Welcome to yet another multi-chapter fic starring our favorite Barricade Boys. This is based off of a shorter story I wrote in my one-shot collection, The Lost. I will put warnings at the beginning of each chapter. There is nothing graphic or gratuitous, though. :) Enjoy!

Much love,

Unicadia

CHAPTER 1 WARNINGS: implied death and prostitution

"I propose a game," said Courfeyrac one evening at a meeting of Les Amis de l'ABC.

"Finally!" Bahorel let out a loud laugh and slammed his large hand down on the table, knocking over all the wine glasses.

"Please, Bahorel," Jean Prouvaire murmured as he lifted up some soaked sheets of paper covered in his delicate script and let them drip over the table.

"What game, Courfeyrac?" asked Bossuet. He leaned back in his chair, upsetting Joly, who had been partially reclining on the older man as he examined his tongue in his little hand mirror.

"We do not have time for this," said Enjolras in a voice approaching a growl from behind Courfeyrac.

Courfeyrac turned and grinned at their leader. He spread his arms wide, as though showing Enjolras how silly he thought he was. "What more have we to discuss tonight, Enjolras? Have we not been assigned to our various places for the coming week? Have we not planned our next rally in front of General Lamarque's house?"

"Yes, but –"

"Yes, but what?"

Enjolras threw his hands up. "Fine. What is this game of yours?"

Courfeyrac faced the room again, beaming. "Each of us will tell the rest something about ourselves that no one else here knows about."

Enjolras scoffed.

"I doubt there is anything about me that Enjolras does not know," Combeferre said with a small smile.

"Or me," said Joly, not looking up from his mirror. The others stared at him until he noticed the silence and raised his head. "I mean, that Bossuet doesn't know about me."

"Or Feuilly about me," said Bahorel, giving the fan-maker a good-natured shove. Feuilly, sitting hunched over the table as he sketched directly onto the wood, spared Bahorel the briefest of glances accompanied by an eye-roll before he returned to his drawing.

After a moment of consideration, Courfeyrac added, "Or at least, that only one or two others know about."

Enjolras groaned, and Courfeyrac turned toward him again, still grinning. Enjolras bent over the table scattered with papers, his hair falling in his face in tangled curls.

"This is ridiculous, Courfeyrac."

"Well, you can go first and get it over with then."

"Yes, divulge to us all your secrets, oh great golden leader!" Grantaire yelled from his corner, and raised his wine bottle as if in a toast.

Enjolras lifted his head and glared at Courfeyrac, probably as much for making him go first as inciting Grantaire's ridiculous outburst, but then he straightened and pushed back his hair. "Very well." He began.

Jacques Enjolras grew up in the country in the south, the only son of rich parents from a long military line. He did not care much for other children, but he did have two friends: Jean-Marie Combeferre and Jean-Marie's little sister, Cyrille.

"Hold up, Enjolras," Courfeyrac cut in. "We don't want your life story. I'm not certain you understand the game."

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. "Will you let me continue to tell my story my way, or will you continue to insist on being put on Grantaire duty tomorrow?"

"Nevermind. Proceed."

The children ran along the grassy hills, raced their ponies through the miniature valleys, and swam in the little rivers. In those days, the sun smiled on the three of them, and their troubles were small and momentary.

Then one long day in summer, it all changed.

"Can Jean-Marie and Cyrille come play?" Jacques asked the butler at the door of the Combeferre house, as he had almost every morning that summer.

The butler did not smile or chuckle like he usually did. His eyes looked like boarded-up windows.

"Go home, little monsieur."

"But Jean-Marie said –"

"I said go home." The butler's eyes softened a little. "Jacques."

Anger rushed through Jacques, but he turned and ran down the tree-lined avenue back to his own house. His parents had no time to listen to his complaints, but kept leaving the house and coming back, a dark look on his father's face, and his mother weeping into a handkerchief. Something terrible had happened at the Combeferre residence, but nobody would tell Jacques what it was.

He did not see Jean-Marie for a few days, not until the funeral. The two boys stood close to each other, their poses similar – heads bowed, arms behind their backs. They did not look at each other, and they did not speak. But as the adults began stepping back into their carriages, Jean-Marie turned to Jacques, his cheeks still stained with tears.

"We're going away, Jacques."

The hole in Jacques' chest grew. "Where?"

"Paris."

"For how long?"

Jean-Marie squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, fresh tears pooled in their blue wells. "We're not coming back."

Jacques remembered two black coaches waiting in front of the Combeferre house on that last day. The sun washed everything white, the heat soaked into every pore. He remembered Jean-Marie leaning out the carriage window, remembered clasping his hand, remembered the whispered promises.

"Brothers forever," said Jean-Marie.

Jacques tightened his grip. "Forever."

Then the coaches rolled away down the tree-lined avenue, away and – so it seemed to Jacques – forever.

"While that is very sad, it still hardly counts as something nobody else here knows about," said Courfeyrac, who looked positively bored.

"I'm not done yet," said Enjolras. "But who here besides Combeferre knew that?"

Courfeyrac shrugged and took a draught from his glass. "Probably nobody, but nobody cares."

Combeferre shook his head. "Let the man finish, Courfeyrac."

Courfeyrac laughed and held up his hands. "All right, all right!"

Jacques made no more friends. The other children – when he did see other children – were all too silly in his mind. He could have fun with Jean-Marie, but Jean-Marie also took life seriously. Other children cared for nothing but vain frivolities. So Jacques immersed himself in his studies. He did not leave the house much, though he did enjoy taking carriage rides with his mother into town. They would tour the streets while she went to call on friends, and he remained in the carriage reading a school book.

One day, while they were out, their carriage passed a little girl in rags. She stood off to the side of the street, close to the buildings. Rags hung from her thin frame, her matted brown hair hung over her face. He met her eyes as they rolled past, saw in them something great and terrible that he could not name, and he sat up straighter, and leaned forward so as to see her as long as he could. The carriage turned a corner, and Jacques sat still, staring out the window at nothing.

"Darling, what is the matter?" said his mother, laying a hand on his arm.

Jacques settled back against the seat and turned to his mother. "Maman –"

"Yes, darling?"

Jacques looked into her eyes, and for some reason, he found he could not tell her about the little girl. For that moment, that brief encounter felt to Jacques like something that had never before happened in the history of the world, and could not now be spoken of. But every time he and his mother went into town after that, he kept an eye out for the little girl. He never saw her again.

A few years later, Jacques and his family took an outing into the city of Paris. Jacques spent most of the trip engrossed in his books, but it chanced that he lifted his head once and glanced out the window –

And saw a woman in gaudy rags and a very young child with red hair walking hand-in-hand down the street. Jacques met the eyes of the woman, and in them he saw the little girl from years ago, and all in that moment he knew the name of what he saw there: hunger, terror, death.

"Stop the carriage!" Jacques yelled without thinking.

The driver pulled up the horses, and Jacques' parents stared at him.

"What is going on, Jacques?" asked his mother.

Jacques did not answer her, but thrust open the door of the carriage and stepped out onto the street in front of the woman and child. The woman cowered and the child pressed his face into her skirt.

"A little boy child?" asked Feuilly, looking up from the table.

Everyone turned toward the fan-maker. Enjolras nodded. "Yes."

"Brown eyes?"

Enjolras hesitated and frowned. "I do not recall. I only remember he had red hair – about the same color as your own."

Now Feuilly nodded, but he did not speak, and leaned back over the table. Bahorel pursed his lips and appeared greatly interested in the floorboards. The others glanced at each other, and then Enjolras continued.

"Mam'selle," Jacques murmured as he held out a ten-franc piece to the woman. She stared at it, then up at him, her eyes becoming cold and distant, reminding him of the boarded-up windows of the butler's eyes that one horrible day so long ago.

"I'm not doing that anymore," she hissed, holding the child close to her.

Jacques stared at her in confusion. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw his mother half leaning out of the carriage, gesturing for him to come back. He ignored her. "I do not know what you mean, mam'selle. But this is for you." He took a step toward her, and she scurried back, as though he had tried to strike her.

"Leave me alone," she whispered. She continued backing away, pulling the child after her.

Jacques took another step toward her, but someone grabbed his shirt from behind and dragged him over to the carriage. Twisting around, Jacques saw his father, his face red with wrath. He shoved his son into the carriage, then went around to the other side and also got in.

"Go on, Dubois," M. Enjolras snapped at the driver.

The carriage clattered down the cobblestones, but inside all remained silent. Jacques leaned his head and arm against the window and glared at the buildings and people rushing past.

"Jacques," his mother whispered after a long time, but then his father snapped,

"What do you think you were doing, boy?"

Jacques whirled on him. "I was trying to help a poor woman, what did it look like I was doing?"

"We – do not associate with their kind!"

"Whyever not? We are more than well-provided for! She has nothing! Nothing! Her child has even less! How are they supposed to live?"

"They find a way – they always find a way! The poor will always be among us. We can pity them, but you do not just give your money away willy-nilly! You must be wise! That was not wise!"

"Even if you're right and it wasn't wise, we have –"

"Enough! We will speak of this no more."

Jacques felt like screaming. He felt like leaping out of the carriage, climbing the highest roof in Paris and proclaiming to the world the injustices against the humanity cursed to dwell in the gutters –

But he turned back to the window and glared up at the spires of Notre Dame as the bells tolled the hour.

First names:

Jacques Enjolras

Jean-Marie Combeferre

Henri Courfeyrac

René Bahorel

Barthélémy Joly

Fernand Laigle

Sacha-Josef Feuilly

Mathieu Grantaire