Surprised? Me too. I thought the plot bunnies for this fic have long since fled, but here we are. Some of the dialogue has been lifted from the Hapgood translation of the Brick.
Word Count: 2,776
CI: Un Brave Garçon
When Marius awakes once again on the morning of June the 5th to the sight of Courfeyrac's vibrant green eyes staring intently at him, he is no longer surprised. Marius sighs as he sits up from the mattress loaned to him, the scent of his own burning flesh still lingering strong on his senses. Courfeyrac pouts at his friend's action, no doubt wondering what the matter was.
"And what might be the problem, Monsieur l'Abbé? Has your paramour come to her sense at last and deserted you?" Courfeyrac teases, a glint of laughter in his eyes, his face still uncomfortably close to Marius' own.
"It's nothing," Marius replies as he attempts to push Courfeyrac off him. Courfeyrac responds to this by doing an overdramatic routine of a hurt gasp and placing a hand over his heart. Marius scoffs and stands up, trying not to think of how his friend will die this time.
"So, are you coming to the funeral procession today?" Courfeyrac asks as he straightened out the wrinkles on his coat.
Marius shakes his head as he's done dozens of time before, and that is all it takes for Courfeyrac to give him an indulging smile.
"Suit yourself, my friend. Tomorrow I shall see you in a new Republic," Courfeyrac tells him as he reaches for his sword cane with one hand and his new top hat with the other. Thus accomplished, Courfeyrac turns back to Marius to wave him a farewell before exiting the apartment. The scene was reminiscent of all those June 5ths past, and it was all Marius could do to bite down on his tongue to prevent himself from making a sound. Courfeyrac never heeded any of his warnings in any of those previous times, anyway.
Marius was stumped on what to do now.
He finds it amusing that the first time he went to the barricades, he was willing to die for a cause he did not believe in, all because he thought that his beloved had deserted him. It feels like a bullet to the chest, his poetic soul would have said once, but now he knows how that really feels, when once he took a bullet meant for Bossuet.
He knows where Cosette stays during the riots, he has memorised the address, but he still returns to the barricades even though he desperately wants to run into her arms. It is out of habit, he claims, but deep in his heart he knows he now believes in the Republic, for whose sake his friends, and now himself also, were willing to pay for with their lives.
He decides that there must be a reason why the Almighty keeps on sending him back. But on what it is, he is still not certain.
And so Marius resolves to wait for the Thénardier girl and Cosette's letter. He avoided her in most iterations after her first death and love confession, but he knows he can't keep on doing so.
At around eleven in the morning, his waiting finally paid off when Mother Veuvain, their portress, knocks on the door to announce that there is an artisan looking for him. It was Éponine, dressed in a tattered blouse and patched trousers, the same thing she always wears in every iteration. No doubt it was exchanged with the first man she met on the street that morning.
Marius smiled, though not without pity, at the sight of the poor girl.
"Here you are, Éponine. Have you a message for me?"
Éponine looked surprised at his recognition of her, but quickly schooled her face back to a neutral expression.
Her voice faltered as she answered. "I have a letter from your beloved, Monsieur." Marius could not help but notice how the girl spat out the word "beloved" or how her hands shook terribly as she reached for it in her coat pocket and pressed it into Marius' waiting hand.
Before Éponine could scurry away from him, Marius grabbed her right arm. This action he has done a dozen times before, and so it feels almost natural now.
"The streets aren't safe today, there is to be a riot. Stay with the portress and we shall talk later," he told her.
Éponine was shaking her head, but Marius insisted.
"Please, Éponine."
Calling her by her Christian name did the trick, as always. She agreed, and half-heartedly allowed Marius to escort her to Mother Veuvain's quarters. The portress protested at this, but Marius pressed five francs on her palm to not let Éponine out of her sight and to buy some food for the two of them, and so the old portress relented.
Having taken leave of them, Marius started his walk around Paris. He has long memorized each passage and any secret alley the gargantuan city may have possessed, he was in fact, better than any gamin in navigating Paris now, and so knew where best to meet up with the cortège. He caught up with them in the Place Vendôme. Recognising Gavroche, who was perched atop Bahorel's shoulders, Marius shouted at them.
"Gavroche!"
Gavroche kicked Bahorel who obligingly put the gamin down. Gavroche merrily skipped towards him.
"Hullo, who's this? Ah, it's you, freckle-face. What is it?" Gavroche rattled off.
"Will you do something for me?" Marius asked.
"Well, will I get something out of it?" Gavroche persisted.
Marius placed a five-franc piece on the gamin's palm. "Does that answer your question?"
Gavroche grinned in response. "Alright, Citizen. What am I to do for you?"
"Take this letter to Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7. Afterwards, go to Mother Veuvain's in the Rue de la Verrerie and stay there. Tell Mother Veuvain that Monsieur Pontmercy told her to keep an eye on you."
Gavroche scowled at the last sentence but managed to give Marius a military salute before taking off with Marius' given errand.
It was then that Courfeyrac approached him.
"If you are trying to make that boy stay away from the riots, you are doomed to fail, Monsieur l'Abbé. Gavroche is attracted to these sorts of things like a moth is drawn to a flame," Courfeyrac smirked. "Though I see you have decided to join us in our own quest. Why the change of heart, Pontmercy?"
"You shouldn't let gamins join you in your riots. They'll get killed sooner or later. And as for your question, would you believe me if I said I was seduced by your winning charm?"
Courfeyrac's smirk turned into a hearty laugh. "You are finally learning from me, Pontmercy! It needs a little more polishing, but see if you can't get the grisettes swooning over you."
Marius smiled sheepishly.
Their little band ended up building the barricade at the Corinthe on Bossuet's suggestion, as they always do. Marius notices Javert hiding in the shadows and trying not to call any attention to himself. As there was a time when he accosted the spy alone and got shot as a result, Marius was now wary of Javert. He decided that the best course of action this time around was to tell Enjolras, the chief, directly, to avoid any loss of life.
"That man is a police spy, Enjolras," Marius whispered in Enjolras' ear.
Enjolras turned to face him and raise an eyebrow at reveal. "Are you certain, Pontmercy?"
"He was the one whom I reported the robbery at the Gorbeau hovel to. Courfeyrac surely would have mentioned it to you at some point."
Enjolras nodded and closed his eyes in contemplation.
"Then we must secure this spy at once."
Enjolras made a sign to the four broad-shouldered porters near him. In the twinkling of an eye, before Javert had time to turn round or realize what was going on, he was collared, thrown down, pinioned and searched.
A card was found on him, bearing on one side the arms of monarchical France and on the other his name, age, and police rank. Alongside this was also found some gold pieces and his pocket watch.
"Do you now deny who you are?" Enjolras asked.
Javert had not deigned it necessary to respond.
The search having been accomplished, Javert was now tied up on the post in the middle of the Corinthe.
At the sight of this little scene, the other members of l'ABC came running towards Enjolras.
"The man is a police spy. Your friend informed me," Enjolras indicated to Courfeyrac.
Turning back to Javert, Enjolras said "You will be shot ten minutes before the barricade is taken."
Javert responded in a superior tone. "Why not at once then?"
Enjolras shrugged. "We are saving up on gunpowder."
"Then finish me off with a knife."
"Monsieur L'Inspecteur," Enjolras responded. "We are not assassins, but judges."
Le Cabuc still joins the insurgents and kills the porter who would not let him in. This was also one of the things that remains constant however Marius tries to change them.
Enjolras captures Le Cabuc and swiftly executes him. Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman's face, had about him the aura of the antique Themis. His dilated nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek profile that expression of wrath and that expression of Chastity which, as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice. He gazed down at his handiwork, then proclaimed in an unnaturally strong voice.
"Citizens, what this man has done is horrible, as is what I have done to him in return. It had to be done, however, for revolution must have discipline. As for myself, constrained as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself."
A hush fell over their barricade, but Marius is sure that none will abandon them yet, he has seen this scene a hundred times before.
"We will share thy fate," Combeferre cried out.
"So be it," replied Enjolras.
Marius found that the hours of waiting for the battle to begin were always the hardest to live through. The barricade maintained a constant flurry of activity. Everyone tried to keep their hands busy, so as not to think about who will survive and who will perish in the morrow. Bahorel presided over the manufacture of ammunition, using Mother Hucheloup's tankards. Mother Hucheloup sighed in response to this assault on her property. The women were sewing up linen to be used on the wounded. Sentinels were posted all over the barricade, and Enjolras was keeping watch atop the structure not unlike his namesake, the archangel Michael.
The other members of l'ABC, Marius among them, sought each other out in one corner of the shop, a couple of paces away from the barricade, carbines loaded and resting against the backs of their chairs. These young men, foremost among them Jehan Prouvaire, began to recite love verses.
"Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie,
Lorsque nous étions si jeunes tous deux,
Et que nous n'avions au cœur d'autre envie
Que d'être bien mis et d'être amoureux,
Lorsqu'en ajoutant votre âge à mon âge,
Nous ne comptions pas à deux quarante ans"
While Jehan was reciting his apocalyptic sonnet, Courfeyrac inched slowly towards Marius.
"Well, Pontmercy? Do you remember the things Prouvaire just said?"
Marius smiled. "Of course. I remember when you first offered that I live with you."
It wasn't so much a lie, since Marius still remembers the days before he was sent back to live through an endless loop of June 5th, although those days were starting to fade from his memory, so long ago that they happened. By his own estimation, he has been living through this day for at least a year.
"And do you remember how that came to happen? Bossuet's name got struck off Blondeau's list for your sake. You ought to be thankful."
"I never stopped being thankful for that. But enough about me. You already know my history, isn't it time you shared yours?"
Courfeyrac sat cross-legged beside Marius. "Blunt as always, my friend. Well, if you insist."
Courfeyrac reaches out for two oysters left over from Bossuet's and Joly's breakfast, then hands one to Marius, keeping one for himself. "Eat. This is going to be long and the night is still young."
"Not unlike either of us," Marius replies.
Courfeyrac shrugs at this. "Heh, you're right."
"You already know that my aristocrat father despairs of me being a reckless reprobate of a youngest son, right? What you probably don't know is that I'm not the only problem child in our family."
Marius at least has the decency to look shocked.
"Truth be told, he probably blames Lili for influencing me. Lili, Élisabeth, my eldest sister," Courfeyrac produces his pocket book and from it a sketch of a young woman sharing Courfeyrac's features. "When our mother died, she became the lady of the house. She raised the rest of us, and I was her favourite sibling growing up. She taught me everything, sums, writing, and yes, even my ideals. At eighteen, she eloped with a staunch Republican, and even though Father can't disinherit her because of the Code, we were forbidden to ever speak of her." Courfeyrac's eyes were glistening.
"And? What happened to her after?"
Courfeyrac shook his head. "I don't know. Father cut off all contact with her when she eloped. I've been trying to find her ever since I came to Paris, but no luck."
Marius smiled at his friend. "You'll find her yet."
Gavroche had returned, to Marius' exasperation.
"Here they are!" the gamin shouted.
An electric quiver shot up all around the barricade, and everyone reached up for their carbines. At once, each man took up his own position in the barricade. All principal members of l'ABC, save for Feuilly, knelt inside the larger barricade, their heads on a level with the top of the barricade. Feuilly, along with some marksmen, was positioned on the top windows of the Corinthe.
A hush went over them, punctuated by the sounds of marching feet from the National Guardsmen outside. All at once, from the depths of this darkness outside, a voice which appeared to be the gloom itself, shouted, to the accompanying clicks of guns being lowered into position.
"Qui vive?"
Who lives? Marius did not know, for every time he goes back, the outcome always changes.
But Enjolras, that wild Antinoüs, knew the answer.
In a ringing voice, he cried out, "La révolution française!"
A flash surrounded all sides of the barricade, alongside it, the fearful detonation of gun powders bursting all at once. The red flag fell. The discharge from carbines had been so great that its pole had snapped in twine.
Bullets rebounded from the surrounding houses, penetrating their barricade and hurting several men. The impression produced by this first attack was unnerving to some. It was rough, and of a nature to inspire reflection in the boldest. From the amount of bullets hailing down on them, it was evident that they would be fighting an entire regiment to say the least.
"Comrades!" shouted Courfeyrac, "let us not waste gun powder. Let them waste their own first before we reply."
"And, above all," said Enjolras, "let us raise the flag again." He picked up their flag, which had fallen precisely at his feet. Outside, the clatter of the ramrods in the guns could be heard; their enemies were reloading their guns.
Enjolras went on.
"Who here has a bold heart? Who will replant our flag?"
Marius stood up. If no one presented themselves, M. Mabeuf would surely volunteer and he would get himself killed. Marius walked straight towards Enjolras, the others parting to make a way for him. Enjolras handed him the flag, Marius nodded in response. Climbing the paving-stones that made a staircase towards the top of the barricade, Marius could feel all the eyes on him at every step.
When he had reached the last step, in the presence of innumerable and invisible guns, Marius drew himself up in the face of death, one he knows wouldn't last, the whole barricade assumed amid the darkness, a supernatural and colossal form. Marius replanted the red flag on the omnibus.
The invisible voice called out. "Who goes there?"
Marius replied. "Vive la République!"
"Fire!"
Bullets rained on the barricade once again. Marius fell.