Loko: Because there is really and truly nothing better to do than write about everyone's favourite French revolutionary poet. Not like studying for my Chem final. Nothing like that. At all. And here you thought Enjolras' family history was convoluted. CAUTION - slash in this one.
Fic Summary: Series of shorts; slashy on occasion; death and barricades and clouds and so very much lost youth. Will be updated irregularly; something of a pet project.
Chapter Summary: Jehan Prouvaire remembers. Sufficiency, insufficiency, death, last words, love.
Disclaimer: Can we have Jehan, then::smite::while fizzling: Please … :weak coughs and general haemorrhage: … enjoy …
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Dies Irae
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"It was not combat, it was the interior of a furnace; there mouths breathed flame; there faces were wonderful. There the human form seemed impossible …"
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables: pg. 1044, Modern Library Edition.
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Fluted Glass
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Tuba mirim spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
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The moon was rising.
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When Jean Prouvaire was four, his father's wife died. His mother called him to her room.
"Jean," She said, pulling him close to her in one of those impulsive swishes of golden hair and early dawn skin, "You are my dear, silly, innocent boy."
"Yes, Maman," He agreed, wondering what the matter was.
"And I would prefer you stay that way," His mother said, pushing him away and scrutinizing him. "Oh, you look like me. Pretty beyond belief. And yet you have those damned blue eyes, Jean – why not Maman's green ones, Jean?"
"I don't know, Maman," Jean Prouvaire said, backing away, confused and somewhat frightened.
"Kiss me, Jean," His mother ordered imperiously, offering her cheek and caressing his name with her voice. Jean scurried forward, pecked her quickly, and retreated again, looking at her with his damned blue eyes. "Good. You are going to the mountains for a trip."
"Oh!" Jean said, delighted. "Really? Are you coming too, Maman?"
"No," His mother said, looking old suddenly, leaning back in her chair and picking up a delicate glass of liquid gold champagne. "I have business to attend to. You will go with your cousins."
"Yes, Maman. Thank you, Maman."
"You may leave, Jean."
His mother watched pensively as her son tripped out the door, a sprite of straw blond hair and – damned – blue eyes.
She sipped at her fluted glass, and threw it against the door as it shut.
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"Did you not teach him to call me father?" Monsieur Prouvaire frowned at Jean's mother. The man was a youngish forty-something, dark hair streaked with grey and swept down behind one ear. His posture was almost military, ramrod-straight and stiff-necked with pride, yet his blue eyes spoke of a tired, kind sort of severity.
"Did you expect me to?" His mother spoke with a tired defiance – sick of fighting and unable to stop. Carefully, she settled into a chair, arranging the folds of her mantle around her to disguise a growing stomach. Jean saw and realized with horror.
"Champagne, Madame?" The maid asked, presenting a thin glass of champagne, bubbling and fizzling.
"No," Monsieur Prouvaire said, pushing it away. "It is not good for the child."
"Monsieur," Jean's mother protested. "Only a bit of champagne."
"No," Monsieur Prouvaire said. And then, a mark of favour, he turned to Jean. "Perhaps my son would like some?"
Jean froze, looking at his mother for some indication of his lines. His mother looked away, one hand resting heavily on the table and the other pressing slightly on her midsection.
"Look at me, not your mother," Monsieur Prouvaire said. "As my heir, you must be assertive. In business, you know, it is not so easy to smile and get away with things."
Jean smiled and got away.
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The child was stillborn.
His father would not look at it.
His mother would not look anywhere else.
Jean went to the garden and ripped up the flowers.
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Playing on the beaches of the Riviera, he first fell in love.
She was poor, she was unfitting for his 'station,' she was gorgeous and the colours of a late fall afternoon.
He never talked to her, shy and backing away when she finally noticed him and smiled.
He named her Andromeda, his love found by the sea, and began to write poetry. He found that love was exquisite, and being in love like sunsets and sweet champagne against the azure sea.
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"It is my cage of glass, Jean," She said, wrenching on his hair a shade too harshly. "It is my glass cage I keep for your sake."
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He fell in love with things, people, women, men: the way sunlight seduced the sea when he walked on the beaches, the way people laughed at the market, the way women glittered like evanescent flower-jewels and men pretended not to care.
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"Because we never had these! Because we've never been able to hold our heads up and nod haughtily to passer-by as if God had blessed us personally! Because, Jean, you are our only chance to regain our pride and you, you, you have never been looked down at yet, and you will understand then."
Which was a lie: he already knew.
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Once, one of his schoolmates invited him to visit for a week, over the Easter vacation.
The boy's sister had red hair and freckles, and was generally considered ugly and quite likely useless for marriage.
Jean fell in love with the way her grey eyes ate all colour around them and seemed to reflect the rainbow.
At twelve, naïve and innocent, he'd proposed to her, holding her hands earnestly under the shade of a massive oak.
"Jean," She'd laughed, eyes green and brown and blue against the tree and sky and sea. "My dear boy, you barely know me. Our parents have never even seen one another."
"I love you," He'd said, endearing and trusting. "That's all that matters."
"No," She'd replied, darkly. "You don't. You don't understand what you're talking about."
"But," He'd protested, and she'd smiled, eons of sadness, hair like fire against her skin.
"No, you don't," She'd been gentler the second time. "You're in love with being in love."
He'd been confused.
"And that, I think," She'd added, pulling her hands away, "Is how you had best be."
She'd left him under the tree, watching her heavy skirts, coloured like a butterfly's wings, rustle back towards the house, wondering.
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Stars shone strenuously through the thick air.
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Jean was never cut out to be a nobleman. He was too dreamy, too literary, too trusting. He wrote brilliant essays and lost them. He lost points for not having his pen sharpened for class or his inkwell filled. He studied the sky more than he did the textbook. He read too much poetry and confused Caesar with Xerxes, Aristotle with Archimedes. He forgot things, important things, and never questioned the return of his purse several times lighter.
His father's disappointment weighed him down much more.
So it was that he was almost relieved when the man fell ill from overwork and the doctor came to cover his face. Jean was fourteen. His father was forty-seven.
When Jean's father died, the funeral was magnificent. Everyone in the house bustled to clean, dust, replace colour with black, white with mourning. Jean mentally called it the Funeral, it was so important and warranted such activity. It was like a holiday; he was called back from school, his teachers looked pityingly at him (which was nothing new, really), his mother wore black and looked like a slender lily eaten from the inside out by decay.
"Jean," She slurred indistinctly, using her slender champagne glass (incorrectly, Jean involuntarily realized) for dark red wine, matching flush in papery cheeks and summery hair tangling in her black Le Puy collar, "Jean, he is gone, and you are all I have left, and oh, oh, we are all we have left. Come here, Jean, embrace Maman."
Jean backed away from her heavy alcohol scent.
"Ah! so you desert me as well! Very well, very well, Monsieur Prouvaire, who is so like his father, I am not good enough! We are none of us good enough!" She'd laughed, thrown her pale head and golden hair back and laughed, green eyes flashing like hate. "Don't give me such airs, Monsieur, you are as unworthy as we. You think you are better because you have gone to a good school? Because you have hobnobbed with the upper class? Don't make me laugh, Monsieur. Your blood is as muddy as the Seine, my love. As muddy as mine, you bastard child!"
She threw the glass at him, missing by a head. The flute shattered, the wine dripping to the floor as if the wall bled. Jean tried the door, fumbling to unlock it.
"Jean," She said suddenly, mood shifting colours, sounding frantic and miserable. "Jean, don't leave me, Jean, you are everything. Jean, my son! My life is burning at your feet!" She was sobbing, her arms held out. "Jean, please …"
Jean forced the door open and ran, ran as if he were still five and toward (away from, now) his mother, damned blue eyes glinting.
Her screams echoed down the hall.
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At some point his friend's sister had died. The official story was a fall.
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"Maman," He began, hesitant to enter her room. She lifted her head, smiled as if she was forgiving the Crucifixion. Her wedding ring glinted on her left hand, extravagantly encrusted with jewels. In the tender sun, she looked like a modern-day Madonna, benevolent and loving, or a gold engraving.
"Jean," She said warmly, and, standing, embraced him. The scratch of her collar, the same from the Funeral, irritated his cheek and he pulled away. She sat again, looking demurely at him as if acting an ingénue in a play. "Did you finish? How are we?"
Jean paused, glancing away from the green of her gaze. "We – Maman, we can give up the inheritance, go back to your family in Paris - "
"Them? Ha!" She said, which settled matters.
"Or," Jean continued bravely, "We can live with Monsieur Prouvaire – father's family. Grandfather will keep the money until I am of age."
She seemed to cease breathing. Outside, crickets bemoaned the end of spring.
"Them," She said, exhaling heavily.
"It is so – we may have the money," Jean said timidly.
"We!" She laughed, derisive and mocking. "You!"
Jean hung his head and said nothing. His mother stood, very precisely, and moved to stand directly in front of him.
"Maman?" He asked, chancing a glance. His blue eyes met the afternoon sun and the two hated each other.
"You!" The back of her hand crashed across the left side of his face, glittering stones tearing a long gash across high cheekbone. Red spilled over pale skin: blue eyes, white skin, red blood, tricolour, revolution, death. "You! You, it has always been you, from then to now every moment has been you! You, Monsieur, you! Leave me, why can't you leave me! Leave me alone, use me as you will and leave me! You!"
They sent for a doctor, later, when she had finished screaming and let Jean leave.
For weeks after, he was observed to write carefully and confusedly in the financial ledgers of the family, and, when pausing to reconsider a number, his left hand strayed to his cheek, gently exploring the bandage and later the healing wound.
Eventually the scar faded to a barely-visible blur, but his hand still touched the same spot, wondering at the cruelty of the world. It was a habit, and he did not notice it anymore.
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At the request of Monsieur Prouvaire's mother, they wore mourning always.
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He'd arrived at the Sorbonne, a year younger than most, dusty black gloves in hand. They were the gloves from the Funeral, black velvet and Venetian. His black mourning was road-worn, as well, and his landlady's first impression was of pale blond hair greyish tan with dust, drifting over a map and covering hesitant eyes.
"Ah," He'd said, seeing her. "Is this – this place?" He'd pointed, uncertain, and she'd nodded.
Later, in another part of student Paris, he came across young man about his age. Black hair and warm brown eyes formed his first impression, and mentally he began to rhyme, details sketching in: fine coat, a touch shabby, black cane, open and aristocratically handsome face laughing.
"My dear mourning-boy!" The first words he'd heard from Courfeyrac, who was in his year, although not his department. "Are you lost? I'm lost. Terribly so. If you're not lost, can you direct me to this address?"
Jean was lost, as was Courfeyrac.
Still, being lost together was somehow much better than being lost alone – something Jean had never realized before.
Later, Courfeyrac introduced him to several friends, one of which was from the same department as Courfeyrac.
"L'Aigle de Meaux," He said, gesturing grandiosely. "Not nearly as nice to look at as my dear ladies here," (L'Aigle was bald, Jean discovered with surprise, and rather patched in appearance) "But still a lovely wit and falls down the stairs with astoundingly amusing theatrics."
"Prouvaire," L'Aigle had extended a friendly hand with none of the pompous calculation of Jean's acquaintances from preparatory school. Behind him, another figure emerged, smiling with a benevolent curiosity. "Pleasure. I am called Lesgles, as well, or Bossuet. This is Joly," – gesturing behind him – "whom we call Jolllly."
"I ab delighted to beet you! Do – sorry, I bead beet, dot beat. I have a sball cold. Jead Prouvaire, is id?"
Jean had smiled, turning and meeting deliriously.
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His mother had loved Paris, her home, but never with the ferocity with which Jean attached himself to the city.
He loved everything, lost for hours gazing at the way light glanced off windows, listening to the soft accents of the bourgeoisie talking in their homes, students drunken and singing, children playing on the street heedless of danger.
He loved the city, all the hazardously majestic beauty of it. It reminded him at times of his mother, golden and exquisite, and sometimes dangerous. Still, he felt that at soul it was a good city. And he was free, which was enough.
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He had met Combeferre somehow through the extensive network of students to which Courfeyrac had introduced him. It had been late at night and he had been slightly drunk, and he didn't remember the how or why, but he remembered eyes almost as brilliantly green as his mother's.
He did remember that he'd dropped his glass, startled, and it had almost broken – come close, rolled, remained intact – the barkeeper had counted him lucky.
They met over coffee, mostly, discussed poetry and philosophy and laughed together at the way winter melted into spring.
Jean loved the way Combeferre laughed, quietly and calmly, and the way the sun caught the reddish highlights of his hair and softened his face from its ascetic severity. On certain afternoons, in certain lights, Combeferre's twenty-looking-thirty-five became seventeen, and his eyes lit up and hinted fire.
He loved the way Combeferre's hands held a coffee cup – wrapped carefully around, fingers almost laced; the shape they took around a book, adoring the pages; the way they held a pen or pencil, sketching.
He loved the way Combeferre smiled, and could never describe it with coherent words: soft, quiet, kind, warmth, azure sea, emerald lake, knowledge, wisdom, paradisiacal, chimerical.
One day Combeferre had asked him about his family, and he had hesitated.
"What is it? I'm sorry," Combeferre had instantly said, perceptive as always. "If you don't – I mean …"
"It's alright, I suppose," Jean said softly. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. We were rich, we were well off; we didn't have reason for pain. When my father died he left a substantial amount of money, so we are still quite wealthy. Now we live with my grandparents on my father's side."
"Is that why – ?" Combeferre had reached out, touching the black lace of Jean's collar. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Jean had smiled reassuringly. "It has been a while. I was fourteen."
Combeferre stared. "How many years have you been in mourning?" There was a moment's pause, and then - "Jean, four years."
It was a statement, not a question.
"It was my grandmother's request," Jean said, shrugging in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. "We were living in her house; we had no choice but to honour her wishes. And it was only right," He added hastily.
"You and your mother?"
"Yes," Jean said. Combeferre looked at him, sunlight flashing off his spectacles and obscuring his eyes for a moment.
"You were wealthy?" Combeferre asked, and Jean nodded, wondering where the conversation was going. "Were you upper-class, then?"
"No," Jean said. "My father was self-made. My parents sent me to a good school, and finally the Université de Paris, in hopes that I would somehow be able to Enter Society through people I met. It was – it was like a final goal, for them. They never had a chance when they were young, and I am to take their chance for them."
"Do you agree?" Combeferre asked, green boring into blue as if meaning to rip away the soul. Jean, startled, set down his coffee slightly louder than intended and the other patrons frowned at them. "Let's walk," Combeferre said, standing suddenly.
Outside, their feet crunched the snow and Jean thought.
"No," He said rather suddenly.
"Why not?" Combeferre returned flawlessly.
"It's not – it's not fair," Jean said, breathless with a sudden liberation even Paris had not given him. "It's not fair – not to me, not to them – I mean – who is it who dictated that the upper-class were the absolute best? They are not so wonderful. I have met them; I have lived with them. They are petty, they cry; they smell awful after a day in the sun. They bleed the same as everyone else, they are not as special as they appear."
"Yes," Combeferre agreed. "The upper-class is as human as the rest of us."
Jean froze, looking over at Combeferre. "I – I would not go so far," He said hesitantly, years of careful indoctrination fluttering like rent silk. "I – they are rich, they - "
"You are rich," Combeferre pointed out.
"Their blood – "
"Is the same, as you said."
"Combeferre," Jean started, and stopped, considering.
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He tried to remember.
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His mother used to sing to him: children's songs, simple tripping tunes, Frére Jacques, Allouette.
"Maman," He'd said one day, when she was sitting in the courtyard with him. Spring-summer: flowers dripped off the balcony and writhed around the pillars. "Maman, I am too old for these songs!"
She'd laughed.
"You are never too old, Jean," She'd said, tousling his hair and throwing palely violet blooms amongst the palely golden strands. "You are never too old to be my darling child."
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"I love Paris," Courfeyrac said once, when they were sitting at a café – they, Courfeyrac, Jean, Grantaire, Combeferre. Jean was reading, and thus was startled when Courfeyrac abruptly clapped a hand onto his shoulder. "You were not paying attention, Monsieur! You must answer this question – do you?"
Jean breathed out hard, remembering that Courfeyrac had brown eyes and not green.
"Yes, Prouvaire," Grantaire said, unusually sober. "He is teasing you on purpose. What have you to say in defence?"
"I - " Jean stumbled, then laughed. "Certainly. Why not? What have I gotten myself into?"
"Nothing much," Courfeyrac said, leaning back into his chair. "But you have agreed that you wish to woo that dear young thing over there. To it, my friend!"
"Courfeyrac!" Jean cried, flabbergasted.
"Courfeyrac, really," Combeferre had laughed. "You love Paris, Jean, not the grisette across the street."
"You spoil my fun, Monsieur Intellectual," Courfeyrac said, stomping his foot gaily. "Then, my poet, wherefore lovest thou this grime-bespattered spectacle?"
"I am free here," Jean said simply.
"Yes, you, but not others."
Jean glanced at Combeferre in surprise, blue met green, and Jean realized with a shimmering epiphany that Combeferre had eyes like Madame Prouvaire's, but clearer.
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"No, not Jean!" She cried, voice shrilling against the portraits and the soft amber wallpapering beneath them. "No! You are Jean Prouvaire, not Jean! You are Monsieur Prouvaire! You are all I have left, Monsieur, and you will take care of me because your father, yes, that man, he brought me into this Hell and even with his death I cannot leave!"
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At some point, he'd realized that the people and things he loved never loved him back.
It suited him fine. Distance was tender.
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"You know," Jean said one day, through the rich-smelling steam of his coffee. "In older times, Jean was actually spoken and written Jehan. The evolution of language is fascinating, is it not?"
"I like it," Combeferre smiled. "Jehan. It has a nice ring. It fits you better, too."
Jehan blinked. "Jehan?" He paused, considering, and decided – "Jehan. You are right; it sounds better. Call me Jehan!"
They laughed, and it caught.
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He'd written to his mother in May.
Maman,
Je ne vais pas retourner chez grand-mére. Désolé. Maman, je ne peut pas vivre dans cette maison. Et tu, tu dois partir aussi. Tu mourirais.
Peut-être quand tu lis cette lettre, je suis morte. Dans ce cas, Maman, je te dis – je t'aime.
Jehan
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He was standing by the wall, wondering if his mother had received the message.
He was waiting for the gunshots, wondering if his friends had noticed he was gone yet.
He was sharing glances with the wine-coloured sky, trying to remember what was so important and yet just beyond his grasp.
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"He is my son!" She wrenched her arm out of the surprisingly strong grip of the elderly lady. "He is my son! Your grandson! Are you heartless, you crone?"
"How dare you! I care not for your bastard son, but I must keep my son's wife! Here, drink – drink your infernal champagne, leave the boy to his follies - "
"No! Let go! Let me go!" The glass shattered between them. She stormed into the carriage and headed for Paris for the first time in almost twenty-six years.
She was too late.
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"These are Les Amis, Jehan," Combeferre had swept open the door. "Some of us you already know."
"You could say we've been subtly poisoning you to our ways," Courfeyrac said, smirking from a table.
"A new recruit?" A god looked at Jehan, and Jehan shrank back against the piercing gold-cerulean-alabaster stare.
"I – yes," He said.
"Do you understand what we are doing here?"
Jehan nodded, braver. "Yes – yes."
"Do you realize we may die?"
"Yes."
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There was a substantial clicking of arms at the other side of the street.
Jehan thought frantically, searching and searching.
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His first kiss had been last night.
"We are probably going to arms tomorrow, Jehan," Combeferre's eyes had been smoky emeralds in the twilight.
"Yes," Jehan had watered the flower in the Musain back room.
Combeferre had reached over, gently touching the pea green waistcoat exuberantly clashing with light purple cravat.
"You stopped wearing black," He noticed, smiling: fingers met the spot where pale blond hair met the tip of pale white ear.
Jehan had smiled back. "Yes," He said.
Combeferre had been hesitant for the first time in Jehan's memory – had leaned forward, back, then kissed him on the mouth.
Jehan had backed away, startled.
"I'm sorry," Combeferre said instantly. "Jehan."
Jehan had been silent, shocked beyond comprehension.
"I'm sorry," Combeferre left the room.
And then … and then Jehan could not remember what he had done.
What was it?
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He wanted to call out, to call back, to say something, but he could not find a way to form the sentence, he, a poet – could not craft words to fit the meaning, smooth meaning to fit the words, curve the phrase to fit his mouth.
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He had never really been able to make anyone happy.
He had never really been able to make anyone proud.
He had never really been quite enough.
And for this revolution, this émeute, liberation and Paris, he'd wanted with everything to be enough.
"Vive la France!" He cried. "Vive l'avenir!"
The guns fired.
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Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.
-fin-
words: 3959
paragraphs: 230
sentences: 381
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A/N(s):
General: The last one – Enjolras – wasn't really intended to be slashy. Sorry if that confused anyone. I got a couple reviews to that pointu.u; Generally there will be implied/threatened slash. The clearest in my mind is this 'Ferre/Jehan and Jolllly/Bossuet, but others may develop without my permission or knowledge. So it's really just a "caution" notice.
AmZ: Thank you. :blushes: Bossuet the Infidel was a spur-of-the-moment thing. For some reason a bald French revolutionary student suddenly appeared in my head and stole my typing fingers. I'm glad you enjoyed it. In terms of "soleil" and "smile" … I'm not sure I see where I used them. ;; I saw the review and went, "I'm positive I knew that 'soleil' is masculine …" Sorry if I'm just being stupid and missing something.
BellaSpirita: Enjolras hating women was also an attack by a French revolutionary student. They do that a lot. I suppose I'm taking my basis from M. Hugo's "fixed with an icy glare" (or something to that effect) when describing Enjolras' reactions to come-ons from women. It's a bit sketchy, I know. u.u;; Sorry.
Cecilia Carlton:sparkles at praise: The long paragraph was intended as something like a radio transmission – I think that in that sort of mental state, there are probably seven million and a half thoughts trying to get themselves thought, and in the end it results in an incoherent mess. I was going for a sort of "staticky transmission" feel. Might've failed, though )-P.
JenValjean24601: I wrote part of this with the Brick in my lap By the time Dies Irae is done, I might have perfected the art of sitting at a tiny table, typing on a laptop, stabilizing my power connection, and referencing/turning pages of a thick book at the same time. Please keep reading to find out! (And for the fic, too XP)
Notthatlucky: As a random side note, I love your username. As I said earlier, Enjolras wasn't intended to be slashy. And Enjy as a little kid fixing toys was just too heart-wrenchingly sweet to pass up.
ArgentineRose: Merci beaucoup. Je dois vous remercier pour les mots sympa. The common blood issue – I'm taking it as a matter of course that a rich family (as M. Hugo claims Enjolras' was) would be concerned about marrying "pure" blood and keeping "lower" blood out. It was sort of key to the story, so I sort of kofffudgedkoff the concept.
H. Sibelius: Thank you so very much. My ego inflates massively and awaits puncture. And … yeah. I intended it to be drabble and wrote the summary with that idea in mind … and then Enjolras said "WHAT!" and it was no longer short. The vengeful spirit of M. Hugo loiters in this section! p)-(34r his 1337 haunting 5ki11z0r5!
Mlle. Verity: Thank you. nn. Enjolras the Fixer came about the same way Bossuet the Infidel did: loud French revolutionary students that randomly demand to be written about. Glad you liked him.
Bubonic Woodchuck: Allo, ale-wench. Have Jehan, too. (Do you still have the pretzel-stick revolutionaries? How … you know … are they?)
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Reviews are like Miracle-Gro for work ethic: funny colours, funny smelling, laden with good-for-increased-rate-of-cell-division … stuff.
So please, REVIEW, si vous aimez cet oeuvre.
lokogato enterprises ltd.
07-06-05
6:06 PM