A.N. – This is a slightly shorter chapter, but a lot takes place, so enjoy! Warning – some violence and blood towards the end.
All I can say is... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
June 5th, 1832
"Courfeyrac, you take the watch – and keep on your guard. They may attack before it's light. And –" Enjolras paused, and gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze.
"Keep the faith. The people won't abandon us – we're not alone."
Not yet, came the unspoken retort from every man in hearing, and it was with a shaking hand that he grasped Marius by the arm.
The youth had been maniacally absorbed in re-piling furniture, but the touch and the desperation in blue eyes brought him up short.
Trembling, he gave the faintest nod and followed him into the wine shop, their hands clasped.
Neither noted the pair of grey eyes following closely...
At fifty-three years, Valjean supposed all this was beneath him. This fire, this passion – this was all the flame of youth.
A desperate flame, flickering frantically in its death throes as it was doused with a rainstorm.
He was old, and a daughter waited at home for him – a child who, for years, thought he hung the sun in the sky every morning, for her alone.
The boys not three feet away were in the summer of life, with nothing in the world to lose but their own lives... and, perhaps, each other...
Some of those on the wall of mangled furniture had begun passing around some emerald glass bottles of dubious content, and were singing now – just a pastime to keep themselves in good spirits, now that the reaper stood on the door step.
It was a soft tune, and mournful in a curious way, as the boys accepted their ends and bathed in nostalgia for the lost past... though he could not help but notice the two who separated themselves from the clutch and slipped into an empty alley.
Well, he thought to himself joylessly, let each prepare to meet death in his own manner...
It was hardly the opulence they enjoyed their first night, nor the impoverished romance of every night after – yet Marius could never have explained why it was so perfect; that in an alley, the cobbles wet and muddy from the rain, they should tumble upon a dirt-streaked mattress and ravish each other.
Wet cloth came away like rags, pebbled skin soothed with rough caresses, and their lips were purple and bruised by the time Marius groaned and flung himself across the other's chest, dragging his mouth down pale skin, smeared lightly with mud... It was strange, how the fear of death stripped the last inhibitions from men, and left them with nothing but their base desires – and perhaps, that was when they were the most human, he considered silently, his mind wandering as Enjolras moaned and arched beneath his tongue...
Light stretched over the jagged scope of the wall of furniture, bleeding across the cobbles and glittering on the rain-pools that collected beneath every gutter.
As the revolutionaries roused themselves from their half-drunk stupor, their leader woke to the sun on his face, and his lover's fingers threading in his hair.
A fine beginning to a man's final day upon the earth.
June 6th, 1832
"Canons!"
Every student behind the flimsy wall of rubble felt his stomach leap into his throat, and fingers tightened around triggers and the hands of others...
"Fire!"
Hell was unleashed.
Gunpowder and dust choked the air as the report thundered, shards of wood and metal exploding outward and answered by chilling screams.
One could only fire blindly through the storm, and in everyone's mind the thought was the same;
It's over.
In the midst of the melee, a greying man with fierce eyes threw aside his weapon and laid hands on every boy he could reach, forcing them back and away from the fire, his heart breaking with the steady assurance that the enemy was too great, and he couldn't save them all...
As if a confirmation, something heavy crashed upon his shoulders, knocking him to the cobblestones, at precisely the moment the Garde National spilled over the crumbling walls like an insect horde.
With a speed that belied his years, Valjean heaved the body onto his back – it was the dark-haired boy, blood pouring copiously from an unseen wound in his shoulder.
If he could spare one soul from the anguish and torment of the life they would all be condemned to, it would be enough...
The few straggling survivors managed to escape into the wine shop, scrambling up the half-destroyed stairs to the second floor – their meeting room... How fitting.
Combeferre and Courfeyrac had dissolved into tears, the sheer helplessness of their own fates weighing upon them like stones – yet their grief did not last long. The silence stretched, cruelly - then came the report of nine rifles through the floorboards, and they fell down dead, blood spilling from their open mouths...
Shocked in spite of his own steel resolve, Enjolras staggered back to the window, clutching at the frame, despite the fact that he was the only insurgent without a wound.
Soldiers swarmed into the garret. It appeared that his unmarred status would not last much longer.
Shaking only a little, and betraying his humanity, Enjolras let his eyes wash hopelessly over the blood-soaked street a final time, searching desperately in his last moments for a face that had likely been destroyed with all the others, by wood and lead...
"Visez!"
"No!" came a voice above the others, and the soldiers parted, confused, as their commander pushed his way to the front of the pack.
His eyes went wide.
Late morning sunlight flooded through the open windows and the gaping holes left in every wall by the artillery, silhouetting against Enjolras' body, shining upon his hair, and beautifying him.
Many guardsmen that day would later tell their acquaintances, in voices of horror, it was akin to beholding a god...
The boy tightened his fingers around the bloodstained scrap of red cloth, and braced his feet on the cracked floorboards, as the guard raised his pistol, hand shaking wildly.
The gold felt heavy in his pocket.
"I'm sorry..." he choked out, and squeezed the trigger.
Bang
A strangled noise forced its way from the victim's throat, but he remained on his feet...
Bang
Another cry, stronger this time. The bullet must have passed through, as all heard it hit the wall behind.
Bang
He staggered...
Bang
He slumped to the floor in front of the window, half-kneeling, blood dripping from his open mouth, eyes wide... Every man in the room, even the most hardened, felt sick at the sight...
Bang
A sound like a choked cough and moan ripped through him with as much violence as the bullet, wrenching his head back, crimson drops splattering the wall...
Bang
Bang
Bang
Something seemed to shift in the room as he fell back, blue eyes open and hazy, though the heaving of his chest beneath the blood-soaked fabric of his clothing betrayed his survival.
"Hélas, nous ne pouvons pas permettre que..." the commander mumbled, though his voice and hands shook without control, and many of his men felt their faces pale as he braced a gleaming black shoe against the boy's stomach, and with a hard shove sent him tumbling out the open window to crash upon the cobbles with a meaty thud.
The soldier leaned out carefully, his face blanching as he watched the mangled figure twist on the stones for a moment, struggling for a final breath, before he seemed to wilt, and lay still.
"So much for revolution," the guard muttered softly, and took the gun barrel into his mouth.
A.N. – I know you all hate me, but please – hold onto the torches and pitchforks for a little while longer! There is much more to come!
Translations:
Canons – Cannons (obviously)
Garde National – National Guard
Visez! – Aim!
Hélas, nous ne pouvons pas permettre que... – Alas, we can't allow that...