Chapter Text
There was a blur of light and sound as an explosion threw Combeferre to the ground. Though winded, he forced himself back to his feet and searched for him - Courfeyrac had been torn from him and he had lost sight of him in the melee.
The sight of every body where blood met dark curls sent a wave of panic through him but none were his heart, his Courfeyrac.
"Courfeyrac!" He cried, his voice barely audible above the din of the battle around him.
"Courfeyrac!" He pleaded with God to just let him find Courfeyrac.
A weak voice called to him, a muffled "help me" that should not have reached his ears over the battle, and yet somehow it did.
“Courfeyrac?” Combeferre called, but there was no answer. His heart pounded painfully in his chest. He tore debris out of the way and shouted for him until he was breathless. Another explosion sent up a cloud of smoke and dust rained down around him. He squinted, eyes watering, through it as he searched desperately for him. For a heartbeat hopelessness clutched at Combeferre’s chest and between the churning smoke, the cries, the roar of the cannon fire, Paris became Pompeii before his eyes. Before despair could claim him, he heard the voice again.
This time, he found him.
The source wasn't Courfeyrac but a soldier, one of the gendarmes. He was young and his eyes were wide with fear as he gazed at Combeferre, filled with a combination of primal desperation and hope. Combeferre knelt beside him. The man's leg was mangled by the guard's own cannon and it would have to be removed if he was going to survive, but before he was able to so much as speak to him he was knocked to the ground by the butt of a musket. A searing pain went through him along with the blade of a bayonet. His glasses were smashed long ago and what was left of his vision blurred and was gone as he lost consciousness.
Courfeyrac's tears had barely dried from grieving Gavroche when the chaos of the battle swallowed him up and deposited him in another portion of the barricade altogether near the Musain. He was with Jehan, fighting to protect him, the poor thing wasn't made for battle and he was wounded. He was joined by Enjolras, whose eyes were filled with a passionate fire that seemed to pierce the very smoke around them. His blazing hair served as his halo and his sword gleamed, a portrait of Michael in all his fury. There was pain in his eyes, but instead of letting his grief slow him down he seemed to feed off of it. Despite his lack of shot, of powder, of men, he fought on, and kept the gendarmes from Courfeyrac and Jehan.
"Combeferre!" Courfeyrac cried, but he couldn't' see him anywhere. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of blood and gunpowder. He couldn't breathe. Suddenly Enjolras had his arms around him. He hugged him back in confusion.
"Enjolras?" Enjolras offered him a radiant smile, kissed Grantaire's hand and he was over the barricade.
"ENJOLRAS!" The heart of the rebellion fell and was lost to the mangled chaos of the barricade.
"NOOOOO!" Tears were streaming down Courfeyrac’s face and he could barely fill his lungs between sobs to shout again. He watched, petrified in agonizing grief as Grantaire stood solemnly on the peak of the barricade. He threw his arms wide, offering his chest to the gendarmes and for a moment time seemed to stand still as the nonbeliever was crucified by a hail of bullets before he toppled after Enjolras.
Courfeyrac collapsed down onto his knees...and there he was - his Combeferre haloed by blood in the dirt and debris of the barricade.
"No..."
Courfeyrac cradled Combeferre's head in his lap and his tears fell onto his pale cheeks, washing away the grime and the blood. He held him as the battle raged around him but he was so still. Courfeyrac waited for death and time to take him away and ease the pain that overwhelmed his entire body and ached in his soul. Finally he felt the blissful relief of bullets pierce his skin and he collapsed on top of Combeferre
---
There was a silence, deafening and empty across the battlefield. Somehow it was worse than the screams and the gunfire, worse than the sounds of the dying and of bones breaking, the sounds of hopelessness. There was only silent darkness. Combeferre was under no illusions that he had reached heaven, for heaven could never hurt so fiercely, nor could it reek so strongly of blood and smoke. Perhaps this was hell.
His body felt heavy, unfamiliar and weak and his every breath burned with a white hot agony in his core. Breath, yes there was breath in his body and he was alive. He could have cursed every deity in existence with the realization. He was alive and everyone who he had loved, everyone who had loved him had died, torn down by the hail of bullets and charge of bayonets. He wanted nothing more than death, but one thought stopped him from giving in to its siren call.
If he had lived, perhaps others did as well. Perhaps Courfeyrac had survived the onslaught. Fear gripped his chest, even more persistent than the agony of his mortal flesh and Combeferre forced his eyes open, frantically searching for any sign of him.
Combeferre found that he had been tossed in a pile with the other fallen, clearly presumed dead. He was thankful that his body was too weak to manage neither to scream or cry for he could have wailed at the injustice of it all. These men, these men who once had lived and loved and laughed, never would again. Their mothers, their brothers would they ever know what had become of their beloved sons?
The night was dark, not even the candle in the street lamps illuminated the bloody streets, though they still shone wet, black and sticky in the moonlight. No one stood guard over the dead, no one took notice of Combeferre as he struggled to raise himself and said a silent prayer and apology for the poor fellow he'd had to brace himself upon.
He raised himself and searched with what remained of his vision, praying that he would not find Courfeyrac among the dead. Not a moment later, he did. His beloved had been thrown nearly on top of him and it was with a blind hope that he brushed his curls, slicked with blood, away from his face and felt for a pulse at his neck.
His prayers heard, a pulse was there, weak and fading but there and the revelation spurred Combeferre into motion, the agony in his own body be damned.
Combeferre lifted Courfeyrac into his arms and each movement sent waves of pain and nausea through him, but he had to move, to put one foot in front of the other and get them to safety far away from the barricade. Perhaps he could find an inn where Courfeyrac could rest his head and heal while Combeferre went back for the others.
After what felt like hours of stumbling blindly through back alleys and shadows, he found an inn on the outskirts of Paris. The innkeeper was an elderly woman who was sympathetic to their plight and gave them shelter. Combeferre told himself that he would go back and search through the dead for anyone else that may have survived, for Enjolras or Bahorel, or anyone. He told himself he would but he
. He'd lost too much blood and walked too far. It was all he could do to get Courfeyrac comfortable and ensure that his wounds were clean before he succumbed to his own. He fell into a feverish sleep next to Courfeyrac in the small inn bed.