CROSSPOSTS |FROM MY AO3|

PROUD | LES MIS (I SWEAR THERE WILL BE OTHER FANDOMS)

"Do you permit it?" he asks, and at a different time, Enjolras might've laughed. But that time is not now, not when they're both about to die and everything they built is crashing around them.

He doesn't know what to say. Or trust himself to speak. What is there to say? I'm sorry? I failed you all? I don't hate you, I just couldn't afford to care?

So he grabs his hand. Smiles a little, feeling Grantaire's rough calloused one curl around his. There is a touch of irony to it, Prouvaire would say. Two people, barely hurt, in a half-destroyed cafe, one smelling of alcohol and old books and revolution.

Prouvaire would say. Another reminder of everyone Enjolras has failed.

And there is noise, and the smell of smoke, and piercing pain, and the feeling of falling. And at the edge of his vision, he registers a cracked green bottle, torn strips of a red flag, and what looks like early-morning sunlight before everything goes dark.

They are the only two people ever. Enjolras is nothing, floating in the void of nothing, and the only real thing is the hand clasped to his, and he cannot remember whose hand it is, but does it really matter, because it's what's tying him to consciousness and if he lets it go, he feels like he'll dissolve into the night, so he clutches it tighter and tighter, like he is falling off a ship and somebody has thrown him a rope.

And for the second time that day, he blacks out.

He wakes up to someone shaking him. The light seems too bright, and it takes him a moment to make out anything but specks of color. Then, he blinks a few times, and the specks of color form a coherently-rendered person.

"Grantaire?"

"Apollo?"

He sits up, feeling grass scratch at his legs. He doesn't remember coming here- perhaps they were enjoying a day in the countryside and he had fallen asleep? If so, then why was he wearing a waistcoat and cravat?

Then he remembers. Blood and smoke and screams and death.

He had failed them all, hadn't he?

He had failed them, and he had failed France, and failed every person in that horrible, beautiful country. His eyes burned, not from the sunlight, but from something deep inside of him, something gnawing and crying and disbelieving. Tears spill over his cheeks, and for once, he doesn't make any effort to stop them. He should, for the sake of Grantaire, but he doesn't care, why should he care, Grantaire probably hates him anyways. He failed him, after all. He promised a free France and a brighter tomorrow and now they don't get either.

"Enjolras?" Grantaire's voice is soft, hesitant. Why was he not angry? He should be furious, betrayed. But he doesn't sound angry. Only... concerned

"Enjolras, look." With some effort, Enjolras raises his head, and sees a woman, taller than him, with long red hair. She wears boy clothes, much like that girl at the barricades- Eponine, another person Enjolras should've protected and didn't- and a shawl of red fabric draped across her shoulders almost like a cape. She is beautiful, but not in the way that made Pontmercy or Courfeyrac wax poetic at meetings, but in a way that looked fierce and comforting at the same time, like fire personified. The French flag is tied across her waist like a sash, and across the red cloth, pictures seem to shimmer in the folds, of buildings and flowers and cafes and barricades. And Enjolras feels like he knows her, despite never having seen her in his life.

"Patria?"

"Hello, Enjolras," she says, and her voice sounds like a million people talking at once.

"I don't know what to say," he blurts, hanging his head. "I feel like I failed you." He can tell Grantaire is watching him. Why did that make him uncomfortable?