#everyone just go look at emily's amazing art instead of reading my dumb tags

[williamvapespeare]

@boopliette is amazing drew this beautiful (heartbreaking, angsty, perfect) scene yesterday and then we had a lot of feelings about Bahorel being sad and all of that inspired my brain to actually want to write again :)

(ft.a lot of bahorel being angsty, and a little bit of enjolras, grantaire, and feuilly, and a lot of friendship)

-

It was quiet outside, the kind of quiet that Bahorel had never quite learned to be comfortable with. He liked laughter, people, bodies pressed around him, things that gave life a heightened quality, that promised a worthy liveliness. Quiet was too much for him at the best of times. It rang in his ears like the leftover sounds of a concert, or a crowd, or like a gunshot: still reverberating.

He shook his head, as if to clear it, knowing there wasn’t much he could do to stop the overtired motion of his thoughts, or distract himself from the tension of the room inside. They were all on edge, the whole room buzzing with a kind of leftover energy that Bahorel knew from experience would only last for so long before it gave way to despair. It was a kind of balancing act, keeping yourself just on the edge of composure, despite the fact that everyone around you could see through to the way your very soul was hurting, because if one person gave in, they would all lose it.

Bahorel rolled his shoulder,s feeling the muscles in his back pop. He would be sore tomorrow; probably they all would.

The door behind him slid open and for a moment, Bahorel froze, stilling himself back into a semblance of emotionlessness before he turned around. He was only mildly surprised to see Enjolras, who seemed better than he had earlier, calmer, at least. The manic energy of chaos had given way to something like resolve, or more likely, shock.

Enjolras came to lean against the railing of the small balcony next to him, looked down into the late-night street below without seeming to see much of anything. Bahorel understood the feeling.

“Are you ok?” He motioned towards the darkening bruise on Enjolras’s jaw, didn’t mention the reminders of fingerprints on his bicep, just visible below the sleeve of his t-shirt. Whenever things like this happened, Enjolras was the priority. Not because he held any notions of rank or superiority, but because of the simple fact that the authorities knew him as the leader, and for that reason, he was also their priority. And although he had emerged relatively unscathed, he seemed dimmed. His hair fell limp around his shoulders, strands matted with dried blood and dirt and Bahorel had to trust that Combeferre would have noticed if he had any of the countless other injuries Bahorel could imagine.

And there was the guilt again, bitter and strong as ever.

“I’m fine.” Enjolras waved him off. “You should come inside,” he said, after another moment.” “Most people are going to stay for the night, at least. It’s not safe and I don’t think anyone really wants to-” Enjolras broke off, still except for a slight turn of his head as he gave Bahorel a questioning look.

“Be alone?”

Enjolras nodded.

Bahorel knew him well enough to hear the question in the silence: no one else can stand to be alone right now, so why are you? But he also knew that Enjolras, of all of them, understood what he was feeling. The guilt, the constant replaying of scenarios, wondering what went wrong, what he could have done differently and god, Enjolras already had enough to wrry about. That was why Bahorel was supposed to worry about these things for him in the first place. And there was no way around admitting it, he had failed.

“I’m sorry,” Bahorel started to say, finally, his voice carefully clear of an emotion that he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back once he gave into. “I’m so sorry. I should have-”

“Stop.” Enjolras’s voice was calm, but his eyes flashed with worry as he turned around. And Bahorel stopped, despite the blood still pounding in his veins and the headache pulsing at the corners of his vision and the bruises on his arms, because that’s what he did: he followed orders. “You have nothing to apologize for. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah.” The word hung in between them, bare and raw in its obvious uncertainty and Enjolras reached out to put a hand on his arm. Bahorel noted the raw skin of his knuckles, like his own. They’d all thrown punches that day.

And taken them, taken too many.

“You are indispensable to us, to our cause, to me,” Enjolras said, catching Bahorel’s gaze and holding it, his eyes serious, the small crease of a frown between his eyebrows. “Without you, today would have gone much worse.”

Bahorel sighed. Objectively, he knew that Enjolras was right. no one was arrested, and they were all alive, in one place, and mostly in one piece. But it felt so wrong, to stand by heplessly when so many people were hurting, to knew deep down that there was always more he could have done, more he could have prepared for.

Enjolras squeezed his arm once before letting go. “Thank you for everything,” he said, soft and just as serious as before, and Bahorel could only nod as he swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat.

As Enjolras turned to leave, he finally managed to speak again, “You too.”

He didn’t need to see Enjolras’s face to know his reaction; he was fairly certain that he was already feeling it.

-

The atmosphere seemed calmer when Bahorel stepped back inside, as if the earlier panic had settled into a sort of steady unease. He wasn’t sure which he liked less.

“Want some?” Bahorel started, turned around to see Grantaire at his elbow, holding out a half-empty bottle of tequila that he must have pulled from the back of a kitchen shelf, left over from some party or other that might have well have been a million years ago. It was the wrong thing to be drinking, reminding him more of celebrations and fun nights out than of the kind of evening you drank to forget, but at least it was something. He took the bottle with a small smile, took a swig, reveled in the way it burned his throat on the way down.

As soon as his hands were free, Grantaire wrapped his arms around himself in a defensive kind of gesture - or he’d bruised something and hadn’t told anyone. Bahorel frowned down at him over the bottle’s short neck. He’d seen Enjolras and Grantaire talking earlier out of the corner of his eye and it was clear that however horrible the events of the day had been, something about them had tipped the careful balance of the scale that was their relationship.

But after the fact, now that he wasn’t throwing himself headlong into the middle of chaos with all the enthusiasm of someone far too used to taking punches, or worrying over Enjolras and the rest of their friends, Grantaire just seemed lost.

“Hey.” Bahorel reached around him, setting the bottle down on a nearby shelf. Grantaire glanced up at him. He looked tired, bruised, worn out, the way they all looked, Bahorel thought with a pang. “You ok?”

Grantaire shrugged, a small, strained movement, his arms still folded across his chest. “Sure, yeah,” he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but he sounded sincere as he continued, asking, “Are you?”

Bahorel smiled for real then, even though it pulled against the cut on his nose. He didn’t answer, but slung an arm around Grantaire’s shoulders, pulling him briefly against his side. For a short moment, Grantaire relaxed against him, some of the tension draining out of his body as he tipped his head to rest against Bahorel’s chest. When he broke away, the worried lines at the corners of Grantaire’s eyes were smaller, and he shook his head, sad and knowing.

Grantaire squeezed his arm, picked up the bottle again, and moved away to kneel next to Joly, offering it to him silently. After a moment, Bahorel moved too, back over to the couch. He sat down in the middle, so his leg just brushed against Feuilly’s where he was leaned back into a corner of the cushions, an empty mug clutched in his hands and a far away look in his eye.

Across the room, Enjolras and Combeferre had their heads bent together, talking in low voices. Enjolras’s hand rested lightly against Combeferre’s arm in what looked like an unconscious gesture that Bahorel understood all too well. They all needed touch right now, a solid reminder that they were still here: disheartened and with a few more broken pieces than before, but nominally safe. He pushed aside the insistent voice in his head that knew it was only a temporary safety. They would have to take measures, be more careful, there were things he needed to do to ensure that nothing like this ever happened again.

A hand landed on his knee and Bahorel looked over at Feuilly, wordlessly greateful for his presence in a way he wasn’t sure how to express. He leaned more fully into the warmth of him, focused instead on the steadiness of his breaths and the softness of his hoodie where Bahorel’s arm rested against his.

The room was quiet, save for the occasional whispered conversation, and this time, the quiet didn’t bother him as much. It was a stilness, hinting that maybe, eventually, they would be ok.