March 6, 2018: Another chapter and it's not even been two months! :D I can't speak for you, but I'm excited, at least. (Honestly after that last cliffhanger, I just felt back leaving you hanging for too long. ;D) Enjoy?

Muet—Chapter 13
by eirenical

"This can't be real."

"He must have something up his sleeve."

[It's all over now. How are we ever going to recover from this?]

"How do we know the source was reliable?"

[This is all my fault.]

"Maybe it's not as bad as it looks."

[What the hell good is any of this talking going to do, anyway?]

"We need a plan, and we need one now."

"That's right." Musichetta stood up from her seat at the end of the table, holding up a hand in a silent command that was immediately obeyed. "Enjolras, you're right. We need a plan; we need one now." She lowered her hand. "But I don't think you should be here while we make it."

The group erupted back into a cacophony of voices, all shouting at cross purposes, and Enjolras raised his hands to clutch at his head. He still didn't have the knack of semi-permeable shields back, and the constant ricochet of mental voices against physical voices in echoes and re-echoes of everything being said was enough to drive him mad. How did Prouvaire stand it?

Enjolras paused. How did Prouvaire stand it? How did any psychic stand it? Maybe they didn't. Maybe that was the point. That was not a comforting thought. Just as he had it, a hand closed on the back of Enjolras' neck and began slowly massaging away the rising tension. Grantaire. Enjolras sighed. For all that he'd been completely unresponsive to Enjolras' romantic overtures, he just did things like this. He was always there. Always touching him. Always pussyfooting around the line between friends and lovers. On good days, it gave Enjolras hope. On bad days, it was more than he could bear.

Today was a bad day.

A fist came down hard on the table. "That's enough!" The cacophony of noise came to a crashing halt as everyone turned to face Bahorel. He levered himself out of his seat, leaning his weight into his hands where they were braced on the table. Even that wasn't enough to hide the way they were shaking. "We all know exactly how much of a disaster this is and, yes, we need all hands on deck to deal with it. But, Enjolras…"

Enjolras nodded, pushed himself out of his seat. Grantaire's hand fell away from his neck as he rose. "I know. I shouldn't be here." He squared his shoulders, meeting the gazes of each of his friends, in turn, before once again meeting Bahorel's. "I'm a liability." He pushed his chair back from the table, then stepped around it, pausing just as he was about to push it in, as what he'd seen but not seen finally penetrated. "But you're right that you need all hands on deck. And we seem to be missing one."

The noise level rose once again as everyone turned to murmur to the people around them, trying to figure out who was missing. Unbeknownst to anyone but Enjolras, it was Grantaire who figured it out first.

[Shit. Where's Feuilly?]

[What was I thinking?]

Feuilly pushed aside another overgrown branch. The path around this lake had been beautiful once. You could still see the bones of it, the way you could see the frame of youthful beauty hidden away beneath the skin of someone who had grown old and tired long before their time. The trees and bushes were overgrown, strangling the flower beds that had once lined the lake and making the path nigh impassable. A once brightly painted rowboat was still tied to the dock, but it was half-submerged, its back broken, its paint faded. The once clear water was covered in algal blooms, and no life was discernable beneath its surface. If Feuilly was looking for a metaphor for his disaster of a life, he didn't have to look very far. He had a multitude to choose from.

[I never should have agreed to deliver that message.]

But the lake path wasn't the reason he was out here, nor was the dead and weed-covered rose garden at the end of it. He picked his way carefully through the wooden trellises—the flowers might be long dead at this time of year, but their thorns still had a bite—until he fetched up against a large stone wall. This. This was why he was here.

[This is all my fault.]

Feeling his way around the outside, Feuilly eventually came to a large, wrought-iron gate. He'd jimmied the old lock and oiled the hinges on one of his first visits, so now the old gate came open with barely a touch. He slipped inside, pushing it closed behind him, and stepped into paradise.

A walled garden.

Feuilly had seen pictures of them in old magazines when he was younger, had stared at the fastidiously designed flower beds until he'd had them memorized, but he'd never imagined that he might see one in person. Rich people had walled gardens. The elite. The cream of the crop. The ruling class. Someone like Feuilly wasn't even pedigreed or well-trained enough to be a gardener for places like those. Those kinds of gardens didn't have gardeners. They had landscape architects. Those kinds of positions were inherited, passed down like some medieval serfdom. Someone like Feuilly wasn't even good enough to stand outside the walls.

[I don't deserve any of this.]

When Enjolras had first brought him here, Feuilly had spent every spare moment he was on the estate exploring the grounds. It was about a month in that he'd come upon this—a walled garden that no one could chase him out of. A walled garden so overgrown that it must have been decades since it had last been cared for. Feuilly knew nothing about gardening. He knew nothing about landscaping or color theory or irrigation. But he knew code. And he knew puzzles. And he'd started trying to piece back together what had been from what now was.

[There's nothing left to salvage, now.]

It was how this thing between he and Enjolras had started to begin with. Once Enjolras and R had broken things off, Enjolras had started spending more time on the grounds, himself—anything to get him out of the house and away from R, no matter how Musichetta fussed about the danger. And on one such foray, he'd discovered Feuilly's little secret, found him grubbing away in the dirt one spring, clearing the weeds out of a bed that he had hoped to plant… something in. He still hadn't known what.

That was how it had started.

Enjolras had shown him the old greenhouses, helped him categorize the seeds that had been labeled and tucked away—a veritable card catalog of potential life. That spring they'd planted zinnias. That summer they'd planted forget-me-nots. Around them both, they'd planted irises. For hope.

And underneath the sheltering boughs of a birch tree that Feuilly had coaxed back to vibrant health that first season, Enjolras had kissed him for the first time.

That was all ash, now.

Feuilly walked past the carefully tended beds, resting beneath warm blankets of mulch now that winter was coming, and past the messy tangle of the older beds he'd yet to clear. Towards the back of the garden there was a trellis draped entirely in wisteria that had nearly been choked out by a climbing ivy when Feuilly had first found the garden. (More symbolism that he didn't need.) And tucked beneath the trellis was an alcove of scattered benches and statues, fountains that hadn't burbled since before the rowboat at the bottom of the lake had taken its last trip out to the small island at its center.

Feuilly had always had a habit of keeping emergency packs stashed in out of the way places. Blanket. Change of clothes. Toiletries. Food. Something to get him started if he ever had to run. He pulled a small pack out from beneath the corner bench and stared at it long and hard, every instinct he had all but screaming at him to throw it over one shoulder and get the hell out of Dodge. It was only a matter of time before everyone else figured out what Combeferre already knew. Feuilly was as much a liability now as Enjolras—worse. He'd all but handed Courfeyrac over to the government on a silver platter. He'd set up that meeting knowing how Courfeyrac would respond. If he'd had any loyalty at all, he'd have told Eponine exactly where she could shove her requests and walked out. And now? In trying to help, he'd just made matters worse. It was no better that it had been Prouvaire to do it; Feuilly's mind was as compromised as Enjolras' now… as compromised as Courfeyrac's.

[They'd be better off without me.]

"No, we really, really wouldn't."

Feuilly turned so fast he lost his footing, had to sit down hard on the bench to catch himself. Enjolras. Of course, it was Enjolras. Because fate or luck or whoever the fuck was sitting around up in heaven these days couldn't take pity on him for one—damned—second. Feuilly stared up at Enjolras, still half caught up in memories that had no basis in reality anymore, and couldn't think of a damned thing to say. His pack fell from suddenly numb fingers.

Enjolras knelt in front of Feuilly, the dead leaves beneath him making a loud crunch as he settled. He reached out, took Feuilly's hand in his. "I heard you."

There was a force, a gravity, around Enjolras. There always had been. And Feuilly was helpless in its grip, just as he'd been since the first day they'd met. He could no more walk away from Enjolras than he could rip out his own heart. He'd have been better off if he could do both. The best he could manage was to pull his hand back out of Enjolras' grip. Enjolras… Enjolras didn't want that anymore. He'd made that abundantly clear. Feuilly crossed his arms over his chest. "And?"

Enjolras climbed back to his feet and brushed the dead leaves off his pants. Choosing a bench caddy-corner to Feuilly's, he perched on the edge, fingers drumming in an uncharacteristic fit of nerves beside him. "This isn't your fault."

Feuilly snorted. "That isn't what you said the other day."

"I know." Enjolras' hands stopped their nervous drumming and clenched tightly around the edge of the bench. "I know. And I was wrong. This isn't your fault, and you were right to do what you did." Enjolras' head jerked up, then, eyes locking onto Feuilly's as he said, "I don't care what I said. I don't care what the others think. I don't care what happened as a result. You were right. Courfeyrac… I never should have agreed to that stop-gap measure to begin with. I certainly shouldn't have agreed to let Prouvaire alter his conditioning the way he did. I still don't know what possessed me to do it. I don't— I don't like to think that I'm the kind of person who would abuse his friends that way, just because it was more convenient." Enjolras' gaze lowered, fixed on his knees. "I don't like to think it… but I clearly am that kind of person. I don't know what changed. Circumstances, maybe. Desperation. Or maybe it was just me, going cold and hard and expedient the way I'd always promised myself I wouldn't. Whatever it was, I still never should have let it come to that. I should have found another way." His hands clenched harder on the bench, and his voice dropped into a whisper so quiet that Feuilly had to lean forwards to hear. "I wasn't strong enough to let him go. You have no idea how grateful I am that you were."

Feuilly jumped off the bench, started pacing around the alcove in tight, jerky circles, hands clenching tightly on each other as he moved. "You don't mean that. You can't mean that. He's working for the government."

Enjolras reached out and caught at Feuilly's hand, forced him to come to a stop. "I know. Feuilly, I know. But, I also know Courfeyrac. And being stuck here, trapped in the house day after day, stuck in that sick parody of a relationship with the man he most loved… it was killing him more quickly than anything else would have. Even this— fuck. Feuilly, even this is better, because now the worst has happened. It's done. We've lost him." Using Feuilly's hand for leverage, Enjolras stood and pulled Feuilly into a tight embrace, whispering his next words directly into Feuilly's ear. "Now, we go get him back."

Whether it was Enjolras' words, his conviction, or the feel of Enjolras' body pressed so tightly to his, Feuilly's heart started to pound like he'd just run a marathon. He couldn't answer, couldn't force a single word past his lips. All he could do was clutch at the fabric of Enjolras' shirt, gasping after air that hadn't felt this scarce since Prouvaire had had him trapped beneath him, hands and mouth playing his body like a child's toy.

And that comparison was definitely not helping.

Enjolras wasn't letting go.

Enjolras wouldn't let go.

And Feuilly couldn't let go. Not again. So, he did the only thing he could do. He tucked his face into the space between Enjolras' neck and shoulder, held on as tightly as he was being held… and cried his eyes out.

The entire time Feuilly cried, Enjolras held him, rocking them slowly back and forth, hands weaving soothing patterns through Feuilly's hair and down his back. And every time Feuilly managed to gasp out an "I'm sorry," Enjolras had the same thing to say in response.

"It's not your fault. There's nothing to forgive."

And by the time the sun set behind the walls of the garden, Feuilly almost… almost believed him.

"Joly."

"Joly."

"Joly."

Joly waved a hand in Bossuet's direction. Not now. Not now, I'm counting. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three— He looked up. "Twenty-four packs of suture. That's not enough. Bossuet, that's not enough. Add it to the list."

Bossuet sighed, putting the list aside. "Joly, at this rate, we'll need to raid every safehouse we have to get what you need. We can't leave everyone else without supplies."

Joly slammed his hand down on the table. "Damn it, Bossuet, I need these things to do my job! How can they expect me to save people if I don't have what I need to do it?"

Joly stood there, head bowed, breathing in harsh pants, only vaguely aware of Bossuet standing from where he'd been perched on one of the cots to come over to his side of the room, a dim echo of when he'd seen him do it earlier. Still, when Bossuet reached him and wrapped his arms around him, Joly startled against him, fore-echoes and reality crashing together in a dazzling glissando of dissonance. Bossuet pulled him close, hands rubbing soothing circles around his back as he leaned in to whisper into his ear: "Tell me you know something. Tell me you've seen something. Tell me that we are for certain going to need these supplies for a real, concrete reason, and I will pluck every other safehouse bare to get you what you need. But, Joly… if this is just paranoia on your part, I can't do that. You know I can't. Not even for your peace of mind."

Joly drew in a breath to—To lie? To exaggerate? To tell the truth? He didn't even know. But before he could make up his mind, Bossuet's solid presence had already begun to ease the tight knot of anxiety he'd wound himself into, and to his utter embarrassment, a vague itch began pricking at the corners of his eyes—a premonition of an entirely different kind. Moments later, Joly had his face pressed tightly to Bossuet's chest and those tears were flowing unhindered as, between hitching breaths, he gasped out, "I can't lie to you. I can't. I haven't seen— There's been nothing since Prouvaire and Feuilly got back. Just echoes. But I feel—"

Bossuet's arms tightened, and he began pressing soft kisses into the crown of Joly's head, a steady counterpoint to the soothing circles on his back. "I know. I know. I know."

And that was just it, really. Bossuet did know. Better than anyone. Joly's prescience was unreliable, coming on in fits and spurts, not usually giving him more than a few minutes' warning, more often providing echoes mere seconds ahead of an action. The few times it had warned him of something earlier than that? The first time it had happened, Bossuet and Musichetta hadn't believed him, had thought it just paranoia, a fit of anxiety, like now. They hadn't listened, and it had nearly cost them R.

But though Joly had saved him—saved as much of him as he could, anyway—something else had been lost that day that he'd never recovered. He'd lost faith in himself. He'd always been sure, before, what was premonition and what was just anxiety. Now? Now, he was never sure. Every bit of nebulous anxiety was suspect as a possible early premonition. Right now, Joly was absolutely sure that 24 packs of suture weren't enough. He was certain of it. Was that premonition? Or was it just paranoia? He didn't know. And because he didn't know, because he wasn't sure, he had to let Bossuet's judgement rule here. He couldn't beggar every infirmary in every safehouse Les Amis had just on the off chance that this nebulous feeling of anxiety was something more than a misfiring amygdala.

No matter how much he might want to.

[Well, well, well. Isn't this a pretty picture?]

Joly jerked back out of Bossuet's arms, wiping quickly at his eyes. Bossuet frowned, made to reach for him again, but Joly shook his head, turned back to the supply cabinet and began counting gauze packs. Still, Bossuet could no more help his sense of compassion than Joly could control his anxiety. Joly continued to count. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… Bossuet stepped up behind Joly, rested his hands on his shoulders in a delicate squeeze, barely enough to reassure Joly that he was there, but he'd still be in exactly the right place to prompt—

[Well, well, well. Isn't this a pretty picture?]

Joly scowled as Prouvaire slipped into the infirmary behind them to perch on the cot Bossuet had vacated mere minutes before. "After what Combeferre just had to tell me about the mess you made with Feuilly, I'm not really interested in playing games with you, Prouvaire. Say what you have to say and then get the hell out of my infirmary."

Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two…

No immediate answer was forthcoming. Joly dropped the rest of the gauze packs on the table and turned to face Prouvaire… who was silent, hands uncharacteristically clamped between his knees. This was more reminiscent of how he'd looked when Feuilly had brought him back half-catatonic than it was the look of a man out for mischief. It could be a trick. It was probably a trick. Prouvaire still wasn't speaking. Cursing under his breath and calling himself a thousand different kinds of a fool for letting himself be suckered, still Joly took Prouvaire's wrist between his fingers and started to count. Just to check. Just to be sure.

When Prouvaire still had nothing to say in response, Joly cursed louder. "Damn you, Prouvaire. I am not interested in feeling any sympathy for you, right now. Knock this shit off."

Prouvaire finally raised his gaze from where it had been fixed on Joly's fingers, his voice a cracked whisper of a response. "Gladly. If you'll do me one favor."

Joly dropped Prouvaire's wrist, pushed Bossuet out of the way, and made his way across the room to the refrigerator. He came back with a bottle of Pedialyte and pushed it into Prouvaire's hands. "Fine. One favor. But you drink this as part of the bargain." Prouvaire pulled a face that Joly secretly thought would have been more appropriately aimed at a plate of worms than a grape children's drink. Joly merely crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Your color's way off. Your blood pressure's getting shocky levels of low; I can tell that just from your pulse. What? You were so busy fucking around with Feuilly that you couldn't be bothered with a glass of water even once in the last three days? It's a wonder you didn't pass out just from walking down the hall. Drink."

Prouvaire's gaze stayed locked on Joly's for another minute before dropping back downwards. "What difference does it make?"

"What— What difference does it make? I don't know, Prouvaire. None if you have a death wish, I suppose. What the hell do I know?" Joly threw his hands in the air and turned back to the cabinet to start recounting the gauze packs, trusting that Prouvaire would start drinking when he could no longer use his reticence to get a rise out of Joly.

"A death wish…" A soft, broken laugh. "If only."

There was a quiet crinkling sound—the plastic seal on the Pedialyte cap—then the even quieter sound of someone drinking. Joly nodded in satisfaction and finished counting the gauze packs. Fifty-six packs of ten; thirty-eight more of five. He'd have to package and autoclave more, but there was plenty in the closet. He'd get on that once he was done with inventory. Joly had just moved on to counting the packs of sterile gloves when Prouvaire replaced the cap on the bottle and passed it to Bossuet who showed it to Joly. Empty. And a promise was a promise. Joly turned back around. "OK. What's your favor?"

Prouvaire opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head. He lowered his still-shaking hands to press back between his knees, took a deep breath, let it out on a quiet moan. [I won't ask you to compromise your oath. I know you well enough not to even bother. But, when the government finally gets around to using whatever intel Courfeyrac has given them to find us—because they will—it would be a kindness of the highest order if you could manage enough of a warning to let me put a bullet in my head before they get here.]

"What?"

Prouvaire's shoulders shook in silent laughter, and Joly's cheeks flushed hot then far too cold when Prouvaire's gaze raised to meet his once again. Joly had seen more life in the eyes of those with mortal wounds than he saw in Prouvaire's in that moment. [They know everything he knows. You know as well as I do that it's only a matter of time before we're compromised here.] Prouvaire's lips spread in a rictus grin to match the chill in his eyes. [They won't take me alive, Joly. Not again. I'll not take that chance. I'll rip my own throat out with my bare hands first if that's what it takes.]

It took all the willpower in Joly's body to unlock his throat enough to speak even in a barely voiced whisper. "It won't come to that."

[It will. You don't even have to be a Seer to see that.] Prouvaire slid off the cot and stepped in close, pressing a soft kiss to the underside of Joly's jaw. [A warning, Joly. That's all I ask. I'll take care of the rest.]

With those last words echoing in his mind, Joly could do nothing more than stand there, staring after Prouvaire's departing form. Softly, to himself, he whispered. "It won't come to that. It won't. It can't."

"Joly."

Joly jerked in place, heart pounding, breath freezing in his throat, locked in place, before waving a hand in Bossuet's direction. Fifteen minutes lead time. Not his longest by far. Still… He looked up. "Twenty-four packs of suture. That's not enough. Bossuet, that's not enough. Add it to the list."

Marius sat where Eponine had left him, hands pressed between his knees, shaken in both body and mind. He couldn't stop shivering. No amount of chafing them together seemed to bring warmth back into his hands, no amount of swallowing could keep moisture in his mouth for more than a second, and he couldn't even remember the last time he'd been able to feel his feet. The moment he'd sat down to breakfast that morning, the moment he'd met the eyes of his grandfather across the table, Marius had known. His grandfather had tried to have him erased from existence, rewritten into the perfect puppet for his political schemes and ambitions. He hadn't been able to get warm since.

Of course, his grandfather had known when it hadn't worked. He'd thrown down his napkin, left the table without even a word. Marius was no longer worth even that much to him. Son of a human and a psychic—son of two failed revolutionaries, he'd since found out—Marius had been living on borrowed time since his birth. All kinds of wild talents cropped up as the result of such unions, and the offspring were often culled as quickly as they were discovered, their families salted and burned by their allies as poisoned ground. Proof positive that his mother had had an illicit affair with a telepath, this grandson was a dangerous pet to have if his grandfather couldn't control him, and Gillenormand well knew that. This had just been the latest in a long line of attempts to bring Marius to heel. Marius had no idea who or what to thank that his grandfather hadn't succeeded until now, but he couldn't help but think—he couldn't help but feel—that his time was running out. Eponine was his last chance.

Eponine had brought Marius back to her apartment, left him bundled on her couch with a soft, old blanket and a cup of hot chocolate that he still hadn't managed to choke down two hours later, and gone out again. Montparnasse had drifted in and out, needling at Marius, teasing him, making threats, but there was so much fear in Marius for his grandfather that he had none left to spare for Montparnasse. He was a little boy pulling on pigtails in comparison. Besides, Eponine wouldn't stand for him truly harming Marius, and they both knew Montparnasse wouldn't risk losing her just to play with him. He had no teeth. Not here.

Five hours, forty-three minutes, and thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen— seconds after Eponine had left, she finally returned. She didn't even bother taking off her coat before dropping down beside Marius on the couch and leaning into him. Marius leaned back, grateful for even that small point of contact. He was still so cold.

Eponine tipped her head to rest on the back of the couch and let out a long breath. "I found somewhere to put you. It's as safe a place as I can manage right now… but there are conditions." She took another deep breath, then let it out. "You're not going to like any of them."

Marius was too busy trying to calm the frantically hopeful beating of his heart to even begin to care about conditions. Eponine had come through for him. She was going to get him away from his grandfather. His mind was safe. His soul was safe. He was going to be allowed to remain himself. What were conditions in the face of that?

Eponine was still talking.

"—don't like putting all my resources in one basket like this, but there's really nowhere else. You can't stay with me. You can't stay with my parents. You sure as fuck can't stay with Montparnasse or anyone else in Patron Minette—that would be a G-d damned disaster if ever there was one—I just don't have anywhere else to put you. It has to be with him."

Marius pried one hand loose from the death grip his knees had had on it since that afternoon, laid it gently on Eponine's elbow. "It's OK. Whatever the conditions are, it must be better than where I've been. Nothing you could ask of me could be worse than that."

Eponine let out a harsh bark of laughter even as she reached out to take Marius' hand in a vise-like grip of her own. When she calmed, she simply shook her head. "I wouldn't be so sure of that, Marius. I wouldn't be so sure of that at all." She took one last deep breath before plunging on. "How do you fancy being a double-agent?"

By the time Eponine had finished outlining her plans, Marius was cold for an entirely different reason. He understood why she was asking this. He even understood why it had to be him. That didn't mean he liked it. That didn't mean it would be easy. If he got caught… if he got caught, what his grandfather had planned to do to him would seem like a third grade prayer retreat in comparison to what the government would do to him. But if he could pull it off… if it worked… Eponine might just have handed him a way to finally do honor to his parents' memory, and that was a reward worth any price. He only had one question.

"So… my target. What's his name?"

Eponine's hands tightened on his, and her voice became dark and quiet. "Courfeyrac. His name is Courfeyrac. And you know what the worst part is…?" She let out a bitter chuckle. "You're going to love him. Everyone does. I do. Just don't forget you're going to be there to do a job, and you'll do fine."

"Courfeyrac…" Marius let the name roll off his tongue, let his mouth get familiar with the syllables, the hard 'c's and the softly rolled 'r's between them. It was a beautiful name, and it belonged to a beautiful man. And how did he know that? Unbeknownst to Eponine, Marius was familiar with both the name and the man. He didn't need Eponine's warning. Marius had loved him once, already.

Marius swallowed hard, fighting with a throat that had gone somehow impossibly drier to finish with: "Courfeyrac… can't wait to meet him."

A/N: Unbeta'd by anyone but me. Any remaining mistakes are, as always, entirely mine. ^_^ Feel free to come find me on tumblr at eirenical. I don't bite. ^_~

ALSO, I should mention that the lovely lizardrosen on tumblr has been writing fic OF Muet and it's been making me squee all over the place, because seriously WHAT? XD So please, go check them out if you're looking for more Muet things! ^_^