A/N Last chapter; thanks for the support!

10

He reaches home aflame, choking in the back of Courfeyrac's car, curling into the seat and trying to make himself as small as he possibly can, to shrink away from this reality and force himself through the fabric of existence, tear into another place, somewhere where Jehan is waiting for him, where he won't open his door to silence, where he won't sleep alone tonight. The tears scorch his throat, burning, burning, and he's shaking, acting like a child—he knows, he knows he's foolish, but he can't stop, he can't control himself, he can't—he can't do anything but sit and shake and try to suppress the screams that claw at his insides. Miraculously, he manages to force his trembling lips together, clench his jaws into something that mocks steadiness, and he's blind, blind, blind until the car pulls beside what he realizes is his apartment.

It won't leave his mind. Golden hair, limp. Delicate lips, frozen. Thin shoulders, still. Lilac eyes, closed, erased, hidden, ceased, eluding, gone, gone, gone—

Needs to get out. His hand is on the car door, he's opening it, feet are on the sidewalk before a hand on his shoulders drags him down, and he bites into his tongue, draws blood, has to escape, can't stand it—"Let me go."

"You can't. You're a danger to yourself like this, you need to—"

"Let me go. Now. Don't touch me."

"I can't let you." Courfeyrac's eyes, sharp aqua, are all he sees. Vivid. Almost flinty. They belong on a jaguar, not a man. "I can't let you, Bahorel, I'm not going to let you hurt yourself."

"I'm not a fucking idiot. I won't hurt myself."

"I don't just mean—I don't just mean physically, alright? Every second you're alone—"

"I thought you hated me. Why should you care?"

"God damn it, you think I hate you?" Hands on his shoulders, too strong, too hot. He's shaking when he should normally hold his stance, and thinks he might even be clutching Courf's wrists in return—he hopes he's not, hopes that maybe there's some sort of strength left beneath the tears that have painted his face entirely in some gruesome watercolor. "You think I hate you, you poor—"

The pavement dips, and he must have been clutching him along, because now Courfeyrac is all he's holding onto, his fingers straining in a sharp flame of pain. "Shit—" Arms around his shoulders, forcibly supporting him, a snarled curse into his ear.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Spitting the word out until he doesn't know what it means anymore, holding on, holding on, terrified of what might happen if he lets go. Maybe he can do this—just keep clinging to Courf, not letting go to him, because surely reality can't reach him when he's drowning himself in another—he won't realize, this way, that there's another person he wishes he could suffocate himself with instead. "Oh, fuck." He can't even go to Grantaire, because Grantaire's not enough, and it's easy enough for the twisted cynic to call him by Enjolras's name, but for him—the man he's in love with couldn't be farther from the one who's somehow become his closest and only friend, and even if there was an identical copy, another Jehan that could provide everything he's already aching in the absence of, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't be him. And he needs him, shit, he needs him, he needs him; "Fuck, fuck, fuck—"

"Get inside. Come on, we're getting inside."

He doesn't know if they do move inside, because he's blind again, and the ache of his own desperate clutch on Courfeyrac is all he's aware of, other than the stabbing whiteness ripping him apart from within. He can't do this. He's never felt this. This isn't like reality, this can't possibly be reality—is he supposed to live after this?; because he can't imagine it—in attempting to distance himself from the most valuable thing in his life, he has inadvertently done the opposite, and now he realizes that without Jehan, there is nothing left.

"Why am I still here? Why am I? Tell me, Courfeyrac, you know, you have to know, someone has to know, there needs to be a reason, tell me..."

"I don't. I should, I know I should, but I don't, Bahorel, I'm sorry—" His voice cracks. It should be inconsequential, but it's not—it's not, because this is Courfeyrac, and for all his jubilancy, he is untouchable. Solemnity, perhaps, may be attainable, but he does not shed a tear, never has. He's strong. He's constant. He's one of the bravest of them all in the fact that he can't be touched, can't be moved, but he is also Jehan's best friend, and now his voice is breaking and Bahorel is breaking with it, somehow sinking down yet more. His fingers are numb, laced somewhere in Courf's T-shirt, and his face is against what feels like denim, perhaps the thigh, cold kitchen tile under his knees. He's gale-stricken. Shaking. Long fingers are tangling in his hair, holding him close, running through and offering murmurs of apology when the voice is no longer capable of as much.

"Don't cry. Don't you dare fucking cry. You can't. You can't."

"I know, I know..."

But he does anyways, because neither of them are strong enough for anything else, not when it gets down to this. So they stay there in his kitchen, Courfeyrac standing and Bahorel in a kneeling crouch, holding onto each other and hating each other because the man between them is gone, and now they're left with nothing but themselves.

"I loved him. I really loved him. After all this, I was in love with him the whole damn time, and there must have been something, I know there was something I could have done differently, I fucked it up, it's my fault, it really is my fault... god, it's my fault." Realization opens like a chasm, and his gasps fall hollowly into it, his fingers clawing once more as a whole new streak of shivers seizes him. The permanence is suddenly quite deafening in his mind, the fact that he cannot get Jehan back, that he's gone—and, at the exact same time, there is the blazing knowledge that it didn't have to go this way. Courfeyrac's own words come back to him, static-hissed on the answering machine: But if he dies over you—god damn it, Bahorel, if he dies over you... "...You said you wouldn't—forgive me, you said that—you can't now, that's not fair to him, you have to hate me—"

"What, like he'd want me to?"

"What he wants doesn't matter anymore."

The fingers in his hair still, then tighten, pulling almost to the point of pain. Yet the sharp stabs in his scalp are a relief, and he welcomes them, heaves in the material discomfort in some emotion parallel to joy. "It'll always matter. To me, anyways. Maybe—maybe you're different. I don't know. I have to go."

"You said you wouldn't leave."

"I can't stay."

"Good."

"I'm sorry."

Weight pulling away from him, slipping so that his hands are on the cold floor, as well, nothing holding him up anymore but himself. Courfeyrac's footsteps are deafening, crashes in the stillness.

"I—I am sorry, but I can't do this, I—do you want me to call Grantaire? I can—"

"None of them want this. Just go."

"I'm going."

He hears the door open but not shut; can't quite tell if he's missed it or if Courfeyrac really is lingering. He finds himself wishing for both simultaneously, with equal and opposite drives of desperation. Don't leave me alone. I can't stand for you to be here.

There's a mechanical snarl, heater or air conditioner. It's the time of spring where he can never remember which should be on. Spring. His favorite season.

Fuck, it's still spring. Twentieth. June twentieth. The number burns into him with a thousand times the intensity of the damned 2:46, and the solstice is tomorrow, that's one of the few dates that he ever did bother to remember—the solstice is tomorrow, which means he's gone a day too early, he didn't even get to finish his stupid final spring.

It hurts until it's ripping at him, literally feels as though an iron claw has descended into his throat and is now tearing out the flesh, strip by strip, and he can only try to keep up with his retching breaths—out of nowhere, the floor is far too cold, and everything rocks in a thousand directions as he stands, blinking, swaying, moving—out of here, away, into the bedroom—he can hide in the bedroom; there, he's there, on the sheets, under them, with a pillow wound in his arms, and it smells just like him, and he can remember the last night, the shower, the shy smile, his thin weight—he clutches into the pillow so tightly that the muscles of his arms rage, and he bites it, grinding his teeth together, jaws straining and aching—if he pushes hard enough, there won't be enough room for the tears to get out, or for his body to tremble in that awful weak shake—

For he can't be weak. It's the worst, the absolute worst thing that he could ever find himself called, but it's true—he knows it is. It's finally come, an enemy he couldn't fight, and it's destroyed him so completely that he's probably laughable in his devastation now—

But, God, does it even matter? He just wants Jehan back. He just wants Jehan back, and to hell with his strength, and his pride, and everything else. Jehan is gone. Gone. He was only just here, and so real that Bahorel couldn't possibly comprehend the possibility of his ending, even as it was right there, inevitable, approaching... he can't be—he has to be somewhere. Must be.

But he isn't. And Bahorel knows that. Knows quite clearly, with horrific stabbing lucidity, that he is quite simply gone. He no longer exists. His thoughts and beautiful emotions, which he could lace into such exquisite language—his job at the library by the college has been vacated, and there's one less name to call on the roll of all his classes, and his flat with all its books is dead, dead, dead to everyone—there are probably a thousand and one things that he knew that will never be shared, and Bahorel will never be able to feel him again, and it's so, so useless to dwell like this, because he's not coming back, and there's no point to swamping himself deeper and deeper in the pain that's already wrenching relentlessly, but he needs to, because there's nothing else, there is. Nothing. Else.

How the hell did you let this happen?

He doesn't know. He has infinite questions and not a single answer to provide himself with, and he knows that none of the rest of them do, either; the only wonderings that dare to cross his mind now are the ones that are somehow paradoxical in their own formation, pointless to even conjure in the first place, and it's useless at this point. It's all amazingly, deafeningly useless.

Two days later, he can eat again.

After a week, he talks to Grantaire.

Two weeks, and he almost smiles.

Three and he laughs—mouth closed, still not smiling.

In twenty-four days, he starts his classes up again.

Somewhere in it all, the funeral comes and goes. He attends in silence. There is no reason to try and put voice to the words that the rest will only hate him for.

They never talk to him. It's curious, how they tread lightly around him in a tightly obvious way, and yet adamantly refuse to acknowledge the source of the fissure between them. He is not as fully separated as he perhaps expected, and they still talk to him—or most, anyways. Despite his words before, Courfeyrac does forgive him. Joly, Combeferre, and Grantaire are truly kind; Feuilly frigid, Bossuet tight-lipped.

Enjolras shows up at his apartment in mid-August.

"What are you doing here?" Bahorel demands baldly, scowling at the golden-haired form. Enjolras hesitates for a moment, eyes cast upwards, then steps in. His movements are purposeful, and he keeps his shoulders stiff, his chin high as he moves past Bahorel, turns so that his back is to the wall and his hands are tucked deep into the pockets of his zipped red jacket. He doesn't quite look him in the eyes. His hair is bronze rather than honey, and cut shorter than Jehan's, falling in loosely curled waves to his shoulders instead of his elbows. Grantaire thinks he is beautiful. Bahorel finds his features to be ice-hewn.

"I haven't talked to you about Prouvaire, yet."

"Of course you haven't. Nobody has. I think most of them are pretending to forget about it, now." He hasn't forgotten. He never will. He hasn't looked at anyone else, not really—the idea of another relationship, of moving on, is laughable, even after thirty days and nights and more of thinking and thinking until there's surely not a single side left of Jehan's memory to be discovered. Perhaps he should be bored, or distanced, or anything but what he is.

The truth is that it hurts. It constantly hurts. Hurts when he smiles, when he moves, when he reads, when he breathes too hard. He's accepted that it won't stop—rather than adjusting, he's adapting; very, very slowly, this is becoming a part of him. He can pull together calmness for the public, and that's all that matters, as he's coming to realize. None of them care what he's holding inside so long as they can't see it.

"Yes. Well, I feel as though I should."

"Enjolras, please—"

"When he was hospitalized, the last time, you called me. Because you thought I cared."

He hasn't shut the door yet; the light catches in Enjolras's eyes and hair, refracting crystal glints of illumination. "Sure I did. I don't want to talk about this right now, please."

"But you need to. I want you to know that you were right, and that I did care, and I haven't stopped caring."

"Please—"

"I know it's hard for you." The softness in those sapphire irises suddenly freezes, and then his proud brows are curving into what's almost a glare, a gleam of their resolute leader biting through his even exterior. Teeth clenching, Bahorel kicks the door shut, and it bangs loudly enough that he jolts; Enjolras doesn't flinch. "I know it's hard for you," he continues, "but you're strong enough to listen to what I have to say now."

"How do you know?"

"I don't."

He remembers the first meeting at the Musain, after the diagnosis. How he decided in some instant there that he hated Enjolras. It's harder to say now, for love and hatred and everything in-between have been torn free from their previously clear separations in the last few months, cast into raging chaos where he only knows passion from apathy. He cares about Enjolras, at least. Can't quite call him a friend, but he does care.

"Tell me how things are going with Grantaire. You two had better be happy."

It unfolds in a snap—there are suddenly strong fingers at his collar, and he's against the door, his breath rushing out and adrenaline kicking into his veins in a sharp burst, because there are blue-fire eyes centimeters away from his, hot breath in his face, growling words shuddering through his eardrums.

"I'm not here to talk about Grantaire. Don't ask me about him."

"Why?" He's angry—angry at whatever this is, this ridiculous outburst; he feels the familiar burn of rage building in his chest, and it's so distant and yet so familiar and right both at once that he almost laughs—in fact, noting once more how some aspects of Enjolras's face, the shape of his nose and the curve of his lips, really do bear a striking resemblance to Jehan, he does. He laughs into the fury before him, mocking it so that Enjolras toughens into a yet more potent sort of ferocity.

"Because—" The grip loosens; rather than pinning him, Enjolras is now only holding him against the door, hard against his back. He's taller, and as Enjolras's head dips, the golden tangle atop it is all visible. He can see over him, into the room, and gazes silently, both of them breathing far more heavily than the situation merits, somehow Enjolras the one shaking and Bahorel perfectly still. "—Because I... I don't want him to come into this. I don't want him to—I... I am not going to speak of my own private matters at a time like this. I am here to apologize."

"Why the fuck would you apologize? You haven't done a single goddamned thing wrong." It's almost infuriating, the truth of it, which only really becomes clear now, with the solidity of the words settling into the tension-warmed air. "In all of this. Not one thing."

"Perhaps I have not, and that is because I haven't done anything at all. In the last days, you distanced yourself from him. It was all the others would say of you."

"Yeah, bet you barely noticed I was gone, yourself."

Enjolras ignores him. "You did what I have always done, and I want to tell you—I... I am here to tell you that you were right, before. When you supported him. When you chose to care, and to—to, beyond that, demonstrate the extent of that care, I..." His hand falls, and he steps back. There's a certain hollowness around his eyes; lack of sleep. "I do admire you, Bahorel."

"Hell no, you don't."

"I do. You have a... a strength that I will not ever come near possessing, and I respect that. I am sure that it's one of the traits which Jean Prouvaire found most admirable in you."

The name, as always, is like an unsuspecting thistle prick, the sting spreading slowly through his whole body. "Maybe it is. But why don't you tell me why you're really here? Because I know you wouldn't just—meditate on how much you admire me, and then come to say so. You're not like that."

Light eyes move upwards again, red-clothed shoulders shift in a silent high, delicate lips curl. "Grantaire told me."

"About us?"

"Yes."

"Great." So he's losing Grantaire, too. Does it matter? It doesn't feel like it matters. Maybe it's something that he'd do better without, either way. Any sort of loss that he's experienced over the summer has been eclipsed in the magnitude of June 20th.

"Do you... do you love him?"

And then he sees it—the slightest shake to that carven jaw, the flicker in the depths of the eyes, the hesitation in the voice. I do admire you.

Or you want to. You want a reason for me to be equal to you.

"Of course not." The words feel good to get out; he can't remember how long it's been—perhaps since Jehan—that he's been able to provide real relief, but he sees it now, in a pair of eyes that are darker, more feline than the ones that he immersed himself in for so long. "It's not like that. He helps me, to feel better. After Jehan—during Jehan—I just... it's a physical thing. I don't want to have this conversation."

Enjolras nods, slowly. He seems almost on the verge of a smile, an expression which Bahorel decides would be profoundly alarming to see on his face, but doesn't quite cross the edge. "I... didn't know. I... it is true, though. If he did care for you, in that way, I would not... I would not be angry at you."

"Sure seemed like you were."

"Prouvaire loved you. Grantaire cares for you, however that may be, and they are both men whose opinions I value quite a bit. I do believe that you will be able to find someone else, who feels the same way for you, who you... care about, just as strongly."

"Maybe." Bahorel voices the word to fill space, because this is absurd, really. Enjolras is the last person he'd expect to say a word to him about love, and even now they're hesitant enough that it's clear their speaker knows little of what he speaks—but that somehow makes them more pure all at once. Enjolras is honest. "...I could."

He glances over his shoulder, then, and squints as the afternoon sunlight slants through the front windows, bites into his eyes and floods him with white—for an instant, he can see only the inside of his mind, and there are flowers, soft and dusty and pastel, bursts of high, stevia-sweet laughter, a shy pearlescent grin, a smooth voice weaving lines of verse, long waves of hair like spun gold.

An ache. Not fading, but sinking, sighing into him. And, for the first time, he does not reject it.

"Not yet, though. It's going to be a bit longer." He looks down, and the sunlight snaps away; he can see the floor again, wood scuffed and dirtied a bit from where Enjolras stumbled in pushing him against the door, cobwebs whispered in a corner, a thousand imperfections running through the russet boards. "Just a bit longer, and then I guess I'll see."