Chapter Text
“All systems of oppression reinforce one another, and none can be fought in isolation.”
— Marwaan Kabour
What does it mean to inherit a legacy bathed in both glory and blood?
On the surface, New York's ————— Law School glittered with the promise of future leaders. But beneath the veneer, a group of students was about to challenge an empire that had never truly died. The torch of empire had merely been passed along.
Enjolras had always felt the weight of their heritage like a shadow, following silently, shaping every corner of his life. He lived in an empire, and he had inherited the privileges gained on the backs of innocents. Empire tinted every facet of his identity.
To be silent is to be complicit. Inaction is action. These were all lines that had jumped out to him from amid the pages of his law school texts. It felt like his calling, laid bare. Do something, it seemed to say. He’d attended his fair share of protests and vigils, signed myriad petitions, created infographics, all of it. But now, he felt called to do something more.
When Enjolras turned eighteen, he wanted to get as far away from home as possible. He needed to, if he was going to survive. He spent a summer in Florence where he was able to introduce himself for the first time as ——— rather than his birth name. He forged a friend group that knew him only as a young man and saw him as nothing other. Then, by the end of the summer when his savings ran out, he was faced with the prospect of returning home. Instead, he opted to stay abroad, where he remained for undergrad. He learned a lot- like something of what it meant to be an immigrant rather than only a child of one. He faced hardships but he’d also finally been able to begin his transition, away from the keen eyes of his parents, though his steadily-deepening voice was hard to disguise over the frequent phone calls from his mother.
“T’es malade, mon ange?” She’d ask. For awhile, he played into it, pretended to cough, pretended he was only ill, but with time he came clean, and once his degree came to an end and the prospect of returning home loomed once more, his parents could either accept him or kiss him goodbye. With great luck and reluctance, they chose the former.
He knew he wanted to study law. The constant barrage of anti-trans rhetoric online, the hastening deluge of alt-right legislature, the steady turning back of LGBTQIA rights left him feeling hollow. The protests and marches were no longer enough. He needed to have an active hand in securing a real future for the community. So he flew home and spent months working, saving, and studying. He wrote his applications, took the LSAT, and by the Autumn he found himself in New York.
He spent a year there, then one abroad in Paris to earn his Matrîse to pass the French Bar, and returned to New York for a final year. But when he’d returned, he was changed by his time in l'hexagone . He’d seen the consequences of imperialism more clearly than he ever had in the all-encompassing embrace of the states. And in speaking with countless of those affected, he decided to form a group for a niche intersection: LGBT individuals touched by imperialism. Children of immigrants and immigrants themselves. He would call it: Les Amis de l’ABC. That was Courfeyrac’s suggestion, a clever pun on the pronunciation of Abaissé - oppressed. They were to be the friends of the oppressed.
“And what exactly are we going to do in this group?” Combeferre asked, blowing the steam off his americano. They’d spent the past years together, including that in Paris.
“Fight. For queer rights- for immigrant rights. Because the oppression of any of us means the oppression of all of us. If any group gets too comfortable, thinks an attack elsewhere won’t lead to an attack upon themselves… then we’re doomed.” Enjolras stirred the foam in his cappuccino, slashing the heart left by the barista into a mess of oat-milk lacerations.
“Right. But there must be a clearer vision than that. What steps can we take?” Ferre asked, ever the cool logic among the trio; himself the guide, Enjolras the chief, and Courfeyrac the center.
“That’s where you come in. Any successful group needs the leadership of plural minds. Empires fall under the crushing grip of an individual.” Enjolras finally took a sip of his drink, then licked the foam from his lips. He glanced back across the café to the register. A queue had built up, and the golden-haired barista appeared surprisingly calm despite it. She looked familiar, but Enjolras couldn’t quite place from where.
“M’ecoute?”
Enjolras’s gaze snapped back to his friend’s carob eyes. “What?”
“I said: we could apply for a grant through the university. Get a clear vision of what we want to accomplish and—“
“Non . Absolutely not. The university is a business first, and like any business their interests are ultimately far removed from ours. I don’t want to be any more attached to an institution than we will be already if we utilize campus spaces and advertise there.” Enjolras twirled his coffee-stirrer through the air as if to say et cetera et cetera.
“Salut mes potes!” The cheery, slightly smoke-roughened voice echoed from behind Enjolras and he turned in his chair to see Courfeyrac, all dark glossy curls and a wide smile that cut dimples into his cheeks.
“Where have you been?” Combeferre asked, nudging his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand.
Courfeyrac’s smile didn’t waver. He clasped a hand on Enjolras’s lithe shoulder before sinking down in the empty seat between them. “I had another coffee date,” he winked playfully. “Well, I had to meet up with a potential roommate.”
“I said you could stay with us,” Enjolras reminded him, brow furrowed.
Courfeyrac waved him off. “I can’t leave this apartment. It was a steal, and it feels like… home. Besides, I can’t move both of you into a single bedroom - unless you have something to tell me?” He paused, eyebrows raised, and looked between the pair before settling his expression once more. “No? Well then I need to find another roommate.”
“How was this meeting then?” Ferre asked.
“I think this one is a winner.” Courfeyrac paused, looking down at the table. “No one got my drink?” He pouted playfully.
“It would have melted by now, mec. Caramel iced latte?” Ferre asked, already pushing himself up from the table.
“My hero. Make it a large” Courf flashed him another bright grin as he walked away, and then turned his attention to Enjolras.
“You aren’t just jumping on the first person to apply, are you?” He asked, brow still furrowed.
“Not after last time…” Courf sucked air through his teeth. “This guy seems nice. He’s timid, but sweet. He’s intelligent. The quiet and studious kind, tu sais?”
“Would we know him by any chance?”
“Doubtful. He’s doing some sort of environmental sciences postgrad.”
“Some sort? You didn’t ask what his degree was?”
“I mean, he explained it but it mostly went over my head. Some real niche sciencey stuff.”
Combeferre sank back down into his seat. “Your order is being prepared, monsieur. Now, what have I missed?”
“Merci mon cher.” Courfeyrac wrinkled his nose.
“He was just telling me how his new potential housemate is a scientist,” Enjolras said.
“Or something. It sounded noble enough, I thought you would approve,” Courfeyrac said.
“We’ll have to meet him. Invite him around sometime,” Ferre suggested.
Enjolras nodded slowly. “Is he francophone?”
“Is that a prerequisite to join Les Amis de l’ABC?” Courfeyrac arched a brow, barely visible beneath the mess of tousled ringlets. “But I did put the ad up in French. So yes, he speaks French… enough, anyway.”
Enjolras cringed at the implications of how he’d worded the question. A germ of imperialism, he thought with reference to Franz Fanon, lingering in my mind. “I didn’t mean it like that-“
“It’s fine. It’s important we can all communicate our great, important, earth-shattering ideas, non?” Courfeyrac winked, and Enjolras knew he meant to comfort him. “And if our lingua franca is to be French, then surely we must all be able to understand French.”
“Uh… Don Juan?” The barista called out, iced caramel latte in hand.
Courfeyrac instantly flashed Combeferre a wry glare. “You’re hilarious, Ferre. Honestly.” He pushed himself up from the table to retrieve his drink.
Combeferre’s lips pressed into a subdued smile of pride. “I’m saving Casanova for next time.”
--
In the months leading up to his matrîse in Paris, Enjolras has nursed his mind on a steady intellectual diet of Franz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Albert Camus, and Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
In discussions of the immigrant experience, Enjolras had always sympathized but had never truly felt it. He’d grown up the child of an immigrant, sure, but he spoke English as a native amongst natives, and the same had gone for French in France. Though, it had been a great many years since he’d spent a significant amount of time in l’hexagone . Certainly not since he’d been a child. It had come as a shock to be asked “d’où viens-tu?” So often after he opened his mouth. He found himself explaining over and over that he’d been born in France to a French mother and then moved to the states as a child for his American father’s work, summering every so often back in France. It seemed his French had stalled when he left France that last summer, so many years before.
Slowly he found himself not in circles of native Frenchmen or - god forbid - native Parisians , but amongst those who were equally or more familiar with the question d’où viens-tu? Combeferre was among them. His French was impeccable, having grown up in Haiti in a French international school, but it was his night-dark skin and his penchant for vodou trinkets of luck that sparked the question. He wore his hair in neat locs with the odd bead, and a thin silver chain with small amulets from his mother hung around his neck. Before a protest, he left out offerings of cigarettes, chili peppers, and rum to Maman Brigitte for Justice to be served. (Courfeyrac often smoked the cigarettes but always left one behind).
Courfeyrac, on the other hand, was born in the states to Algerian parents who had fled French Algeria to escape the conflict. He struggled with the language, as he’d spent most of his childhood and teens rejecting it entirely for what the French had done to his family. Then, with time, he decided he could leverage it to advantage him. He could turn that tool of oppression into an opportunity. Though, he had a lot of catching up to do, so he took French through his undergrad, took to speaking it exclusively with his parents, and went to an immersion course for a summer in Canada. He was motivated, almost entirely, by spite, but it proved effective.
Enjolras felt at home with them. Despite such radically different backgrounds they were United by a shared experience. It was Paris that had made the trio inseparable.