Note: part of my ongoing quest to write things under 1000 words.

Disclaimer: Les Miserables is the property of the estate of Victor Hugo. I am making no profit from this save the pleasure derived from its creation.

Sometimes you look at Enjolras as he gets carried away in his idealism and his vision of the future and you wonder how his skin can hold his essence, how it doesn't grow bloated and then burst at the seams, exposing your friend's impossible radiance to the world. You watch him gesticulate wildly and grow flushed from excitement as he proselytizes about the glory of the republic and you see not a man but a prophet, a demi-God sent from Heaven to spread the Word to the people below. He is more than human, his zeal and charisma and enthusiasm stronger than any mere mortal should by rights possess. Sometimes you look at Enjolras and you can't imagine him walking through the filthy streets of Paris, though you've walked them alongside him many times, can't envision him existing in the same world as the beggar children who follow him everywhere he goes, can't accept the reality that he too had a mother and did not merely descend fully formed from a higher plane.

You do your friend a disservice with these thoughts, you know. To put men on pedestals is a dangerous endeavor indeed, for all men must err and those with farther to fall will cause more damage when they do so. Enjolras, for all his delicate features and impassioned speeches and eyes shining with conviction is made of flesh, not marble, and when they place a blade to his skin it draws blood. He may look like a God, but you of all people know that he is not one, that he is mortal and fallible and as fragile as the rest of you. You are not Grantaire, who sees only the statue and not the man. (You aren't Marius either; you know all too well that your friend can be terrible when he chooses.)

When you were young and in school you listened carefully as your teachers extolled the virtues of republic and of the revolution. With age you turned your attention towards medicine and science instead of politics but you have always listened more than you speak and teachers are not the only ones who speak of the past. By the time you arrived in Paris you had heard more than enough to know where you stood.

Perhaps it was more than mere chance that introduced you to Enjolras, more than just the whim of a student you both knew in passing. You know too much of injustice to believe that the hand of God directs every action but perhaps He reaches down occasionally from the Heavens and sets events in motion. Certainly once you and Enjolras had met it was only a matter of time before you discovered your shared politics and inevitable that, having discovered your shared ideals, would work together to make them reality. He abandoned his studies temporarily to focus his energy on revolution; you split your time between your classes and your convictions.

Bahorel asked you once, when he had just joined the group and was still testing the waters, how it was that you could stand to be forever in Enjolras' shadow. He, accustomed to attention and frivolity, gave you a disbelieving look when you protested that you did no such thing, that you and Enjolras stood shoulder to shoulder as equals, Courfeyrac alongside to complete the triad. Enjolras may burn most brightly but all fire dies without fuel and a blaze with no direction causes more chaos than good.

(Nor do fires have the monopoly on destruction and Enjolras is not the only one who can be terrible.)