a/n: Penultimate chapter - Enjolras and Grantaire skirting close to domesticity, in a neighbourhood that owes much to Théophile Gautier and Gérard de Nerval.


The rooms were gloomy and dark, and a few pieces of plaster crunched under Enjolras' feet as he made his way across to the tall, lozenge shaped windows and attempted to open the shutters. They resisted, only giving way suddenly with a jerk. It made only a little improvement, as the windows – long coated with coal dust and grime – admitted little of the winter light that struggled into the dead end that was the Impasse du Doyenne, a small side street between the Comédie-Française and the Seine.

Grantaire forced one of the sash windows to look out – and was met with a rather unprepossessing view of the narrow street, deteriorating facades on the buildings, and a ruined church diagonally opposite. The general effect was completed by the waste ground in the shadow of the Louvre, still littered with the large blocks of builders' stone that had been left scattered after the Emperor's project to complete that formidable structure.

"Well…" he said dubiously, "at least the broken vaulting of the church will provide an interesting prospect by moonlight…and I'm sure that, come summer, that block of land will yield a formidable crop of nettles, to complete the feel of gothic ruin…"

But Enjolras didn't really seem to be listening, too busy opening all the windows and doors, and tapping the walls where the plaster seemed particularly cracked.

"I've had it surveyed," he was saying, "and the structure is sound enough. There's solid stone under the plaster and very little of the woodwork has been affected by rot. The floorboards are solid."

Grantaire kicked aside the remains of a mouldering rug, watching the pill bugs underneath roll into balls or crawl for the shelter so abruptly removed, then looked up at the heavily carved woodwork now more visible in the dimmer corners of the room and high wainscotting. It would, he thought, be rather a pity to have cleared it all out, as it looked like rather good work.

The main salon in which they now stood was nearly perfectly proportioned, with that love of mathematical symmetry so evident in the previous century. Between the tall windows, old bevelled mirrors in desperate need of re-silvering reflected back the darkness under a layer of dust, where they had once reflected the chandeliers and sconces. Above the doors were painted porcelain plaques with pastoral scenes, and the rose marble fireplace was graced with a mural depicting Artemis – no doubt modelled on the bewitching mistress of the original owner, judging from her decidedly unchaste smile – framed with gilded swags of flowers and leaves.

Grantaire was inclined to ruminate on the poetry of decay, but Enjolras was being briskly businesslike and efficient.

"The plasterers start work tomorrow," Enjolras explained, "as soon as the chimneys have all been swept. Once the floors are cleaned I'll bring in a few floor coverings that will help stop the draughts until we can have everything stopped up. It will take some time to finish the restoration, I understand, but I don't have much in the way of personal belongings – the books can be stored until I need them, and they have agreed to work around us, as I should like to move in sooner rather than later."

"Us?" Grantaire was brought up sharply. "Which...us?"

"If you agree, that is" Enjolras said with a smile. "I don't wish to present the decision as a fait accompli – it is entirely up to you – but...if you wish, I would like you to join me here." He looked around, suddenly sensible that it was, on the surface of it, not the most prepossessing of offers. "It will improve with work, of course."

"I..." Grantaire gulped a bit for air. "Won't it be seen as...compromising?"

"There is more than one bedchamber. I do not choose to lie about who occupies which room, but nor do I see a need to discuss it with anyone outside." He held a hand to Grantaire. "Let anyone who cares guess who resides in which bed, if it is of any interest to them. But I greatly desire to have you share my rooms...as you now share my life."

"Of course," Grantaire responded, taking his hand. It was that simple. He hardly even needed to give notice to his current landlord – a week, and then he would move in with Enjolras.

"I have finalised the negations for the purchase of this building and those adjacent," Enjolras said, moving away again, gaze searching out the details assessing. "If renewal is to start, why not here?" This, Grantaire knew, was something of a pet project for Enjolras, Combeferre and Feuilly – the idea of regenerating some of the areas of Paris that had been in decay since the Revolution. "I can take these apartments on the first floor, and lease the rest to working families at a fair, honourable rate. If successful, it may bring investment to the other properties in the surrounds. I'd like it to spread out to those condemned buildings in the Rue du Musée."

"Aren't you afraid that such close proximity to the Comédie- Française and the Palais-Royal will bring the workers into moral danger?" Grantaire teased.

"If we look after the welfare of their bodies and provide them with education and the chance of employment, then I believe that their morals will take care of themselves" Enjolras responded. Grantaire was still groping to comprehend what Enjolras had just asked him – the idea of actually living together - but Enjolras had already moved on, expanding on his plans. "I have organised for a simple kitchen range to be installed…it will take some time to update the heating arrangements, but until then there are large fireplaces to be used." He snapped his fingers, a thought occurring to him. "Firewood? We'll need that, won't we? And coal for the kitchen. I must arrange a supply…"

"You – we – will need a housekeeper. Someone to oversee all these domestic arrangements." Grantaire knew full well that Enjolras' grasp of such details, practical though he was, was rather tenuous. He had come from a family in which the running of a household was firmly the province of women and the staff, and his rooming arrangements when he moved on to the Sorbonne had been simple, his needs attended to by the concierge and maids. This was a rather larger enterprise.

"I have already engaged one," Enjolras said, to his surprise. "Do you recall Jean Hulot?"

"Of course." He was one of the Amis, killed in June during an early assault on their barricade.

"He was a support for his mother, who is now in financial distress. You know that Combeferre and I are looking to provide some pension for the dependents of those killed in the fighting, but I have also offered her a place here and she has accepted…ah. Have I gone ahead and made too many arrangements without consulting you first? Once I started, it seemed a natural progression, and I do hate to leave things unresolved."

Grantaire laughed.

"I'm no more experienced than you in engaging staff! Probably less so. I'm sure Mme Hulot will do well."

Enjolras turned away from where he was dubiously swinging a door back and forward, testing the hinges, and came to stand by Grantaire's side.

"You truly do not object to me going ahead and taking this step?"

"I am still in that stage of infatuation that you could propose a visit to a soapbubble kingdom in the clouds and I'd pack my bags," Grantaire said. "I know you're accustomed to doing things by the shortest route possible – but you are learning to include me in your plans."

"It is true," Enjolras agreed. "Having been unconventional for so long, it is an odd thing to emerge out of the shadows and engage in a more conventional daily round. And of course I have never been in any sort of…domestic arrangement with another person, not unless I am to include my childhood and schooling."

"It doesn't count." Grantaire said, drawing close, reaching out for that reassuring caress of Enjolras' hair, as much as was visible between his greatcoat and his hat, a re-affirmation that such intimate touches were possible. "This is different. For both of us."

Enjolras nodded, and Grantaire wondered which direction the conversation would take – back towards plasterers and housekeepers, or towards the question that was starting to loom large in his mind and, he was quite sure, in that of his partner.

Grantaire, perhaps oddly, felt few reservations in regards to sexual congress with Enjolras. The Enjolras he had first come to know had been fiercely chaste, but not, it seemed, out of fear or a prudish distaste for something to be disdained as base animal passion. He cared little about the exploits of his friends, and tales of mistresses and misadventures drew neither censure nor applause from him. All the energies that might have been channelled elsewhere, including the sexual instinct, had been subverted and directed towards his cause, another offering to add to entirety of his being given over to that higher end, leaving little to nothing personal outside of that. His body was simply another instrument to use for those purposes, just as his mind and his will were honed and developed to that end.

That was one of the changes that had taken place with the advent of the Republic. In response to changed circumstances, Enjolras's had shifted to a longer vision, an understanding that with the immediate objective achieved the ideal still loomed far distant and would be the work of a lifetime. Some of his harsher edges had softened with the adoption of that perspective, just as his vision had broadened from the narrow, intense sphere of France to take in a broadly progressive view of humanity.

And, somewhere in all that, Grantaire came in. Not as an appendage to this new life, but an integral part of it. He would have willingly subsumed himself in Enjolras' life, but the words his beloved had spoken mere days ago about subservience lingered for Grantaire. Enjolras wanted a partner, not a subject. Emerging from worship was all the more difficult when that long-cultivated adoration seemed a natural default position. It did not yet feel entirely right to look directly at Enjolras rather than up to him.

That adjustment caused Grantaire more anxiety than the technical process of lovemaking. There was a physical ease with each other that was reassuring – Enjolras' sureness in his body, coupled with the awareness he had shown of Grantaire when they sparred and when they kissed, left him with some confidence that they would pass through the stage of awkwardness engendered by Enjolras' inexperience as quickly as might be hoped.

"We will make a home here," Enjolras said, as if he followed Grantaire's thoughts. "And I do not expect our progress together to be without its setbacks." The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile. "Two such thoroughly unconventional beings as we are."

"Redeeming something from the ruin of the past?"

"Clearing away that which is rotten, using the past and all its lessons to give us a frame and foundation for the future."

"There are flaws in your analogy-" Grantaire started with a laugh. "You're attempting to do more than remodel the ruins of the ancien régime..."

"Probably – given time, I could better turn the imagery to good purpose. Let it suffice to say that it is in our hands now, and what we make of it is up to us."

"Will you have the murals and plaques painted over?" Grantaire asked suddenly. Enjolras looked at them as if he were aware of them for the first time.

"I thought yes – they're not important, are they?"

Grantaire snorted. "You, for an educated man, can be such a philistine. They are not a particularly large mould stain, Enjolras -they are lovely! The many-hours labor of some unknown artist –"

"- And the product of a rich man's purse. Very well, I shall instruct the plasterers and painters to work around them."

"They'll need some restoration..." Grantaire said thoughtfully, and wondered what they might look like with a little less Fragonard and a little more Delacroix. He'd just have to keep the results from Combeferre until they were complete, as he knew far too much about art to resist denouncing it as sacrilege.

They stood there among the dust, cobwebs and fallen plaster, hand in hand.