Author Note: Welcome to And Yet the Books Will Be There, written for midshipmankennedy on tumblr. Feiully & Combeferre Friendship Modern AU for the fluff drabble exchange. Title taken from the beautiful poem "And Yet the Books" by Czesław Miłosz.

Disclaimer: I am not Victor Hugo. I do not own the book, the musical, or the film, and I certainly do not own the characters.

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And Yet the Books Will Be There

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They became friends because of Enjolras, of course—it was hardly avoidable. Combeferre had been Enjolras's best friend since they'd been in diapers, and Feiully was the quiet if brilliant senior who'd agreed to tutor the rebellious, politically active sophomore in physics.

Combeferre could still remember the day Enjolras had come up to him, eyes blazing and grinning widely, speaking nothing but glowing praises for the older boy. Enjolras had always been one to care deeply for many, but liking someone? Admiring them? That was different. So when Enjolras drew Feiully into their circle of friends, Combeferre was one of the first to introduce himself, helpfully explain inside jokes, find out his phone number and address and email so they could actually keep in contact.

They stayed friends, however, because of the fallout of the incident Courfeyrac would later deem the "Cafeteria Clusterfuck."

Again, like always, it was Enjolras's fault—he had the bright idea to protest budget cuts to the high school's theatre and art departments by having people barricade themselves within the cafeteria. It was surprisingly successful—half the school joined in, and the drama kids acted out plays on top of stages hastily constructed out of lunch tables, with Courfeyrac giving a rather stirring performance as Brutus from Julius Caesar & Éponine reciting one of Medea's monologues. The art kids (led by Jehan & Grantaire & Cosette) graffitied all over the cafeteria walls and floors, murals and sketches and paintings everywhere, a big, colorful kaleidoscope.

The school officials didn't take it very well, of course, although the local news station and most of the town were crazy for it.

Anyway, after three days of enthusiastic and creative protest, school authorities called in the cops and had the ringleaders arrested.

Charges were dropped for most of them, except for Feiully—the one unfortunate recently turned eighteen-year-old (and therefore legally adult).

Naturally, all of their little gang insisted on sharing his punishment—community service, as the case turned out to be.

So Combeferre found himself press-ganged into service at the local public library on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. This, however, was apparently no punishment at all for Feiully, the boy all the librarians greeted by name, the boy who seemed to know every nook and cranny of every shelf, the boy who had secret hiding spots stashed all over the ancient building and filled them with well-loved books and delicately folded paper fans, quotes from Voltaire and Rousseau and Czesław Miłosz written on their edges.

"Do you sleep here?" Combeferre asks incredulously on his second afternoon.

"Only when my foster dad is really drunk," the other boy says absent-mindedly before suddenly freezing. "But, ah, I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone that—Mrs. Okpara and the other librarians aren't supposed to let me, but I couldn't keep on letting them take me home with them. The chairs are comfy enough when you push 'em together anyway." He gives a shrug before asking, "Pass me the next book?"

Combeferre does, feeling as if he's stepped into a strange and unfamiliar world, all of his and Enjolras's lofty ideals and goals, all the problems and wrongs they want to help change, suddenly having a very real and human face.

He goes to Enjolras that night and says, "I understand why you admire him so much now."

His best friend merely grins and claps him on the shoulder. "Told you you would like him."

And slowly, a casual friendship blooms into a deeper one as two intellectually minded, quiet people talk politics, talk art, talk books, talk literature and poetry and graphic novels, talk science and engineering and biology, talk about Bahorel's latest skateboard competition and Courfeyrac's swim meet, talk about everything and anything really.

Or sometimes just not talk, and let the silence say everything instead.

And years later, Combeferre will be able to exchange a single glance with Feiully—just one glance—and speak volumes, and know he is understood.

It's a friendship that starts in a library and will later make its way into the book that is Combeferre's lifework, his magnum opus, the printed words barely managing to capture how precious and valuable beyond all imagining it is to him, to them both.

Endnote: Thank you for reading. Please, please review and tell us what you thought. :)