– The CROW mantra
BANG!!!!!
The second insurgent keeled forward onto his face. What would have been his face. Smoke stinging in their eyes, the twelve National Guards remained standing where they were, guns still partially raised, eyes fixed upon the upright one, the one who looked like Apollo. Eyes in which the agony and fear of all those who die violent deaths had been so palpable, were now clear and serene once more. If one remained looking at his face, one could imagine that he hadn't been harmed at all – save for the telltale blood which was just beginning to ooze from the corners of his perfect lips.
But if the eyes strayed below the chin, then the truth was revealed. There was no mistaking the twelve bloody holes that had ripped through the living statue and bloomed roses across his white shirt. His blood, welling in the twelve wounds which told the end of a life tumultuously lived, dripped down his front and onto the body of the man who lay sprawled at his feet.
It was Sergeant Lucien Gautier who broke the spell. With a derisive laugh, he strode forward, and gave the corpse a mock-friendly clap on the shoulder. The warrior who so recently had held them all at bay with a defiant stare alone, now seemed to wilt beneath the weight of the derisive hand. The corpse buckled at the knees, then crumpled sideways and toppled across the body that lay at its feet.
Grantaire's hands tightened around the throat of Lucien Gautier. If anything, the fires in his eyes blazed brighter than before.
WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM???
There was no need to ask aloud – what he saw in the man's terrified, bulging eyes was all he would ever need or want to know.
Outside the Corinth, men were carrying out the bodies of the fallen insurgents, stacking them in rows like so much firewood. Lucien Gautier stood over the body of the fallen leader as he contemplatively took a pinch of snuff.
"Come away from there, Gautier." The words spoken uneasily by another Guard, about his age. "Our work here is done. Don't disturb the dead."
Lucien kept his eyes fixed on the face of the corpse which lay twisted at his feet. "Do you suppose these men were good Catholics, Theo?"
The man named Theo shuffled his feet nervously. "Suppose so. Why do you ask?"
"Well, if that's the case, it seems sad that they died without their Last Rites, isn't it? No last confession."
The man named Theo merely regarded Lucien, his heavy brows knitted. When it was obvious that the man would not respond, Lucien continued. "Perhaps they didn't deserve it. Rabble-rousers, idle fools with nothing more honourable to do with their time. Perhaps they are on their way down to Hell as we speak."
Theo's next breath was taken with a sharp hiss of shock as he watched Lucien lean down and spit in the face of the broken angel.
The clarity of the vision bit deeper into the core of Grantaire's being than any mere bullet could. Before he realised what he was doing, he relinquished his hold on the larger man's throat. But Lucien barely had time to draw breath before he was dealt a stunning backhand blow that cracked smartly across his cheek. The blow sent him reeling backwards against the wall – his fall broken only by his unknown assailant who now grabbed him by the lapels, and stared down into his face once more.
"Gautier!" Theo's voice now trembled. The arrogance of his one-time friend and comrade in arms worried him. He knew many who turned into animals at the sight of spilt blood, but Lucien Gautier bewildered him more than any he'd seen before. Few men he knew would lower themselves to that level, mocking even enemies, once they were already vanquished beyond salvation. But Gautier would.
The tremulous rebuke seemed to draw Gautier on. The youth merely laughed – a laugh with a dangerous giddy edge to it. "What? He's dead, he can't feel it."
"Then why bother?"
The conversation had attracted attention. Some of the other Guards were still lingering at the sacrificial site, whether from morbid curiosity, or to savour their shoddy victory, or perhaps with the first feelings of regret, who could tell? But some drifted closer to Gautier, curious to see what was happening, craning their necks to see which corpse he stood over. Gautier waited until he had his small audience's full attention before he graced the other soldier with a reply.
"I'm trying to save his soul. I'm giving him his Last Rites. That was the prayer for his soul. And this . . . is the libation of holy water."
As Gautier began to unbutton his trousers, the soldier named Theo closed his eyes with disgust for a moment, before turning and resolutely walking away, wanting no part in this sick horseplay.
The corpse, thankfully insensible to its imminent desecration, remained the passive centre of this unwanted attention. The expression on the beautiful young face did not change – death's pallor suited the youth as well as life's pallor had – and the blue eyes, only slightly clouded, gazed at a point fixed somewhere beyond this final tableau of humiliation and defeat.
But the eyes of those who were alive fixed on Gautier as he finished unbuttoning his trousers, and urinated on the corpse at his feet. His mocking 'Dies Irae' rapidly dissolved into hysterical giggles that would not stop.
He wasn't the only one who laughed.
NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Such was the agony behind his cry that Grantaire wasn't even sure if it actually came out of his mouth or not. But as if he was watching all of this from outside of himself, he saw his hand spasm into a fist and swing in a savage arc towards the man's face. He saw the man gasp instinctively and shrink back, twisting his head aside in a vain attempt to evade the blow.
The feeling of knuckles cracking against flesh, of teeth being mashed against lips, and the sheer force of contact brought him screaming back into his body. The man gasped again under the impact of the blow, and lifted his head. His lower lip was cut and bleeding, and there was a look of dazed shock in his eyes.
All of a sudden, Grantaire wanted to be far away from this man. He didn't want to touch him, he wished that he had never known the foul texture of the man's flesh beneath his fingers. He dropped him to the cobblestones and fell back himself, screaming against an unwanted memory that was not even his own.
"And this is the libation of holy water!"
An overpowering stench of urine and blood and decay and death assailed him, reached up fiercely and threatened to engulf him. Bringing one hand to his throat, he leaned over, gagging and retching, then tried to hack air back into his lungs, fighting the nausea, the violation itself. He was dimly aware that the crow was trying to talk to him, but could not understand its thoughts through the cacophony invading all his senses. All he saw was Enjolras' dead blue eyes, and his alabaster skin sticky and damp with his own blood and with phlegm from a stranger's foul throat. All he heard was laughter.
Grantaire was aware that the demon named Lucien Gautier had managed to get to his feet, and was now swiftly covering the distance between them. He heard the footsteps, felt them shake the ground beneath them. He smelt the sweat and blood and fear radiating off the man, and heard the bitter fury in his voice as he cursed this nameless assailant and swung his boot into his face.
But this was the odd thing.
The blow didn't hurt.
Oh, there was impact, all right. Grantaire gasped as the boot made contact, as his neck was snapped up, and his entire body thrown backwards. But there was no pain, immediate or otherwise. For a moment he lay stunned with this realisation, which meant Lucien Gautier had plenty of time to bend over him, haul him up by the front of his shirt, and punch him in the face. Again, no pain.
Grantaire hung limp in the man's grasp, unsure of what was happening. Finally, the bird's voice cut through the buzzing in his ears.
look at what you've done now boy
That gave him the focus he needed. Grantaire brought one hand up with catlike quickness to block the second punch. A quick kick up and a twist, and he was relieved of the Guardsman and back on his feet. For a moment, they both stood eyeing each other. Lucien Gautier's blue eyes were wide and staring, now almost completely sober. It was amazing, Grantaire thought, what fear and adrenaline will do for a man. Gautier's breath was coming fast, and a lock of his fair hair had tumbled across his face. Features he had shared with the nameless insurgent whose body he had defiled so carelessly. But in this face, carved with its stupidity and cruelty, those eyes and that Grecian nose and those regal lips and that aristocratic profile were features that Grantaire hated with every fibre of his being. That this monster dared to look even remotely like Enjolras seemed to be the final insult in a catalogue of many.
For which he would pay very dearly indeed.
The other man must have seen something new in the intensity of Grantaire's glare. He began to step forward, then hesitated and stepped back. His hands still clenched into fists, he stood his ground. But something had changed. There was real fear now. "Who . . . who are you?"
Grantaire let him tremble a moment before he replied. "I believe we've met."
Then he surged forward in a single fluid movement, and before the Guardsman could defend himself, snap-kicked up and caught him in the side.
Goodness. Since when could I do THAT?
The man was flung over on his side. Unable to put his hands out to protect himself, Lucien Gautier landed awkwardly, painfully, striking his already bruised skull against the cobblestones. Immediately he began to try to move further away from the terrifying stranger. Grantaire remained standing where he was, pinning the man to the ground with his blazing stare. Nearby, the crow fluttered restlessly, shifting about on its perch.
that's enough now boy time to move on now let it go
But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Obviously, the man still had no idea who he was, or what he had done to warrant such a punishment. That only made matters worse. With what he had done, he should remember. "I saw what you did!" he shrieked at the man. "I SAW WHAT YOU DID TO HIM!!!" Fists clenched, he slowly advanced on the fallen Guardsman, who was still trying to scramble away backwards, too groggy to be able to climb to his feet.
"What did I do?" he grunted. "To whom?"
Grantaire paused. "You really don't remember, do you?"
Lucien Gautier's face spoke for itself.
With one fell swoop, Grantaire lunged down and seized the man by his throat. In the same movement, he brought him to his feet, pinning him against the wall. The man let out a rasping cry and brought his hands up, but let them hang by his sides immediately as soon as Grantaire applied a little gentle pressure about his cursed throat.
"A barricade . . ." Grantaire snarled. "A dead man hanging out of a window . . . a blood-stained coat in lieu of a flag . . . a cannon and a mattress . . . a powder keg and a flaming torch . . . a dawn which brought no salvation . . . broken bottles and broken bones and broken lives . . . madness and pain and shadows . . . oh God, the shadows . . ."
The man's blue eyes bulged. "Madman! What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about June 6, 1832," Grantaire spat. "The barricade and tavern on the rue de la Chanvrerie. A lot of people lost their lives there that day, but I'm asking you to think of one in particular."
"I remember the tavern." The man was talking fast, trying to stall for time. Finally aware of just how much danger he was really in. "There was a riot happening, we were ordered to quell it. Keep the civic peace. Those men were dangerous – looters, rebels, rabble-rousers. It was for the best. They refused to surrender –"
Grantaire cut him off with another backhand blow across the face. "Liar! You never gave them the chance."
grantaire you can walk away from this right now please walk away and leave this man this isn't what you are here for
Grantaire ignored the bird's unsteady voice, keeping his blazing eyes fixed upon the man quivering in his grasp. "How many men did you kill that day, Lucien?" The man flinched at the sound of his name on this terrifying stranger's lips. "I know of one, at least. I'll be very disappointed indeed if you don't recall. He was one of the last to die, inside the tavern itself. He was alone and unarmed when you found him –"
"YES I REMEMBER. I remember, I remember, please don't hit me anymore!"
Grantaire curled his hand into a fist, not to hit him, merely to have the pleasure of watching the man quiver like so much blancmange. "Tell me about him, then."
Despite his terror, the man was obviously confused. "Tell what? What's there to tell? He was just some pretty-faced boy, a wet-behind-the ears student playing at being Saint-Just, got himself and his friends killed for nothing, we got him in the end, what does it matter who he was –"
With a grunt of fury, Grantaire spun Gautier around so he was facing the wall. Before the man could react, he twisted one of his arms far enough up his back to make him howl, and with his other hand he grabbed a fistful of the man's fair hair, and jerked his head back. He put his face down into his victim's, close enough that he could count every blood-shot vein in those blue eyes – eyes that, apart from the glaring red veins, were so similar to another pair of blue eyes that he wanted to tear them out.
"His name was Justin Marcel Enjolras."
He allowed Gautier time to think about that before he slammed his head forward into the wall with a satisfying THWACK. He heard the man's agonised gasp, and the sound of cartilage cracking across the man's nose. He also heard the alarmed cry of the crow, but that he ignored. When he pulled the man's head back again, he could smell his fresh blood mingled with the scent of his fear. Lucien Gautier's stupid ugly handsome face was covered with blood, his eyes were wide and glassy with shock, and his breath was coming fast and shallow.
"People cared about him."
Again he slammed the head forward into the wall. Again, the satisfying THWACK.
"They cared so much that they were willing to die for his stupid cause."
THWACK.
This time when he pulled the man's head back, he saw something else in his glazed eyes apart from pain and fear. He saw recognition.
"Yes, that's right," he sneered. "I'm surprised you remember me. You didn't remember enough to shoot me when you shot him, did you? Yes, I'm back. That fact perplexes me as much as it obviously does you, but who are we to question the gods on these matters? I was willing to give my life for him. Perhaps he didn't want it after all. I should be insulted, really. But I'm not, I've taken worse from him and I'd take it all again tenfold if it would bring him back. I saw what you did to him, and in case you have not yet discerned that matter, I am not too pleased with you."
THWACK.
"I guess –"
THWACK.
"The moral of this story is –"
THWACK.
"Make sure you at least know a man's name before you piss on his bleeding corpse."
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
He let the body slip down onto the damp cobblestones.