"Do You Hear the People Sing"
A/N: This story comes from a conversation with Anna… It began, "You know what would be really painful?" and she promptly told me that she was sure I was the only one that would begin a sentence quite like that. We had a good laugh about it. But this story came out of that conversation. A drawing I'm working on did too, but I doubt you will get to see that. Sorry. But it is AU, if you don't like that. I hate the fact that Les Amis dies… :sigh: Some of you might have read "Blood of Angry Men" in which they lived, but this is just a bit different. They win. Sort of. You'll see. Enjoy. :)
Chapter One: A Whit Flag Flies
Enjolras coughed and put his nose into the crook of his arm, allowing his soiled sleeve to serve as a barrier between his nose and the horrid smell of gunpowder. It was gagging him like nothing else ever had. Perhaps it was gunpowder mixed with the smell of blood and dead bodies as well… That would just about do it.
"What's the count?" he called out to Combeferre.
The young doctor glanced over, his glasses slipping down his nose and his eyes showing a hint of fright. Though it wasn't for himself, Enjolras knew, but for the patience in the wine shop that he'd been attending to. Combeferre was not a warring young man, though he fought for what he believed in. He would have much rather healed than harmed. "We've lost several of our own…" he murmured brokenly.
"Do what you can for the ones we still have," the blond man said quietly.
"How is it out here? I've been so busy in there I barely know."
There was a long pause before Enjolras took in a deep breath and released it in the form of a sigh. "We have not lost it yet."
"They're breaking through!" someone called from nearer to the barricade's walls.
Combeferre snorted and shook his head. "Of all the timings…"
"Come," Enjolras said as he started back for the wine shop.
"You're leaving the heat of the battle?"
"Not for long." I'm getting you back inside, he added silently.
The two men ducked into the wine shop, careful of the people rushing about. Enjolras crossed the room and took up a new gun as his old one was done for. He loaded it and stood at the door. Die facing their foes? It was likely they'd die. Perhaps they would be facing their foes. He did hope for that much.
"They're coming in through the upstairs windows!" Courfeyrac yelled. "Enjolras!"
"I heard you! I'm coming!" their leader called back and he turned to race up the stairs. He met Courfeyrac there, seeing him already bleeding and swollen from battle. "How do you fair?"
"Well enough," the other man said with a grin. "We'll take 'em down."
Enjolras nodded as they continued up the stairs together only to find a sleeping Grantaire. "Where are they?" the blond murmured while nudging the drunkard awake.
"Wha'?" Grantaire slurred and his eyes slid open lazily.
"You would have been dead and never known it," Courfeyrac growled with a glare. "I know I heard a window breaking."
"A window?" Grantaire echoed, eye lids wanting to droop back down to sleep once more, but he forced them open. "Did the fighting start?"
It was all Enjolras could do not to reach forward and smack him good across the head, trying to knock sense into him. Instead he simply growled out, "Make yourself useful and help us look."
"'Make myself useful' he says," the taller man grumbled as he stumbled from his place. "Look where, O great Apollo? Under the bed for big bad monsters?"
"For National Guard," Enjolras snapped. "Courfeyrac, in there if you please."
The other man nodded and slipped into the room, leaving Enjolras and Grantaire to search that one. The blond man shook his head in frustration. The drunkard was little use to him. He'd always been little use to him other than to constantly question and irritate. Was that useful? Note likely.
"Hey, Enjolras! This window has been broken!" Grantaire shouted, not realizing Les Amis' leader was right behind him.
"Not so loud, you imbecile!" he hissed. "Why not just alert them all we're up here?" He shook his head again, irritation showing fully and he turned. "They're here!" he announced upon seeing one man with a musket aimed. He was by Grantaire's side at that instant and suddenly found himself taking a bayonet meant for the other man. The pain hit and he wasn't even sure if he'd known it would come. Had he seen the National Guard there? Had he known he was aiming at Grantaire and stepped in the way? It had all happened so quickly he wasn't sure. Now he found himself with the bayonet lodged a couple inches below his ribs and he wondered – finding it very odd in the mist of all the pain – just how it had missed his spine with as close as it had come. He was pushed up against Grantaire who in turn was between him and the wall, unable to move as the man had run the blond leader completely through so that the barrel of the gun was pressed against his belly. So he had stepped in front of the drunkard! Good to know that now, even if they were about to die…
"You! Where is your leader?" the soldier demanded gruffly. "Answer!" He moved in closer, pushing roughly against the gun that had impaled Enjolras, causing the younger man to have to bite back a cry of pain and his back arched involuntarily, only causing more mind searing pain. He felt a cough bubbling in his throat and a coppery taste on his tongue.
Grantaire, pinned behind Enjolras, was still unharmed, but didn't dare move. He was bracing his idol as best as he could so that the other didn't drop his weight against the bayonet.
"I'll shoot you, boy!" the guard warned. "Tell me, where is your leader?"
"I am…" Enjolras managed to gasp through the pain.
"You?" the man sneered. "You're nothing more than a child." He laughed when his only response was a defiant glare. "Well then, if you be a liar or a fool you'll be a dead one either which way."
The shot rang out, throwing the blond revolutionary back into Grantaire. The bullet passed straight through him, lodging itself in the drunkard behind. His alcohol clouded mind suddenly cleared with the pain and he began to sag down, only held up by the wall and the pinned Enjolras.
The guard ripped the bayonet from the boy ruthlessly and allowed both men to drop to the ground in a quickly forming pool of their blood. "Where's your revolution now?" he scoffed as he turned his back on them.
"They raised a flag!" Courfeyrac's excited voice sounded from the other room. "I saw it! A white flag of surrender! We won, Enjo-" He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. Enjolras lay face down, blood pooling steadily beneath him and Grantaire was propped up against the wall, his head lulled slightly to one side. His eyes were open albeit a bit glazed over. "My word," the other student breathed as he knelt by his friends. "I heard the shot… I thought it was downstairs…"
Grantaire focused on Courfeyrac. "You said… we won?"
"Yes."
A smile crossed his lips and he let his eyes flutter closed. "That'll make… Apollo happy… He'll smile… you think?"
Courfeyrac was shaking at this point and he reached for his friend in question without a word.
"Right?" the injured drunkard breathed.
"Yes. Of course he will," the student assured him.
"Good." That established, he allowed himself to sink into darkness.
A/N: Let me know what you think please