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Enjolras draws the line when he stumbles upon Grantaire sleeping outside the study for the fifth time. He’s had enough of this – whatever this is. He doubts anyone knows. It’s not only Grantaire who is existing rather than living. The other day, Courfeyrac stumbled upon a panicking Jehan hidden away in a corner of the kitchen, clutching their head protectively and murmuring a broken mantra of ‘alone, alone, alone.’ There is grief in this house they share, and he is certain he is not the only one who feels it.
“Grantaire, get up,” he murmurs, shaking the sleeping man gently. “Wake up.”
“Let me sleep here – until I die,” Grantaire groans.
The words would be innocuous to anyone else – anyone other than Enjolras, who staggers backwards, the words finding their target like bullets into his heart. For a moment he is in a dusty café from years ago, listening to the same words come from the same man. He’d sneered at them back then, and he remembers his cruel reply, but hearing them now is a different matter. He feels as though he is being torn to shreds. His breath hitches on a muted sob.
Grantaire stares at him, unseeing, before blinking once. He, too, remembers Enjolras’ words. “You’ve missed your line, Apollo.”
“Get up. I’m calling a house meeting.”
He doesn’t look back at Grantaire as he walks down the stairs.
It takes him no time to rouse the others from sleep. They grumble and groan at him sportingly, but there’s an undeniable tension when they gather in the den. They steal glances at each other nervously; a collective breath is held when Enjolras starts talking.
“My friends,” he starts, and it is not lost on him that he sounds as though he’s never left the nineteenth century. “We have been brought back. Why, we know not. But none of you can deny that something has been lost in our reawakening.”
“Enjolras,” Combeferre says warningly.
“You must feel it too!” Enjolras cries, a restless sensation building in his chest.
Combeferre shakes his head. “Don’t. Things are good; we’re alive. What more do you want?”
What more could he possibly want, he asks himself bitterly. He turns to the others, helpless but to continue. “Oh, alive. Doesn’t it matter that we’re a wreck? No one here can look me in the eye and tell me that they’re sane. This house is falling apart underneath the weight of what we do not talk about – what we never talk about.”
Grantaire snorts at that, taking a sip from his perspiring glass. The liquid inside is only water, but it might as well be wine for all Enjolras can see. He’s momentarily blinded by the juxtaposition of the past and the present.
He doesn’t say, “Grantaire, put the glass down.” Grantaire meets his eyes with a peculiar expression, one that seems to say, ”you’ve missed another line, Apollo.”
Enjolras takes in his friends. Courfeyrac is sitting next to Jehan on the loveseat, huddled close together. Cosette, Marius, Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta share the couch, wary looks on their faces. Bahorel sits in the armchair, Grantaire on the floor at his feet and Feuilly standing with crossed arms next to him. Gavroche is resting against Eponine next to Grantaire. Combeferre stands at the entrance to the den, expressionless but waiting.
“We died,” he says shakily.
No one says anything. The room is filled with quiet breathing, while Enjolras’ heart thunders painfully in his chest.
“We’re not okay, Combeferre,” he says in a hoarse voice. “We’re a mess; all of us. Eponine jumps at the slightest sound. Courfeyrac’s smile is all but gone. Jehan has severe panic attacks at the mere thought of being alone – tell me, is that normal? Is it normal to look at your friends, laughing, talking, breathing, and only be able to see their blood spilled on the ground? I look at you and I see you falling at my feet, Courfeyrac, dirty with blood and sweat. I look at Eponine and I see a young girl dressed as a boy, bleeding out in Marius’ arms.”
Eponine flinches violently, her breath coming out as a sharp hiss. Her eyes close at the memory, her knuckles turning white from their death-grip on Grantaire’s hand.
Looking around, Enjolras can see tears brimming in Jehan’s bright eyes. Courfeyrac shoots him a reprimanding look. Marius, too, looks like he’s reliving the memory. His freckled face is pale and sickly.
Enjolras can see that his words are digging up sore wounds, but he can’t bring himself to feel guilty. They need to talk about this before they all go crazy, and he’ll be damned if he lets their willful ignorance continue for longer.
“We spoke of freedom and a revolution so bright it burned beneath our eyelids. We envisioned a golden future free of tyranny and unjust rulers. Instead, we were gunned down by the very ones we rallied for. Paris and its people let us down; yet here we are, reincarnated to serve an unknown purpose.” This is his forte. Orating, pressing his convictions into the hearts of those around him, and igniting the passion for a better future in others are what feed him. He might as well gather his life force from this, like a god of the olden days taking sustenance from the faith of his worshippers.
Except Enjolras is not conceited enough to think himself invincible. He’d done so once, and he bled red like any other man.
The thought sobers the fervor rushing through his veins. “But – we died.”
The it was my fault goes unspoken, but it resonates louder than anything he’s uttered, like the clanging of keys dropped in a glass bowl.
(Like eight shots fired and burrowing into his chest.)
Jehan jumps out of the comforting circle of Courfeyrac’s arms with a furious look. “Don’t you dare,” they hiss, their voice strangled with the intensity of their emotion. “Don’t you dare blame yourself. I didn’t die following your pretty words, Enjolras. I’m not a fool who was blinded by the excitement of schoolboys yearning to be something bigger than themselves. Don’t you dare take that away from me.”
“Jehan-” Enjolras starts.
“No!” Jehan howls. Their cheeks are red, hair loose from its braid and wild. “Our death wasn’t the folly of boys! To blame yourself is not only unnecessary, but also problematic. Do not martyr yourself on my account. I, along with the rest of us, died for something I believed in.”
At Jehan’s words, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel and Feuilly nod solemnly. They are not the same boys they were back then, but at the heart of everything, they’re still Les Amis de l’ABC – still brothers against all odds.
There is one, though, who remains conspicuously silent.
Swiveling around, Enjolras stares at Grantaire. When Grantaire meets his gaze, there is something akin to a challenge in his eyes.
“And you?” Enjolras asks. It is a question he once thought he knew the answer to; now he has a lifetime of proof that is being violently refuted by one short, yet eternal moment.
“And me, what, Enjolras?”
“Do you believe?”
Grantaire says, “I do not.”
“Liar,” Enjolras growls. Rage and desperation mix inside him to form a lethal cocktail. It doesn’t matter – Grantaire has always been able to go toe-to-toe with him.
Flushing red, Grantaire stands up with grace. His body is still, wound tight, as though he is afraid it might move without his consent, his every move tainted with a carefulness that didn’t exist in their past life.
“I never believed in your Cause,” says he, his words as sharp as the bullets that pierced Enjolras so many years ago. “I never cared about the revolution, remember? I was the one who played dominoes at Barriere du Maine, while you rallied the people. I failed at the task you gave me, not because I was incapable, but because I hadn’t believed enough to try.”
The words ring untrue in Enjolras’ ears, and leave a foul taste in his mouth. “You died with me.”
From the corner of his eye, he can see an invisible light bulb switch on above Combeferre’s head. He can’t focus on anyone other than Grantaire though. The other man takes up his entire vision, solitary and trembling. He stands his ground as Grantaire advances, looking like a caged animal prowling its prison for a way to escape.
He doesn’t look away from Grantaire’s fevered blue eyes until he feels pressure against his hand. They might as well be the only two in the room for all Enjolras cares at the moment, his entire world narrowed down to only this moment of his existence, and at the back of his mind, another moment not dissimilar from this one but set against a backdrop of blood.
Grantaire’s fingertips are light on the back of his hand, their calloused edges creating friction between his own smooth skin and the ridges from where Grantaire holds his paint brush. Unthinkingly, Enjolras turns his hand so he can capture Grantaire’s with ease.
Their palms press against each other hotly, an unknown force tangling their fingers together like there is a gravitational pull between them that must be obeyed.
Enjolras closes his eyes at the sensation of rightness spreading through him. It’s as though all this time he has been missing something precious, not consciously, even though his body knew it.
“I asked permission to die with you,” Grantaire whispers. His breath falls heavy against Enjolras’ brow. “You gave it to me, though I was undeserving.”
Grantaire steps away, his hand pulling from Enjolras’, and the moment is shattered.
When he brings himself to look at Grantaire again, the other man is running a shaking hand through his unruly curls. The crazed look in his eyes has intensified, edged with what could only be guilt.
“Where were you when we were fighting, Grantaire?” Combeferre asks. His tone tells Enjolras that he has pieced it together, yet there is no judgment. When Grantaire’s eyes cut to Combeferre’s, he finds only understanding.
“I was drinking until I passed out,” Grantaire says, voice hateful. It takes Enjolras a moment to realise that it is directed at none other than Grantaire himself. Unbidden, a memory rises to the forefront of his mind: Jehan patting a sleeping Grantaire on the shoulder and murmuring sadly. No one hates Grantaire as much as Grantaire hates himself, he’d said. Enjolras’ heart aches.
Grantaire continues hysterically. “I got drunk, while you were off fighting, dying for a cause I mocked day after day. I got wasted while my friends were fucking getting killed-”
He breaks off with a whine, his sobs loud in the silence of the room. His shoulders shudder as he drops to his knees, gasping for air like a man half-drowned.
Enjolras kneels next to Grantaire. “You redeemed yourself. You woke up and took your place by my side; we died hand in hand, Grantaire.”
Grantaire’s eyes are blind with tears, their sapphire hue intensified so that they seem to shine with grief.
“Oh,” Combeferre murmurs.
“What is it?” asks Courfeyrac, tearing his eyes away from Enjolras and Grantaire, drawing away everyone’s attention to Combeferre instead, for which Enjolras is grateful. He hasn’t looked away from Grantaire’s beseeching gaze – he doubts he even could. He and Grantaire seem to be in a bubble of their own creation.
Combeferre’s next words, however, pop them out of it.
“Grantaire’s sleepwalking. Each of us has a habit that’s developed from how we died – Jehan panics when they are alone and has a constant urge to protect their head, where they were shot. Bahorel can’t be the first to a meeting or a room, owing to how he died first. Eponine hates the rain because when she died, she thought it was raining from the sheer amount of blood that poured out of her gunshot wound.” Combeferre adjusts his glasses so they sit higher on the bridge of his nose. “From what I’ve understood, Grantaire woke up at the last moment to die next to you, Enjolras. I have found him sleeping countless times outside the study when you choose to work late, or outside our room whenever you slept in there instead of falling asleep at your desk.”
When Enjolras looks to Grantaire for confirmation, he receives a frantic nod. “I keep dreaming that you’re about to die, Enjolras. Every night, the same nightmare keeps playing out until I have to get to you,” Grantaire pleads. His black curls are plastered to his forehead with sweat, giving him the look of a kicked dog. “I know, logically, that we aren’t at the barricades, but I can’t help it. I was so close to missing you the last time.”
Grief is a curious thing. It eats away at you until you are left with the bare bones of a hollow skeleton. This is how Enjolras feels. He is stripped for all to see. The vulnerable part of his heart, which he kept hidden behind bravado and a desire for equality for all, has taken a fatal first and final hit. Grantaire’s words are a never-missing arrow – and holy fuck, it hurts.
He scrambles for something to say, but apparently, the silence has stretched too thin and long. Grantaire is up and out of the room before Enjolras can even open his mouth to call for him, and the sound of the front door slamming shut with conclusiveness is not unlike that of a coffin sealing shut forever.