interlude: dreams

[untamedantinous]

Enjolras sleeps, but it is not peaceful. His life here has settled into an odd sort of peace (aside from recent weeks), new goals and new friends, but his dreams are anything but. He dreams of the barricades quite often, gunshots and grapeshot and sometimes, a far-off sound of a bullet at the end of the road. He thinks of all of them: Prouvaire, Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and at the last, of course, Pontmercy. (Pontmercy had fought like a tiger, unexpectedly. He cannot recall the last time he saw the man, but he does know they were both covered in blood by the end.) He remembers the blood, too, the metallic tang of it. He remembers the clear-headedness that comes with knowing what you're about to do is the only way forward and yet he still hates himself for it in his waking hours. He does not regret it, but he regrets that it had to come to that for Le Cabuc and the artillery sergeant.

Other times, it's the last time he saw each one of his friends: Combeferre, helping up a wounded national guardsman, Courfeyrac, hat blown off by a cannonball but still making jokes as they fought, all three of them holding the center along with Feuilly and Joly. Then, the house shifts, or a door slams, and he wakes in a startle, half-expecting to see the National Guard coming through the door. He dreams of blood and gunpowder -- and it is any wonder that he has become more enamored than usual of coffee? The more of that he drinks, the less he will wake up shaking and grieving his brothers.