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Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac are the first to find each other, in a colourful classroom filled with fifteen excitable kindergarteners. They spend their first day of kindergarten sitting in a corner as they stare at each other with a wary exhilaration that they don’t know the origin of, growing up to become best friends, only remembering their friendship in another life when they turn thirteen within a few months of each other. Enjolras, being the youngest of the three of them, spends five months with the nagging doubt that his friends know something he doesn’t, if going by their knowing looks. He wakes up on the eve of his thirteenth birthday with a splitting headache to find his two best friends climbing into his room through the window. They don’t speak that night, merely hold each other as they relive the pain of being pierced by bullets.
They find Joly and Jehan when they enter high school, fourteen and gangly. For a moment, none of them say anything. Joly is shorter than they remember, not fully-grown into his features yet, while Jehan has flowers in their long, strawberry blond hair and are wearing the largest, ugliest sweater any of them has ever seen. Then Courfeyrac steps forward, embracing the both of them in a rib-crushing hug as Combeferre and Enjolras look on. Pulling away, Jehan informs them promptly that their preferred pronoun is ‘they’ and that they are very happy to see them. Joly grins at them before cheerfully informing Courfeyrac of the number of bacteria that can be transferred via hugs.
Senior year of high school introduces them to Bossuet, who brings along Musichetta and Marius to the first meeting of the newly re-formed Les Amis. They meet Feuilly when he brings out the coffees they ordered, and as everyone gets to know each other all over again, nothing much happens at the meeting. Enjolras is, predictably, disappointed by the lack of accomplishment, but he is far less disheartened by the simple fact of having found more of his friends. Marius spends the rest of the year mooning over Cosette, who they have not yet found, and wondering about Eponine, who Enjolras can vaguely remember as the gamin who dies in Marius’ arms at the barricades.
They don’t talk about the barricades.
Summer after senior year, Bahorel is the one who finds them. The eight of them are hanging out in the park, discussing a protest in Chile, when a mammoth of a man comes slamming into Feuilly. They watch in astonishment as this tanned giant with an undercut tackles their ginger friend into a hug that seems to go on forever. Finally, just when Jehan proposes helping out Feuilly, Combeferre points out that the man is, in fact, Bahorel, just more muscled and tanned. They spend the rest of the day in the park, getting reacquainted with this version of Bahorel, who is pretty much the same as in their last life.
They still don’t talk about the barricades.
Unwilling to be parted from each other again, Les Amis attend the same university, holing up in pairs and threes in several apartments close to campus. It is during freshman orientation that Marius stumbles upon Cosette and Eponine, who reveal that they have been best friends since childhood and are now adoptive sisters after Jean Valjean won the custody battle against the admittedly terrible Thenardiers. Marius and Cosette, with a different set of memories altogether, start dating immediately. Eponine gives them her blessing.
Grantaire is the last to be found, and is the one who resists joining their group the longest. Enjolras is the one who finds him, one cold afternoon in late January. He’s just walked out of the library, arms laden with books, when he stumbles into someone, sending the books flying. He’s vaguely aware of someone apologising, bending down to pick up his books for him, but he’s far too busy staring at the man smoking against the side of the library.
At that precise moment, Grantaire turns to the side, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette. Their eyes meet and everything seems to fade away, only the two of them and this electric charge between them existing. A heartbeat passes, then two, then the moment is broken and Grantaire is running, not towards Enjolras but away from him, quickly disappearing around the corner of the library.
Enjolras has never treated books so harshly before; he doubts he ever will again. But overcome with the need to chase after Grantaire, he drops the books and runs. He manages to corner Grantaire between the library and the science building. They’re both panting, by that point, but Enjolras refuses to take a moment to catch his breath. Lunging forward, he presses his lips to Grantaire’s in the filthiest kiss he’s ever had, licking his way into the artist’s mouth and tangling his hands in those black curls. Grantaire kisses him back after a beat.
When they draw away from each other, Enjolras presses Grantaire’s hand with a smile.
Les Amis end up moving into a three-story house at the edge of their college town, after renovating it themselves. Enjolras and Grantaire don’t kiss again.
They still don’t talk about the barricades and how they all, save Marius and Cosette, died.
*
Their house, for all intents and purposes, is huge. But when you fit in thirteen twenty-somethings and a fifteen year old, it’s a bit of a tight fit. The ground floor has been converted to hold a large kitchen, a dining room and two large bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta take up one of the rooms, while Cosette and Marius, who are expecting, claim the other.
The first floor has three bedrooms, taken up respectively by Jehan and Courfeyrac, Bahorel and Feuilly, and Eponine and Gavroche, plus two bathrooms. Combeferre and Enjolras share a room on the second floor, having converted the other room into a study-slash-library. No one dares enter the room without their permission.
And finally, Grantaire has the attic all for himself. It’s more of a studio than a bedroom, with a half-forgotten mattress shoved into a corner and a small bathroom. The slanting walls of the attic have been replaced with skylights that allow lots of sunlight in, making it a perfect place to paint. Only Jehan, Gavroche, Eponine, Bahorel and Feuilly are allowed in there.
*
It’s funny, Grantaire thinks, how none of them realise that his insomnia is a direct result of how he died in his past life. His friends chalk up his sleeplessness to drinking too much, to being the kind of person who needs only an hour of two of shut-eye, to so many other reasons. Combeferre and Joly muse that perhaps he is just one of the unlucky few to be plagued with both chronic insomnia and a habit of sleepwalking. He doesn’t correct them.
*
Grantaire wakes with a jolt, his heart thundering in his chest. Sweat slicks his temples, sticking his hair to his forehead. His chest is riddled with bullet holes, like Swiss cheese, but when his hands rise to investigate, all he can feel is a lack of wounds, and a certain phantom pain that lurks underneath his overheated skin. There is no blood staining his sheets, and he knows that what he thinks he smells is not gunpowder but only his overactive imagination, yet he cannot convince himself that the feeling of emptiness in his hand is imagined. There was something precious in his hand, he knows it, but now he can’t find it and he needs to find it. His life depends on it. Something very, very precious depends on him.
A quiet voice in the back of his head whispers, Enjolras.
He bolts out of bed, tripping over a pair of discarded shoes. If he’s still alive, that means that the fighting is still going on. It means that Enjolras is about to die alone, and he cannot let that happen. He needs to get to Enjolras before the national guard kills him.
Too late, you’re too late, the same voice whispers, but now it is frantic. There is panic flooding his veins, and his limbs are sluggish with wine and intoxication, though he has been sober for years now. Both of his lives juxtapose confusingly, but his mind cannot process the fact that there is no national guard, that he’s not at the barricades, that Enjolras isn’t about to die on his own. All he knows is that he must reach the man he loves before the guns are cocked and fired.
He trips down the stairs to the second floor at break-neck speed, almost tripping a few times but managing to catch himself before he adds a punch of truth to break-neck speed. The hallway leading to Enjolras and Combeferre’s bedroom is dark, but he can see a slither of light peeking out from underneath he closed door to the study, and he knows that Enjolras is in there, working on some paper or treatise.
Pausing with his hand on the door handle, Grantaire allows himself a moment to breathe. Logically, he understands that there is no immediate threat. But he needs to make sure that Enjolras is alive.
He presses his ear against the door, listening intently. After a moment of complete silence, he can hear quiet muttering coming from within the room. Grantaire can’t decipher exactly what it is that’s being said, but it’s Enjolras’ voice, and it is oh-so-alive. It’s okay. Enjolras is fine. He’s not too late.
The relief makes his knees weak, and he slides down the length of the door so that he is sitting on the floor, knees hugged to his chest. He leans his head against the door, listening to Enjolras read out what must surely be a speech of some sort, his voice quiet and full of conviction.
Satisfied that his mortal god is safe and sound, Grantaire lets Enjolras’ soothing voice lull him back to sleep.