4A/N: It's been just over two months. Two months, three weeks, five days and ten hours to be precise and Combeferre really wishes he didn't have to think about it that way.
Modern AU Oneshot.
Disclaimer: As I am not Male, French, or living in C19th Paris, how can I possibly own Les Miserables? I am simply trying to convey my love for Combeferre, Joly and the rest of Les Amis de l'ABC into something cohesive- please don't sue me!
Can You Hear Me?
It's been just over two months. Two months, three weeks, five days and ten hours to be precise and Combeferre really wishes he didn't have to think about it that way. It's been less than sixty days and yet it feels like a lifetime as he feels the scalding heat of yet another cup of coffee assault his lips; watching the sky outside the kitchen window slowly slip from deepest indigo into the cool, pink flecked grey of early dawn.
The clouds are heavy with rain; thick, oppressive barriers pressing almost painfully down to earth as Combeferre reaches to push his spectacles further up his nose and sighs. He can feel the coffee surging through his blood stream, can almost taste the exhaustion tugging at the corners of his eyelids; the too taut skin burning with the salt of unshed tears.
The kitchen seems to swim through his line of vision; mountains of unwashed crockery lining the worktop by the sink coupled with the purchases from his most recent shopping trip still lying unpacked from their plastic bags on the once gleaming kitchen table. Books in various stages of being read litter every inch of spare space; books that try as he might, he cannot seem to focus on; all of his ideas burning up inside his brain until they are little more than fine black ash, withering and dying away without someone there to share them with; someone who understands his passion; who is able to nurture and feed his ideas until he can be sure of their germination.
From somewhere behind him the microwave beeps and he turns, unsure as to why he put it on in the first place. He sees the dawn shadowed coffee cup in his hand, the clench of the 2nd dors interosseus as his fist clenches, the slight relaxation of the intertendinious connections when it eases out when he reaches across to balance the cup on a teetering sheaf of medical journals which he must have brought down here on some other night and settled on the squishy, second hand, green velvet sofa underneath the kitchen window in order to ward off insomnia.
Without really understanding why he's doing it, he reaches across and swipes the first journal from the pile, crosses the floor and sinks onto the sofa in order to read; in order to starve off sleep for a few more hours and yet allowing his exhausted eyes to slip shut for the briefest of moments as he does so. Oh Joly…
From across the kitchen, the microwave beeps a second time; the oddly metallic ring cutting across the heavy, pre-dawn silence like a gunshot. In the back of his mind, he can imagine Joly berating him about the dangers of radiation contaminating food; the way his eyes the colour of autumn leaves would be heavy with sleep, how his forehead creasing with worry and yet not without the small, sleep filled smile that would tug at the corner of his lips as he surveyed the mess before crossing the kitchen and getting whatever Combeferre had saved for him for supper after one of his many fourteen hour shifts as an intern at their local A&E.
'You really should try and get some sleep 'Ferre', he would say; crossing the kitchen in two long strides and dropping to his knees before the sofa; softly reaching up to squeeze the guide's sleep fuddled fingers between his own.
'I can't. I can't sleep. I can't Joly. I keep seeing it. Over and over and you…'
And Joly would smile sadly and make a soft tutting sound at the back of his throat as he reached up to trace Combeferre's cheek in a silent act of reassurance.
'You can't keep doing this to yourself Mon Ami', he heard Joly murmur; heard him as if he was really in the kitchen beside him; real and whole and so very much alive rather than just being a memory of a man who could have been a brother to him. And yet thinking of Joly in that way, constantly conjuring up the image of the man whom Combeferre remembers or thinks that he remembers, is not going to help him.
'Please,' it's a word that Combeferre rarely heard Joly use with him when he was alive and yet thinking about it makes his heart ache all the harder; the pain sharp and strained as it thuds against his ribcage.
'Please go to Courfeyrac. Go to Enjolras. Go to our friends. Let them help you.' Combeferre shakes his head; feeling the weight of the silent tears threatening to drown him once more as without warning he feels his head drop into his hands; his shoulders heaving with silent sobs.
'I… I can't…' He finds himself whispering brokenly; not caring who can hear him; the words muffled through the weight of his splayed fingers; echoing desperately through the empty room.
'You can', Joly whispers; or rather the image of Joly whispers, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of his lips, hazel eyes pooling with compassionate concern as he reaches down to clasp the guide's shaking hand in a silent, passionate squeeze. 'They will want to help you; I know they will. You know they will. They need you.'
Squeezing his eyes shut against the memories that continue to plague him; Combeferre allows his head to drop back into his arms and gives himself over to the tears that were so longing to burst their boundaries. Later he will take the now ice cold cup of coffee back to the sink and watch the inky, viscous liquid spiral and splash down the sink before returning to the sofa to curl up and prop his head on his knees in order to watch the sun slowly climb above the shadows of a still sleeping Paris.
Later he will call Courfeyrac and Enjolras and talk through their plans for a meeting and use the rest of his morning to catch up on Tutorial notes for his Epicurean Philosophy seminar on Monday.
But now he simply pulls his legs up under him and finally, finally allows himself to cry properly over the medic whose bright, vivacious life had been ripped away from him much too soon and whose memory he will never allow himself to forget.
Fin
A/N: Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
Much love and enjoy x