A/N: Hi all! I've been craving anything even remotely E/R recently, and so I wrote this, even though I really should be trying to catch up with NaNoWriMo. Anyways, I had originally planned to draw this out a bit more, but once I wrote that last sentence, I thought "Hey, that's a nice place to end it." So I stopped there, but I'm more than willing to publish the second chapter as well if enough people show interest. This is completely unedited- I've been considering the idea for a few hours and decided to have a go. Movie!Verse. Enjoy. :3
-Vroche
It was not the noise of the revolution that woke Grantaire up so much as the complete silence. It echoed throughout the walls of the cafe, almost tangible, making its prescence known mutely.
It was the loudest silence he had ever heard. After blinking open weary eye, the world shifted for a moment and then settled back into place. The edges of his vision were still dim and blurry, but he could see.
And, oh, he wished he was still out cold, draped over the table in a lifeless position, blind to the world arouns him. For what he saw startled and horrified him in a way that his constant nightmares never could.
The first face he recognized was Joly's. The former hypochondriac's thick brown hair was plastered across his face with sweat. His eyes were open in a horror and pain that words could not describe, and his mouth was open in a silenced scream. Grantaire stopped looking so he wouldn't see the fatal wounds that had cost Joly his life. There was a reason why he didn't study medicine.
Hands shaking, still not fully aware of the fact that Joly was dead, Grantaire reached downwards and used two fingers to carefully shut Joly's eyes. "Rest in peace, mon ami," he muttered hoarsely.
There were only a few bodies in the cafe, maybe ten at the most, but Joly was the only one who's face Grantaire recognized. They must have been citizens taking cover in the cafe. The barkeeper was probably lying around here somewhere, but Grantaire was rather fond of her as well, and so he didn't go in to too much trouble to find her.
His next thought was Apollo. The man he admired and the leader of the revolution, of course he had to be alive, at the very least! Surely Enjolras would use his strength and brain to find a way out of the mess which he had created. He had to!
Gingerly stepping over and around shards of crystal-like glass, pausing to catch his breath and steady himself every once in a while, Grantaire headed for the door of the Musain. The sun was high in the sky and shone down through the mostly shattered, tarnished windows ("Why clean 'em when they'll just get dirtier?"). It would have been any other normal day, and Grantaire's alcohol-fuddled brain almost accepted this fact.
Then he stepped outside.
The barricade, which Grantaire remembered helping with the construction of, was still there. Oh, it was still there all right, but it was what lay cluttered around it that stuck Grantaire like a knife. No, not a knife- a club.
Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre lay near the west end of the barricade, closest to the cafe. Grantaire assumed that was the part they had been defending, but he had not been versed in barricade-fighting techniques as the others had. Combeferre had three bayonets piercing through his abdomen, the blood still slowly staining his gray vest and white undershirt. Prouvaire's slight frame was mostly hidden underneath a piece of furniture, but it was clear he wouldn't wake again.
Feuilly and Courfeyrac had apparently been on the east end of the barricade. The orphan's bright red locks stood out against the mostly brown, drab color of the barricade, and Courfeyrac's black curls gently swayed in the breeze. Both had seemingly been shot in the chest.
Lesgle and Bahorel were lying near the apex of the barricade. Bahorel had a huge scrape across his calf, as well as a gruesome gunshot wound on his forehead. Lesgle had been shot in the stomach.
It was the same fate of the Thenardier girl, whose name Grantaire could not recall. She had shown obvious attraction to Marius, but as usual, the Bonapartist was blind. Speaking of Pontmercy, he did not spot him amongst the fallen, and vaugely wondered where he could be.
It was little Gavroche's form who brought tears to Grantaire's bloodshot green eyes. He had been such a brave, fiesty, annoying little bastard whom everyone loved. He was like a little brother. He was dead. From the way he was positioned, leaning against the barricade with pouches of what seemed to be ammunition in his hand, it was clear that Gavroche had just been trying to help when he was murdered by the cursed National Guard.
Grantaire slowly made his way over to each of his friends in turn, whispering a silent "goodbye" to them all. He was no stranger to the cruel hands of death- his mother, brother, and little sister had all ben victims, but these men he had felt close to. These men he had spent the last four years with. These men had been his friends, had accepted him -for the most part- for who he was.
That over with, Grantaire, slowly made his way around the barricade, searching between tables and chairs and beds and pianos and benches, looking for the man in the red jacket. Oblivious to the danger that the National Guard still posed, he ambled around for a little while, looking for his leader.
It occured to him that Enjolras, although he loved the barricade, might not have died on it. If he did die, Grantaire reminded himself, not when.
He managed to get through the first floor without excessively staring at the bodies or cutting his filthy bare feet on the glass too much.
The second floor of the Musain revealed nothing about the previous battle, except for a few blood spots and an empty rifle thrown into a corner. Now mildly suspicious, Grantaire continued up the stairs slowly.
If what they had said in books was true, if you really could feel grief like a knife stabbing in the heart, then at that moment Grantaire had absolutely no doubt that it was true.
Enjolras, his Apollo, the only person he truly cared about in the world, lay under the windowsill. Grantaire clutched the handrail so tightly his knuckled turned a ghastly shade of white, and he forgot to breathe for a moment. He stayed rooted to the top stair, with only one thought coursing through his brain like a river during a flood: Enjolras was dead.
It couldn't be. It couldn't be! Enjolras was invincible, he was a god, nothing could harm him. The man whom so many looked up to was gone forever and Grantaire could not believe it.
He didn't remember crossing the creaking wooden floors, but somehow he ended up at Enjolras's pale body. With dry, cracked hands, Grantaire made an inventory of his Apollo's wounds. Half his right leg was scraped off, leaving a huge, bleeding raw mark, and various cuts and bruises accented his pale skin. They matched the color of his red jacket.
That wasn't all, though. A bullet had pierced Enjolras's stomach area, although it had come close to missing him and was located on his far left side. It didn't look like it had gone through anything too vital, but then again, Grantaire wasn't a doctor.
No sooner had Grantaire finished this thought, he noticed Enjolras's chest. It was free of injury, save for the blood that stained his undershirt (and was probably from another wound or from carrying someone to safety, knowing Enjolras). Not only this, but it was rising. And falling. And rising. And falling. It was the slightest of motions, akin to a butterfly's gentle and subtle wings, but steady.
"Apollo," Grantaire gasped. His throat felt raw from the alcohol and from yelling yesterday, but he pushed the discomfort inside. Enjolras was alive, and that was all that mattered.