Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who's still reading and reviewing and being awesome. This chapter definitely gets a warning for dark themes and twisted versions of characters—the Shadow is after Enjolras, and it doesn't fight fair.

Part Twenty-Five: The Burning Dark

They are going to die.

There's no doubt about that now. There was hope, before Enjolras made his reconnaissance, that they would win. The men were bursting with enthusiasm, the city had rallied to their side the day before, they had comported themselves well in battle, and the Amis and their allies had connections among the military that should have come to their aid.

Should have, but will not, are not, and he has done what needs to be done. He has ensured that the men know the truth of what they face, given them the option of surrender, and they have chosen to fight. They have chosen the protest of corpses, and after saving those he can, the only thing left to do is ensure that it is the most glorious protest that he can make it. Every life will count. Every man will shine as brightly as possible, a beacon for those who follow.

But first they have to wait. First they have to stay here, trapped, hungry and tired and thirsty despite all his efforts to encourage sleep and ration resources. They will do it, because they are brave men all, and it has been his honor to be their leader, but it is getting harder on them as the hours stretch on.

He cannot save them.

He cannot give them the Republic that they deserve, that they've dreamt of, that they are paying for with their blood.

But he can take their minds away from this place, at least for a few moments, and perhaps give them a bit more peace in that way.

Raising his head, lifting his voice, Enjolras addresses his men. "Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of cities inundated with light..."

The words come easily to him. The vision is clear in his mind, the sun-bright beacon he has always striven toward, and he can tell from the way that Courfeyrac smiles at him, the way that Feuilly nods approvingly, that the others can see and take pleasure in sharing his vision, even here.

Allowing himself to get caught up in the rhythm of the speech, in the glory of the world that will some day be, Enjolras doesn't notice the temperature start to climb, or the shadows start to thicken around him.

XXX

Grant doesn't know what wakes him first, the clanging hammer of his cell phone as the rock song that is Jona's ring tone goes off or Eric suddenly speaking directly into his ear.

Eric's words are in French, but they're pronounced clearly, cleanly, as though he were speaking to a crowd, and Grantaire immediately understands them, offering a translation for Grant without even having to be asked.

"—light, light! Everything comes from light, and to it everything returns. Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy."

"Oh, man." Grant disentangles himself from Eric's arms, wincing, not sure if it's from the meaning of the words or the interrupted sleep. A second ring-tone starts up, this one a simple pre-programmed chiming. "Eric, Enjolras, that's for you. Come on, Eric, wake up. We're apparently needed."

Eric doesn't stir, continuing to speak in quiet, clear French as Grant carefully reaches over him to fumble his own phone up and flip it open. Grant realizes he forgot to look at who's calling once he has the phone to his ear, but it doesn't matter. There are only so many people who would be calling them at three thirty in the morning. "Hello?"

Eric's voice still hasn't faltered, his eyes still closed as he continues, though in a slightly quieter tone, a normal speaking volume, still in French. "—we shall no longer have to fear a conquest, an invasion, an usurpation—"

"Eric. Wake him up." Jona's voice is sharp and direct over the phone.

"Okay." Grant blinks, dread starting to build in him as he reaches down to shake Eric's shoulder again. There's no response, and Grant lets out a soft curse.

Eric should have woken up by now. Eric's always a lighter sleeper than him, even this past summer when exhaustion dogged his steps, and between the phones and Grant moving around he should already be vertical.

"He's not waking up. Come on, Eric." Shaking Eric's shoulder once more, Grant hisses out a breath of dismay. Eric's body feels warm, too warm, his skin fever-hot under Grant's hand. "Jona, he's speaking in French and he won't wake up and he has a fever and…"

Blood.

Grant knows what it is, the dark red stain spreading across the light grey of Eric's T-shirt, but it doesn't make sense and so he can't process it for a minute. Eric isn't screaming. Eric isn't fighting. So there's no possible way that Eric's had his soul broken, that he's bleeding from his chest.

But that's blood. Reaching down tentatively, Grant touches the moist patch, smearing the red liquid across his fingers. More seems to collect with every passing second.

"—be no more events." Eric's voice stumbles, slows, but he doesn't wake up. "We shall be happy."

"Grant?" Jona's voice is calm, soothing, drawing Grant back out of his panicked reverie. "Grant, what's happening?"

"I don't know." Grant whispers the word. "There's blood on his chest and he's feverish, really feverish, I think it's getting worse, and I can't get him to wake up, Jona."

"His chest's bleeding? How badly? Grant, if he's bleeding badly you need to find the injury and put pressure on it." Jona draws a ragged breath. "You may need to call 911, Grant. If we can't get him to wake up, if he's bleeding badly and he's feverish… see how bad the bleeding is, see how bad the fever is, all right?"

"All right." Grant shoves the phone in the crook of his shoulder, scrambling to his feet and lifting Eric's limp, unprotesting torso up in order to slide the bloody shirt off him.

Heat rolls off of Eric's body in waves, and his voice is starting to become hoarse, a breathless, distressed pant of warmth against Grant's neck. "—these are… terrible purchases of… future…"

"No." Grant speaks in English, voice firm, loud, though if jostling Eric's clothing off him isn't enough to wake him he doesn't know what will be. "No, Eric. Nothing terrible's going to happen. You're going to be fine."

Perhaps the reassurance would have sounded a little bit better if Grant could have believed it himself.

XXX

Enjolras feels like his blood is on fire.

The June dawn is warm, but not this warm, not a reason for his body to be drenched in sweat. He stumbles in his words, having to lean down, to rest his hand against the barricade and attempt to draw a full breath.

What's wrong with him? Why does he suddenly feel like this, like it's hard to think, like it's hard to breathe, like his skin is on the edge of bursting into flame?

The physical discomfort he could handle, perhaps. Illness happens, though it rarely happens to him, and though Combeferre has declared him one of the man's most frustrating patients he knows his body well enough to usually know when he needs rest.

But he shouldn't be at that point. This shouldn't be happening now. He's been fine. And there's something… wrong about the way he feels, something unclean about the feel of the sweat dripping down his face, coursing down his neck.

Or perhaps the unclean feeling is in his mind, because there are thoughts there that don't belong.

Die.

We are all going to die.

There's sorrow in the thoughts, but there's also an almost jubilant madness, a sense of doomed irreverence and despair that he shies away from in horror.

"Enjolras." Combeferre's hand grabs his arm, squeezes tightly, almost painfully, but Enjolras still shifts to lean against the man gratefully.

"Combeferre. I don't feel—"

"This is shameful." Combeferre hisses the words into his ear, too softly for anyone else to hear. "You're frightening them."

It's true. He can see it in the eyes of their men as they watch him, hear it in the murmurs that are starting to rise, and that's not what he wanted to do. That's not what he's supposed to do, not how this was supposed to go, and vertigo joins the fire, buckling his knees.

Courfeyrac's arm under his shoulder keeps him from falling, and Courfeyrac and Combeferre drag him into the Corinth while he struggles simply to breathe and make sense of the chaos in his head.

There's something he's supposed to remember.

There's someone who's supposed to help him with this.

"—you idiot, Enjolras, we can't afford this right now." Courfeyrac's words are an angry, disgruntled hiss as they lower him to the floor, Enjolras' back coming to rest against the wall. "Pray that you're dying, because if you're not—"

"He's not." Combeferre's hand feels wonderfully cool against his forehead, and Enjolras moves to lean into the touch, but Combeferre pulls away with a frustrated frown. "No fever, no injuries. What's the matter with you? I expected better."

Enjolras swallows, trying to draw a breath without panting, his blood still boiling in his veins, skin still feeling taut and burnt. Is it true that he has no fever? Can Combeferre really not see that there's something wrong with him? "I'm sorry. I just… I feel terrible, Combeferre. I feel…"

He doesn't have words to describe how he feels. He shouldn't need words, not with Combeferre, not about something so obvious. What's happening? What's—

"He's afraid."

The words turn his boiling blood to ice, because the voice that speaks belongs to a dead man.

"So very afraid." Jehan sighs, leaning against Bahorel, his chest a bloody mess glimpsed in flashes through the holes in his crimson-drenched clothing. "Fear is a wonderful emotion to explore, but did he have to choose now to do the exploring?"

Bahorel shakes his head, placing a comradely arm around Jehan. "We died for this? We died for a broken leader and a lost cause? Ah, but I should have chosen better where to lay my allegiances."

"I am not afraid." Enjolras hauls himself to his feet, using one shaking arm against the wall to steady himself, his eyes fixed on the ghosts standing behind Combeferre and Courfeyrac. "I might be ill, but I'm not afraid, and your deaths had great meaning. We're going to ensure—"

Courfeyrac's hand slides over his mouth, stops his words, Courfeyrac's body cool against his. Not as cool as the ice in Courfeyrac's tone, though, a bitter disappointment that slices at Enjolras. "Damn it, man, there's no one there. If you had to lose your mind, did you have to choose now? Couldn't you wait a few more hours, when it won't matter whether we're sane or not anyway because we'll all be dead?"

"You could have sent one of us away, you know." Combeferre's words are also still soft, still quiet, his hand almost gentle as it feels at Enjolras' forehead again. "You could have saved at least one of the Amis."

"No. I couldn't." Enjolras shrinks back from Combeferre's touch, dragging his eyes away from the ghosts who continue to watch him with disdain. "It wasn't my place to choose. I left the choice to the men, and they saved those whose families needed them most. You stood by me. You agreed with their decisions!"

"They would have listened to you if you suggested one of us go, to lead the revolution again another day." Courfeyrac's tone is scathing. "But you didn't, and who are we to challenge your authority? A united front, Enjolras, that's what they need at a time like this, not a mad leader who can't even plan ahead."

The ghosts nod their silent agreement, and Enjolras presses back against the wall, his breath short and shallow in his throat.

There is something wrong with this.

He knows it, on a fundamental level, knows that this doesn't make sense, but it's hard to think, hard to remember, there is something important he is supposed to remember when the shadows stretch so long and hungry around him—

We are all going to die.

We are all going to die alone.

There is no possibility of love in this world.

The thoughts crash against him, a hammer blow of agony, and he can't bite back a whimper as he places a hand to his chest, over a heart that feels like it might explode at any moment.

"I'm sorry." He whispers the words, a soft exhalation as he tries to make his eyes focus on the men standing before him.

The apology doesn't soften the expressions on his friends' faces, the bitter disappointment and frustration and despair. The words don't ease the chaos in his head, the burning in his blood that's going to engulf him whole at any moment—if anything, they seem to make it worse, his soul howling that this is wrong while every sense he has tells him this is true, and he can't string thoughts together coherently enough to come up with any theories that make sense.

The shadows seem to deepen around him as Courfeyrac turns away with a short, sharp curse, leaving him to Combeferre's care.

XXX

"I'm sorry."

"No." Grantaire snarls the negation, seizing control of their body without thought or asking, tears pricking at his eyes. "No, Enjolras, you've nothing to be sorry for. Please wake. Please, Enjolras."

He's not going to wake. Grant knows it, and so does Grantaire. Blinking tears of frustration and terror from his eyes, Grant shoves Grantaire aside again so he can read the thermometer and focus on his conversation with Jona. "One oh five, one oh five and a half, maybe it's… no, it's climbing again, one oh six…"

"All right. It's all right, Grant." Jona's voice is soothing and calm. "And the blood?"

"It keeps appearing." Grant uses Eric's shirt to smear more of it off his chest. "It's not from anything, it just keeps appearing on his chest, it's…"

Trailing off, Grant allows his eyes to watch the blood as it appears in slow, curving loops on Eric's pale skin. He'd been so desperate to have it gone, to see the source and stem the flow that he hadn't paid much attention to the way it appeared at first, but if he watches it the trails seem to follow lines, to form arches, to form…

"Words." He bites out the realization, barely managing to still his hand. "The blood's forming words, Jona, in French. It says… it says die with me. We will die. Jona, I don't understand."

"I don't, either." Jona's voice rises for a moment before being brought back down to his usual timbre. "All right. We can't deal with this, Grant. A fever that high's dangerous. You need to call 911. Get an ambulance over there, let them do what they can for his body."

"What about until then? What about the blood? What about—"

"Keep trying to wake him. Try to get the blood off him, because that's going to be hell to explain to the authorities. Maybe… maybe try to cool him off. Cool water, cool cloths, nothing too cold, too cold and we can make things worse, but cool should be all right."

"Can I move him?" Grant grabs Eric's phone in his other hand, forcing his fingers to punch in the emergency numbers. It shouldn't be this hard. They taught four-year-olds to do this. Why does it take him three times to get it right? "I mean, can I throw him in the shower or do I get ice or—"

Jona cuts him off at the same time that the 911 operator picks up.

"I don't know."

"This is 911, what's your emergency?"

For a moment he can't answer, his tongue tangled, his mind caught between the two conversations and the muttered words that Eric's saying.

"I'll meet you at the hospital." Jona's voice is firm and authoritative once more, a lifeline to cling to, and Grant manages to start breathing again. "We all will, Grant—Lyle's been calling the others. Now, I'm going to hang up and you're going to tell dispatch your address. All right?"

"All right." He's barely murmured the response before his phone goes dead.

"—there? Sir, are you still there? Can you answer me?" The dispatcher's voice is female, the words quick but controlled.

"I'm here. My emergency's my roommate—he's got a sky-high fever and I can't get him to wake up. He's talking in his sleep, and—"

"What's your address, sir?"

Grant rattles off his address, his name, Eric's name, answering the easy questions without even thinking about them. His eyes stay fixed on the blood that continues to form across Eric's chest, and he uses the blood-drenched shirt to rub out the words as soon as they form. He tries to keep his hand gentle, because he doesn't want to hurt Eric, but he hates the sight of the crimson letters crawling their way across Eric's pale skin.

"Sorry…" Enjolras' voice is a soft whisper, almost a whimper. "Combeferre, I did… I tried… I swear, I'm… right… you're right… revolution first… sorry…"

"No. You never did anything you need to apologize for. Please, Eric, wake up."

"—attention to me, sir." The dispatcher's voice in his ear drags him back to the present. "Has your roommate been ill?"

"No. He was fine when we went to bed this evening, but now he won't wake up." Now a monster's somehow trapped him in its nightmare world, is stalking his soul, and though Grant has a front-row seat there's absolutely nothing he can do to interfere. "When's the ambulance going to be here?"

"As soon as they can be. You just need to stay calm. How are you feeling, Grant?"

A brief, short laugh escapes Grant's mouth before he can stop it. How's he feeling? What kind of question is that right now? "I'm fine. I'm not the one who needs help. I'm just the useless person watching."

"Hurts…" Eric's head shifts to the side, his expression pinching into a grimace of pain, the most movement he's shown. "Combeferre, it hurts… I can't… I can't…"

Red letters trail their way up the unblemished skin of Eric's neck, one word on the left, two on the right.

Die alone.

Hopeless.

Eric's body temperature seems to jump a few degrees, something Grant didn't think could possibly happen, his skin burning against Grant's hand as Grant stares in horror at the words.

And then Eric's back arches, his limbs start shaking, and Grant feels the phone fall from his hand but he doesn't care.

Eric's having a seizure.

Eric's having a seizure, his brain baking in his skull, his soul being tortured by the shadow-monster, and Grant needs to do something.

The seizure only lasts a few seconds, but it's a few seconds too many. High fevers caused brain damage, death, probably other terrible things that Grant could think of if his mind was capable of thinking right now, and he needs to get Eric's temperature down. He needs to get the blood off him.

Gathering Eric's body into his arms, obliterating the smooth cursive loops of the damn French words on his neck, Grant grunts as he lifts the blond man and hauls him as gently as he can toward the shower.

XXX

Enjolras opens his eyes slowly, blinking, trying to think around the fire raging in his mind and his body. When did he pass out? How long has he been lying on the ground?

There's no one else in the Corinth with him—no one living, at least, though some of the dead have been laid out with as much dignity as they can offer them. The realization that he's alone slowly penetrates his mind, followed a few seconds later by the realization that the sounds outside are those of battle—the report of rifles, the clash of blades, and he needs to be out there.

If his men are fighting, he needs to be out there.

Combeferre left him his carbine and his saber. Perhaps it means that the man isn't too disappointed in him, and Enjolras smiles as he forces his shaking fingers to load the gun. Hauling himself to his feet, he somehow manages to strap the blade to his side, though his vision hazes in and out as he does.

It doesn't matter. If he can kill one of their attackers, save one of his men for even a few more seconds, then whatever effort it takes will be worth it.

He emerges into chaos. Some of their men hold the barricade, but a handful of soldiers have broken through and are engaged with a small cluster of defenders—Feuilly's men, Feuilly busy fighting beside them.

A soldier staggers to his feet, raising a bloody blade, his eyes fixed on Feuilly. He's to Feuilly's left and behind him, and Feuilly is grappling with a man to his right, meaning he most likely doesn't see the danger he's in.

Enjolras' hands are shaking too much for his aim to be accurate, and a shot that was meant to kill instead rips through the soldier's arm, earning a scream and a fountain of blood. The man's too distracted by his injuries to react as Enjolras closes with him and finishes the job, his blade sliding between the man's ribs cleanly, and Enjolras allows the cooling corpse to slide to the ground.

Turning to Feuilly, Enjolras is relieved to see the man unharmed, his opponent also dead on the torn-up dirt. Feuilly turns to him, closes the distance between them, and Enjolras allows himself to relax, smiling. He may not know what's wrong with him, but at least he managed to—

He doesn't see the blade before it sinks into his stomach. He simply feels the cold, looks down to see the hilt of the dagger protruding from his flesh as Feuilly releases the weapon.

"You had no right." Feuilly's voice drips with contempt and disdain. "You used me. You used my story, without permission, without understanding, turning me into just another pretty metaphor in your pointless speech. You can't even manage to stand with us properly now, so don't you dare smile at me, don't you dare think that we're anything alike. Die like all the other miserable rich bastards need to die, crying and alone and useless."

Feuilly's hand shoves Enjolras' shoulder, hard, and Enjolras can't keep himself from staggering back, collapsing against a wall. His blood runs hot and fast down his stomach, down his leg, a scalding river, and combined with everything else it makes it impossible for him to stand.

Wrong.

This is all wrong.

Feuilly wouldn't do this. Including Feuilly's story in his speech had been a way for Enjolras to honor the man, to show his respect for Feuilly, his deep appreciation for the way that Feuilly's worked with them, trusted them, cared for them. There isn't an ounce of hatred in Feuilly's body, though he certainly has faced enough terrible things in his life to lead a man to hate. Instead Feuilly loves all men, embraces all men, and Feuilly wouldn't do this.

But it's been done. He's bleeding—probably dying. He heard the man's words.

How does he reconcile this? What does he do?

How does he manage to think around the fire, with the chaos of battle raging all around him?

A short, sharp, achingly familiar cry reaches his ears, and he lifts his head in time to see Feuilly gunned down before a bayonette sinks into the man's chest, stilling his body.

Die.

All die.

Die alone.

No room for love in this world.

They die in front of him, one by one, his friends, and there is nothing he can do.

There is nothing he can say to remove the disappointment from Courfeyrac's face, the disdain from Combeferre's expression.

Abandoned.

Alone.

He is grateful, when the hands first touch him, because at least it is something else, someone else, another person to use as a buffer against the alien thoughts that are pounding through his head with shattering force.

Then claws sink into his chest, teeth sink into his neck, ice starts to slither through the fire that is all-consuming, and he screams his agony to the sky because there is nothing else that he can do.

XXX

The bruises start to bloom across his chest and neck when Eric starts screaming.

The sound is an animal howl, a cry of agony and despair and horror, too loud, too long, barely pausing when Eric draws breath to continue screaming.

Grant thought he had heard the worst sound possible, the cry that had first led him to piece together what was happening to them, but that is a pale imitation of this cry. That was the warning, the lightning before the storm, while this is the raging pounding of the hurricane, and there is nothing he can do about it.

Water pounds down around them, lukewarm, cool but not cold like Jona had said, and Grant had thought for a moment that it might be working, that it might be helping as Eric's skin seemed to cool under his hands. The floor of the shower where they kneel is red with blood, Eric's shorts and Grant's shirt both soaked with it, and he'd hoped that maybe rinsing off the blood would help to break whatever hold the monster has on Eric.

Apparently not, though, and Grant finds himself screaming Eric's name, though there's no point, the sound drowned out by the sound of Eric's agony, the bruises growing steadily, such a dark purple they're almost black, and Eric is going to die in his arms.

Enjolras is going to die in front of them, without them, and there is nothing they can do about it.

He thinks there are tears, hot and stinging on his cheeks, but the steady beating of the water means he doesn't have to acknowledge them as he continues to scream the name of the man he loves, in French and in English, hoping for a miracle that he knows better than to believe in.

XXX

Cold snakes through him, and Enjolras screams.

It's wrong.

It's so wrong, a violation of all that he is, hatred and despair and doubt threading through him, taking root in him, and even his scream doesn't manage to contain a fraction of the horror that he feels.

Yes. The sound is a satisfied moan of pleasure, and something ice-cold licks against his neck as claws dig deeper into his chest, teeth nip hungrily at his shoulder. Oh, yes, my little firefly, my star in the dark, give me all that you are. Drown in the darkness, and give me all that power for change, for transformation, for conflagration.

He bucks, clawing at the arms that are holding him, ripping at the ice daggers in his chest, trying to move his neck away from the mouth that worries at his flesh and devours his essence.

They died, Enjolras. The cold purrs as it curls around him, its hand still fixed in him, invading him, draining him. They died hating you. They died for nothing. They died pointlessly.

He can't see. He can't breathe. He can't fight, his movements slow, weak, and the scream trails off to a soft whimper.

They died.

He watched them die.

He watched them die while the darkness laughed.

There is something about that. There is something about the shadows, the darkness, something he should be able to remember, something that the burning has been trying to keep him from.

Something about them dying.

The images are etched into his mind, and he calls them up, playing them over and over.

Courfeyrac died, buried under a flood of soldiers, cursing.

Combeferre died, a bayonette in his chest, blood bubbling from his mouth, and though Enjolras had tried to reach for him Combeferre had turned away.

Feuilly died after—

Feuilly…

It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, though the cold eating its way through him tries to tell him that it does, that they would turn from him, that they would fear death, that by highlighting Feuilly's difference from the rest of the group he has betrayed the man.

Feuilly died… how?

Feuilly died after his wrist was slit, his blood washing over Enjolras' face in a hot shower.

It isn't what he saw here. It is a different memory, somehow, and it opens onto darkness, onto pain that is no less potent than that which the cold engenders.

It is cleaner pain, though, purer pain, and if there is doubt and hesitancy in that darkness at least it is his.

It is him.

He thinks he hears the beast howling as he flings all that remains of his mind into the darkness, but he isn't sure, coherent thought completely impossible as he strives to find a way out of this hell.

XXX

Eric wakes to darkness and fire, binding him, holding him, shackling his thoughts and memories and senses.

Where is he? What's happening? Why does he feel awful, an aching, empty, cold feeling just beyond the fire that burns through the rest of him?

Cold.

There is cold.

Inside him, underneath the burning pain that binds him, and he struggles against it, angry, afraid, confused.

Help me. The plea is barely words, more a sensation of someone grasping through the darkness, reaching for anyone who will respond. Help me. There's supposed to be someone… please… help me… it's so loud, it's so dark, so many memories, I can't…

Eric knows that voice, though he's never heard it like this before, hurt and lost, and he struggles harder against his bindings.

He isn't the only one. He can sense it, a stirring in the darkness, images of blood and pain and death that sweep through him with no rhyme or reason, but that isn't important.

What's important is that he get free.

What's important is that he reaches the man whose fragmenting thoughts found him, even locked here.

Enjolras!

He screams the name, fighting for all he's worth against the fire, ignoring the memories that try to distract him. He can't afford distraction, not now.

At first he doesn't think the man is going to respond to him. At first he thinks maybe he's too late, that the cold has gotten too far, that they've lost too much of themselves, and he struggles harder, snarling, angry.

There's something wrong about this. There's something wrong about him being bound, about the fire tying him here in the darkness, about the way he feels, and he will not let something wrong have victory over him.

He will not let Enjolras suffer any more than the man already has.

Enjolras!

This time the man hears him, and Eric claws his way out of the fire that's holding him and into the body that the shadow's feeding on.

Enjolras fades back, barely a whisper in the cacophony that fills Eric's head, but Eric can spare only a thought to try to reassure the man.

He can barely form a thought, coherency lost as he stares up into confused red eyes. Agony spreads from his chest and neck through his whole body, and there is something in his chest, something that shouldn't be there.

Free.

He needs to be free.

All men need to be free.

Safe.

Defended.

Fed.

Healthy.

Educated.

But first, free.

It is a thought that resonates with the deafening susurrus in his head, bringing peace and clarity, a united front, and for one glorious moment Eric can draw a full breath.

Forming a fist with a hand that he can barely feel, Eric strikes at the shadow with all that he has, and wakes to water running down his shivering, aching body.

XXX

"Enjolras!"

Eric's body tenses against Grant's, his head half-rising, and hope flickers stupidly in Grant's heart.

"Enjolras!"

The second cry is almost as loud as Eric's scream of agony, a defeaning, determined bellow, and Eric draws a deep breath, different from the panting, shallow gasps that had come before. His entire body tenses, and before Grant can do anything more Eric lurches out of his arms, and Eric's right fist drives forward into the wall of the shower as his blue eyes finally open.

"Eric?" Grant's hands hover over Eric's body, afraid to touch him, afraid to hurt him, afraid that this isn't real. Eric kneels, his right hand still against the shower wall, his left balancing himself against the ground.

Blood trickles slowly from his nose, but no more appears on his chest, no more appears on his neck, the hideous, terrible bruising has finally stopped spreading, and his blue eyes are open.

"Eric?" Grant's hand touches Eric's right shoulder, the one farthest away from the bruise. "Eric, it's me. It's all right."

"Grant?" Eric turns to him, the motion jerky, uncoordinated. "Grantaire?"

"Yeah." Grant smiles, no longer knowing if it's tears or water or both on his face. "Yeah, it's u—"

A string of words that Grant can't translate—that Grantaire can't translate—slides from Eric's mouth, and he starts listing hard to the left.

Grant catches him before he can fall entirely, noticing with relief that Eric's skin is far cooler than it has been. "Easy there. We've got you."

Grant allows Grantaire to slide forward a moment later, repeating the entreaty in French.

Eric nods, almost limp in his arms, though his blue eyes stay open, staring vacantly ahead. "Others. Amis. Independents. Others…"

"They're all right." He hopes it's true. Jona hasn't called back to tell him anyone else is hurt. If it's a lie, though, it's a lie Eric needs right now. "They're fine, so you have to be fine, too, all right?"

"Combeferre…" Eric blinks, shivering harder, sliding fully into French. "Can I see Combeferre? I want…" He swallows, switching back into English. "Want to see them, Grant. Please. I want…"

Another string of words that he and Grantaire can't understand, and Grant finds himself shaking. "You can see them, Eric. Enjolras. They'll come see you. They're all right. Come on, stand with me, please—"

A pounding comes from their apartment door, managing to be heard even over the hiss of water, and Grant tightens his arms around Eric as Eric lurches to his feet, one arm attempting to shove Grant behind him as a feral growl rolls from his throat.

Eric almost collapses a moment later, but Grant catches him, dragging him out of the shower and turning it off.

He hollers out a response to the EMTs, trying to keep them from kicking down the door. He's fairly certain Eric wouldn't react well right now to anyone damaging their things.

He doesn't know what happened to Eric. He doesn't know how the shadow managed to hurt Eric so badly. He doesn't know what repercussions this is going to have for Eric, what the awful bruises on his body mean for his mind and soul.

Eric's alive, though.

Eric's alive, and right now that's enough hope to keep Grant moving.