Deviation Actions
Literature Text
"Combeferre!" Enjolras called. "May I take a look at the blueprints?"
It wasn't until the blonde looked around and Courfeyrac shook his head when the former realized that Combeferre's class hadn't ended yet. Enjolras rolled his eyes in frustration. "Fine. Anyone has any more ideas?"
"How about we don't go wasting our pathetic little lives and die for something that will never change?" A cynical drawl was heard from below him. Enjolras looked down to see Grantaire with his head on the table, gin bottle grasped loosely in hand. Enjolras rolled his eyes again.
"Grantaire. Put. The. Bottle. Down," he instructed, but the dark-haired Philosophy student only took another swig from his bottle and laughed hysterically, spraying gin all over the table.
"Gross!" A boy with light brown hair in a messy ponytail exclaimed, shifting his book of poetry away from the flecks of spit mingled with alcohol. Grantaire tried to say something, but ended up laughing so hard he fell over.
"Ignore him, Jehan," Enjolras told the brunet, looking down at Grantaire, who slowly tried to get up, but succeeded in slamming his head on the underside of the table instead. He swore, rubbed his head and grinned, displaying two rows of surprisingly straight teeth. Then he grabbed the table in an attempt to straighten himself up, dragging it down with him. It would have completely crushed him if somebody hadn't pulled it away in the opposite direction.
"Combeferre! Joly!" Enjolras exclaimed upon seeing the two newcomers at the other end of the table. Combeferre set the tabble down gently. "The professor held me up today; met Joly just in time."
He pointed at the ginger-haired Medicine student, scarred and black-eyed.
"What on earth happened to him?" Jehan gasped, slamming his book shut.
"He was lecturing some students smoking," Combeferre explained, and Joly cut him off.
"Smoking causes lung cancer, E!" he protested, fervently flipping to a page in his book and shoving it in Enjolras's face, but the blonde only shook his head.
"You don't go telling people that, Joly. That's not how you make friends. That's how you get people to hate you."
"I think he's learnt," Courfeyrac said, trying to wrestle the gin bottle away from Grantaire's hand. The latter was proving to be a distraction with his incoherent mutters and random laughter.
"It's not my fault," Joly complained, but took his place beside Jehan all the same.
"Combeferre," Enjolras commanded, and the former took out several large rolls of paper, filled with carefully thought of scribbles.
"E, I have a feeling that unless we rally some support, we would be completely outnumbered and overpowered," Combeferre said seriously, sweeping strands of flowing blonde hair out of his glasses. "The soldiers would be properly trained, and would probably come after us even before -" He was cut off by Grantaire.
"Here he comes like Don Juan, it is better than an opera!" The Philosophy student sang at the top of his lungs as a good-looking boy with black hair entered the cafe.
"Grantaire, stop doing that every time he enters," Enjolras groaned, then, to the boy, he snapped, "your class ended ages ago, Marius. Where have you been?"
"Snogging her! He's been snogging her!" Grantaire called, laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face and started kissing the thin air rather explicitly to prove his point. Fueilly smacked him across the face.
"You were with her, weren't you?" Enjolras said fiercely. "Let the lover-boy be, E," Combeferre interceded. "Love is a puzzle," Jehan stated. "Love makes the pavement shine like silver, and all the lights are misty in the river," he mused. "In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight... And all you see is -"
"Shut up, Jehan," Enjolras hissed, and the brunet fell silent, then felt around the table for his quill to pen whatever he had just spoken down. Jehan wasn't one to use a fountain pen if a more artsy alternative like a quill was available.
"Love comes at much too high a cost," Grantaire said simply, wistfully, drunkenly. Enjolras groaned.
"For the millionth time, this is not a philosophy-cum-poetry club," he said. "We are here to plan the revolution."
At those words, the table suddenly grew silent. Enjolras groaned again, stepped onto his chair and took a deep breath, ready to begin his 'This-Revolution-Is-Going-To-Change-Our-World-And-Turn-It-Into-A-Better-Place' pep talk.
"Do you want to see a brighter tomorrow?" He started. "It doesn't matter if we die for a better France - if I have to die for others to live a better life for years and generations to come, if I have to die to change the world, then I would. Who's with me?" He asked, thrusting out his fist which gripped a red flag into the air and stamping his foot on the table so that he was balanced dangerously on the chair, which rocked backwards.
Everyone cheered.
Even Grantaire.
Then:
"What are we all cheering for again?" the Literature and Philosophy students said suddenly, and Enjolras, in high spirits, rapped Jehan on the head and shouted good-naturedly,
"Grantaire, put the bottle down!"
Marius laughed along with them, but all he could hear was his own laughter. He looked around the cafe to find it empty. And as the vision of their last meeting melted away from his eyes and trickled down his cheeks in tears, so did the strange light that filled his eyes a few moments ago fade away.
The ghost of what he felt would be his last smile still etched upon his face, he picked up a battered, blood-stained gin bottle lying on the floor by the fallen chair Grantaire would normally be seated and fingered the sacred artefact. The Philosophy student had, at last, put the bottle down.
"Empty chairs at empty tables... Where my friends would sing no more..."
