Quieter


"My God, Combeferre," he whispers. "Can't you leave me be a moment?"

"No-- Nicolas-- Your parents asked me to look after you in Paris. You can't go out into the city on your own," Combeferre urges desperately.

"I can walk on my own. I know the way to Musain on my own. If you wanted to help me, you could speak more politic. It doesn't cause me much to want your help the way you put it. Why not trick me? Why not 'But I wanted to walk as well. Come, I shall accompany you'? That would have been so much more sensible. I'm not a child to be coddled and shown the way. I shall only go out for a short while, if that please you, caretaker. I shall be responsible about it."

"No, you shan't. You're angry with me. You shall do something stupid."

"You get less politic the more you say. Never any better. Of course I shall do something stupid. By now I want to do something stupid." Nicolas shakes his head, a brief tremour of anguish showing on his face. "Now I intend to indulge in my stupidity. I am going out by myself." He starts towards the door. Within his room, he has everything memorised. He knows exactly where anything is. He has a hand on the doorknob in a flash.

For once, Combeferre doesn't start after him. Combeferre only watches as he slips outside, trembling, pulling his overcoat closer.

It's moments like these that cause him to truly hate his blindness. Mostly it wouldn't matter, but somehow there is always someone doing things so that he can't do them himself. There's Combeferre or Feuilly kindly to write for him, read to him. There's Feuilly to come with him to visit his children. There's the tailor for the proper clothes and dreadful, maddening, sweet Combeferre to help him shave. And it truly infuriates him that he can't even do that by himself. Is it better to accept Combeferre's help, or would it be better to preserve some dignity and go to a barber? Combeferre always promises it's all right, and he can't help but trust him more. He used to go to the barber, but it bothered him a little to have an unknown person with a razor so close to his throat. He trusts Combeferre utterly, as much as he resents him. And the man is always so kind and so terribly insistent. He lives conveniently near for the purpose of making sure Nicolas has gotten out of bed properly. He is so kind and so tactless. He tries to help, and injures Nicolas' pride with his mistakes. If only he could stop that.

And so Nicolas hates it. He hates depending on someone else for so much. When he was little, when he was seven, he asked Pére Noel to bring him new eyes. The girl who was to look after him was terribly upset. He was afraid, and he never made that sort of wish aloud again.

Suddenly he is brought abruptly from his quiet inside remembrance by the wall of a building. He falls back a step, rubbing the sleeve of his coat over his stinging face. This is the other half of it. This sort of idiotic misstep.

Poor, gentle Nicolas with his loving parents and his loving childhood friends and their decencies, and their helpfulness, and their horrible wrong words. Dear, sweet Nicolas, always taking special care to try and be normal. He doesn't believe that there is beauty in uniqueness and he wants nothing more than to be like everyone else! How precious! What a darling child! So tragic that he should have that nasty disability. Ah, if only he could see. Wouldn't his mother and father be so proud of their son then?

He comes to his knees in an elegant swift movement, hearing the sound of bare feet and a childish girl-voice.

"Mon enfant--"

He hears the soft patter halt, and the soft, ragged breathing stop before him, and he digs hurriedly in his pockets for money to give his daughter. He holds it out, and her small hand brushes his for a quick second as she snatches it.

"Merci, monsieur!"

Nicolas freezes, going rigid all over. None of them ever thanked him before. He is entranced, enraptured, and enthralled, and doesn't dare move. It's never happened before. Oh, his children. His wonderful, beautiful children. She pauses a moment longer, then turns and rushes off, and he almost doesn't notice. They never speak to him. They always run away.

He stands in a cloud of euphoria, and all his resentment towards Combeferre is forgotten. If Combeferre were to come upon him now, really, he'd embrace the man joyously. He wanders, lost in happiness, and quite lost in the streets of the city, though he doesn't realise it at all, not having any of himself to spare on such a thing. He doesn't understand the footsteps behind him as anything save footsteps. His fingers are curled in the fabric of his coat sleeves, knotted in as part of his hugging himself, and he could never have freed them in time to do anything, at any rate.

Having a knife pressed up against his throat makes him think briefly on the barber. What he was always subconsciously afraid might happen is happening, and it's such a stupid thing to think on or worry about. Having a knife pressed up against his throat and not thinking what to do but how ironic that he never needed a barber for all that. A stupid thing to think on. He trips back a step to get away from the cold blade, and finds his shoulders against the chest of a tall, slender boy with a very faint scent of rose.

If he wasn't blind, Nicolas thinks with sudden bitterness, he could try to defend himself. He would know what to do. And then the boy knocks Nicolas' head sharply against a wall, and watches with satisfaction as he collapses.

~~~

He comes back to himself with his head aching, shivering in his shirtsleeves. His coat is gone, he notes immediately. He pulls to his feet with the wall, cursing himself over and over. Yes, Combeferre was right. He's an idiot. This whole idea was idiotic. And now he's completely lost in the middle of Paris. Idiotic. Oh, God, how he hates being blind. How he hates it.

He manages along, guiding himself by walls and still shivering. Combeferre is likely worried sick. He wouldn't blame him. Poor man. Nicolas is quite of the opinion that he'll deserve any of Combeferre's wrath, when and if he gets home. Of course Combeferre won't be angry. He'll have fretted and driven himself to distraction, and he'll be so very glad to see Nicolas again. He won't get the scolding he richly deserves. But one must stand that, living with kind Combeferre. That's how it goes--

"Enjolras!"

Oh, God. He raises his face to the voice, cursing his indignity.

"Feuilly?"

"Jesus, Enjolras. What in hell happened to you?" Feuilly drapes his own thin coat about Nicolas' shoulders, taking away, at least, part of the cold. "You've blood in your hair and you look a disgrace. What, then? No, I shall guess at it. Combeferre and his care. You defied him with gross disrespect for authority - terrible man - and went strolling in the enormous, dangerous, curled-adder city, and were instantly set upon and slaughtered by villains."

"Not slaughtered..."

"But everything else. You are, as there is candour among friends, and with all the respect you didn't give Combeferre, an idiot."

"Yes, I think I know that, Feuilly."

"Very well. Come with me, and we'll try and get your hair back to its natural gold. It looks far better that way. By the way, you owe me many thanks for being your clichéd coincidence and walking in this part of Paris wherein I do not normally walk."

"Thank you..." He means it, and he pulls the coat closer, still feeling cold and still with traces of shivers.

"You're welcome," Feuilly returns quietly, without the lightness of a moment ago.

They do not speak for the rest of the walk, and even once they're in Feuilly's apartment, and he gently washes the blood away with a wet handkerchief and bowl of water, they are silent.

At last, Nicolas breaks it, bitterly.

"How on earth am I to conduct a revolution if I can't even go out into the city without being attacked?"

"It's quite simple, Enjolras. You won't be alone in the revolution," Feuilly states matter-of-factly, dabbing at the wound.

"Oh, you're dreadfully right. Why didn't I think of that? You'll all defend me from stray bullets."

"Of course we will. Now hush."

"Oh--"

"Hush."

Nicolas does, hugging his knees, trying to forget about his idiotic vulnerability. Finally, Feuilly stands, wringing out the handkerchief into the bowl of water with a squishing noise.

"Is it really that simple? I shan't be alone, and I can do things when I'm not alone?"

"Quite that simple."

"Thank God."

He lies back on Feuilly's bed, and it suddenly occurs to him that the boy who robbed him didn't take everything he'd started with. His daughter still has some amount of it. He laughs shortly, and Feuilly pokes him in the ribs.

"Off the bed unless you're sleeping."

"Thank you." It's a thank you for everything, though he doesn't expect Feuilly to realise that. A thank you for not being alone and for the coat and washing away the blood and walking with him when he visits his children and reading to him and offering opinions and taking down words.

"You're welcome." There is an odd tone in the voice. Feuilly realises.


Chapter Four.
Back to Chapter Two.