Cats, bats and clutter

There was a soldier climbing the barricade. Feuilly watched him as he reached for a round inside his cartridge box with well-practiced movements; ripping it open with his teeth, pouring it into first the flashpan and then the barrel of his borrowed musket, using the ramrod to push the bullet into place. The man was near the top now; Feuilly took aim. His hands, although steady, ached fiercely from the inscription he’d carved into the wall down below; but he couldn't regret that. He couldn't regret pulling the trigger, either, no matter how sick it made him feel as he watched the man collapse and tumble back down to the cold pavement. He was a man perhaps only doing his duty, but Feuilly had no delusions of naive rectitude on the field of battle and he hadn’t survived this long to let pity stay his hand now. It was the other man’s life or his own. Still, he couldn’t take any pleasure in his death.

‘At least his was quick,’ he thought bitterly. ‘That’s more than can be said for poor Gavroche.’

Smoke from the battle hung thick in the air, the ominous thunder of gunshots and other, more disturbing noises he didn’t want to think about thicker still. Even from his vantage point up on the roof of the Corinthe it was hard to make anything out. Shadows flickered far below him like phantoms, both friend and foe, as he crouched back down behind the stone-wall of sorts that had been stacked up beside the edge of the building, trying to quiet his breath as he reloaded his gun again and searched for his next target. Already the integrity of the wall had been compromised by the grapeshot, parts of it crumbling to the ground far below.

No one was coming.

Feuilly was no fool, he knew that on their own it was only a matter of time before they were crushed. He wasn't afraid to die; but he had been so certain that those brigands would hold to their oaths and join them, that the people would rise. And now he and his friends… they had been forsaken.

The thought stung, bitterly, and he tried to cast it aside.

It didn't matter what happened to them in the end. Progress may have been incremental, all too often painfully so, but it was also inevitable. Every step closer to that brilliant dawn they were fighting so hard to reach, purchased though it may have been with blood—the blood of the only family he had ever known—was worth it. Every step closer to a free France, to a free Poland, to a free Greece and Austria and Italy, to a free world. Every battle fought, even if lost, brought them all closer to that future; even if neither he nor his friends would ever live to see it. The loss here, then, could only be temporary in every way that truly mattered.

Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn.

“The people will rise someday,” Feuilly agreed quietly, fervently. “They will finish what we started. They must.”

Squinting through the smoke he caught sight of a red waistcoat here, a golden mop of curls there; it made him nervous, admittedly, to not know exactly where his friends—the ones that were still around to worry about, that was—were. That was how they’d lost Prouvaire, after all.

He tried to cast that thought aside, too. Prouvaire wouldn't have wanted him to fret; he’d be proud to have died with such poignant and electrifying words still on his lips, ringing louder than the report of the gun that had ended his life. Bahorel, too, would have clapped his shoulder with a brilliant grin and compelled him to keep his spirits high, to laugh in the face of danger, of death, of despair.

Both of them, gone. Two of his dearest friends dead before the stars of that first night had even begun to shine in earnest.

Movement nearby caught his eye. He could just make out the vague outline of Combeferre below, carrying an injured boy into the Musain. The sorrow weighing down his heart eased somewhat at the sight of his friend. Combeferre had always had that sort of effect on people, his steady presence making the turbulent carnage around them just that bit easier to bear, like a lighthouse shining brightly in the midst of a raging storm.

When he came outside again Feuilly followed him with his gaze, watching him for a moment as he picked his way through the thick of the fighting. When he stopped to tend to a wounded soldier Feuilly moved to focus back on the task at hand. A glint of steel made his attention snap back; he reacted too late, taking aim as a guardsman stabbed Combeferre clean through the chest, once, twice, three times. Combeferre cast his gaze heavenward for one long moment before dropping the injured man still in his arms and slumping over, already dead. Feuilly shot the murderer in the head, dimly satisfied when he hit the ground, too.

Combeferre would be disappointed.

Combeferre was dead.

He slowly lowered his gun, feeling suddenly very lost. The reality of the sacrifice they were making here, of the unbearable loss they had already suffered, weighed down on him like a physical weight, refusing to be ignored any longer. Tears pricked at his eyes but the adrenaline of the fight was too strong to let them fall now. There would be time for that later.

A sudden pain in his shoulder ripped him out of his thoughts and he let out a choked cry, reeling back from the force of the impact and losing his balance. For a long moment he was weightless; then he hit the ground hard, disoriented and too stunned to do much more than gasp for air.

Then, dizzily, he tried to push himself back up to his feet. After a few failed attempts he spotted his musket a few feet away and crawled over to it instead, fumbling to wrap numb fingers back around the weapon and using it as a crutch to hoist himself upright. His hands tingled like they were falling asleep, his legs shaking too hard to bear his weight at first. Once he’d finally regained his footing he braced himself against the musket and struggled to reorient himself. The dull roar of the grapeshot exploded all around him in a confusing way. He blinked hard, trying to make sense of the blur of colors moving quickly all around him. Dread lodged itself firmly between his ribs, the pressure constricting his lungs and making it hard to breathe. He forced himself to move anyway, stumbling towards one of the buildings nearby on unsteady feet to search for cover.

His shoulder ached fiercely, the pain spreading like a fire with every frantic beat of his heart. When he made it to the building he braced himself against a wall and clutched at the damp stone, desperately fighting against the urge to throw up. His shirt was growing uncomfortably wet now. Slick with blood, the musket slipped out of his hand and hit the ground with a sound that made him shudder.

No, he needed that….

He moved to pick it up and the world tilted around him in a nauseating way.

The next thing he knew he was staring up at the hazy sky. Something was rumbling in the distance, shaking the ground with every impact, but he couldn’t make out what it was over the queer whirling that’d started up in his ears.

Everything felt sort of far away and distant and not quite real. A tear escaped as he let his gaze wander; his eyes caught on the red soaking through his shirt and he stared at it in confused horror as it began to pool on the ground underneath him. That… that wasn’t good.

You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here.

Enjolras had been right.

Of course he had been; Feuilly had never once doubted his friend, and he hadn’t doubted him then, either. It had been—it was—it is—the highest honor to work and to fight alongside them all, and he wasn't afraid to die. Except… now that he was staring it in the face, he found himself trembling at the thought. He couldn’t regret anything that had led him to this moment, but….

He didn’t want to die.

No one was coming. They had promised. Why had he been forsaken?

“Feuilly!”

He dragged his gaze away to find Courfeyrac rushing towards him, skidding on his knees the last few feet, his friend’s hands hovering over him like he wasn’t sure what to do. He looked more disheveled than Feuilly had ever seen him before, his hat missing, the cravat around his neck half untied and splattered in blood. Even so, he felt his lips twitch up into a smile at the sight of the older boy.

“Feuilly, no. No, no— help!” Courfeyrac, panicked, almost wailed. “Combeferre, Joly— somebody, help!!”

Feuilly’s smile withered away. Another tear leaked out, trailing into his hair. “F-ferre… he’s dead.”

Courfeyrac looked back down at him then, a resigned sort of hopelessness settling onto his face. It was wrong— Courfeyrac was always happy, always loving, always kind. To see him like this… after everything else, losing that too was devastating. It was simply too much.

Overwhelming despair swelled in his heart, intertwining with the dread and the sorrow into a terrible, frightening thing. He fought to bite it back, smothering it with every memory he could recall of his friends; of Enjolras’ proud, passionate words, and Courfeyrac’s warm smile, and Combeferre’s—

Oh, Combeferre….

Courfeyrac shifted closer to him then, reaching out to gingerly wipe away another tear. Now that Feuilly had started he couldn’t seem to stop, shaking from the force of the sobs building up in his chest that he couldn’t get breath enough to release, his vision going black in the corners when that aggravated his wound.

“Hey, shh shh. I’m here.” Courfeyrac took his hand, squeezing it tightly. Feuilly could barely feel it; his hands had already grown too stiff, too cold. He did his best to return it anyway. “I’m right here.”

“I don’t feel so good,” he whispered.

Something flickered across Courfeyrac’s face at that, something that Feuilly couldn’t understand. “What can I do?”

Feuilly tried to reach out towards him and found he didn’t have the strength. Courfeyrac moved instead, carefully lifting him up and pulling him into a hug. It hurt, oh, it hurt, but despite the excruciating pain Feuilly found he could breathe a little easier in his arms. He pressed his face into the older boy’s chest, letting his eyes fall closed with a shaky exhale.

It hadn’t been so long ago when Courfeyrac had given him the first hug that Feuilly had any memory of. It was only fitting that he should give him his last, too.

Belatedly, he mumbled, “ ‘m getting blood on your waistcoat….”

“Please,” Courfeyrac replied, although it sounded closer to a sob. “Don’t worry about that.”

Feuilly hummed vaguely in response.

When had it gotten so cold? Even Courfeyrac’s warmth against him wasn’t enough to keep the ice from seeping deep into his bones, chilling him from the inside out.

No, that wasn’t right….