pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

He brings Dr. Tam's notes upstairs. He has felt like this before; he knows this lightning crackle under the skin. This feeling of too many thoughts for one mind to contain, of racing to keep up with himself, of possibilities and horizons and horrors all roiling together in a swelling cloud, bigger than one body's flesh can hold. And yet he is flesh -- now dead. There is never enough time to channel everything he wants into action. He feels detached from himself. These bones and muscles, these hands, this body that walks down a hallway and turns a key in a latch and closes a door behind itself; it will do these things, his mind is tied to these hands and eyes and tongue, but all that is Enjolras is immersed in the storm of thought.

There's a lump in his throat.

He sets the folder carefully on top of his desk.

The next step is obvious. He needs to tell Bossuet of this. They both need to understand it as completely as possible, every detail. So many lives can be saved.

He rests a hand on the desk for a long moment, looking down at the innocently closed folder with its few simply written pages inside.

Then he straightens, and picks up the folder once more, and goes to knock on Courfeyrac's door.

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'-yes?'

There is a long pause before he says it. He will not press him unduly, nor ask him to push emotion away in order to speak. It is a gentle prompt, that is all.

"What Combeferre would say. What he would think of this."

His voice is thick. With Courfeyrac, he won't push that back.

He has missed them so. He misses the others still. All of them, but Combeferre, Feuilly -- their absence feels like a hole inside of him, gaping, raw, hollowing him out.

'He would-'

Courfeyrac tightens his fingers on his friend's shoulder.

The notion of never seeing Combeferre again...no. He refuses to believe it will be so. If not here, somewhere else.

'-do what you are doing. He would make sure the information became of use. He would pore over the books for three days before one of us peeled him off the table and put him to bed. He would-'

He would be here, which would be the most important thing.

Enjolras is nodding along, very slightly. Everything Courfeyrac says is perfectly accurate; he can picture it, he has pictured it, a dozen times.

He's nodding along in agreement, but the first tears have begun to slide down his pale cheeks.

'Enjolras.'

He uncrosses his legs so he can move closer, and put his arm properly around the man's shoulders.

He does not tell him not to be upset. Why should he not be? He can understand him missing Combeferre, and while he is not sure if there is more to it or not - there usually is, with Enjolras - it does not matter. He is distressed.

'He may still come.'

The dam has been cracking for a long time. Now, it gives way.

Enjolras turns his face into Courfeyrac's shoulder, regardless of any awkwardness to the angle, and weeps.

Of course he has wept before at Milliways. For his friends' deaths, for his own loneliness, for all the long suffering of France's people and of humanity. But never before with a friend's arm around his shoulders and a friend's voice murmuring comfort.

It's several long moments before he whispers against Courfeyrac's waistcoat, low as a confession, "I have missed you all so very much."

For those first moments, all Courfeyrac does is hold him close and let him weep. He is a little confused, but no matter - this is rare from Enjolras, but entirely in keeping with the depths of emotion the man is driven by.

And then he speaks, and things fall into place. Of course. Of course.

'We are here now,' he says, soothingly. He is quiet, and stays still. 'We are not complete, but there are some of us.'

One arm has found its way around Courfeyrac's waist. Enjolras leans against him, eyes shut against increasingly damp cotton and wool, silent but for the small hitches of his breath, held close in a friend's embrace, and lets himself weep.

Courfeyrac is here, dear and warm and real. He can fall and be caught.

Courfeyrac does not like to think how it would have been, to have arrived here, far removed to home and to have had no one. He would have been comforted by Grantaire, though he is well aware why Enjolras would not be. Meeting Gavroche again would have been a joy, but he was so young...to have come here, no Enjolras, no Combeferre, no Joly, Bahorel, Feuilly, none of them - not even Marius! - no, he cannot imagine how that would feel.

He has never known Enjolras not be surrounded by people. He has never not been so himself. To arrive, dead and with purpose removed...yes, the man may cry as long as he wishes.

Grantaire and Gavroche were both of comfort. Sometimes, great comfort. But to neither one could Enjolras bare his soul and know himself understood.

It's some time before the tears cease. A little while longer before Enjolras pulls away -- only a little, only enough to lift his cheek from wet fabric and to be able to look Courfeyrac in the face instead of the shirt-collar.

Enjolras is one of those rare people who can cry tidily. More unfairly yet, one who has put no effort into developing the skill. His eyes are red and his face wet, but his face has not gone splotchy, his nose doesn't run. Against his white shirt and black waistcoat, his face is pale and glittering, his hair a golden tumble of undampened curls. Appearance is the furthest thing from his mind.

He feels wrung dry. Weary, and strangely light, as if a weight long carried has been lifted from his shoulders. Every breath and whisper of clothing seems to settle into the comfortable quiet of this room.

"My dear Courfeyrac."

His voice is quiet too, and only a little roughened. His mouth curls into a very small smile, fond and grateful and rueful, full of all the things unsaid. But all he says aloud is, "I hope I haven't spoiled your new waistcoat."

'My dear Enjolras.'

Courfeyrac smiles too, impish, not at all put out by either the tears, or the state of his waistcoat.

'My new waistcoat can bear it. If it does not like it, we benefit greatly from not being able to hear its displeasure. As for me, I choose not to treat it as a citizen, and will disregard its opinions entirely.'

The hand around his shoulder moves, and gently scrunches a handful of golden curls in a gesture of affection. His smile turns from the roguish to something a little more sincere.

'I am sorry you have been so long alone.'

"I am not now."

It's enough. His friends always have been: all that a man could ask for, the ideal Republic prefigured.

'No, you are not now.'

His tone is warm.

'And need never be, my friend. I am but a few doors away, and have precious little occupation. You know you are always welcome with me - I should not even say it, as there's no need at all for it to be stated. There is you, and I, Grantaire and Gavroche and Bossuet. Not enough yet, but far better than none at all.'

What would I do without you? he might have said, months ago and a lifetime away.

He knows, now. But already the long loneliness seems more distant, like a dream that fades away from the waking mind.

"I know it well," is all he says, but the warmth in his voice and in his damp eyes says all the rest.