The Fic Fest That Almost Became Historic

Prompt #3

2012-04-12T08:23:08Z

Prompt #3: Blackmail

Respond with your story in comments, whether pasting the text directly into the comment, or linking it in the comment. No minimum or maximum limits, no time limit. Just write something that involves or is inspired by the prompt above.

Prompt #2

2012-03-31T07:10:53Z

Prompt #2: Prison

Respond with your story in comments, whether pasting the text directly into the comment, or linking it in the comment. No minimum or maximum limits, no time limit. Just write something that involves or is inspired by the prompt above.

Prompt #1

2012-03-20T05:43:37Z

I'm sorry I've been behind in this. Not sure when the next Fest is coming, so in the mean time I'm going to start up a series of Prompts.

The idea behind these prompts is that everyone has a specific phrase or sentence or idea that's going to inspire their stories. There is no wordcount minimum or maximum. There is no rating minimum or maximum, though I do respectfully request warnings on things that are porny or triggering so people can avoid them as needed. And finally, there is no minimum or maximum participation requirement: you can skip if you want, or write ten stories if you want. These prompts are more for jumpstarting your own writing muse than fulfilling any requirement.

Prompt #1: Seasons and the changing thereof
No matter in what part of the world you live, this is the time of year when we notice the changing of the seasons. Paris has some lovely seasons, as do the other parts of the story mentioned in Les Misérables. Tell us about the characters in the season of your choice, or all the seasons. As long as it's clearly inspired by one/some/all/changing of the seasons, it fits the prompt.

And... GO!

Valentine's Day Fest: Gift for coloneldespard

2012-02-15T02:10:02Z

For: coloneldespard
Story by: tcregan and mmejavert
Prompt: Enjolras! Courfeyrac! Not fussed if it's romantic or not, but if sexy, let it be romantic (not game playing, fun though that is)

For Courfeyrac, every day was a day of love. Every day an opportunity not to be missed. He looked at every evening without some new friend – platonic or romantic – or new adventure or experience as a loss. But would take up the challenge again the next morning. February thirteenth came and went as one of those losses, but in no way did he let that dampen his spirits. The day of Eros dawned sunny and brisk, and he dressed with a song in his heart and a smile on his lips. Today he had planned everything. First, they would picnic in the park, recite poetry and talk of love and art. Then a trip down the Seine as Courfeyrac serenaded his love. The evening would consist of dancing either at a party if his partner was feeling sociable or alone in his apartment if they were not. They would dine together over a romantic candlelit supper and he would take his willing partner (because at that point, he reasoned, who wouldn’t be willing) to bed.

It was the perfect plan with just one small flaw. He hadn’t anyone to share it with.

The Musain’s main room was empty that morning, but the picnic basket was packed. Louison rebuffed his advances, but he never took that personally – she rebuffed all his friends’ advances. Walking down the hall, he wondered what his friends were up to. Combeferre no doubt would be studying amidst all his books and collections. Bahorel would have found some eager grisette by now – the idea pained him that Bahorel would find a Valentine before him – and Feuilly had his latest mistress. They were quite adorable together, thought Feuilly rejected his idea of a potential roll in the sack together with the doe-eyed creature. Joly and Bossuet, he knew, would be spending it with Musichetta, lavishing attention and love on one another. Grantaire… poor Grantaire, he thought, must be alone in his apartment with his own mistress – the Green Fairy. Which left one person.

The person in question, he found, was sitting in the Musain’s back room, poring over papers and maps. The blond hair, desperately in need of a trim, fell forward into his eyes as he scratched out a few more notes. The cup of coffee beside him went completely untouched. Courfeyrac shifted the picnic basket from one hand to another, adjusted his hat, and marched right up to the table. Even the shadow that he threw upon the papers didn’t catch Enjolras’ attention. He knew better than to clear his throat – it would be a wasted effort. With a sigh, he set the picnic basket down atop whatever it was Enjolras was writing.

“Oh, hello Courfeyrac. Your basket seems to be on my work. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind moving it so I can continue.”

“Mm. I would, you see. But it’s a wonderful day and I was thinking a picnic would be nice.”

“Hence the basket?”

“Hence the basket. So. As you are the only one here, you get to humor me.”

Enjolras sat back with a sigh. “A picnic.”

“Just a few hours out in the sun and fresh air. Some nice food and drink and me to talk to. What could possibly be better?”

Courfeyrac readied his next argument, the grin never leaving his face as Enjolras considered.

“All right.”

“Because you see- what?”

“I said all right.” Enjolras stood and picked up his own coat and hat, donning both as he walked toward the door. He looked back at Courfeyrac, who stood, slightly dumbstruck. “Are you coming?”

The grin brightened, and Courfeyrac followed.

It wasn't until they got to Courfeyrac's favourite picnic spot by the river that he noticed that Enjolras had left his things behind: books, papers, all of it.

"Why did you say yes?"

Enjolras looked up at Courfeyrac, a perfectly guileless expression in his eyes. "Did you not want me to? You asked."

"I didn't think you'd agree so readily," Courfeyrac admitted, and set down the picnic basket. "I mean. I did want you to. Why did you?"

"Look around you, Courfeyrac." With a sweeping gesture and a calm eye, Enjolras indicated the river, the bridges, the streets, all of Paris. "Sometimes, sitting in that back room, I tend to lose sight of the world around us, instead thinking of the idyllic utopia we are working to create. Combeferre tries to remind me daily that while the ideal smiles upon us all, we have to work with a world dark and real and gritty, not always shining and bright and pure. From here, I can see all of those things merged into one." He paused, and gazed at the river. "You would never think to dive into that water, not here in the middle of the city. Yet think: only a few miles upriver, out of our city, the water is sparkling and clean enough to swim in and perhaps drink from, if you go further towards its source. But as this body of water winds its way from that little spring into a wide river through our city, it turns from pure to filth. Combeferre has spoken to me of miasma, of disease, of theories brought forth by learned men that it is the putrid water that causes the disease. Combeferre disagrees and thinks it is unhygienic habits, not the dirt itself, that cause disease, but that is not the point. The point is that somehow this water has become putrified. Like the water, so has the country. The country began a tiny spring of a republic in 89, trickling larger and wider through 93, and then stagnated into a pool with the ascent of that Buonaparte. A river cannot run backwards, only forwards, and that stagnated water eventually moved forward into dirtier and dirtier climes, from the fall of Buonaparte to the return of the Bourbon pigs. And yet here we sit, beside a river filled with waste and death and putrefaction, but looking further ahead, can we not find a way to purify the water? Combeferre thinks we can. If we can purify the water, we can swim and bathe in it. And so, we must purify the country and return it to its natural state: a state of freedom. That is what I see, having a picnic out here with you."

Courfeyrac listened, entranced with the words. Even speaking of putrefaction and disease, Courfeyrac could easily see the world infused with light in which Enjolras lived, and wanted so desperately to bring some animation and life to that stark world that Enjolras envisioned.

"Well, yes. A dirty river must needs be cleaned to serve the needs of the people, so too must the monarchy be cleansed and returned to its republican roots. You cannot be the people's king, it's an oxymoron. Have some macarons, even if I can't tempt you to any of the wine."

Enjolras blinked, brought back to the world, then smiled at Courfeyrac. "I think I will. To both." Upon seeing Courfeyrac's surprised look, he shrugged. "Why not?"

They shared a glass, and Courfeyrac smiled at his friend over the glass. Enjolras was contemplating the sky, a half-eaten macaron in one hand, his knee pulled up and hand resting upon it as he gazed and thought.

Courfeyrac smiled at his friend, and took advantage of his abstraction by keeping the wine glass filled until the bottle was empty. Admittedly, Courfeyrac drank most of it, but what little Enjolras did drink of the wine lent a pleasant flush to his cheeks which Courfeyrac admired quite a bit.

They sat on the riverbank for several hours, Enjolras doing more of the listening and Courfeyrac doing more of the talking. Enjolras looked pre-occupied, but every time Courfeyrac asked a question or prodded his attention, Enjolras startled him anew by answering him clearly, quickly, fluently.

“Come, my friend. It’s getting cold and dark. I have dinner plans too.”

“A picnic and dinner?” Enjolras gave half a smile as he stood, handing the empty macaron box to Courfeyrac to return to the basket. “I wonder if you plan to take me to the theatre next.”

“Well no.” Courfeyrac swung the basket in his lightheartedness. “Although there is a charming little play at the Odéon which we could drop in on--”

“Dinner and a picnic, perhaps, but I won’t go to the theatre with you, Courfeyrac.”

“Well, we’ll have to go back that way to pick up your books from the back room,” Courfeyrac pointed out, quite reasonably he thought.

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean we need to stop off at the theatre.”

“No, I suppose not.” Courfeyrac slung his arm around Enjolras’ shoulders, a gesture which Enjolras didn’t protest.

Enjolras didn’t drink further at dinner. When Courfeyrac insisted, Enjolras asked him whether he were trying to get him drunk, and merely ordered a pot of coffee. Even Courfeyrac’s most pretty pout didn’t sway Enjolras.

Still, dinner passed pleasantly enough, and Courfeyrac, warm and lighthearted, even more so from the wine and the company, decided to see if he could press Enjolras into spending further time with him.

Enjolras smiled at him when they returned to the Musain, much later in the evening. “You are awfully happy about something.”

“Of course.” Courfeyrac beamed at him as he pulled the back door open. “I have spent the day in positively the best company possible. What reason is there not to be happy?”

Enjolras shook his head, and turned to fetch his books and papers. But Courfeyrac stayed him by grabbing at his hand.

“No, wait. You’ll leave after you get your things, won’t you, and I have somethiing else I want to say.”

“What?”

“This.” Courfeyrac closed the distance between them and kissed Enjolras gently on the lips.

Enjolras didn’t pull away, but let Courfeyrac kiss him. “Oh,” he said, some seconds afterward. “Is that so.”

“Yes, very much.” Courfeyrac looked at him. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Enjolras replied, mildly. “If you wanted to seduce me, you didn’t have to take me to dinner and a picnic first.”

“...oh.” Courfeyrac blinked, then grinned as he put his arms around Enjolras. “I didn’t?”

“You didn’t.” Enjolras kept a straight face. “Shall I continue to be graced with your company for the rest of the evening, then?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I live nearby,” Enjolras said, setting his books down in a pile on a nearby table.

“Mmm. We’ll go in a minute.” Courfeyrac kissed him again, and Enjolras didn't object to the delay in the slightest, readily giving into the kiss and into Courfeyrac's effusive warmth.

Valentine's Day Fest: Gift for bearit

2012-02-15T01:51:28Z

For: bearit
Story by: coloneldespard
Title: June Ghosts
Prompt: Enjolras/Grantaire, an afterlife

Grantaire wasn’t so much surprised by the form of his afterlife as much as he was by the fact that there was an afterlife at all. As a child, he’d been forced to sit through Mass and had been fascinated by a winding staircase that he’d peeked behind a heavily embroidered curtain to the side of the north transept. He’d imagined that was the priest’s secret passage to God, a means by which he could directly communicate with the Almighty for a private tête-à-tête. Finding the door unlocked one day and the woman who cleaned the church nowhere to be seen, he’d crept behind the curtain. Holding his breath, he’d made his way up the narrow stone stair, expecting it to wind on and on.

Instead he found himself, surprisingly quickly, in a small room that bore a resemblance to nothing so much as one of the attics in his home, a dusty storage area.

It seemed the best metaphor for the entire religious experience. Grantaire, when he died, had fully expected to go to exactly the same place a candle flame went when it winked out.

But Enjolras – well, Enjolras was different. Never mind that he eschewed formal religion, Enjolras was the stuff of which Catholic imagery was made of…a strange amalgam of Christ driving out the money lenders in the Temple and St Michael with his flaming sword. His own end he could care less about, but Enjolras’ end Grantaire could not begin to imagine. Not even when he’d woken in the second story of the Corinthe and looked across to see his idol in torn and bloody clothes, defiantly facing down a firing squad.

There had been a moment of sublime release, peace and completion when Enjolras had taken his hand with a smile. He hadn’t even heard the report of the guns, his eyes caught in those of a man whom, in the end, was his friend – just that slow, all encompassing smile and the pressure of his hand.

He would have been content to leave it there, but…well…here they were.

It was hard to explain, and even harder to puzzle out. He wondered sometimes if Enjolras knew more than he expressed, or if he, too, didn’t understand. One moment they’d been hand in hand before the guns, and then the next – this most unexpected sequel. He supposed it was a heaven of a sort, but not many people suggested paradise was coming back to awareness, sitting on the hill of Montmartre, looking down at the city where they could still see the flames, with Enjolras silent and thoughtful beside him, before both had begun to try to puzzle through their curious and unexpected situation.

They’d ascertained a few things very quickly, walking the streets, discovering the limits of their interactions with others and deciding it was not after all, a fantasy one or the other was having the moments before their life was blinked out, a heartbeat between the bullets and the impact as stretched into days, weeks, and finally years. They could neither be seen nor touched, nor could they touch others. They could move from place to place with thought, if they concentrated. There were large periods of time in which they seemed to cease to exist or to be, and then there they were again, together, and moving through their city, together.

And of the other Amis, there was not a sign.

Enjolras seemed calmer with this entire scenario than Grantaire could have imagined. This imposed passivity for a man who was, even at his most self-contained, the most forceful being Grantaire had ever encountered should have been a sort of ghastly hell, but as it was it seemed to be a tolerable purgatory. He still had Grantaire to talk with, and that worked out quite well. Much of that terrible dance they’d been locked in during their lives – or rather, that Grantaire was locked into, with Enjolras hardly an equal partner – might have been eased if they could have talked. If he could have reigned in his excesses and not only curbed his cynicism, but the self-hate that had nurtured it.

Still, purgatory seemed as good an explanation as any, as they had encountered neither choirs of angels nor the white light of Enjolras’ Supreme Being. But still Enjolras sought a purpose and a reason. He had died with the gleam of martyrdom in his eyes, as had his friends, confident of passing on the torch of their belief. But now here he was. And they were, apparently, nowhere.

“Perhaps we are ghosts,” he said to Grantaire quietly as they walked through the streets that bustled on with activity, oblivious to the dead of June. “Some would have it that’s what ghosts are – souls in purgatory. While this land holds the graves of those who have fought for the Republic of our ideals, France unfree will never be at peace.”

“Of all the Amis, you were the one who always had half a foot in the other world.” Grantaire spoke without mockery or irony. “And yet why are they gone, and you still here?”

“I do not know. But here we are, until we must learn or do what it is that we must, so that we too may have our peace.”

“I think you have earned your peace already.” Enjolras smiled at him.

“You, too. But here we are.” Enjolras clasped his hand again, and to his relief Grantaire could feel the touch. At least that much was real.

But France, unfree, continued. In 1834, the ghosts of June rose again on the scene of rue Transnonain massacre. They found themselves there, in one of those strange, drifting shifts of scenery. Forced to walk unheard amidst the bodies.

And again, and again it happened giving force to the old saying that if was summer in Paris there was a riot, and still Enjolras did not despair. “It will come,” he said, amidst the rubble of another emeute as the paving stones were washed of blood and re-laid. “If one rising is not enough, there will always be those who stand ready to commit a bolder deed, and yet another, until we are free.”

But there were times when they haunted these familiar scenes – familiar and yet not, as slowly the changes came with the years - and Grantaire knew that both missed their lost friends terribly. Where had they gone, those bright spirits? If Enjolras and Grantaire still trod the earth, what heaven could hold Courfeyrac? What part did he have in an unearthly paradise, being so utterly warm and earthy himself? What charms could a heaven hold compared to what he had loved in this world? And Combeferre…how could Combeferre be separate from Enjolras, even in death? Enjolras had told Grantaire of each of their deaths, and Grantaire, loving him so, could see that each was a laceration on his soul.

In February 1848 the people rose. Grantaire saw Enjolras atop a barricade, his hair seeming to be one with the winter sun, his eyes blending with the winter sky, and found that even in death he could fear losing him, consumed like a flame burning high with the revolution that swept the city. But Enjolras turned his blazing eyes on Grantaire, and never again would Grantaire doubt that wherever they went, they were going together.

Then came the bloody June days again, and he thought that these, at last, would break Enjolras’ heart. If not that, then surely the Second Empire that toppled the Second Republic. But still Enjolras held fast to hope. “If not now, then another time.” They still walked the streets, once again barred with the barricades of a desperate people, to see hundreds done to death by the men of General Magnan and Police Prefect Maupas, tools of the coup d'état.

He witnessed a remarkable scene at one of the barricades in Saint-Antoine. Enjolras, his face shadowed, had been gazing down at a young man who wore the bloodied smock of a worker. Grantaire knew that he was seeing, in this crushed and huddled for, the face of another young workingman who had fought on a barricade on another summer day. Even the red hair was the same as that of the fan-maker who had cried out for the universal rights of men, who had striven to educate himself with arduous hard-won learning, who had spoken passionately about the crimes against subjugated peoples in other nations, and who was long dead and possibly forgotten by every living man, but never by the ghost who now leaned over another bloodied form that called him to mind.

Then, to the surprise of both, the man opened eyes that were already unfocused with the approach of death, and looked directly at Enjolras.

“An angel…” he breathed.

Enjolras hesitated – even in these circumstances, his honesty prohibited a lie. So Grantaire, who had no such compunctions, intervened.

“Yes, an angel, come to see you home.”

Enjolras knelt beside the boy and put a hand on his brow.

“Be at peace. You have done valiantly and well.”

He died smiling.

Grantaire waited, wondering what he would see. In all the death they had witnessed, he had seen no souls that lingered as they did. The dead simply winked out of existence – or, if they continued, did so invisible to the two of them. In this case it was no different. One moment there, the next, gone, his half-open eyes empty.

There was more and worse to come. The Siege of Paris, when they saw their beautiful city survive with her spirit just barely intact, Napoleon le Petit, as Hugo had called him, having brought them into a humiliating war with Prussia. The Paris Commune, when Enjolras finally howled his grief and rage as thousands were rounded up and executed in the wake of the fall, his fury such that Grantaire was sure it must break through the glass wall that separated them from the living, and that he would wreak some divine retribution on those who lined up the Communards and gunned them down. It was a seemingly endless echo of their own deaths in the Corinthe, writ large. He could only hold Enjolras – hold him as he screamed his transcendent anger at the wholesale slaughter of Frenchmen and women at the hands of their own people. Grantaire had learned silence in the sober years since his death, not even trying to diminish by words the enormity of what they had witnessed.

And then, for a while, they drifted. Sometimes Grantaire thought they would simply fade out of existence altogether. Perhaps that was what ghosts did. If they didn’t achieve the resolution that freed them from their earthbound existence, perhaps they just finally dissipated with time, like morning mists as the day came. How many Ancient Romans still roamed the aqueducts and roads, after all? How many Bronze Age warriors? But sometimes they were still more present than at others, more aware of the world of the living, as the Third Republic lived out the dying days of the 19th Century and into the 20th. The Belle Époque blazed into life around them, but Enjolras was still more consumed with the injustices of the Dreyfus affair and the corruption that stained the Republic’s name. And then came the conflagration of the First World War, and the horror of shells falling in the middle of Paris. They saw the weary troops with their tales of mud and the muddle of incompetent leadership on the Western Front and a nation driven near exhaustion.

And then there was Hitler.

Not since the fall of the Paris Commune had he seen the mask of Enjolras’ stoicism slip so far. He watched in grief as Paris fell, as the Vichy government betrayed their own people, as French Police rounded up French Jews and send them to their deaths, and as their people clung desperately to the hope of freedom.
But Enjolras would not turn his head, and stood witness it all, with Grantaire at his side. More than ever, he embodied the spirit of his people, of the freedom they had fought so long and hard for.

“For all their faults,” Enjolras explained as they stood outside a dingy café, listening as its patrons sang the Marseilles in defiance of the invader and his lethal hand, “and all their mistakes – the wrong paths taken, the waste, the blood and groping in the dark – no one had fought harder for their freedom than the French. And through that struggle I hope we may be a light to others in the world who share our belief in the ultimate freedom and elevation of the human race. This century is not the happy one I thought it would be, Grantaire, but through all these years it has been affirmed to me that humanity will survive, and - not content to merely survive - we will always strive to be free.”

Grantaire found himself believing every word.

On the 21 October, 1945 they joined the milling throngs on the Champs-Élysées, celebrating the elections for the Constitutant Assembly that was to draft the constitution for the Fourth Republic. There was a sense of change in the air, a desire to renew the Republic. For the first time, suffrage had been extended to women.

“Combeferre would have been proud,” Grantaire said, eyeing a group of women who waved tricolours and sang the Marseilles in a joyous triumph that could not have been more different from the furtive defiance of the café goers more than two years before. “Is this it, do you think? Will this Fourth Republic be any more enduring than the others? Or are we due for an Empire again? I lose track.”

He would never quite get used to crowds now that he could not be really one of them – not to the feel of people who walked right through you. He pulled his Enjolras away from the throng a little way to a clear space – it was very disconcerting to be talking with him while someone’s right arm extended through his torso, waving a flag.

“I hope it will endure, but they must honestly address the beliefs that are central to those that we fought for. There are so many matters that need attention – how can it be that Algiers is still occupied? We opposed Charles X’s annexation of it to further his empire building ambitions, and yet it remains a French colony now, more than a century along.”

“But still you have hope?”

“Always.” And he smiled that same warm, encompassing smile that he had given Grantaire on June 6, 1832.

“There you are – at last!” The voice came from behind them, and Grantaire was aware of recognition, and with it, a wave of happiness that brought everything to a sharp focus that he hadn’t realised had been fuzzy around the edges, an immediacy that had been leaching from his consciousness – he knew it…knew that voice. It came from a long, long time ago, but in this strange state, it was no further than away than yesterday. He turned to see several figures emerging from the crowd. The man who had spoken had curling chestnut hair, a broad smile and green eyes that danced with humour and warmth.

“Couldn’t leave while the task was unfinished, could you?” Combeferre said…Combeferre with his gentle humour and kind expression, looking at them with a happiness that he could hardly contain. “Even if you couldn’t affect the outcome, you had to be here.”

“My friends,” was all Enjolras could manage.

And then they were around him – Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Prouvaire, Feuilly, Joly, Bossuet and Bahorel. Young, whole, and full of life and joy. So much themselves that it almost hurt, as if the feeling that swelled up in his chest was too much to contain and must overthrow him. They were embracing with all the generosity of spirit that he remembered – the liveliness that he had never believed even death could extinguish.

“You have been a long time lingering here, Combeferre continued. “But it is time now, my dear friend, to go. We’ve waited long enough.”

“The French Republic can get along without you looking over it,” Courfeyrac laughed.

“You too, Grantaire” said Bahorel, with that ringing good-humour that carried with it so many rich memories. “Although I suppose that doesn’t need to be said, does it – no separating you two now.”

And Enjolras turned and held a hand out to Grantaire, as he had once before.

“Shall we go then?”

Grantaire took his hand, smiled, and said lightly, “Seeing as you permit it…”

And Enjolras, still smiling, surrounded by their friends who embraced Grantaire warmly, pulled him forward into eternity.

Valentine's Day Fest: Gift for yet_intrepid

2012-02-15T01:43:00Z

For: yet_intrepid
Story by: bearit
Title: For Love
Prompt: "Something featuring Jehan and/or Marius being up in the air about love, the soul, infinity, and someone making references to the historical St. Valentine, maybe Combeferre discussing which one of the many the holiday is actually named for."

Author's note: I tried to get it as close as I could, though the fic admittedly took a sadder turn that what the prompter intended for which I apologize, among other things.

The poems referenced in the fic are Parlement of Foules by Geoffrey Chaucer and A Farewell to Love by Charles, Duke of Orleans.

Cosette knew that look on Marius’s face. She knew what thoughts played on his mind whenever he stared pensively into the fireplace. She knew the place he visited when his eyes did not focus on the dance of the flames but somewhere afar. She knew the memories that stirred when his hands folded tightly to his chin, knuckles white and fingers trembling. She knew that when his eyebrows furrowed and his pursed lips curved like that, his heart was breaking, and she knew that she must not leave the room.

And so Cosette went to his side. She gently took his hand. His eyes met hers, and he returned with a soft smile.

“Tomorrow is Saint Valentin,” he started simply. Cosette only nodded but said nothing. “I have told you about Jean Prouvaire?”

“Yes.”

“He loved this holiday. He recited poems: traditional ones, obscure ones, ones he had written himself. He helped me with one for you. At the time, I was still…” Marius shook his head. “I thought I had lost it, and I thought it for the better. But I found it tonight.”

His eyes darted to the small table beside the sofa. Cosette followed his gaze and saw the piece of paper, carefully folded but crinkled as though it had been gripped tightly. She dared not ask for it; though it might have once been intended for her, it was not hers. Not anymore. She gripped Marius’s hand tighter.

“Tell me more,” she asked.

Marius’s eyes shone of gratitude and happiness. Cosette could not help but smile. At least tonight, the memories he shared with her were fond ones.

“I was living with Courfeyrac at the time, and I thought your name was Ursula. The fact that the day was Saint Valentin escaped most of us, I think, but not Prouvaire. He remembered, and he wished to celebrate the day with us gaily.

“He began with a line from a poem. An old one. ‘For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.’ But it was not for the day in February, Prouvaire pointed out to us, for birds mate in the winter. But the beauty of celebrating love in a season so close and yet so distant from spring was to give proof that such a thing can blossom even in the snow, in the rain, as the leaves change color and fall, in miserable heat and in terrible cold. Perhaps birds do not mate in February, said Prouvaire. Perhaps they fell in love in February, and they mated in March and April, celebrating a beautiful, but short-lived, romance.

“No one interrupted him. Those who would were still engrossed in their political discussion, or either too drunk or too sober to find his voice. Only half their ears were trained on Prouvaire, but that did not faze him. So he continued. How did the next poem he recited to us go again? Oh, yes.

“‘I am already sick of love, my very gentle Valentine, since for me you were born too soon, and I for you was born too late. God forgives he who has estranged me from you for the whole year. Well might I have suspected that such a destiny thus would have happened this day. How much that Love would have commanded…’”

Marius trailed off and sheepishly shook his head. “Forgive me, Cosette, I cannot remember it properly. But it was in that moment that Prouvaire looked upon me and declared that he should help me write you a Valentine. For my agony gave my romance beauty, for there is little worse than agony born of love found and lost before it could even be returned, but there is little more beautiful than happiness born of such an agony. And so, for this Saint Valentin, he proclaimed, he would help me profess my love to you.

“For Prouvaire, I suspect the task should not have been as difficult as it was, but the others helped little. Everyone wanted a say. Courfeyrac was especially unhelpful.

“Grantaire, even, had found his voice and chimed in, and though his words were contrary to the others Prouvaire could tell that I wanted to find the truth in them. And so he stirred up a poem of his own, each word written as he spoke, though not on paper. Not on that night, and that is a failing not only upon us but for the whole of France. I can only paraphrase it for you, Cosette, and it shames me that I cannot do more than that for him.

“Love may be painful, but it a pain that gives our souls strength. For it is out of love, both shared and unrequited, that gives us the courage to do deeds that we were too cowardly to do before. Love is the light in the darkness to help us carry on when we cannot find a reason to. And love is enough, for it may slip away from us, but it is never truly gone. It is a spark that cannot truly die, and it is the only thing in the world that can survive us.

“That is why Saint Valentin is a day to be celebrated, said Prouvaire. It does not matter if you are wed, or if you are in love, or if you are seeking it, or if you claim to have no interest in it. Love must always be celebrated, and it is wonderful that there is a day set aside for especially that.”

Marius fell silent. Cosette knew, though, that the memory was not yet over. She gently caressed his hand to remind him that she was still here and that she would not leave, and that she would stay so that he did not become lost in the past.

Then Marius continued, “It was when Prouvaire talked about the Roman emperor Claudius II and his banishment of marriage that Combeferre became distracted from his conversation with Enjolras and spoke to us the many legends surrounding the holiday. He confirmed Prouvaire’s tale of the martyr Valentine, put to death for performing secret marriages between young men and women in spite of Claudius’s decree. He spoke of another man named Valentine, who helped prisoners escape the torture of Roman prisons. Another tale suggests that Valentine was a prisoner himself and fell in love with the daughter of his captor. All of these men named Valentine died for what they believed in. And what they believed in, Prouvaire pointed out, was love.

“It is nothing extraordinary to die for love, I realized. It has happened since the dawn of civilization, perhaps even before that. It continues even today and will continue into eternity. And yet, as I murmured this, I met Prouvaire’s eyes and knew, and wholeheartedly agreed: it was because it was nothing extraordinary that it was the most extraordinary thing of all, to die for love. Love is selfish and selfless all at once, but dying for it makes it the most selfless act of all.

“And it is they—Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Prouvaire, and everyone—who made me realize in the months to come that it is not only limited to the love one shares with another. To die for the love of country, of people, of ideals and of beliefs… if you die for love and with love in your heart, you have died a worthy death.”

Marius eyes fell to his lap. His mind no longer held the images of a time not too long ago, and his heart was now filled with a longing sadness. Cosette moved closer to him and rested her head upon his shoulder, both of her hands grasping both of his. She held tight, and he even tighter.

They stayed silent for a while. Then Cosette’s eyes traveled to the folded paper on the table, and she imagined all that transpired after Marius had written what Prouvaire and the others so earnestly assisted him with. Were the wrinkles in the paper from Marius holding the Valentine too closely to his chest as he walked home that night? Or were they from his friends as they playfully teased and read what Marius had written? Did the others write their own notes to the women in their lives? Did Prouvaire write poetry that night beyond what he had recited to the others? Or maybe, just maybe, he had remembered what he had said and had promptly returned home to transcribe it for prosperity’s sake.

How many of the words on that note on the table were from Marius himself? Perhaps she could find traces of Prouvaire in them. Of Combeferre, of Courfeyrac, even of Enjolras. Would Joly, Laigle, Bahorel, Feuilly, and Grantaire be present? She could not see why not. They must have had plenty of words to offer Marius themselves.

And yet, she still did not bring herself to ask Marius to read it. It was once intended for her, but if his friends existed in every word written on that page, that Valentine was now for Marius from the Friends of the ABC.

So Cosette smiled. As she lifted her head from Marius’s shoulder, she gently suggested, “Perhaps tomorrow we can visit them. And tonight, I can help you compose a Valentine for them.”

Marius turned to Cosette, his eyes searching hers for a moment, and then he kissed her.

The Valentine that was placed on the headstone of Jean Prouvaire the next morning was addressed to all of them at once and each of them individually. And Cosette made absolutely certain that every single last word came directly from Marius’s heart.

Valentine's Day Fest: Gift for tcregan

2012-02-15T01:40:05Z

For: tcregan
Story by: yet_intrepid
Title: The Letter
Prompt: Someone from Grantaire's past returns and wants to claim him as their Valentine.

The porter pressed a letter into Grantaire’s hand as he came into the building late at night and started up the stairs to his flat. A letter? Really?

He never got letters. Who was there to send them? All his friends were in Paris and he saw them frequently enough that they would have no need to write—not anything more than a scribbled note, anyway. He unlocked his door and dropped the letter on the table. As he turned to sprawl on the couch, he did a double-take and recognized the handwriting.

He’d always noticed types of handwriting. When he was young, he’d think of it as a measure of how much art there was in a person. And there was no art in this writing, which was almost just like his father’s.

His brother Philippe? No, he must be imagining it. But he was hardly drunk at all tonight—funds were tight lately and everyone had been too busy with serious matters to ask him to share a bottle, so he’d taken his few glasses slowly and watched Enjolras as an alternate form of escaping his own thoughts. Which meant, unfortunately, that his perceptions were clear—this really had to be Philippe’s writing. He picked up the letter from the table again and took it over to the couch, wishing he were drunk.

My dear brother:

He snorted. Dear brother, indeed—dear brother that you’ve neither seen nor written to in five years? I’m very dear to you, I’m sure.

I have the misfortunate necessity of going to Paris for business at the end of this week.

Another snort, and Grantaire mentally gave his brother mocking pat on the head. Poor, poor Philippe, having to enter the den of corruption and iniquity that is Paris! Be careful or you’ll dirty your shoes by walking on the same streets as prostitutes—

Although I am most reluctant to impose, I must call upon you for a favor.

He froze. Don’t ask to stay with me, Philippe—there’s no way in hell, because I swear I’ll take myself there before I let you come in this flat and rail about the mess and the alcohol and the disgusting perversions of my life. I’ll lock you out in the rain, at night, in danger of thieves and murderers, and not feel a modicum of pity—

You remember, I am sure, that before Marie-Celeste passed she gave me a daughter…

A daughter. Yes, and you mention it because? He read on warily.

…whose current governess is an condemnable failure and has allowed her to live wildly. Because of this, I cannot leave the girl alone with her, nor can I procure any governess who is willing to take on a ward already spoiled by such bad rearing. Our relatives also refuse to temporarily take her in, and it would be most inappropriate for a girl of her class and family to be left solely to the care of servants. Because of these regrettable constraints, I must bring her with me to Paris, and this leads to my request.

No. No, no, no; God, no. Hell no. He tossed the letter onto the couch and got up, rushing desperately to the cupboard. Yes, there were the reserves of a bottle, thanks be to Bacchus, and further praise be, it was absinthe. He drained the inch or so of liquid left in the bottom—hardly anything, but the familiarity of the taste was enough to calm him a bit.

He pulled a chair out from the table and dropped into it. Hands moving nervously up and down the empty bottle, he tried to think. Philippe was coming to Paris and wanted to inform him of the fact; that was bad enough. Philippe wanted something from him; that was worse. But Philippe would ask him to look after a child? As a more reliable alternative than a questionable governess? That was simply…unfathomable.

He dropped the bottle to let his head fall into his hands and began to laugh. There was nothing to do but laugh; this must be one of his most ludicrous hallucinations yet, and all the more frightening for how sensible it was at the same time…

His laughter broke off abruptly and he hurried over to pick up the letter again. The paper was real enough.

…and this leads to my request. I have no choice but to put my daughter in your hands for the day of Thursday 14 February, for I will be occupied entirely with my work on that day. We will arrive in Paris on Wednesday evening and leave again on Friday morning, barring some unforeseen circumstance that would necessitate a longer stay. I will contact you when we arrive in the city in order to settle the time at which you will need to take her into your charge.

Sincerely,

Your brother,

Philippe Grantaire.

Arriving Wednesday evening? But it was already Monday night—they’d have already set out! There was no way to contact them, no way to say no…

With a groan, he shoved the letter in his pocket and headed out—low on money or not, he needed a drink.

The next two days were a flurry of confusion in which he alternated between resolving to make a good show of it and resolving to scare Philippe away however he possibly could. The first manifested in cleaning the flat, reducing his drinks, and even digging out old art supplies to make himself look like a respectable bohemian. The second caused him to make a disaster of his living quarters again, buy bottle after bottle, and do a shoddy job of painting and sketching alarming scenes to be left sitting around.

When the expected note came on Wednesday night, he was in the latter state, and Philippe’s words threatened to drive him more deeply into it—he promised to drop off the girl at Grantaire’s flat at seven the next morning, and to retrieve her by nine at night. Fourteen hours seemed an unbearably long time, and Grantaire moodily plunked down at the table to draw Scylla eating Odysseus’ men. But in the middle of detailing the third of the monster’s six heads, he suddenly crumpled up the paper, drained the glass before him for fortitude, and got up to make things presentable. There was nothing for it—if he looked dissolute, he’d be bombarded with lectures, and probably moralistic letters even after Philippe went away, and it was best to let his brother go on believing that he was a decent if careless fellow who was still planning to make something of himself in the world of art. He threw away the dark drawings and stuck the half-finished painting inside his wardrobe, then dragged out some old things of his that were more presentable and tried to think of where he’d put them if he were proud of them. A mostly-finished sketch of Cupid and Psyche that he’d given up on six months ago would do for a work-in-progress...hmm, he could hang up that old painting of Penelope at her loom. He hated it with a passion, from subject to composition to memories of the process attached—somebody had commissioned it and then rejected the finished project—but it looked respectable and Philippe knew nowhere near enough about art to realize all the problems it had. Grantaire consoled himself with the prospect of destroying it once it had served its purpose.

All the bottles could be stashed in the cupboard, the dirty clothes shut in the wardrobe or shoved under the bed. He arranged a couple of objects on the table and started the bare bones of a still life, dragged out a few old textbooks and scattered them around. Opened the anatomy one to a diagram and put pieces of paper on top of the opposite side of the page as if intending to start an exercise.

Well past midnight, he decided he’d done a decent job of the studied disorder and, after consoling and congratulating himself with a drink, went to bed for a few hours of troubled sleep.

He woke not long before six, dragged himself up, dressed, ate something, scribbled aimlessly on the still life. The minutes moved slowly, and his head pounded. It wasn’t long before he decided to just go back to sleep for another half-hour—just as sleep came, however, he was startled awake by the realization that he didn’t remember his niece’s name. This panicked him for several minutes before drowsiness washed over him again, this time overwhelmingly, and he passed out face down on the mattress.

The knock, when it came, was startlingly loud. Instantly aware, Grantaire sat up, and dread flooded him. As he reluctantly hurried to answer the door, he straightened a few things, mindful of the picture he desired to present to his brother.

Feeling rather dazed, he pulled the door open. Philippe…yes, he looked the same as ever, still formal and dour. Beside him was a girl of eight, her face arranged in a stony pout.

“Hello,” said Grantaire lamely.

“Hello,” said Philippe, and he brought his daughter in. After casting a look around the flat, he tilted her chin up to make her look at him. “Now, you understand what will happen if you don’t behave yourself for your uncle.”

She met his gaze with clear annoyance. “Yes, Papa.”

“Good.” He addressed himself to Grantaire. “I’ll return, as I said, around nine. She’s already had breakfast.”

Grantaire nodded.

“I see you’re still following the path of art.” Philippe shook his head with a condescending mixture of pity and disdain. “Well, I suppose if that’s the most worthwhile thing you’re capable of, then it’s for the best.”

Grantaire just lifted his eyebrows.

Philippe gave his daughter a rather forced smile. “Goodbye, Veronique.”

She folded her arms and didn’t answer.

“Veronique, I said goodbye.”

She glanced up to show him her pressed-shut lips.

“Veronique!” But it was obvious he would get no polite farewell, so with a nod to his brother, Philippe went out and shut the door emphatically behind him.

Grantaire stared at the door for a long moment before he remembered with a start that Veronique was standing behind him. When he turned slowly towards her, he found that she was looking him over with a distrustful air.

“Well,” he said, “Veronique—”

“My name is not Veronique.”

“It’s not?”

She shook her head adamantly. “It’s a stupid name.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “All right. What is your name, then?”

“Verrou.”

“Verrou?” He couldn’t repress surprise. “Like a lock?”

“Lucile, Lilou. Marguerite, Margot. Veronique, Verrou. Since I have to be named Veronique. I didn’t get to pick.”

A strange liking was already growing in him for this child, he realized. “I didn’t get to pick either,” he confided. “I dislike my name enough that I don’t even tell it to people anymore.”

For the first time, something more open and childlike came into her face. “Really? What do they call you, then? Papa says I should call you Uncle, but you’re not everybody’s uncle.”

“Just Grantaire.”

“But I can’t call you that!” she protested. “It’s my name, and Papa’s name, and lots of other people’s names too.”

He shrugged. “Well, you can pick what you want to call me, then. And you’re Verrou? Or would you rather be something that doesn’t come from Veronique at all?”

She considered. “Can I really? I can be whatever name I want?”

Another shrug. “Unless you really want me to call you a lock.”

“Not really. I just picked it because it was less stupid than Veronique, and my governess wouldn’t let me change my name all the way. And she told me that just Ver didn’t work either, because it was a word for worm.” She gave a long-suffering sigh at the mention of this. “But you’ll let me? You won’t tell papa? He’d probably take away my toys like he does when I’m too mis-chiev-ous, but that just makes me want to be mis-chiev-ous more because I don’t have anything to do.”

He remembered his father using the mentioned punishment, although in a different variation—good marks in mathematics, or his art supplies would be locked away. It had never correctly motivated him either. “Yeah, any name you want. I don’t tell on people.”

She gave a grudgingly appreciative smile at this, and fell into deep contemplation. To avoid staring at her, he sat down at the table and studied Cupid and Psyche. When he looked up, she was at his elbow.

“Who’s that?” She pointed.

“Oh, him? Cupid.”

She considered this. “Did you know it’s Saint Valentine’s day?”

He cocked an eyebrow at the switch. “No.”

“He goes with Saint Valentine’s day, you know. Mlle. Gilbert—that’s my governess—says so, and her sweetheart told her it. That’s not why you drew him? You’re good at drawing. Who’s that girl?”

“Psyche.”

“Call me that. I like Saint Valentine’s Day, and I need you to like it with me, because Papa never does. I don’t even ask him anymore. Does Psy-che go with Saint Valentine’s day?”

He decided to humor her. “Sure. I can call you Psyche.”

“And you Cupid? You said I could pick, you know.”

Cupid. Him, Grantaire, as Cupid? He changed the subject. “You really should get out of your coat now that you’re inside.”

She did, but wasn’t tricked. As she set her coat on the table, her glance was accusing. “Can I? Or didn’t you mean it?”

“Of course I meant it,” he grumbled.

She grinned. “Good. So if I’m her, and you’re him, you have to be my Valentine!”

He very nearly slumped over the table at this. Fourteen hours with a child was overwhelming enough, but fourteen hours with a child who was demanding him as a Valentine? This was impossible. Surely he was dreaming, hallucinating, something. “Lethe,” he muttered, “let me drown in your sweet streams.”

When he finally looked up, she was sitting across from him at the table and staring. “Can I take my bow off?”

“What?”

“My hairbow.” And he noticed only then that she was wearing a hairbow easily the size of her head.

“Don’t see why not.”

She ripped out of her hair and threw it on the floor. “I hate bows. But I don’t think I’d hate them so much if Papa didn’t make me wear them all the time. —Do you have some other Valentine? Is that why you don’t want to be mine?”

A hundred answers rushed into his mind, all of them too complicated for him to bother explaining. “No.”

She bit her lip, which he realized was trembling. “Then why?”

And as he looked at her, light brown curls now falling messily around her face, an emotion came over him that he could neither understand nor deny, and he smiled. Words that he could hardly believe he was saying came from his mouth. “You shouldn’t worry, Psyche—I’m happy to be your Valentine. Should I make you a picture for a present?”

Her eyes widened. “Would you? Can—can I make you one too?”

“Yes.” He dug out paper and pencils and some of his old paints in case she wanted them, and sat down—next to her this time—to sketch her face as she bent diligently over her paper.

Her resultant creation (dedicated in messy handwriting to “Uncle Cupid”) was no masterpiece even for her age, but he kept it always, along with the memory of her smile when he gave her the picture of herself, and of the feel of her childish lips on his cheek when they said goodbye that night.

Valentine's Day Fest: Gift for innocent_trees

2012-02-15T01:30:59Z

For: innocent_trees
Story by: niliwen
Title: Each Other's Worlds
Prompt: "Enjolras/Combeferre established relationship, please!"

Each Other’s Worlds

“Combeferre, how do you ever understand those things?”

The bespectacled medical student looked up from the forbidding tome of anatomy diagrams he had on his desk. “With a little bit of effort,” Combeferre replied, glancing at the blond young man who had seemingly materialized near his desk. “I didn’t even hear him come in,” Combeferre thought bemusedly. Then again, this certainly wasn’t the first time that he and Enjolras had to tiptoe around each other’s attempts to pass whatever exams they would be taking in the upcoming week.

He watched as Enjolras found his own seat elsewhere in the room, just right by the window. Now that was one thing Combeferre could never understand about Enjolras. When there were so many places for someone to set down the detritus of the day, to read books, or to simply stare into space, Enjolras always preferred the window, sometimes even resting his books on the sill. He always said that he liked the extra light. “But of course his eyes are better than mine,” Combeferre mused. Perhaps Enjolras preferred to see other things beyond the burdensome law books he often brought up to this room in the hours before the meetings at the Musain.

He looked up again at the sound of chair legs scraping the floor. “Something the matter?” he asked congenially.

Enjolras shook his head as he stood up and crossed the room. “I only need my notes.” His pale brow wrinkled when he caught sight again of Combeferre’s study table.

It was all that the dark-haired student could do to keep a straight face at Enjolras’ perplexed expression. “Anatomy is not as baffling as it seems---especially since it can be related to one’s own experiences,” he said. In his mind, it definitely was a lot less abstract than the statutes and precedents that cluttered Enjolras’ days.

Enjolras merely nodded as he picked up some papers. “I have seen many...unnerving things, but I cannot imagine myself being at operations and procedures the way you medical students do,” he remarked, his tone somewhere between wry amusement and unease.

“Each to his own.” Combeferre rubbed the tops of his spectacles before moving his chair to the side of the desk.

Enjolras nodded before dragging his own chair up so that he and Combeferre were seated next to each other. “So will you be going to the meeting later?”

The older student gestured to his books. “If I can give my father some proof that I am indeed, here in Paris to study.”

“Still the same struggle, I see?” Enjolras asked.

Combeferre nodded bitterly, wishing he could say otherwise. He risked a caress to Enjolras’ hand. “Soon, I will make it up to you and the others. I’ll even help with writing the newsletter again.”

Enjolras’ lips quirked upwards in a smile. “When?”

“As soon as exams are done.”

“I’ll be counting on it.” His hand clasped Combeferre’s so lightly such that if the medical student didn’t know better, he might have thought he imagined it. “I know you’ll keep your promise.”

Combeferre managed a smile. “I will,” he said. It took all he could not to add the words, ‘for you’ as well.

--

Sometimes, on nights when he had nothing but his books for company, Combeferre could not help but wonder how life would be if he and Enjolras had stayed in Aix, like they had originally planned to. It was easy for Combeferre to sketch out the road he had not taken: running his father’s estate, perhaps doing some philanthropy by putting up an orphanage or feeding the hungry in the town. It would have been a comforting, if not safe existence, a manifestation of the peace he hoped to earn someday.

Yet try as he may, he could not imagine Enjolras fitting in this idyll. There seemed to be no place for such radiance other than the foment s and chaos where it was needed the most.

“No wonder it was his father’s idea that we go to Paris, together,” Combeferre thought wryly as he turned another page in his anatomy book. Some people had dismissed this decision as Antoine Enjolras the elder wishing to recapture some of the glories of his youth in Paris, during that year 1789. Others had decried it as folly, warning the aged landowner that this move would bring nothing but ruin to his only child. In the end, it was decided that Francois, the eldest son of the Combeferre clan would accompany young Antoine to Paris, to serve as a ‘tempering sort of influence’, to turn his friend more towards learning something practical and less to pondering social questions.

But of course, Combeferre mused, no one thought that he himself would have leanings towards other things besides looking up every single bird and plant he read about. More importantly, no one knew that Enjolras would have such a hold on him, in fact practically on his heart and soul. “So much now that I cannot declare such love for ideals and Patria the way he would,” he decided. At least he could not say it truthfully. Learning and Medicine were demanding, if not spiteful mistresses, but Combeferre knew that he could set them aside for a moment if he was called to do so.

He rubbed the tops of his spectacles as he went to the window where Enjolras liked to sit at. “What more do you see here?” he wondered silently. Outside were the streets---narrow enough for barricades, yet perhaps not wide enough for what they hoped would follow in the wake of such tumult. “An odd way to cause miasma,” he mused as a hand went to his aching temples.

A knock sounded on the door. “Combeferre, are you still awake? Francois?” Enjolras’ voice asked.

Combeferre looked up on hearing his Christian name. “The door is open.” This time he saw Enjolras clearly as he entered the room. “How was the meeting?”

“It could have been better,” Enjolras replied, tossing something onto Combeferre’s desk. In the dim candlelight, the vivid crimson smears on his knuckles and lower lip seemed to leap out. In addition to this, cravat was somehow missing, and his hat was askew.

Immediately the pounding in Combeferre’s head dissipated. “What happened?” he asked, immediately going to where he kept his supplies for dressing wounds and other minor injuries. “Was the meeting---“

“Broken up? Yes,” Enjolras replied. “Bahorel was pretty sure that someone there had been in the pay of Gisquet. We’re not sure exactly who.”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Combeferre said, finding the cleanest cloth to bandage Enjolras’ knuckles with. “Now hold still...”

“I can bandage up my own wounds myself,” Enjolras said in mock protest. Still, he did not move away when Combeferre began his ministrations. “I got you another copy of a newsletter from the Société des Amis du Peuple,” he said after a while.

Combeferre smiled, realizing now what Enjolras had put on his bed. “A copy of their latest manifesto against the latest round of detentions?”

“Of course. One that we must support,” Enjolras said. “I know that some of our members insist that we should have been the authors of it, but despite this, it is not our place to denigrate the efforts of our brothers-in-arms.”

“I imagine you must have bruised a few egos by reminding our friends of this fact,” Combeferre said with a chuckle.

“I was in the very act of it when the police came in and interrupted the proceedings,” Enjolras replied. He hissed as Combeferre wiped away some grime from his wounded knuckles. “I fear that we may have to pay the bail for some of the workingmen who were apprehended....”

“How will---“ Combeferre began, his eyes already going to the drawer where he kept some of his funds for his books.

Enjolras caught the older man’s gaze and shook his head. “You keep your books. I have enough from my allowance,” he said solemnly. “I do not wish for you to compromise your studies.”

“No, let me,” Combeferre said insistently. “It’s the least I could do, after not being able to be of much help lately.”

“There will come a time for that,” Enjolras replied, He ran his long fingers over Combeferre’s hands. “For now, do what you have to do.”

“Lest my father summon me home to Aix,” Combeferre remarked wryly.

“That being something I fear very much,” Enjolras said. “You know that I can hardly spare you, or bear to have you so far away.”

“Especially now when there is so much to be done for the societies and for the people,” Combeferre replied, securing the last turn on the bandage on Enjolras’ knuckles.

Enjolras’ smile reached his eyes as he met Combeferre’s gaze. “You know that this is not my only reason.”

Combeferre returned Enjolras’ smile. “I’m glad to hear it.” It was all he could do not to keep counting down till the day that he could one day rejoin Enjolras in the world they longed so dearly to see.

Valentine's Day Fest: Gift For niliwen

2012-02-15T01:25:10Z

For: niliwen
Story by: tcregan
Prompt: "Anything involving the Amis, but preferably Combeferre, Jehan, or
Enjolras. Preferably along the lines of fluff"

The garish rainbow of color hit his senses like an out of control omnibus. Only it didn’t stop there, it proceeded to back up over him, then hit him once more. The back room of the Musain was completely transformed. Thin tissue paper in all shades of pink and red, little hearts cut out of paper, portraits of lovers hung on the walls. The sensation was like stepping into a field of nothing but wildflowers that had been grown purposely to alight the romantic side of a person. And Combeferre couldn’t help but feel the exact opposite.

Brushing a few pieces of heart-shaped confetti from his shoulder, he waded into the room, avoiding the strung up strips of colored paper and set his books down on the table near the lamp, which had also been covered – somewhat hazardously, he thought – in pink tissue paper. The door to the hall opened and Jehan flounced in, wearing similar shades upon his person, carrying even more decorations. When he saw Combeferre, his eyes widened and he broke into a smile.

“Combeferre! How do you like my celebratory decorations?”

Combeferre was too stunned to speak. He should have known. When he’d given his permission for Jehan to ‘lighten the mood’ of the Musain’s back room for the upcoming holiday, he thought perhaps the poet would add more candles. Or write out poetry for the others to leave. And there was poetry, he noticed, now looking at the walls a little more closely. Poetry written in long, sweeping paint strokes reaching from ceiling to floor. Louison would have a fit if she saw that. Gritting his teeth, he swept off more confetti from the chair and sat down heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Jehan…”

“You don’t have to say anything. They’re wonderful, aren’t they?”

Combeferre didn’t have the heart to tell him that no one would appreciate this. That he was likely to be laughed at. That the others would be annoyed or amused, but not pleased. He tried to think of words that would help explain, and instead simply nodded dumbly. Anything he said against the new décor would surely be taken the wrong way and Jehan’s feelings would be hurt. Combeferre had no desire to wound the poet or his fragile heart in such a way, so he simply sighed and opened his book.

“Perhaps the paper around the light is much,” Combeferre said quietly. “It’s awfully dark.”

“No worries!” And with that, Jehan placed a heart-shaped candle on the table. “I had them specially made for the occasion. There’s a dozen more just like it. And not all in one color, either!”

Combeferre looked at the candle. It shed enough light for him to see his book properly, taking away any other valid complaints he might have had regarding the lamp. Except, of course, the fire hazard. But Jehan was humming now, hanging even more decorations and spreading more of the heart-shaped confetti. With another sigh, Combeferre turned the page.

The back door opened some minutes later. The others came in from the cold, talking and laughing. Bahorel, the loudest of them all, was the first inside the room. He stopped, and Joly ran into him.

“Bahorel, be careful, I almost-“

And the talk died instantly as the other filtered in, taking in the sight that was the Musain’s back room. Combeferre, though not responsible for the gaudy ornamentation, felt a burning embarrassment in his cheeks. He slumped in his chair and pulled the book up to his face to hide the blush. From behind his safety net, he recognized Bahorel’s deep, rumbling laugh.

“What?” he roared. “What is this!”

Jehan turned, flicking his soft brown hair behind his shoulder and smiled. “It’s for St. Valentine’s Day! The decorations are very popular in America!”

Bahorel walked over to the wall and poked a strand of paper. It fell to the floor. Jehan frowned.

“Don’t do that! It took me all day to put these up.”

“They’re hideous.”

“No they’re not!” Jehan protested, moving to string the paper back up. “They’re festive.”

“They might be that,” said Joly, who was frowning. “But they are a bit…”

“No, they’re hideous,” Bossuet confirmed, which earned him an elbow to the ribs from Joly.

Feuilly set his bag down on a table and tried a different tactic. “They’re not hideous, they’re just a bit… distracting.”

“A fly in the room is a bit distracting,” Bahorel said, sitting down. He put his feet up, knocking over an unlit heart-shaped candle. “This is more like someone let loose a herd of wild elephants.”

Bossuet joined in the laughter while Joly chastised him. Feuilly was frowning, but Combeferre noticed Jehan. He looked about to cry. Holding his head up though, he stated firmly, “I like them.”

“Well of COURSE you would,” said Bahorel, lacing his hands behind his head. “You have no taste. One would think you’re completely colorblind.”

Without another word, Jehan departed, leaving behind the pile of decorations he’d yet to hang up. Combeferre shut his book. With a disapproving glare at Bahorel, he took off after Jehan.

“You went too far,” Feuilly said with a frown.

Bahorel at least had the decency to look abashed. “I didn’t mean anything by it. And the decorations are-“

“Jehan’s,” Joly said firmly. “And they’re not harming anyone.”

Bahorel sighed and stood up. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“No,” said Feuilly. “You’ve done enough. Let Combeferre handle it. In the meantime, help me with this paper.”

-

Combeferre caught up to Jehan some ways down the street. His longer legs put him at a better advantage and he gripped Jehan by the arm. Jehan tried to pull away, but Combeferre held fast.

“Listen to me.”

“No,” said Jehan, his voice wavering. “No. I won’t. You all think it’s silly. You make fun of me, the way I talk, the way I dress. And now my beautiful decorations. Well I won’t stand for it. I’ll not come to the café any more to offend your eyes with my style!”

“I love your style.”

Jehan turned, his soft brown eyes watery, but glistening in the twilight. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I’m saying it to make you feel better. But I’m not just saying it,” Combeferre said, gently cupping his cheek. “I admire the way you walk around with your out of fashion clothing, the mixed matched waistcoats and cravats. Those odd, old hats. Your burnt orange trousers.”

Jehan sniffed, but smiled. “You like those?”

“They’re my favorite pair, in fact,” Combeferre said. “I admire you for that because it takes a certain kind of bravery to go against what’s considered normal. Bahorel? Who is he? He buys the same outfit until he wears it out, then gets another in the same color. He has no taste, no sense of flair. You are dramatic and intrepid. Maybe not a trendsetter, but that’s what I adore about you. You never care what others think or say or do, you just are. You are Jehan.”

The words came more easily to him than he thought they would. An admission of sorts. He’d always looked up to the younger man, envied the way he went about without caring of others’ opinions. Combeferre always maintained a certain style of dress, a certain manner of hairstyle, and always remembered what proper etiquette was. Jehan was above all that, or perhaps more accurately, he was to the side of that. He walked no line, and Combeferre found himself drawn to the young poet.

Which was why he was leaning forward now, tilting his head down, capturing Jehan’s lips with his own, eyes closing with the sensation. For a moment, there was no reaction and he nearly pulled back, heart racing, fear rising, thinking perhaps Jehan would pull away and call him horrible names. And then suddenly Jehan was kissing back, arms wrapping around his neck and holding him in place. Jehan was obviously a practiced kisser, and Combeferre, while no stranger to the affection, was slightly inexperienced. It took them a moment to figure out how to tilt their heads just so, avoiding noses and Combeferre’s glasses. Within a few seconds, however, it became blissful. A slow, hot, sensual meeting of lips and tongues. Jehan’s fingers running through his hair, holding him in place.

What felt like ages later, and yet too soon for Combeferre, Jehan pulled away, smiling shyly. He blushed, looking down, hands now on Combeferre’s chest, fingers playing with the lapel of his waistcoat. Combeferre held him loosely by the waist.

“Talk to me,” Combeferre whispered, not daring to speak louder.

“Oh my dear Combeferre,” Jehan said, looking up. His eyes were soft still, but with no trace of tears. And Combeferre noticed, they still sparkled, shining brightly. “You are wonderful at flattery.”

This wasn’t what Combeferre was expecting, but at least Jehan was smiling. “Thank you. I think. Are you… feeling better?”

Jehan nodded, leaned up, and brushed his lips against Combeferre’s once more. “How long have you wanted to kiss me?”

Combeferre blushed. “I… Ages,” he admitted.

“Then I should have to thank Bahorel for causing me such distress.”

“Why?”

Jehan leaned up on tiptoe, wrapping his arms around Combeferre’s shoulder. He pressed his lips to Combeferre’s ear and whispered, “Because it has been ages for me as well.”

They drew together for another kiss and Combeferre made a mental note to send Bahorel an extra box of chocolates for St. Valentine’s Day this year.

Valentine's Day: Signups Closed, Assignments sent!

2012-01-26T18:27:03Z

Hello, all!

The first fest's signups are NOW CLOSED. Everyone who signed up should have received an e-mail with their assignment. If you did NOT receive an assignment, let me know right here.

Any questions, respond to the e-mail or post them here! :)

Fest #1: Valentine's Day

2012-01-15T21:35:53Z

Yay, the first fest! *throws confetti*

SIGN UP POST:

COMMENT to this post if you wish to join the fest. ALL COMMENTS are screened. Copy/paste the form into a new comment and fill out all portions. If you are not a livejournal member, include your preferred alias.

RULES:
Everyone who signs up will have to create one fanwork of their choice for another participant. You will fill out the form below, indicating what you're willing to write/draw, and what you'd most like to see. Keep your prompts within the Valentine's Day theme, please! Your prompts can be as simple as a character or two or three you'd like to see, or a little more complex such as pairings and situations. Please be sure you will be able to meet the deadline before signing up. Also, when prompting, try to keep it relatively simple as you're looking at a 1500-word fic, not a 15,000 word novelette. ;)

TIMELINE:
January 15-January 25: Signups are open!
January 26: This post will be closed to further comments and everyone will be given a prompt from a fellow participant to work with.
10 February: This is the deadline to drop out. As I said above, don't sign up if you don't think you'll be able to finish on time, but everyone knows things come up. If something DOES come up in between your signup and the 10th of February, let me know so I can make sure your recipient will get something.
13 February: DUE DATE for all works
14 February: Works will be posted!

Essentially you will have 18-19 days in which to write/draw. Because of the very short length of time, requirements are going to be on the minimal side. For fanfiction, your wordcount must be ~1500 words or more. No drabbles or short ficlets unless you do multiple drabbles/ficlets to add up to the ~1500 minimum. For fanart, choose something that you think would be an appropriate equivalent to a 1500-word story in your own mind, in terms of time and effort put in.

When filling out the form, please keep in mind that if you say you are willing to write anything whatsoever, that means anything, so make sure if you are (for instance!) not willing to write BDSM porn, that you indicate thus. I don't expect anything too far into the realm of bizarre, but you never know. Of course, if you're the adventurous type who's willing to try anything, go for it. Also, if there's something else you need to add (for example, you will be out of town at the deadline and will need to submit early), just add it at the end of the form.

SIGN UP FORM:
Your name: [lj-name and/or alias]
Your e-mail address: [This is where you will receive your prompt assignment, so make sure you check it.]
Your prompt: [What do you want someone to write/draw for you?]
Your gift: [What are you willing or not willing to write/draw?]
If necessary, can you be called on to write a second story in case someone else has to drop out? [YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SAY YES. I just want to cover my bases in case something happens.]

Feel free to link this post and community to your friends. The more the merrier! Don't forget to keep an eye on the comm, as well: our first non-fest prompt will be coming in the next few weeks, likely after the signup deadline has passed, so if you miss this fest you won't have long to wait for the next round of fun!

Welcome!

2012-01-15T05:33:28Z

This community was created in order to set up ficfests for the Les Misérables fandom.

There will be prompts posted, where stories fitting that prompt may be posted in comments.

There will also be fests. Fests will have signups and prompts as well, and will have deadlines to follow.

All types of fanworks will be permitted; this means that both fanfiction and fanart are happily welcomed, as well as other fannish endeavours such as fanmixes and videos.

More information will be forthcoming, as well as our first fest and rules! Please join and watch this comm.

Important things to note:
As this is a fic fest and prompts community, posting will be initially limited to moderators and maintainers. Fanworks for a particular non-fest prompt can be added to comments in the appropriate post. For fests, all stories will be submitted at a deadline and then posted once all stories have been received.

Comments are open to EVERYONE, including people who are not members of the community and people who do not have a livejournal account. Non-members and anonymous commenters should be seeing a CAPTCHA. Additionally, anonymous commenters MAY encounter things like comment screening in case LJ thinks you are a spammer.

At the moment I have NOT tagged the community as having adult concepts. However, fanworks with adult ratings will be permitted for all prompts and fests. Please view at your own risk and make certain you are of appropriate age to view anything marked as adult or mature content.

Anyone who is interested in becoming a maintainer/moderator may comment here and let me know. :)