#exraus

“I’ll tell them that you tried,” Grantaire says to Combeferre. “You fought valiantly.”

“Okay, plan B.” Combeferre thinks on his feet; he’s the best in the business. “It’s true that the nation is fascinated by you both. You’ve been vocal and visible on the trail. They like the interplay. There are memes. You’re scoring big in the key 18-35 demographic. How about an hour-long television special with digital distribution? We’ll do do a personal interest piece. Show America who you really are. Showcase Grantaire’s political art and Enjolras’ academic activism. Make a big deal of those things, before the right decides to use them against us.”

Enjolras and Grantaire exchange a glance. They may not get along, but after so long on the chaotic campaign trail, they at least share a sort of mutual sympathy. Add to that the burden of being the children of the most visible people on earth, and they might even have been friends under different circumstances.

Grantaire nods, slightly, and Enjolras agrees, so: “That sounds reasonable,” he tells Combeferre.

“Let’s talk hosts,” says Grantaire.

“Larry King might--” Combeferre starts.

“Too out of touch,” says Enjolras. “Jon Stewart would do nicely.”

“Stephen Colbert,” from Grantaire, narrowing his eyes at Enjolras.

“Every day I wonder why I have this job,” says Combeferre, “since you two are so quick to do it for me.”

“Sorry,” they chorus.

“We’ll be nice,” says Grantaire.

“No promises,” says Enjolras. “No preconditions for going on-camera. We say what needs saying.”

“I’m taking lunch,” says Combeferre. He goes to make arrangements, leaving them to bicker about the ongoing question of which song they should walk out to during public appearances. The argument carries through to Combeferre's return.

"Not that you know anything about music," Grantaire is saying, "or actual, non-fantastical political aims."

"I'll have you know, I wrote my dissertation on--"

"Spare me the lecture, Professor. I can recite your footnotes by heart--"

Enjolras lets go of Grantaire’s hand, feeling stunned and also as though his stomach is being worn on the outside. He presses a hand there to check, then says, “Grantaire -- what -- how --”

“Are you in one piece?” A cough racks Grantaire’s body; it takes him a long while to get to his feet. “I didn’t know if I was strong enough. Haven’t tried anything like that since school --” He’s talking to himself, only half-addressing Enjolras, looking pale and wan, with blood on his clothes and shoes and in his hair. “No limbs left behind?”

“I don’t understand,” says Enjolras. “We were in the Musain, facing guns. Now we are -- does that sign say Versailles?”

Grantaire nods, looking miserable. “There are known portkeys in the palace that can take us far from here. It was a last, desperate act. I never thought we’d make it.”

The first part of the statement is nonsensical, even for Grantaire, so Enjolras focuses on the latter half. “What did you do? It’s not possible--”

“It’s magic, Enjolras. ‘Possible’ is a Muggle term of recent invention. ‘Invention’ is also Muggle.” Grantaire pinches two fingers to the bridge of his nose, as though trying to relieve a great pressure. “I don’t expect you to believe me when I can hardly believe myself. They told me when they took my wand that I would be unable to cast spells of such complexity again. I should never have been able to Aparate, let alone Aparate you with me. If I knew myself capable, I would have used magic to save our friends, and changed the outcome of this terrible affair.”

“You are mad,” says Enjolras, but the declaration makes him pull his hair. “I am mad, for we have come across miles in the blink of an eye, and madness is the only explanation.”

“Another Muggle word, ‘explanation’--”

“Grantaire.”

Grantaire gets up at last. He dusts at his green vest that is dark with grime. His face is serious as he says, “I am a wizard, Enjolras. There is another world here your eyes have not seen; I was raised in that one, where magic is as real as bread, and as ordinary. Like any world it has its share of problems, and I grew sick of it, and it of me. There was an incident at school that forced me to surrender my wand; thereafter I swore off magic and found it a great relief. I never thought to work it again, until today. I did not think it would work at all.”

“If you can command the elements,” says Enjolras, bitterly, “Take us back and let us redo this wretched day.”

Grantaire’s face is all sorrow. “Time is dangerous, even for the finest wizards,” he says. “A graybeard master could not do as you ask, nor would he try. I would try,” and Enjolras can see there are tears in Grantaire’s eyes, blinking loose, “But I have no wand, and I fear I could not light your pipe for you, if you smoked.”

“What can you do? If you are not mad, prove it.”

“I told you, I do not have my--”

“We are in Versailles, Grantaire!”

“As you say.” Grantaire rolls up his shirt-cuffs, looking uncertain. “Are you -- are you absolutely sure?”

“That you are not a Merlin-like figure out of mist and legend? Yes.” Enjolras waves his arms, magnanimous. “I invite you to convince me other--”

Where Grantaire had been standing there is now a shaggy brown fox. The fox gazes calmly at Enjolras, then lifts a paw in a gesture that somehow extraordinarily sees to transmit, I tried to tell you. The fox looks young, with unbrushed fur that could be sleek. The fox is in Grantaire’s clothes.

“--wise.” Enjolras reels back. He blinks once, twice, again -- and it is Grantaire beside him in the alley. Enjolras is pressed against the wall, breathing hard. “Jesus Christ!”

Grantaire looks up, then, looks as distraught as Enjolras feels. He shows Enjolras empty hands. It is impossible to know. 

“It will pass quickly,” says Grantaire, trying for optimistic, sounding doubtful. “You will not have time miss me.”

Since they were forced together they have spent most hours in each others' company, helping to keep the darkness at bay, reminding each other that now they are in the light. Since the hole in the ground they have not spent a night apart, save the nights Grantaire was taken from him. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, since he cannot say how frightened he is. “I must have you back.”

“Must you?” Grantaire grins. “Here, keep a little piece of me in my stead.” He rummages through his growing collection of belongings – it had fast become apparent to Enjolras' parents that any gift purchased for their son should have a second for Grantaire – and emerges with a small bronze signet ring, similar to the one on Enjolras' right hand. He steps around to Enjolras and offers it.

Enjolras takes the ring. Grantaire's fingers are smaller than his own, and he finds that it fits onto his fourth finger. Wordlessly, Enjolras slips his own ring loose, and holds out his hand.

Grantaire, eyes wondering, takes Enjolras' ring, curling a fist around it. Before Grantaire leaves, Enjolras will see it strung on a chain worn around Grantaire's neck and tucked under his shirt. Then Grantaire leaves.

It is intolerable without Grantaire.

Enjolras' father seeks to recall him from Paris after two days have passed with Enjolras sleepless and distracted. Grantaire sends his most profound regrets but says that he cannot, not yet. 

He includes a lengthy letter for Enjolras, one that stretches many pages in Grantaire's loopy script and details absolutely everything from the moment he stepped into the carriage through his arrival in Paris. All that he saw and felt, how strange it was to be back in unchanged streets that now seemed alien. How frightened he was, when he spied soldiers on a streetcorner or supping in a restaurant. How he tossed in bed at night and found sleep to be elusive, and upon dreaming, dreamt that he had rejoined Enjolras. 

Grantaire is scanning his vital signs as though Enjolras hasn’t spoken. “Four broken ribs mended! And your poor arm--”

“It’s fine,” Enjolras repeats, only twitching his left arm a bit in reflex. It’s good to have it whole again. But that’s neither here nor --

“A diplomatic mission, you said--”

“It was supposed to be diplomatic.” Enjolras grimaces, batting at Grantaire. “It didn’t stay that way for long. Can you put that thing down--”

Grantaire pauses mid-scan. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but, but -- I told you, I told you not to go. Those vultures will never change their ways; how you could trust an overture of peace I’ll never--”

“If there is no hope for peace, then there is only war.” Enjolras pointedly does not grimace as Grantaire’s fingers prod his bicep, which had been crushed in the riotous protest against their presence and the subsequent stampede that chased his men back to their ship. “I’m fine--”

The med scanner is returned to its slot with every measure of reluctance. “But you almost weren’t,” says Grantaire, worrying his lower lip with teeth. “This was close.”

Enjolras nods; there’s no use lying about it; Grantaire can read him too well. “It’s what we do,” he says, all that he can say.

“I don’t have to like it,” says Grantaire. He sighs, selects a mild sedative from the supply, and turns back with hypo in hand. “You’re taking this, and cleansing, and coming to bed.”

And for once, Enjolras is not in a mood to argue. He is exhausted and still aches despite the molecular reconstruction, because of it, and the painkiller Grantaire has chosen will not be overpowering. With a duck of his head he accepts the prescription, and Grantaire, face softening further, presses the hypo to the meat of his better arm. It releases cool, numbing relief in its wake, and Enjolras lets himself slump against Grantaire.

Grantaire manages to walk them across their shared suite and the double feat of stripping free their jumpsuits as they go. A trailing bot snatches up Enjolras’, stained with blood and sweat, for incineration.

In the particle shower, Grantaire holds onto him while they are swept clean. One arm is looped firm around Enjolras’ lower back, the other lodged in his hair. Enjolras drops his head to be cradled in the crevice of Grantaire’s shoulder. They stay in the small stainless steel cubicle a long while.

After that Grantaire tucks him into bed, and goes to see if there’s some malfunction with the domestic bot -- the tea is overdue. He returns with two steaming cups, padding naked across the room and sitting down on the mattress next to Enjolras, using the bulk of his body for a back-rest. Grantaire hands over the tea and watches like a hawk until he’s drained half of it. Warmth suffuses Enjolras now.

In the space of hours he has travelled across light years and through terror and violence to return to the love and safety he is granted from Grantaire. The cozy quiet of their bedroom with its bright computer paneling next to the hung classical art reproductions and Grantaire solid beside him seems an impossible contrast to the far-flung hostile planet ruled by one of their many despotic enemies. How can he have been there, and come back again to this?

The turmoil of the day churns in Enjolras, must show in his face. Grantaire sets down their cups and crawls around to slide in behind Enjolras, the lithe length of his body curving to fit, his arm stealing around Enjolras’ waist to secure him. Grantaire presses a kiss to the back of his neck.

“It was a bumpy ride,” says Grantaire, matter-of-fact, “But now you’re buckled up. I’ve got you; and I want to hear about what happened.”

Enjolras breathes out a shaky breath, letting his tight-held muscles unclench. “Grantaire, I -- I --”

“Me too,” agrees Grantaire, tightening his arm.

Enjolras tells it. Of the trap and deception that was laid for his team; of the fury and the chaos that had descended, the utterly blind panic that overtook him when the crowd did, with no way out. And then he’d gone down --

“I saw my own death,” whispers Enjolras, and Grantaire makes a sound of negation but does not speak. “I thought I might die, and all I thought then was of you. Your visage was with me, a comfort; though I mourned for what my loss would do to you. I regretted that,” says Enjolras, “Not dying for the cause.” The cause was made a mockery today, but he will not speak to that.

It takes a moment. Then Grantaire says, “It is simple. Your death is also mine; I am quite devoted to it; and I hope you are never so cocky again as to pursue the course without me there to share in it. Are you selfish after all, Enjolras?”

“Don’t be ridiculous--”

“I have never been more serious. Is it not your intention one day to seek martyrdom? I thought that was the plan, and have adjusted my own plans accordingly. I’m hoping for a blaze of glory, at least, and suspect I won’t be disappointed, when the time comes.”

“Grantaire!”

“Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about our future, my love?”

“You are --” Enjolras struggles for words, shocked and aching again and red-faced, glad that Grantaire cannot see him sideways. “You are outrageous. If you think I would let you--”

“--sacrifice myself for a cause much greater than myself? Go down in history on the right side of it? Hold your hand while you are heroically vaporized?” Enjolras can’t see Grantaire’s face either but he expects Grantaire has set his mouth in a straight line. “Does the idea set you so on edge? Is it strange and terrible to know that every day with me might be the last, seeing as how I court death?”

Enjolras bows his head against the pillow. The double standards of their life together are not lost on him but he is excellent at turning a blind eye to elements that do not fit into his greater plans. Grantaire has always known this about him, but knowledge and rationality do not go hand-in-hand in Grantaire. Enjolras should have remembered this. He should not sound so shocked at Grantaire’s declaration. He knows it already, somehow, he thinks, by the way Grantaire looks at him, and the way they fit without seams, like two cracked halves pushed back into place.

“I’m sorry,” says Enjolras, profoundly sorry, then.

“I’m not,” says Grantaire. “Being with you made me alive after a long time in stasis. Without you means the void. That is all. We don’t have to speak of it any further. Go to sleep a while, and when you wake up you will be clear-headed, and I will have calmed down, and we can continue this argument while we celebrate your return to health. I’m going to punish you for making me worry like that. Next time you comm, do you hear me?”

Excited, Fantine swings on their hands for half the walk through the park, then sits on Enjolras' shoulders for the rest of the way. Her sneakered feet beat against his chest as Grantaire describes the wondrous sights that lie ahead.

The penguins have their own special cold house, he tells her, and the polar bear has a swimming pool. Grantaire does an excellent impression of a seal catching a fish, and mimics the bark they make while Fantine's eyes widen and Enjolras slow-claps. By the time they reach the gate Fantine is slipping down from his shoulders to bolt ahead.

“She's going to want a seal now,” Enjolras says to Grantaire.

Grantaire takes his hand. “We could get her one. She'll be the only kid in New York who--”

“Father! Papa! Hurry up! I see a sign for a lion!” Where Fantine got Father they'll never know, but it has been Enjolras' designation since she could pronounce it, and Grantaire, Papa, her first word, finds it endlessly charming. At four, her vocabulary has gone from precocious to expansive, and she sounds like both of them mixed up together, says Cosette – imposing like Enjolras, and inquisitive, like Grantaire, a force of nature with curly blond pigtails.

She has both of them wrapped around her pinky finger, as evidenced by the way Grantaire reverses plans for a seal and says, “Or we could consider having a real conversation about getting her a pet, if she likes the big cats, and--”

“We've talked about this, not until she's old enough to assume responsibility.”

“Parrots!” shrieks Fantine in delight, pointing to a cage by the gate, where bright-plumaged birds are arrayed.

“Let's at least wait and see which animals she prefers,” Enjolras hedges, not wanting to argue today.

Grantaire smiles at him sideways. “She prefers them all, because she's brilliant. Maybe she'll want to be a veterinarian – they have to know even more than regular doctors, you know. It's a much more competitive field.”

“Now you want her in veterinary school, when last week it was home-schooling to prevent her from being 'corrupted by the system' --”

“I'm going in without you,” announces Fantine, marching through the gate.

Chagrined, they follow. Enjolras buys the tickets and a visitor's bracelet with a penguin charm for Fantine, so they go to see the penguins first. They're secretly Enjolras' favorite – he admires their tenacity and determination – and he's thrilled to watch his daughter's face pressed to the frosty glass, gasping at how fast they dive and swim.

“They can't fly like the parrots do, in the air, but they fly under water,” says Fantine. Enjolras wants to sweep her into a hug for that, but settles for a squeezing her shoulder. Then Grantaire is leaning against him in an elated swoon.

“Maybe she'll be a Nobel prize-winning research scientist instead,” muses Grantaire. “Or a poet. The Nobel Laureate kind.”

“What's a Nobel?” Fantine wants to know.

“Your future, baby,” sighs Grantaire.

“Papa is only joking, Fantine. A Nobel is a sort of award. He's sure you'll win many awards, like the gold star you got in playgroup for good sportsmanship,” Enjolras explains.

“Sportswomanship,” corrects Fantine.

“Oh, my God, you are your mother's child,” Grantaire crows. “The hand on the hip, just so, Enjolras, did you see--”

But Enjolras is beaming. “Let's say sportspersonship. You're right, Fantine, I should have said that in the first place.”

Fantine, with Grantaire for a father, never drops a line of questioning. “But why is a Nobel a prize?”

“Mr. Nobel was a man who made very important inventions,” Enjolras tells her. “One of them is called dynamite, and it causes big explosions. Lots of people have used Mr. Nobel's inventions in useful ways. But many other people have been hurt by them. So Mr. Nobel decided to establish a special prize for those who do work that benefits everyone on Earth. He wanted to balance out the bad things that happened, by awarding scientists and artists and writers and doctors and peace-makers, people who make the world better.”

“Oh,” says Fantine, nodding sagely. “That seems fair.”

“Maybe a diplomat or special U.N. envoy,” says Grantaire in Enjolras' ear.

They go to see the polar bears, a huge hit, and spend a long time explaining zebras. The massive seal tank is at the center of the park and they troop towards it alongside the other families when the keeper sounds the call for feeding time.

This time Fantine climbs up onto Grantaire's shoulders for the best view, since Grantaire likes the seal-show nearly as much as the children and risks the splash of the front row. From the side of the tank Enjolras watches his family while they watch the seals, and thinks that he's never smiled so much in a day.

“It's a good look on you,” says a close-by voice, and he turns to grin even wider at Cosette, who backed Grantaire in the push for the zoo. They were supposed to meet her by the penguin house after lunch, but he isn't surprised that she's early and found him and found him out. She's been able to read Enjolras' mind since college, and it's never not uncanny. “Before you met Grantaire you never used to smile at all.”

“I smiled,” Enjolras protests, wrapping her in a loose, one armed hug.

“Under duress,” says Cosette. She follows Enjolras' gaze to the stands. “Have we bought a seal yet?”

“Grantaire is googling extra-large bathtubs when he thinks I'm not looking.” Enjolras shakes his head.

“You could at least consider a cat,” Cosette starts.

“Not you too. Did they put you up to this?”

“Fantine is four years old, Enjolras. You can show her how to set out food, and she can help with the litter box. It's not rocket science.”

“Don't let Grantaire hear that, he'll want her in rocket science--”

“Actually,” says Cosette, “I've been meaning to talk to you about Space Camp. She's not old enough yet, of course, but it's a fine investment in a young girl's educational --”

“Space Camp?” Is Enjolras the only one aware that his daughter, while advanced for her age, is still a four-year-old, with surprisingly complex narratives concerning My Little Ponies but her foremost concerns nonetheless remaining My Little Ponies? They want her to have Nobels and cats and Space Camps, and she's only just starting to discover who she is. “She's practically still a baby. She was a toddler yesterday.”

But, Christ, is this who he is? Does he sound as nostalgic and overbearingly over-protective as he thinks he does? He swore he wouldn't be like this, has always wanted Fantine to find her own way, strong and independent of them from the beginning.

Cosette's eyebrow lifts, knowing. “She's growing up, Enjolras. It'll be much better for you all if you let her.” Cosette has more than earned the right to advise on early childhood concerns. She is a) an expert by dint of too much personal experience and b) Fantine is her flesh and blood too, and she considers her surrogate daughter's interests with nearly the same intensity that they do. Enjolras nods, trying to process and trying not to frown, not with Fantine coming back leading Grantaire by the hand, then abandoning him with an ear-piercing shriek at the sight of Cosette.

“Aunt Cosette! Aunt Cosette! Did you see the seals? The brown one with the long whiskers is my favorite. Papa says his name is Mr. Mustachio, but I don't know how he knows that. Papa says he can speak the same language that seals do, and that he had a long talk with Mr. Mustachio, but I don't know if I should believe him.”

Cosette has swept the girl into her arms for a whirl of a hug before setting her down. They have the same sweet, heart-shaped face, the same big blue eyes and generous mouths: they have never kept it hidden from Fantine that Cosette is her birth-mother, and the 'Aunt' appellation is Cosette's choice.

“The perfect distance,” she had said, upon agreeing to carry their child. For Fantine is truly all of theirs: they do not know if Enjolras or Grantaire is her biological father, and hope never to have to know – those tests would only come about in the case of a medical emergency.

They decided not to know. It is unimportant. She is simply theirs, and the product of them both, smart and stubborn and vibrant and mischievous and fair-minded. Like Cosette she is impetuous and passionate and kind. She has golden hair that curls, and could be Enjolras', but she has a button of a nose like Grantaire. Her name is Cosette's mother's. The suggestion came from her godfather Valjean and after that any other name was out of the running. This disappointed several other godparents, of which Fantine has an ungodly amount, who had also submitted names.

(The godparent affair went like this: “Look, there's no, like, written rule inscribed in stone somewhere about how many godparents a baby can have, Enjolras. Courfeyrac won't talk to you again if he's not one, and I already told you I promised Eponine, like, a century ago, and we both agreed on Combeferre. If we leave out Jehan and Joly and Bossuet and Feuilly and Bahorel and Marius, what are they going to think?” So Fantine has ten godparents and too many presents on Christmas morning).

Enjolras snaps out of his reverie to a conversation about whether or not Grantaire can, in fact, speak to seals, with Grantaire pleading his case in a series of barks. He knows they make for a nontraditional family unit, what with Grantaire barking while his hand rests comfortably slipped in Enjolras' back pocket, Cosette smiling and Fantine giggling at the center, a Cosette in miniature – but they are a perfect unit too.

“Let's go find some ice cream,” Cosette says to Fantine in a conspiratorial tone, since both of them know quite well desserts are usually saved for after dinner, and it's barely lunchtime. “I bet if they have chocolate your dads will want some, too.”

Fantine looks up at once, imploringly, and it's a special day, so they nod in tandem. She makes a grab for Cosette's hand and they set off, talking a mile a minute on the subject of lions, the remaining unseen sight.

Enjolras watches them go. Then he takes Grantaire's hand from his pocket and laces their fingers together. “Mr. Mustachio? Really?”

“It's harmless fantasy. We agreed to preserve the Tooth Fairy for her sense of whimsy, didn't we? She can believe her Papa talks to seals for a day. Let me be a seal-talker.”

Enjolras gives him a kiss only just chaste enough for a family zoo, catching Grantaire by surprise. “No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant it like, really, you're really out of your mind, and I really love you.”

“I really love you, too.” Grantaire palms something from his pocket, then slips a bracelet to match Fantine's around Enjolras' wrist. It has an identical dangling penguin charm. Grantaire knows they are his secret favorite. Enjolras laughs as expected, and will never, ever lose the bracelet. He'll keep it in top drawers and pockets and on desks, to remember today. Today, he won't take it off. “Happy Father's Day, Enjolras.”

“Happy Father's Day, Grantaire.” He leans in for another kiss.

“What'd you get me?” Grantaire wants to know, bright-eyed.

“If she likes the lions,” says Enjolras, “I'm thinking she'll want to help pick out the cat with you. We'll go to an animal shelter, of course, and teach her about the importance of--”

Grantaire bends him backwards in an exuberant, movie-star embrace. By the time they move apart they can see Fantine skipping towards them with two ice-cream cones in her hands.

* * *

Scandal never blossoms because the household staff adores Grantaire. He sneaks them treats from the main table and trades songs for brandy and stays up late drinking with the footmen and the most spirited chambermaids before padding on quiet feet into Enjolras' bedroom and his bed to sleep. Then Grantaire will throw an arm across him and they will both drop down into dreaming.

It feels strange and surreal to awaken to feathers and sunlight instead of their cold, oppressive cell, but as soon as he awakens he can feel Grantaire breathing next to him and is reassured of the truth of their escape. One morning Grantaire is not at his side, and Enjolras opens his eyes to panic. Some servant has drawn the curtains despite their orders not to, and it still must be nighttime, for the room is too dark.

Enjolras sits up at once, his heart in his throat, and it only regains its proper position when he makes out the hunched shape of Grantaire at the far edge of the bed.

“Grantaire?”

The pale face turns towards him. Stark streaks of tears run silently over his cheeks, but, incongruous to the tear-tracks, Grantaire is smiling. It's a real smile, such a one as Enjolras has not seen in a long time.

“I tried not to wake you. Go back to sleep.” Grantaire makes no move to stem the tears, but he broadens the smile for Enjolras. “It was a lovely sort of dream. Do not worry about me.”

For them, benevolent dreams are few and far between. Enjolras finds himself curious, and a little jealous, and quite relieved. Instead of rolling over, though, he slides across the bed and touches Grantaire's forearm. “Then I am glad.” He waits. Can Grantaire sense his hunger to know what he has seen, what visions Grantaire is given, excursions of mind denied Enjolras?

“I dreamed I walked with Jean Prouvaire in a winding wood,” says Grantaire. “His foot was so light, that every place he stepped, flowers sprung in his wake.” He ducks his head, thinking on it, smiling. “It was so good to talk to him.”

Silence descends suddenly, and it takes quite some time before Grantaire looks up again, looks at Enjolras. He hesitates. Then he says, “I miss him, Enjolras. I miss them so fucking much.”

The history of men that will ever be between them seems to spread in pages before his eyes. Enjolras sees them all, all of their friends, bright and bold and kind and smart and quick and funny, each uniquely his own person, sees them laid out before him like illuminated entries in a holy book. Combeferre's balance, Courfeyrac's generosity, Bahorel's bluster, Joly's enthusiasm, Feuilly's drive, Bossuet's resilience, Jehan's empathy – he sees them all, racked, as he is, every moment of every day by their loss, but counting himself luckier to know that such men once existed.

Some men never know such friends.

Most men are not responsible for their friends' ruination.

Enjolras works his jaw, and does not know the words of comfort that will comfort Grantaire.

He thinks about how Grantaire comforted him through mournful, wretched days, and hardly let himself spare a sigh. Now a wall collapses, and Grantaire speaks openly of his grief. “I find that I cannot escape them,” he whispers to Enjolras. A rosy dawn is rising outside the heavy curtains but does little save set the dust-mites dancing. “Wherever I turn, something reminds.”

“I know,” says Enjolras. Of all topics, this is the one they have most avoid since their release. They speak more openly of what it had been like in prison, than before. “We cannot escape,” he agrees, “so we should not try.” He remembers the first thing Grantaire said to him in a pitch-black hole, after days of weeping: “Do you wish to speak of it?”

“Very much,” says Grantaire.

“Please do,” says Enjolras. “We have dishonored them in thinking that if we did not speak their names, we would not disturb them.”

“They should like to be disturbed, I think,” says Grantaire, agreeing.

Then Grantaire is off and racing –

“Jean Prouvaire was the finest friend I ever had,” he tells Enjolras. “I could never shock him, no matter what I confessed, and he loved me just the same for my confessions. He used to come to my rooms, and write poetry at the desk, while I painted, and we would tell each other stories and share our hopes in the space between creations.” Grantaire is smiling again as he retells it, looking down at empty hands.

“What did Prouvaire say, in your dream?” Enjolras asks, softly, still jealous.

“He said --” Grantaire blinks up, seeming to see Enjolras. “Never mind,” he says. “It was a personal message.” There's a long pause. “He did say that you should not blame yourself for his death. He is enamored of it. He is quite sure it will be remembered, and his heroism will go on to inspire other bold young poets, and for many bold young poets, that is the height of their desire.” He gives a bark of a laugh. “It was good to talk to him.”

“Tell me of the others,” begs Enjolras. He realizes that he is begging when he keeps his hand on Grantaire's arm and hears the drop in his voice. On some level he has always known that Grantaire experienced different sides of his lieutenants – not being engaged in affecting change, Grantaire had engaged them in situations foreign to Enjolras. With Grantaire's added knowledge they become fleshed-out men, complete with vices and glories Enjolras had not known.

They spin out their friends, weaving them into whole cloth.

“Joly and Bossuet loved in a way tradition hated,” says Grantaire, “but they were happy, and kept a cheerful mistress who made them even happier. They could be counted on to indulge with me, and seek what entertainment Paris had to offer. I never knew men more glad to be alive, in spite of all the awful things they knew could descend upon the living. I think the constant threat made them happier.” He stares fondly at a point in the distance. “Bahorel was my brother in arms. He matched my stamina, and my ill humors. He was the companion who would follow me down dark staircases into Godforsaken taverns, and guided me to others.” He looks fond, now, remembering. “We took opium and hashish together, Bahorel and I, along with absinthe, and together we glimpsed far-away sights.”

These dim in Grantaire's eyes as he tilts his head toward Enjolras. His voice penetrates the quiet. “The rest is, I think, unknown to you, even now.”

He says it as though it has been purposefully kept from Enjolras's purview. “Will you speak it?” Enjolras wonders.

“If you ask me to.”

Enjolras slides his arm over and around Grantaire's shoulder, as they had once sat below ground. “I only ask to hear what you would have remembered of them.”

Grantaire tilts back his head and laughs, a surprising sound in a room cloaked heavily in early morning. Mourning. Then he says, “Courfeyrac became a new sort of friend. He observed me, and pitied me, and took me to bed.”

Enjolras blinks around that. “You mean –?”

“Certainly,” says Grantaire. “Courfeyrac read the need that was writ on me, and sought to relieve it. Never will the world glimpse a more splendid gentleman.”

“Courfeyrac,” Enjolras hears himself echo, like a toast, like an elegy. “Never has more considerate man been given to the people.”

Grantaire nods. “His influence extended from the lowest gutter-urchin to me and considerably higher. In every role, he gave equally of himself. He will stand as the most kind-hearted person I have been so lucky to encounter. He relieved me best he could.”

Enjolras says nothing. Grantaire says, “Then there was your Combeferre.”

The name scrapes him raw. Enjolras does not breathe. Grantaire says, “He took me aside one evening, and said that he saw that I looked at you. He did not seem bothered that I did; he tried to make sure that I looked at you in the right ways. He told me how sometimes, you needed your chin drawn up by another, to keep it level; he told he that sometimes, you needed to be held onto, borne away in other arms from lurking terrors.” Grantaire's voice is hushed. Reverent. “He told me how you might be loved. He said that if anything were to befall him, you would have need of it.”

Enjolras' eyes blink wet. There are no words left to him. “Grantaire,” he tries.

“He said it would not be easy.” Grantaire is close and far away. “We shared stories of you together, and laughed together, and Combeferre put his hand on my shoulder.” Slowly, one of Grantaire's hands retraces its path. “How did he know?”

“Combeferre saw what others did not,” says Enjolras. “He was devoted to science, but I suspect him of alchemy.”

“He was devoted to you,” says Grantaire.

“Yes.” Enjolras, observing the far-away dance of his and Combeferre's shadows, agrees. “Yet the bonds of friendship are what bound us. You imagine more, where only mutual accord existed.”

This makes Grantaire's fine dark eyebrow arch. Enjolras says, “Combeferre guided me where I was previously inexperienced, at my request. He was my friend as you describe Jehan, a fellow whom one could sit with, through all the stalled hours, and merge ideas in sympathy, to pass the time.”

Grantaire waits.

“I loved him as I have never loved another person,” Enjolras confesses, “and fear I never will again.”

“The Combeferre that we knew would rejoice in your acclaim,” says Grantaire. “Yet he would feel strange, wearing it.”

“He said as much?” wonders Enjolras.

“He worried about you. Privately, some of us questioned that you had no other outlet save the cause.”

“Yet you still followed me.” Enjolras shakes his head.

“And would again. They knew the likely outcome, Enjolras. Our friends were not fools.” The tears have dried on Grantaire's cheeks. The reemergence of his laugh is harsh. “No, I lie. You were fools, you were all fools, the lot of you, but brave ones.”

“You are of our number,” Enjolras points out, and Grantaire laughs again. Then he goes very still.

“Yes,” agrees Grantaire. “I was quite the courageous idiot, at what should have been our end.”

This they have never spoken about. Sometimes when Enjolras catches Grantaire's eyes from across a crowded room his breath freezes in his throat and his heart contracts. That has been the extent of their dialogue on the subject. Enjolras says, “You were brilliant.”

Long live the Republic! I am one of them. Beautiful words shouted in Grantaire's bold, beautiful voice, and he had stood very straight, kept his saucer-wide eyes on Enjolras as he crossed the room and put himself before the guns.

They would kill Grantaire now for his avowal regardless, but Grantaire waited to secure Enjolras' approval before taking his place beside him. And Enjolras had smiled, and reached for Grantaire's hand, and pressed it, and found it warm, and felt Grantaire's pulse leap, and waited to die smiling and standing with a compatriot at his side.

Then an order rang out instead of gunshots, and the guns drooped, and they were dragged into darkness.

“I deprived you of the martyr's death you wanted,” says Grantaire. “When we were first imprisoned, you used to say that an execution would have been preferred to such dishonor.”

Enjolras flinches. He remembers making furious declarations but they seem long ago and far away. Weeks and months have aged him, changed him. “We have had enough martyrs,” he says.

Grantaire lifts his head, and both eyebrows this time. “I'll make a cynic of you yet.”

Enjolras can say nothing to that. Instead he says, “Will you come back to bed?” and Grantaire nods, and dries his eyes on the sleeves of his shirt, and follows Enjolras to the center of the mattress.

They sleep best with Enjolras on his back and Grantaire on his side facing Enjolras, chin to his shoulder. His arm curves across Enjolras' chest in its accustomed way, lighter than a blanket.