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a group who made history, and lived; nine drabbles about happy lives

aka things I want for our barricade boys: a ridiculous, non-exhaustive list by Vé who has too many feelings too early in the morning

—-

Bahorel was never meant to grow old – he was meant to be young until he wasn’t, to fight until he didn’t, a large grin on his face and blood on his nose, defiant until the end. But maybe being defiant meant defying these ideas of him: oh, Bahorel never settled down, and he fought with vigour and bruised fists every day of his life. He dropped out of sight for a few months, and even years at a time. But he would always come back with countless marks over his body and waistcoats that never faded.

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for pilferingapples. Hats! Playful Enjolras! Dorks! I have no idea what they were doing before, or why Feuilly is hanging out like that in the middle of the afternoon instead of working (it’s sunday?), but. Enjolras and Feuilly being cute and lovely and dorky trumps these little concerns.

(550 words isn’t exactly a drabble anymore, is it?)

—-

of friends and fashionable hats 

—-

“What’s this?” Enjolras asked as he took off his coat. He hung it on the back of a chair, eyeing the surprisingly fine looking silk top hat sitting on Feuilly’s desk. “I’ve never seen you with a hat like this.”

In spite of – or perhaps because of -– Enjolras’ light and playful tone, Feuilly’s cheeks coloured and he scratched the back of his neck.

“Ah, well. It’s Courfeyrac,”  he answered simply, turning away. In hopes of hiding his embarrassment, he busied himself with the stack of books on his chair. “Let me grab these and find a bag, then we can go.”

“Take your time,” Enjolras looked at his pocket watch – they were to meet the others at the café at three, and it was not even two yet. “There’s no hurry, really. Should we take the hat back to Courfeyrac with us?” He couldn’t recall seeing Courfeyrac with this exact hat either, but Enjolras had to admit he hardly noticed Courfeyrac’s whims of fashion besides the liveliest ones - and this fashionable silk hat, as out of place as it looked in a fan painter’s room, was not especially peculiar in itself.

Feuilly laughed, “That isn’t necessary. Courfeyrac ought to take better care of his own hats, I agree, but this one isn’t his. Well, not anymore.” He took off his own battered cap and looked at it, lips curved in a thoughtful expression. 

“It was a present,” he explained, a hint of shyness creeping in his tone. ,   “He noticed my own cap needed mending-“

It was Enjolras’ turn to chuckle. “And so he took it upon himself to fix the problem.”

Feuilly shook his head, amused. “In a very typical Courfeyrac way, I’m afraid.” He set the books he had been gathering on the table and lightly touched the brim of the hat.

“It’s a very fine hat,” Enjolras said.

Feuilly nodded. “It is, I suppose. He probably meant it in jest, but…”

He smiled and shook his head.

“I suspect he wants to me to keep it, if only so he’d know where to find a replacement next time he misplaces his own hat. But I do feel uneasy, keeping it here. I wouldn’t want to damage it…”

… and of course, such an article of clothing in a poor working man’s rooms might attract negative attention from the people Feuilly was already struggling to convince to join them. Enjolras put a hand on his shoulder.

“Then let’s take it with us,” he offered. “Maybe someone else would have a use for it? I’m certain Courfeyrac will understand.”

“Of course he will,” Feuilly picked up his books. “Shall we go, then?”

“Let’s.”

Enjolras put on his coat, grabbed the hat and, without thinking, put it on his head. Feuilly took one look at him and laughed again.

“Perhaps Bahorel would like to put a ribbon on it,” he said, amused, as they left the apartment. “It would suit his taste, and look slightly less ridiculous.”

Enjolras grinned, and shut the door behind them.

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4ngryqueerfeminist asked you:

Are you doing prompts today? Can you pretty please write me some LietPol where hmm Poland is a witch or fairy?

I always do, really, although I fill them when I have time (or I would if I got any, ahah.)

—-

Toris sits on a large rock, surrounded by ferns and wildflowers. He winces as he scratches his arm against a tree.

He can’t hear his parents from there. He can’t see his house, nor the lights from the village.

He feels safe.

He sits for hours, reading, and daydreaming, and singing. Sometimes, he thinks he can hear a small, delicate voice laughing, whistling to a tune he doesn’t know. Toris smiles at the voice, and sings louder. The laughter grows nearer; the sun is going down behind the trees but Toris isn’t cold. He sings, and he isn’t alone.

He falls asleep against the tree, feet buried in the flowers. When he wakes, he discovers the ferns have been bent over him, like a blanket, and overnight a pillow of soft, warm moss has grown on the tree truck where his head had been resting.

He leaves the dell to go back to the village, a sweet song in his heart and, on his lips, the promise he will come back again in the evening.

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i don’t usually write for this zepplin, but I can help patch it up a bit? because reading such tragic and sad things, even incredibly well written, might not always be the best thing to do on a Monday morning.

(and it’s monday morning. those are hard.)

—-

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untitled enjolras & feuilly

I think there might have been talks of enjolras/feuilly around lately? this is not much but! I do what I can? you can imagine what happens after as shippy as you’d like, friends. in fact, if anybody wants to write it…

—

The meeting continued well after sundown. Combeferre, struck with a headache, left first, nodding to Enjolras before walking out the door. He was followed shortly by Courfeyrac, who promised to make sure the other student was properly set in his bed, and gradually the others left as well, some smiling, some yawning, until Enjolras and Feuilly were left alone. “Well, then,” Feuilly said eventually, stretching his arms over his head. “It’s been a good night, Enjolras, but I think I’ll retire to my own bed too - thank you.” He put his cap on,  rose and grabbed his coat. “Wait,” Enjolras put his pen down and looked up at him. “Would you mind if I walked with you?” Feuilly raised an eyebrow. “My room is out of your way.” “I know,” Enjolras shrugged. By the dimming candle light, his own tiredness finally showing in the limp curl of hair falling on his forehead, Enjolras seemed even younger, and infinitely more human. “But not terribly so. And to be quite honest, I think a walk would do me some good.” “So, you are using me?” Feuilly carefully kept his voice light and teasing, to let Enjolras know he didn’t mean offence. “Not at all, my friend,” Enjolras’ smile was kind and his tone reassuringly easy. “I was also hoping to continue our discussion, if you would like. Only I wouldn’t want to keep you here any longer.” Feuilly smiled back and nodded. “Well, then, I would be glad to walk with you.” So they left the café together, discussion falling into easy chatter as Enjolras let Feuilly lead him through the darker streets of the city.

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tikkis asked you:

feuilly, enjolras, steampuuuunk

“Do you think you can fix this?” Enjolras asks, his voice tight and laced with pain as he tries to close his hand - one of the joints is broken, the wiring is probably shot, too, Feuilly’s pretty certain of that, the copper strands peeking through where the bullet grazed the metal, and it’s probably incredibly painful -

“Not my usual area of expertise, gotta admit,” Feuilly says, his voice serious but calm. He looks up at Enjolras’ face and see how his friend’s eyebrows have knotted together in pain, how pale his lips are. “But I’m sure we’ll work out something - I probably have the tools somewhere…”

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midshipmankennedy asked you:

Joly/Musichetta, WWI?

If anybody had told her she would be a nurse one day, Musichetta would have laughed right in their faces - told them there’s enough of one nurse in my house, and it isn’t me!

But it’s 1916, now, and the war has come to their small village, so she spoonfeeds medicine to boys with gaz burns and milky white eyes, changes the bandages of stumps that used to be limbs, remembering how he has taught her to be calm, to be patient, how to make her voice soft and gentle and reassuring.

And she hopes that when he comes back - when not if, when - she’ll have strenght left to take care of him, too.

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one-shot - Les Mis - About Living [Jehan and Feuilly]

inspired by this post by polishartsrebellion:

GUYS.

FEUILLY MIGHT NOT HAVE KNOWN HIS OWN BIRTHDAY so what if when Jehan and Courfeyrac discovered this sad news they forced him to choose a date for it and then everyone just accepted and soon no one remembered that it was just headcanon, not real canon, because it was just Feuilly’s Birthday?

and also this art by pilferingapples. so it’s mindless Amis fluff with Jehan and Feuilly and my first time writing them, so tell me what you think?

on AO3

—-

“Sometimes, I do wonder,” Prouvaire exclaims, looking up at the ceiling of the Musain, sighing. “Perhaps Courfeyrac is right, after all.”

Feuilly, sitting besides him, raises an eyebrow in question. Jehan only sighs again, dramatically, and Feuilly finishes the last of his glass, settling it on the table in front of him.

“Sometimes he is, yes,” he nods. “But in the case, what do you mean?”

“Well, I suppose, this,” the poet, nearly standing up, waves his arms around, nearly hitting his friend on the nose. Feuilly grimaces and gently puts a hand on Jehan’s shoulder, urging him to sit down. Jehan smiles sheepishly at him.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, smiling, a blush rising to his pale cheeks. “But yes, I mean this!” This time, the wave is more subdued in its movement, although no less expressive.

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Les Mis - Flecks [Grantaire/Feuilly]

title: Flecks fandom: Les Miserables pairing/characters: Grantaire/Feuilly rating: M

I love strange/rare pairings, so what? I wrote a thing for kink meme prompt; asking for Grantaire and/or Feuilly, and paint sex. So… that’s it. Paint sex. That’s the fic.

Warnings for inappropriate use of paint, over abundance of colour adjectives, and no consideration for anyone’s otp (it’s only 800 words, the otp’s will be back after this short break I promise)

[on AO3]

—-

Feuilly hasn’t studied art – he hasn’t studied anything, actually, and if he had, it certainly wouldn’t have been art. But circumstances have found him in front of an old dresser, with a can of paint and a brush in his hand, and he enjoyed it. Since then there have been canvas, too, of different sizes, and different projects. Feuilly’s painting doesn’t put the bread on the table, no, but he enjoys it, when he has the time.

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Les Mis - one-shot - Au beau milieu de la nuit, la fumée [Jehan, Feuilly]

okay I can’t stand to look at this anymore. I’m sorry. It’s late, but I wanted to be done with it tonight.

[on AO3]

—-

It is the middle of the night – or well past midnight, actually, when Jehan hears a quiet knock on the door. Spring is a shy season, and the air is chilly and dry against his skin.

He feels oddly exposed, wearing only a long chemise, his long hair loose and dishevelled, when he opens the door to let Feuilly in. Feuilly’s clothes smell of ashes and his face is pale and drawn.

Wordlessly, Jehan lets him in. It doesn’t take the fanmaker much time to explain what has just happened – his words are nervous and tired, not as careful as they usually are, but Jehan understands anyway.

“They said it was only smoke damage, mostly,” Feuilly says with a wave of his hand, perhaps in an effort to seem nonchalant about the whole thing. There are traces of paint still on his hands, though, and his eyes are red-rimmed, Jehan notices – he must have been working late, he figures, trying to finish a piece, or doing as many hours as he can to make up for the precious wages he lost when he’d caught cold last month. “Fire caught next door.”

Jehan nods quietly, and locks the door behind his friend.

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I can’t write much for barricade day… but this is written version of a sketch, maybe?

—

Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves?

Feuilly wipes the sweat from his brow, uselessly. His hand is dry but dirty, grimy. No blood, not yet, although when he pictures his future he can already see the red crust under his fingernails, on his knuckles, running down his arms. He shivers. For now, though, the blood is in his veins and his heart beats, and beats, and beats. Steady, and so loud, only drowned by the words of his brother leader standing tall on the barricade.

Students, workers, all around him, they are gathered, most quiet, some thoughtful, all exhausted. There are holes in their group, painful gaps where a timid, bell-like laugh would be followed by a bellowing one, and more.

Enjolras is speaking – no, singing. His speech is unblemished, his words do not falter.

Courage, and onward! Citizens, whither are we going?

Tomorrow, Feuilly thinks, tomorrow is when the holes will be filled, either by light or by blood. They will bring tomorrow to the people; he will bring tomorrow to himself, whether his own life of his testament.

Listen to me, you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity for your mother and right for your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here.

He can feel his face burning, cheeks reddening. He could not look away from Enjolras, but turns his head the moment the bright sky-blue gaze crosses his own. What of him? There is nothing for him beyond this barricade, he knows. He has thought about it, perhaps, but never before today he had truly realised what his end will mean.

He wonders, fleetingly, what will happen after. Will it be a triumph? If Enjolras’ words are to be remembered – and they are, surely as Feuilly stands there today – will they really bring about a new dawn? How many more will it take, words like these, and men like Enjolras – because he is a man, even though his appearance is deceiving -, men like Prouvaire and Bahorel, men and women like the girl who expired in Marius’ arms?

Man of the people, Enjolras called him, but the word man is nothing, the word people is everything. One alone can make a difference if he is part of something. But what of Feuilly’s own dawn, the dawn of men like him, if he himself is quiet, voiceless on his own? He is not afraid, he is not ashamed.

He tightens his fingers around the nail he is holding. He’ll do what he can.

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Les Mis - Be the Judge of Your Own Foolishness [Combeferre, Grantaire]

title: Be the Judge of Your Own Foolishness fandom: Les Miserables pairing/characters: e/R, Grantaire, Combeferre rating: T summary: Grantaire is hurting, but he is not asking for anybody’s pity, especially not Combeferre’s - which is just as well, because Combeferre will not give him any pity. Nor will he judge him. After all, he knows, even if he cannot understand fully, and that might be enough for the night.

—-

For deliveringtheworld, who asked for interaction between Combeferre and Grantaire, highlighting their differences.

How do you Grantaire? I think I accidentally Bahorel at one point, but hopefully I managed to salvage it. I love writing each and everyone of these boys, though. <3

[on AO3]

—-

“For goodness’ sake, Grantaire, will you please hold still?”

Grantaire snorted, the expression on his face made even uglier by his split lip and the bleeding cut across his eyebrow – which Combeferre was currently attempting to clean. His left eye was bruised and starting to swell closed, and strands of his black hair, falling in messy curls on his forehead, was mattered with drying blood.

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Les Mis - The Paris Literary and Strawberry Mille-Feuille Society

title: The Paris Literary and Strawberry Mille-Feuille Society fandom: Les Miserables pairing/characters: Feuilly, Combeferre rating: G summary: [Modern AU] Their society - a society of two, Feuilly likes the sound of that - has nothing of a society most people would expect – they talk, but don’t debate grand ideals and policies. Their meetings, although never quite impromptu, are irregular at best. Still, they share. They share each other’s time; they share tips, thoughts, friendship, and a mille-feuille with strawberry filling.

—-

Roe (butnotmany) said I should write about Combeferre and Feuilly sharing books. So there it is!

Written half in response to all the amazing - but heartbreaking! - Feuilly fic I’ve been reading lately (by deliveringtheworld and midshipmankennedy, among others ;)). Short of being able to hug it better, I can at least write something happy and pleasant for him? And Combeferre, too. The boy needs a break, for sure.

[on AO3]

—-

They meet once every month, when their schedule allows it. Not in the backroom of the Musain, with its large, wooden tables and multitudes of chairs, but in a quiet coffee shop in a neighbourhood closer to Feuilly’s apartment, between a pizza restaurant and a tiny used books store. They sit at a table near the front window, in two mismatched armchairs. From their spot they can watch the people on the street. The coffee shop isn’t generally a busy place on Sunday mornings, so they don’t have to raise their voices to be heard, for once.

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  this is not the happy jolly Joly drabble you are looking for. :( I’m sorry, this is Joly appreciation day and all, but I saw this gorgeous picture by jen-suis and remembered a scene in Band of Brothers where Roe pretty much has the same look when he tries to save a soldier’s life in Bastogne and - yeah.

tw for gore and blood and not happy Joly, which breaks my own heart, believe me.

—-

He is cold, the rain making his wet shirt stick to his back. His hair is sticking to his forehead. He is shaking, he will probably catch a cold, but it doesn’t matter. He is going to freeze, a tiny part of his brain whispers, but then that part of his brain is gone because his face is hot, the blood pounding under his skin, on his temples. The blood is pounding on his knees, too, scraped on the dirty pavement, and on his side  - where he hit the stone wall of the house minutes ago, there is blood spreading on his shirt and it might be his, but he does not–cannot think about that right now.

Because his face and his knees and his side are hot, but his hands, his hands are burning. They’re inside the gray-faced man on his lap, inside of him, in his torso where a bullet has torn an ugly hole in his flesh. There is probably more blood outside of his body than inside, and the man – his name, what’s his name, Joly remembers seeing him from time to time at the café, a law student from Bossuet’s classes, he’s sure he’s heard him laugh and sing before – groans, chokes, and is quiet.

Beaulieu, his name is Beaulieu, Joly remembers, and yes, although they were never friends the clouded blue eyes are painfully familiar, now.  Joly tries to stay calm, but his heart his beating so fast in his face on his knees on his side and in his hands, he pushes deeper, a desperate attempt to stop the blood flow.

The blood does stop, eventually, because the man has no more blood left to give the streets of Paris.

Joly raises his head, looking around desperately.

“I… ” he whispers. Combeferre, with his own face painted with someone else’s gore, catches his eyes for a moment, but his distant gaze quickly turns away.

I’m sorry, Joly wants say. I tried, he wants to cy.

Then Bossuet’s hand on his wrist, gently prying his hold from the dead man’s – Beaulieu’s – blood.

“I’m cold, ” is what Joly says instead.

Les Mis - Blood [Joly]

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warning for canon character death.

(here’s the enjolras/france one)

—

Feuilly brings his arm to his face and coughs in his elbow. The air is thick with smoke and dust and gunpowder. It’s hard to breathe. He throws a look at the tiny blond thing somehow perched atop a broken chair a few meters up where he is sitting, resting against the Musain’s brick wall.

“You… don’t have to stay here with me,” he rasps, wincing at the burn in his throat. “I’m… fine, alright.”

Worried eyes stare at him – like a cat’s, Feuilly’s thought travel idly from one image to another, yet this is what sticks. The rare that pierce through the smoke make the bright green pupils twinkle.

“You were kind to me,” the blond says, as if this constitutes a good enough reason to stay. “You’re not even mine. Why were you kind to me?” The voice is high-pitched and demanding and the words strange, but something in the youthful face seems almost scared, so Feuilly pushes past the pain in his throat to answer.

“I am no one’s,” he says slowly. The blond, surprisingly, listens. “Not by my birth, at least. I wasn’t born to be anything, but I can choose to belong – or try to do something.” He chuckles dryly and immediately regrets it when he coughs again, this time tasting blood.  “At the very least,” he finishes weakly.

“Shhh,” the other jumps down from the chair, quick and feline-like, and settles next to Feuilly, their body touching for the very first time. The air is cold for a June day, but Feliks is warm. Feuilly can barely follow the movement anymore, but he feels more at ease, now. 

“Don’t talk anymore, ‘kay? You’ve, like, done enough. I just…” Thin fingers run through the straw-coloured strands before resting, surprisingly strong, on Feuilly shoulder. “Not sure I get it, mind, but I think I can totally accept that. So yeah.”

Feuilly nods, and doubles over in pain as he coughs again. The whole world is spinning, and his vision darkens.

“I’m Feliks, by the way,” the blond says when Feuilly’s coughing fit subsides. “I know it’s kinda late, but… ”

Feuilly attempts to smile and weakly holds out his hand – and he registers, numbly, that he can’t feel his fingers anymore.

Feliks shakes it anyway. “Don’t worry ‘bout me anymore. I’m tougher than I look.”

Feuilly meant to say something, Thank you or I’m glad or I know, but the words never reach his lips – and then it does not matter anymore, because while Feliks’ warm, familiar presence is gone, the smoke has cleared and Feuilly can breathe freely again.

untitled Hetalia/Les Mis crossover drabble, part two (feuilly and poland)

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warning for canon character death

—

They sit against a wall together - a wall made from a heavy dinner table, a wheelbarrow and old, damaged sheets of linen. It is night. It is silent, except the delicate sound of the rain on the pavement. There are no cries of pain, no cracking of bullets. No breathing. Enjolras sighs, and his pale cheeks redden. He feels heavy, so heavy, lead everywhere in his body, but he is unhurt, and he resents it. There is blood on his hands even though he cannot see it anymore.

“I am sorry,” he breathes, the words foreign to his own ears although he could have sworn he meant to speak in French. “I failed… I failed them. They killed for me, and I killed them.”

The man next to him is calm, his shoulders steady while Enjolras’ are starting to shake.

“You haven’t, darling,” he says simply, the familiarity in his words somehow reassuring. His blue eyes are looking at Enjolras with such sincerity that he feels like crying.

He doesn’t, not yet. France don’t need his tears, nor his regret. Enjolras could not give the people what they needed, so he says what he can and hopes that, somehow, France will forgive him.

“I have,” he insists. “There is so much to be done and I…”

“Shh,” the man holds him closer. “You did what you could. You gave yourself for your country. I couldn’t ask for more, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

The tears come, then, mixing in with the rain on his face. And he talks, talks of his ideas and his ideals, of his friends and their fight. Of their end, fallen under the bullets of their brothers, men who are also children of France (France loves them, too, and he will comfort them when their time has come.)

He talks of the pain, the loneliness, the love and the hope.

Time has stopped, for a moment that feels like hours, until Enjolras tires and quiets. He closes his eyes, buries his face in the crook of the man’s neck and waits.

France kisses the top of his head. When Enjolras opens his eyes again, it is dawn. The man is gone, and the rain has stopped.

He hears singing.

untitled Hetalia/Les Mis crossover drabble (france and enjolras)

[coffeecolouredink]

---

Lithuania is only in Paris for a few days. Normally, he would have used the time to take a walk, take a hot bath, catch up on readings and go to sleep early (away from Vilnius and his brothers and Poland, the quiet hotel roomwith its empty walls and polished bedside lamps, was relaxing, in the way clean beige linens and dreamless sleep are).

But France insisted they meet to chat, in his own words, although Lithuania has his doubts about the other's intentions; but still, on Friday morning, early enough  that the sun is shining through the tall building but late enough that most Parisian are at work and the street is quiet, Lithuania waits at a table in a small coffee shop on a nondescript cobblestone street.

France is fashionably late, as expected, but Lithuania, although weary of France's intention, is, above everything, patient and he sips his steaming hot coffee, the smell enough to soothe away any annoyance he might feel at France's lack of punctuality.

That is, until France shows up with a large bouquet of roses.