➳ i am a ghost, just a mirage

[seditiously]

( who chases traces of you )

Comments

[seditiously]

[ Enjolras places his keys on the counter, next to the phone he so carelessly forgot when he left this morning. He shoots off the text he had wanted to send two hours ago as he lost his boyfriend in the Louvre’s crowded hallways: ]

Hey is everything okay? I couldn’t find you when you walked off and I left my phone. Did I say something wrong?

[ He throws the phone onto his mattress with a soft bounce, joining it soon after, face first in the smoothed comforter. Sighing deeply as he flips himself over, he tries to run through the events of his soured date: Lowkey sandwiches in the park; Moving to the Louvre to cater to Remi’s love of art; Remi almost cackling at his poor attempts at art critique, but offering kisses in apology; Remi saying they’d already been dating 3 months, like he didn’t already know, wasn’t excited by it all; talking about his exes? But Remi seemed to be happily joking; running into the Liberty painting; Enjolras asking for yet another art critique from Remi; Enjolras inevitably turning a date into a debate on political ideology, albeit in a history lesson Remi didn’t know he lived.

He seemed so hurt, he doesn’t understand; they’ve had worst arguments over what’s happening now. He grabs his phone again, texting an SOS to his group chat with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, urging them to come over and sort him out. ]

[habitually]

[ "A history lesson Rémi didn't know he lived." Oh, Enjolras you wish that was true. Rémi was dry heaving over his toilet, taking deep breaths to stop himself from vomiting again. A cold sweat prickled his brow and an empty glass bottle is rolling into the table leg innocuously as there are vibrations from other apartment occupants' movements nearby rattling their ceiling.

It is another hour and change before Rémi is feeling well enough to find his phone where it was left on a counter in his kitchen alcove of his cramped studio for two. The roommate is at an art show, so Rémi has the space to himself to drown his sorrows and self-conflict in ethanol with. Which, in this case, ends with him holding his spinning head with his sweat-drenched shirt abandoned in the restroom, opening a message from Enjolras. He feels his eyes prickle as he winces and laughs. ]

Did you say something wrong? [ The words are hoarse and broken, a combination of his raw throat and the thoughts that keep telling him that he needs to stay far away from the man who led him to death that he relives on an at-least-weekly basis. ]

all good! stomach upset from lunch and i got claustrophobic and felt sick. sorry i bolted. xx

Go fuck yourself, Apollo. Fuck your revolution. [ R throws his abused phone into the couch cushion. With a sob, he buries his head into his hands and doubles over. ]

[seditiously]

[ Combeferre and Courfeyrac are in Enjolras' apartment by the time he gets a return text from Remi. It's been a rough hour; he's talked through the date with both of them to figure out where he went wrong, but its segued into his larger future, either with Remi or anyone for that matter.

Part of Enjolras resents it; it's easy for Combeferre and Courfeyrac to critique when they fell into each other's arms in this life, bound by their unique experience and the freedom their prior lives did not allow. Combeferre looks unsurprised when he throws it at them during their critique of him, easily deflecting to refocus on the crux of the issue: can Enjolras share his heart and have a future with a man of this time, without ever telling him of his past? ]

Are you sure you don't want me to bring you over anything? I'm sorry you weren't feeling well, hope you're resting

[habitually]

[ Grantaire swallows another bout of nausea brought on with spinning. The crying isn’t helping. He needs water, but he doesn’t want to get up and make the room move more. His phone buzzes back quickly and his stomach turns at the thought of Enjolras - the man who once told him he was not serious enough. He was a skeptic and a waste and a distraction from the cause— and he cared. About him. Rémi’s love for Alexandre, and Grantaire’s adoration of Enjolras. The same. And it overwhelmed the inconsequential, drunken young man. He didn’t expect it to get this far. What did you expect, R? ]

nah don’t come over and see this. i’m a mess.

[ Rémi covers this face with his hands, trying to block out the thought of Enjolras being shot at on the barricade. He remembers little Gavroche falling. Éponine falling. It was soon after the deaths that he drunk himself into a slumber that only the silence of Enjolras’ last stand could wake him from—

“Long live the Republic!” His sobered eyes look to Enjolras and back to the men with drawn artillery pointing at the figure he revered, and loved with every fiber of his meager soul. “I am one of them!” Rémi sobbed with pain, knowing he could not share this with his lover. Any decent human being would run- and the entrenched lie that was now at the heart of his relationship; it would kill them. Grantaire was going to kill them, this time. He didn’t need bullets for it. ]

I can’t— I can’t do this. I’m not enough. ...And I am too much.

[seditiously]

[ "We're not saying you shouldn't be with him, not at all! You two seem perfect together. But there's only so long this can go on without telling him...Jesus, E, he's actua--

"What we're saying," Combeferre, usually mild and composed, shoots his partner a warning glance, "is that a relationship, no matter how well it's going, can only go on for so long before you need to be fully honest with your partner. We get it's hard to own up to our...situation. Feuilly's still trying to figure out how to broach it with Adrienne. But he'll never understand all of you, know why certain streets haunt you and be able to help you through the nightmares, unless he knows."

"I know!" Enjolras snaps, almost immediately feeling guilty for it. "...I know. But how is he supposed to understand something like that? I don't understand how we're even here, how any of this is real. I...I can't lose him, 'Ferre." ]

Are you sure? I don't want you to have to figure things out yourself if you're feeling sick. It's really not a problem.

[habitually]

[ R smiles in spite of himself, laughing through a pronounced sniffle as he reads the message. His head shakes bemusedly as he taps a reply out. ]

i’m the problem, angel.

[ He groans and makes the “...” immediately reappear on Enjolras’ screen for several seconds as he writes and rewrites his response to try and avoid Enjolras parading in here to try and fix the problem. It comes as two messages back to back. ]

you have a speech to write, sir. i didn’t forget that. i’m just sick and making myself sicker by just being stubborn. i’ll be okay.

i promise i’ll be ok but thank you for worrying.