponine's heart went out to this young man that she barely knew.
"I won't leave this spot!" Gavroche swore, and it tore at her shredded heart. "I won't leave you, Enjolras, and I won't leave France!"
"Well, if you won't, then I won't either!" She cried, horribly upset at her brother's stubbornness. Why couldn't the silly boy realize that he was playing with the bigger boys, and that the game was against death?
"'Ponine," Gavroche said, quietly and with a softness with which he had never used when speaking to her. "Please."
She closed her eyes, and she was back at the inn as a small child. She was in a good mood that day, and decided to spare Cosette of her bullying. She led the lark to the children's room and showed her Gavroche, smiling proudly. "This is my brother!" The rejected baby boy lay about soiled sheets, but looked at his sister and the servant with curious eyes.
"Is it alright for him to lay like this?" the lark had asked in her broken voice. Éponine assured her that it must be, for her Maman and Papa did nothing to change it. After a few seconds of the girls watching the baby, Cosette spoke hesitantly to the girl who was usually so cruel to her. "I wonder what its like to have a brother."
"You may have one, somewhere." Éponine had said, reminding Cosette of her missing mother, and the child had smiled slightly, as if comforted by the thought.
Éponine opened her eyes to the same darkness she'd just seen. She wanted nothing more than to stay by the side of the boys she loved, but when Gavroche used that voice he broke her in a way that he could never know. He made her feel as if she was the younger child and he was the older, gently crooning to her.
"Alright. But, if you change your mind, can we meet up somewhere?" She said, her voice drifting off like smoke during a strong wind. Gavroche smiled. It felt nice to be looked after for once in his life, but he knew as well as she did that he would not survive.
"The elephant. If I make it I will be at there tomorrow."
"You promise?" She asked, and he made a guffaw as if he was annoyed with her smothering him, while in reality he was reveling in it.
"Of course I promise 'Ponine!"
The promise was enough to treat her wounded soul as she carefully left the barricade, wandering though the streets until she found her way to the river, where she sat to wait till morning for her brother that would never come.
And the unconcious Marius? He dreamt of her death, a morbid subject to dream of, but something that gave him the feeling that he just lost two women who loved him, Cosette and Éponine, although his feelings concerned with the latter were mostly those of pity. Somehow, through his injury, he picked up on the conversation discussing the relations of Gavroche and Éponine, and this spurned him to have Gavroche deliver the letter to his darling Cosette. As for the message that Éponine had selfishly hid from him? She placed it on his chest as she left, not wanting him to be angry with her when they reunited in death.
As Éponine was standing her ground against Enjolras, Grantaire momentarily woke from his drunken stupor. The cafe was remotely empty, and he was alone but for sheets of scrap metal that refused to stay on the barricade and the jackets that some of the men discarded in the room. He stumbled to his feet, reaching for a bottle but finding it empty.
Then a thought occurred to Grantaire. He wanted to prove to Enjolras that he did care (somewhat) for the revolution. Upon a dizzy look around the room, an idea lit up his alcohol-infused brain. He was taught to sew as a young boy by his sister, who was awful tired of having to repair his clothes when he constantly tore them, as little boys tend to do. So, his one talent in mind, Grantaire grabbed a lone sewing kit that belonged to Joly and set to work.
When he was done, he felt quite satisfied with his work. He'd clumsily put bits of metal in the stuffing of the jackets, and messily sewn up the tears. He retreated back to his corner, cradling the empty bottle, and his eyes drooped with exhaustion. Enjolras came into the room, rubbing his temples from the spat with the foolish girl. Upon entering the room, he sat for a moment, just to gather his bearings. After a few minutes of vulnerability, he left the room, remembering to grab his scarlet jacket. He thought its weight odd, but threw it on nevertheless.
And that little toss of his jacket over his sweaty arms was enough to save his life.
He repeated, "Long live the Republic!" and walking steadily across the room took his stand beside Enjolras, confronting the muskets.
"Might as well kill two birds with one stone," he said; and then, turning to Enjolras, he added gently: "If you don't mind."
Enjolras clasped his hand and smiled. They bumped shoulders, and Grantaire smiled right back, knowing the secret that protected Enjolras, whose eyes lit up with confusion upon this knowing smile from the drunk.
Neither smile had ended when they volley rang out. Enjolras, his jacket pierced by eight shots, stayed leaning against the wall as through the bullets had nailed him there; only his head hung down. In reality, the bullets hit the metal, but the fabric clung to the shots, unlike the ricocheting of the bullets off the royal children whose death would not come for many years. He just stumbled back from the momentum of the shots, and hung his head to hide his wild eyes.
He heard the shots ring out, and the rough cries of his comrades as they perished at the hands of the soldiers. While relief should have filled the young man, instead he was filled with shame for surviving. He was the captain, supposed to go down with his ship. Alas, here he stood, living, breathing, hating. Even the drunk who knew no cause to stand for had died, right there at his feet.
When the building was silent, the burden of death pressed upon the leader's eardrums. For the first time, his marble cracked and Enjolras fell to the ground, sobbing the way he only did at the death of his unrequited love, Patria, who died from malaria in his home town. He'd wandered the town for days, searching for help for the girl who lay in his arms. Patria, it was the name always on his lips. His hatred had to come from somewhere, and it came from the depths of his broken heart. It was first aimed at the policeman who refused to help Patria, then the police in general, then it was the government. And thus a revolutionary was born.
It was many months later, and nighttime. The streets were alight and festive with Mardi Gras celebrations, and the throngs of spectators joined together as urchin and blueblood, night and day. The people of Paris were united in the night more successfully than any revolution would have done. In the crowd, a lone face in a sea of masks stood staring at the wedding party that passed through. Her heart had been saved by its broken state, for a broken heart knows no hatred until someone attempts to stitch it back up the wrong way. Éponine's pain had never stopped. Through the window of a carriage in the party she saw a handsome face that she missed dearly. She knew not if it was hallucination or real, but she enjoyed seeing that gorgeous smile that graced the features of her Monsieur Marius.
In the next carriage, she spotted another familiar face. Although her smile dimmed, it did not disappear entirely. Cosette. It was at that moment she realized that this was far too real. Did he think her dead? Did he mourn her at all? Did he even remember her name? Éponine sighed, somehow knowing that he didn't. And in the fresh heartbreak that came from this, her soul was saved again, for with each rough tear her innocence grew and her criminal thoughts lessened.
She lowered her teary eyes to the ground, and once she was sure that she would not cry, she looked back up and met someone's eyes from across the street. Although he wore a thin, black mask, his wild head of golden curls gave him away, as well as his red jacket that appeared lumpy and ill-fitting. He saw her as well, and cracked a smile. There was a break in the traffic, and the young man crossed the street, walking right towards her.
Once he reached her side, they stood in silence. However, a connection was made by their entwined fingers as they watched their friend live his happy life without knowing that they survived as well.
Éponine murmured in a voice that had healed from breathing cleaner air, "I'm afraid he doesn't remember."
Enjolras replied with his lips very close to her ear, "Mademoiselle, the real fear is that he will never forget."
Original reviews:
Olo Eopia03:HELLOOOO AGAIN!
You're backkkk! I love the story :D I LOVE EPONINE :D she's my favorite character in the book :D (and of course the movie) :) I like how you were able to incorporate the style of the time period, like what they wore and how the people at the time would react or speak :D
This is a good story :DDD Goodddd jobbb :D
I think I'm on an unofficial hiatus right now but I'm still in the middle of outlining my story for Shem :D
It's good to see your awesome writings again!
PeachesPoison:Awee this is so cute/sad. Even better since I've read (well, listened to) the Brick. Job well done :)
Princess Unikitty: interesting idea for a one-shot. nice use of detail.