Chapter Nine: Riot in the Streets
A/N: Wow! Such quick reviews! I've been dying to write this chapter since… well since I started the fic. It was one of the main ideas I had for it, so hopefully it'll come out on paper as well as it was running about in my head!
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The people had swarmed faster than any of the students realized they could. Joly's eyes went wide and Enjolras could see him shrinking away out of the corner of his eye. Grantaire, on his other side, tensed. "Where'd they all come from?"
"I think the question should be, 'what are they after?'" Enjolras murmured as he started toward the thick of the crowd.
"Are you insane?" Joly managed, taking hold of his leader's arm and trying to drag the taller man back. "Combeferre's going to kill us all when he hears about this."
"Let go of me, Joly. I have to see what's going on."
"It doesn't concern us, Enjolras," Grantaire said quietly. "Let's go."
Brilliant blue eyes flashed as the blond man spun out of Joly's grasp and glared at Grantaire. "You! And I thought you'd changed! Have you learned nothing from all of this?" he demanded, his hand sweeping out towards the crowd of rioting people.
"I've learned you care nothing for your own life even though this Republic you love so much is in your hands," Grantaire bit back. "If you die, it dies with you!"
"These people are the Republic!"
"And they're too stupid to care right now! Leave them be!"
Enjolras was shaking by this point, though neither of his companions could tell if it was from anger or exhaustion. He turned abruptly and started into the crowd. Joly and Grantaire followed at his heals. They weaved through the crowds and finally made their way so that they could see.
The crowd had brought out an old scaffold – someone had been planning this – that looked as if one stood on it that it might collapse. On it was a rusted looking guillotine that would have taken several tries to take a head off and Joly shuddered at the sight of it. The words rang in each of their minds. Reign of Terror. It was coming again and they were there to witness it.
A man was ushered up to the scaffold and Enjolras recognized him immediately. He wasn't sure of his name, but he could never mistake the man that'd looked him in the eye and shot him at point blank range. Those eyes that had been so full of youthful pride then were panicked at the site of a rusted guillotine before him now. He was struggling against his captors and yelling out for someone, anyone to help.
"It's him," Grantaire breathed, his lips pulling into a full frown. "Let 'em lob it off."
Enjolras ignored him as he started to push his way forward. "Let me through! Confound it all, let me through!" He made his way to the very front. "Stop!" he yelled, his voice rising above the others in an authoritative manner.
One of the rioters at the base of the scaffold looked at him, eyebrow raised. "You'd rather it be you, monsieur?" he growled out.
Enjolras all but fell forward, pushed by the crowds that had taken to him now, eyes glowing with a lust for blood he'd never seen in his young years. He gasped slightly, pain spreading across his torso, but he pushed it back. "Why this man?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"Don't you see the uniform, you fool?"
"I see a boy no older than myself," Enjolras shot back. "Let him go."
"And who are you to tell us what to do?"
"Alexis Enjolras," the blond answered with his head held high. "I was one of the ones who fought for you on the barricades."
A silence fell over the crowd, but the man before him sneered. "You may have been on the barricade, boy, but I know your name and your legacy."
At this, Enjolras stiffened. "My father disowned me long ago."
"A likely story!" He grinned maliciously as more murmurs rose. "Alexis Enjolras… son of the man that all but rules this country, doesn't he? He's been pulling the strings from the background for years. Good ol' king sits on his thrown with his smile and his good ways, but the suffering comes from the Enjolras family."
"I fight against my father."
"Do you now?" the man growled. "I say we've got ourselves a guillotine for two today!"
The crowd's cheers rose loudly, causing Enjolras to wince at the sound. He glared pointedly at Grantaire and Joly, warning them against coming to his rescue. He'd gotten himself out of plenty of messes before, he could do it again.
They shoved Enjolras up the rickety steps and he tripped on the last one, falling against the splintered wood. He forced himself up, frustration written in his blue eyes. "Circumstances are difficult only for those who shrink at the thought of death," he murmured through gasping breaths.
"Enjolras!"
His eyes met those of Combeferre. The smaller man looked as if he might be in a panic down below, working wildly against the crowd that was against him. His normally calm features were lined in frustration and worry as he called his friend's name again. The blond noticed that Grantaire was with him, Joly and Courfeyrac coming from a different angle. "Bunch of fools," he murmured.
"They'd follow you to the death."
Enjolras turned, looking at the National Guard. He really was very little more than a boy.
"I saw them," he continued, "in the café… on the barricade. They'd have died for you… It's because you're a good man, isn't it? You really want what's best for these people, don't you?"
"Shut up now!" the leader of the riot called and hauled the National Guard over to the guillotine where men were fitting a new blade on it. They fit his head in the slot.
Nothing was going as planned. Everything was spiraling into chaos and he couldn't let it happen. He was their leader. He was their savior. He was Apollo, damn it all and he would not let control slip from his grasp."You must stop this madness!" Enjolras screamed. "This cannot be another Reign of Terror!"
There was a silence that fell over the crowd as a yelp was heard and the whistle of the blade falling. Enjolras had been struggling widely against his captors, eyes wide and he was screaming for it all to stop. As the boy's head rolled and a bit of his blood splattered on the blond's face, he fell silent. It was all a brief moment in time, but if felt like an eternity as Enjolras fell to his knees, eyes wide and unseeing of anything except of the blood. In his own mind it was gushing, flowing like a waterfall from the severed neck and pooling like a body of water. But it wasn't water, it was blood. All of the blood… Was it all from one man? Was it because of him? He couldn't regain the control, but had he ever had it?
"You're next," his captor growled as he hauled him up. Enjolras offered no protest.
"Stop this! Don't you know who he is?" Grantaire demanded.
"The son of-"
"No! He organized the revolution here! One of the leaders! It's because of Enjolras that you live as a free man! Don't you see that? He was wounded on that barricade. That man-" he pointed at the dead National Guard – "stabbed and shot him. He was willing to die for the likes of you!"
"I saw him," one voice piped up out of the crowd. "I saw him on the barricade. With a red flag!"
"I saw him too!" Cries such as this rang through the crowd for a moment before the man holding Enjolras raised a hand to silence them.
"You'd have him?"
"How do you suspect that the king will listen if not to the man that he surrendered to?" Courfeyrac demanded.
The man all but threw Enjolras, sending the young man stumbling from the scaffold and straight into Grantaire's arms. The drunkard caught his Apollo before he fell and eased him down. "Enjolras?"
Les Amis gathered around him, Combeferre taking charge. "Let's get him home," he murmured.
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He'd been walking through the streets when he heard the riot a block away. Bouvet had sprinted the whole way there, something in his gut telling him that his charge was there. He'd reached the edge of the crowd to see the young National Guard being shoved into place at the guillotine and the blade falling. He recognized Enjolras screaming for the madness to stop. The sound of the blade falling was deafening in the sudden silence and Bouvet felt his heart stop.
Everything froze in place as the boy's head rolled and Enjolras' screams were silenced. The look on his face took all of Bouvet's attention. Those blue eyes were wide and full of emotion for the briefest of moments before he was hauled up and started for the guillotine.
Bouvet was sure he heard the drunkard say something before the madman on the scaffold tossed the revolutionary off of it. He made his way to the scene quickly. "What's happened?"
Combeferre looked up. "Are you blind?"
"I can see, but why…" He couldn't finish. He wasn't sure how or even what he was asking. The blond man before him was in shock, he was sure, with his eyes staring blankly ahead and any movement was only because one of his friends had caused it. "Get him up."
"We're done taking your orders," Courfeyrac growled out, his eyes blazing. "You have no rights here, Bouvet. Stay out of it."
"I'll be your escort back to the flat," the National Guard said simply.
"And of this?" Joly mumbled, motioning to the crowd.
"They're just blind followers. It's him that the government will want," he said, motioning up towards the stage. "And we'll have him, but until then, come on."
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"Has he said anything?"
Combeferre scowled at the National Guard. Truth be told, he'd sat up all night with the wounded revolutionary and the blond had not said a word. He had not even slept. Rather he had laid with his eyes staring blankly towards the ceiling, pale fists clenching and unclenching at his sides for a while before relaxing against the sheets of his bed. Truth be told, Combeferre was frightened.
"If he doesn't respond, he won't have his conference," Bouvet said slowly, non of his usual cockiness lacing his voice.
"I know that," Combeferre hissed. "But what can I do of it?"
Bouvet sighed heavily and sank into a chair. There was little they could do, he admitted to himself silently. The boy had been non-responsive since they'd brought him back to the flat. He'd simply allowed himself to be lead along the road, up the stairs, and into bed. Combeferre had treated his wounds and tucked the sheets in around him, lowering the lamp light so that it barely burned. "Grantaire is with him?"
"Little good it'll do. He needs rest as well… What have we gotten ourselves into?"
The National Guard was sure he wasn't supposed to have heard the last part and it had merely slipped from the young doctor's lips. He ignored it and stood, walking very quietly to Enjolras' room.
Grantaire was bent over him, a damp rag on his forehead. Apparently a fever had sprung in the night and the blond seemed to do little to fight it off.
"How is he?"
The drunkard spun in his chair, eyes wide. "You."
"I asked a question."
"And I refuse to answer. Get out of Enjolras' home."
"Only if he orders me out," Bouvet counted. "And that doesn't look probable."
"Shut up!" Grantaire yelled. "And get out! Just get out!"
Bouvet nodded stiffly, a frown on his lips. "Very well," he murmured as he did just as he was asked.
Grantaire turned back to Enjolras with tears standing in his eyes. "C'mon, Apollo," he whispered. "You have to wake up for me. Not just for me, you know. The whole Republic's in your hands, remember. If not for me, if not for your friends, then for the Republic. For the people, Enjolras."
He waited. It seemed like an eternity before he let his breath out and let his shoulders slump. It was then that he felt a weak hand grasping at his own and he opened his eyes. Enjolras was looking back at him, tears falling silently down his own pale face, matching the drunkard's. Grantaire grasped his leader's hand and held it to him, falling to his knees by the bed.
"They killed him," Enjolras rasped.
It took Grantaire a moment to process the words and then he nodded silently.
"I couldn't…" Enjolras' grasp became stronger and he sniffed, a sob choking him. "I couldn't… do anything, Grantaire. Not one blasted thing…. That man died… He died because of me!"
"Not because of you, Enjolras."
"But it was," the other sniffed. "It was my fault."
Grantaire moved himself so he was sitting on the bed next to the blond, one hand on his friend's slender shoulder. "You couldn't have done anything," he said firmly. "Not a thing, do you hear me? That man, the one that killed the National Guard, he was out of his mind."
"But… I've killed so many. It's been a bloodbath, Grantaire, you saw it."
"And it'll get better, but you have to stay with it. Without you, the Republic will never come into being."
"But-"
"No. You lived for a reason. Even if you could not save that one man you can save more. Many more, but you have to stay with it."
There was a passion in Grantaire's voice that Enjolras had heard more and more since the barricades and it brought fresh tears to his eyes. He shuddered once before letting out a sob and feeling Grantaire put an arm around him, steadying him. He collapsed into his friend, weeping freely. The drunkard sat there, awkwardly holding his idol, and watched the statue melt into a man.
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A/N:deep breath: emotionally straining chapter… Have you ever felt that? When you work up to something and feel the character's deepest emotions. Poor Enjolras… I suppose in a way one of the purposes of this story is to make the statue into a man, in a way. Have I done well in that?
Sorry for no Javert and Valjean fun in this one! No Marius even… very sad…
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Tay-kun: That's so good to hear, that this isn't a typical survival fic. Anna-chan and I toyed with the idea in an earlier fic, but I do like this idea better. We were dabbling in it, really…. This is much more thought out, in my opinion. At least on my part. Yeah… Slash isn't something I write. I typically have very, very close friendships that people will mistake or slash, but I never mean for it to be so. Ah well… people see what they wish to see and that's the wonders of writings:)
AmZ: Haha! Remind me to come to you if I need any detail about Javert. Thank you very much for that:does her best to store that in her memory: And as always, thanks for reading and input!
Melissa Brandybuck: I have a thing about parents. I love putting parents into fics. They're either really, really good or really, really bad. M. Enjolras is just downright evil. I despise him, but love his character, if that makes any since? I love him as a villain b/c he's just so terrible. He'll get worse, believe you me. Oops… bad riot!
Nothingtoulouse: Wow… I'm so used to being on that end of the fanfiction. The "please have updated! Please have updated!" end… It's weird being on this end… Thanks so much! That's one of the biggest compliments you could give me!
Precious Angel: Yeah, good 'ol dad, right:shudders: You'll see about Marius… next chapter? I think it might be next chapter, we'll see. Wow! Everyone says they're addicted to my story! That makes me so happy:feeds people's addiction: Hehe…
Thanks all!
TS