The night of the revolution was black and never ending. The barricade blocked the street outside their beloved Café and the students lay side by side in the chilled Parisian night air, muskets by their side and pistols in their hands. The rain-dampened cobblestones beneath them soaked their waistcoats and brought prickling shivers up their spines. Many of the boys unconsciously pressed together for warmth, with their heads on shoulders or their knees sandwiched together, sleeping side by side with the end on the dawning horizon.
Two swaths of red and green lay beside one another. The crimson coat spread beneath both of them, the green waistcoat a shade darker from the rain. Grantaire was shaking violently. His head and one hand rested on Enjolras' chest as they both propped against a overturned table. Enjolras lay on his back with one arm around Grantaire, feeling his tremors as he quivered under the volley of raindrops.
"I can try and find a blanket," Enjolras offered. "A tablecloth, or an extra coat."
Grantaire shook his head in the limited space. "It's not the cold," he uttered through chattering teeth.
"Please, you're soaked through. Let me get you something."
Grantaire shook his head again. "It's not the cold." He repeated, a strange poingance coming through his certainty. "It's that I haven't had anything to drink tonight."
A solemnity honeyed Enjolras' voice, though Grantaire couldn't see his expression when he said, "I see."
"You said we were the only barricade left."
Enjolras almost smiled, like the gravity of the situation only made this moment sweeter. "Yes," he sighed thoughtfully. "You'd think that would be a reason to drink."
Grantaire tipped his chin up and looked to Enjolras with wide, imploring eyes. His voice hushed to just above a whisper. "Do you think we're going to make it?"
Enjolras returned his gaze and smiled, close-lipped and confidently. "Well, we're strong boys, aren't we?"
"I- well. I'll spare you the 'end of the world' speech."
"No," Enjolras whispered. "I want to hear it."
A reverent moment passed, the pattering of the rain on the sidewalk beating in time to their synced breaths. "I've never done anything impactful my whole life," he started finally, placing each word carefully together. "I've lived a, a numb life. I've hardly remembered a moment of it. So just this once, just for tonight, I don't want the world to feel cloudy." He took a calming inhale through his nose, breathing in their mingled scents. "I want the clarity, even if it hurts."
Enjolras rubbed his shoulder sweetly and tangled his fingers in the spiralling damp ringlets. "That's brave of you," he commended, trying to rub the tremors away with each soothing grace of his hand.
"Thank you," he mouthed. The rain pattered on. "And Enjolras?"
"Yes?"
"You have the revolution in you. Anyone can see that."
He heard Enjolras's heartbeat quicken. "Thank you, Grantaire."
A tensity scratched at his whisper when he spoke again, disrupted by the shaking of his voice. "I don't have the same skills and talents as you. When the army confronts us, and if we get separated, well…" his voice died in his throat and he closed his eyes to shut out the image in his head. "I care for you deeply and if I don't have what it takes to make it out alive, then, just know that I- well, I-"
"Hey. It's okay." Enjolras turned his face and kissed his forehead. "I love you, too." He adjusted his hold to try and provide more warmth or more shelter from the spitting sky. "Try and rest up. You know I'm here. Everything is exactly where it needs to be."
The heavier their sleep set on, the colder the night seemed. Grantaire still trembling against Enjolras, ear pressed to his chest. He heard the steady slowing thumps of his heart as he drifted into sleep, and matched his breathing to the somnolent, soporific rhythm until the tremors finally ceased.
/
He awoke at various points throughout the night. Sometimes feverish, sometimes parched, dizzy, freezing, reeling. He clung to Enjolras like an unstable house clinging to its cornerstone. Each new ailment walloping him in waves and building with invisible force. The longer he held them off, the more unbearable they became, until the spectrum of symptoms plagued him so he was forced to leave his side and vomit into the gutter behind the Café. "Oh, god," he wheezed to himself and punctuated a deft and final spit onto the sidewalk. "Oh, god, spare me. I can't do it anymore."
He staggered into the Café and pulled the first bottles that he found. The sickly haze slowly faded and a muddy euphoria took its place. His intoxication built steadily, the pain resolving itself to sorrow. One candid night was all it took. He looked beyond the door to the covered area where the barricade boys slept in varying levels of uneasy slumber, Enjolras amongst them. Grantaire pulled from the bottle and sighed the dry flavor between his teeth. "He makes me want to be a better man," he said wistfully to himself. A moment passed and his breathing abated so he could feel his nervous heart pounding in his chest. "He makes me want to be the man I wish I was," he revised, and drank to it. He drummed his fingers on the table. His heart pumped more anesthetic to his brain. The dark sky lightened to a melancholy blue. His final statement fell in a broken whisper. "He makes me want to be the man I'll never be." The sun had just begun to rise when his stupor peaked and his head hit the table, unconscious.
It was a sleep so thick and inky black that not the firing of rifles, nor the boom of cannons, nor the agonized screams of friend and foe alike could stir him. As the soldiers filed into the Café with strategic uniformity, Grantaire slept like one of the dead, slumped over the table, surrounded by the killed and the wounded. The soldiers swept right by him, clearing corners and opening fire and bayonetting any man in civilian clothes. The heat of battle evoked no response, from the first shots to the final uttered groans of defeat.
Only silence stirs the drunk. Only softly creaking floor boards and muffled voices from above were quiet enough to permeate through his drunken slumber. His brow furrowed and he inhaled sharply through his nose before he found the strength to sit up. Neither the effects of drinking nor of withdrawal plagued him as he staggered over bodies and followed the voices up the stairs.
The sight sobered him instantly. A wall of soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, their weapons raised in threat but yet to be aimed. Enjolras stood by the wall, glowing in the early morning sun coming in through the window. His, chin up, chest puffed, musket cast to the ground, then he gave his final order: "Shoot me!"
One of the soldiers lowered his weapon. "My God," he whispered to himself. "How could I?" The rest took aim.
"Long live the revolution!" Grantaire exclaimed as he weaved through the soldiers and took a place beside Enjolras. "Long live the republic! I am one of them." He glanced at Enjolras and adjusted his posture to the same proud, upright stance.
Enjolras looked at Grantaire with a poignant admiration softening his features. He took his hand and held their interlocked fingers above their head and made certain and fierce eye contact with each soldier and their weapons. His low voice carried only to Grantaire in the soldiers' stunned and hesitant silence as they guiltily pulled back their hammers. "You don't have to die with me, you know." he said. "You could escape. Leave to England. Start over."
"I die with you," Grantaire returned, gripping his hand a little tighter. "Or I die without you. I'd rather be killed than only half a man.
Enjolras smiled a beauty unfit for the world. Grantaire closed his eyes, letting that image be the only thing to fill his mind's eye. He didn't see the soldier's fingers tighten on their triggers, or the lurch of their weapons when the volley rang out. A white pain hurt for an instant. Warmth spread from his body, then through it. The darkest night shrouded them in the pink light of dawn. Their knotted hands enclosed into one fist, paling as the wet crimson coat spread beneath them.