Chapter Text
If he’s being honest, Grantaire has - glimpses. There are moments where a fragment of music will catch on the edge of his mind like the snag of fabric, a face will leap out of a crowd, a voice will echo across a crowded room and he’ll be instantly on alert, eyes wide.
It’s always the same. The silt of his life will finally begin to settle to the bottom and he’ll be back in the routine: sculpt, teach, drink, sleep, repeat. He gets commissions from a few clients, but the money mostly comes from classes at the university. He sees Bahorel, he gets coffee with Eponine, he goes to art shows with Joly, Bosseut, and Musichetta, and he tries to forget.
And then a voice echoes across the room, and he’s shaking like a leaf, more awake than he’s been in weeks, staring across the room - maybe this time…?
“R, you met me once and you knew that Montparnasse wasn’t a good partner. You never even met him, and you told me, verbatim, to get the hell out of whatever relationship was waiting at home.”
Grantaire looks down, pulls his sweatshirt around himself a little tighter. “It was pretty obvious, Ep.”
Eponine lets out a laugh, the crochet hook flashing in her hand like a tiny sword through the loops in her black-and-blue blanket. It’s for Gavroche, sleeping fitfully in the next room. “Not to literally anyone else around me! Claquesous told me the day before what a good guy Parnasse seemed to be. No one clocked it, R, except you.”
“It - ” Grantaire shrugs, adjusting Eponine’s feet on his lap and focusing on the television. It’s some old production of Gräfin Mariza . “It was like there was a bad smell on you. You smelled like fear.”
Eponine smiles slightly. “It was like someone had peeked behind the curtain and finally saw what I was seeing for the first time. I was so certain I was crazy before I met you.”
“Parnasse sucked, man. You had to get out of there.”
Eponine flicks her eyes sideways at Grantaire. “Don’t change the subject, R.”
Grantaire huffs out a sigh. “The subject being?”
“I think you might be a little psychic.”
Grantaire puts his head in his hands. “I’m not psychic, Eponine.”
“I am asking you to keep an open mind, R,” she replies a little acerbically.
“I’m not psychic,” he repeats. He takes a deep breath before continuing. “I just - Sometimes, I think I’ve been here before. I’ve lived - this. Before. Maybe.”
Eponine’s feet go still in his lap.
“I’m not crazy,” Grantaire continues a little desperately, addressing the floor. “I’m not.”
“Never said you were,” says Eponine evenly.
“I mean, I - I have this awful sense of déjà vu all the time. Like, all the time since I was… nineteen? Twenty?”
“About what?”
Grantaire scrubs his face with his hand. “Everything. Work. Stuff I hear, stuff I know. A couple of days ago I was sketching this lady I saw on the Métro and then I blinked and realized I’d drawn her before. Years and years ago, I don’t even know, like I can reach behind me years and years, way before I was even born and see the same face on a page that I’m drawing - it’s my hand, and it’s me that’s drawing it, but it’s not me. Do you remember when me and Bahorel went to the Philharmonie de Paris in the park and they were doing Così fan tutte? They started playing the overture and my first thought was, Oh, I love this opera, and I’d never heard it before. At the time, I thought I was just high, but then - then halfway through the first act, Bahorel elbowed me and told me to stop singing along under my breath, I was ruining the scene. I had never heard it before , I swear. ” He takes a breath, tries to laugh. “So I got stupid drunk and tried to forget about it. Bahorel never knew.”
Eponine is silent.
“I swear to God, Ep, if you call the cops and get me committed I’m going to be pissed,” he tries to joke. “Been there, done that.”
“Is it just art, or is it other stuff, too?” asks Eponine in a slightly strangled voice.
Grantaire swallows. “I recognized you,” he says hoarsely. “When I met you, I recognized you. It isn’t like that with everyone but it was with you. And Bahorel, and Musichetta. And - ” He can’t bring himself to finish the thought.
“And?”
“And,” he continues, clenching his cold, sweaty hands around nothing. “There’s someone - someone missing. Multiple people, I think, but someone in particular.”
“Someone you loved, maybe,” says Eponine. “Loved a lot? Before?”
“Yeah,” says Grantaire. “A lot.” He pauses, feels the agony of the silence. “Am I nuts?”
“I don’t know,” says Eponine. “When you say ‘missing’ - ”
“Haven’t met him yet,” says Grantaire, biting his lips. “I want to, I want to meet him so bad sometimes I feel it in my throat, between my teeth, but every time I think it’s him, he’s not there. I’m worried that he’s not real at all, like I’ve built him up in my head on top of everything else until he’s my - my Daisy Buchanan.”
Eponine grimaces. She’s taking this entirely too easily. “Jesus. Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
Eponine sits up, draping the blanket over the back of the couch, and takes Grantaire’s hand. “No bullshit,” she says. “You know yourself. Is he amazing?”
Grantaire looks back at her, wide-eyed. “I think so, Ep.”
She sits up, shaking her hair back over her shoulders and pulling the blanket back down, crochet hook in hand again. “Well then,” she says briskly, eyeing him. “We’ll just have to wait and meet him to see, hmm?”
Grantaire watches her crochet for a moment, agog. “You were supposed to tell me I was crazy and to get the fuck out of your apartment,” he says desperately.
“If you start saying you’re the next Jesus Christ, I will,” she says mildly. “Otherwise, you’re fine. I’ve seen you high off your ass on an ungodly amount of acid, R, I’m not scared of you.”
“Yeah, but what if I’m actually nuts, like, cuckoo for CoCo Puffs?”
She smirks at him. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
He really doesn’t deserve her.
Mabeuf has made it clear that the History of the Italian Renaissance exams are due back to the students by Friday at the latest, and Grantaire knows that he’s been slacking on correcting. He’s already foisted the correction of the multiple choice part of the exam onto poor Fameuil, who’s already swamped with finals, and all that’s left to grade is the essay portion. He’s been studiously avoiding it for the past week.
He runs a hand through his hair, swings his bag over his shoulder, and stomps down to the Métro to go to a coffeeshop somewhere, because these exams sure as hell won’t get graded in the chaos of his apartment. The Métro is busy, packed with people going to lunch or tourists on their way to the Arc de Triomphe, and he shoves in his earbuds, trying to tune out the noise.
He gets off the 2 near the Moulin Rouge and shuffles into Café Pigalle, uncomfortably aware of the two well-dressed businessmen in front of him. He keeps his head down, orders a double espresso, and slides into a tiny booth in the back, plugging in his laptop and shoving his bag under the chair.
He’s about halfway through his fourth essay (“Botticell’s illustrations for Dante’s Inferno were considered in poor taste at the time of their publication, though the intervening centuries have clearly shown that - ”) when all the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He blinks, looking up from his laptop, and feels the blood drain from his face.
There’s a blond man standing at the register with the kind of posture Grantaire has only seen from professional models and ballerinos. Grantaire carefully pulls out one earbud fast enough to hear the blond man say thank you and turn towards the back of the restaurant. Grantaire immediately ducks his head down to his laptop, heart racing, as the man takes a table just across from him.
He focuses on breathing - for some reason, he’s suddenly finding it difficult - and clenches his hands on top of the keyboard. Every nerve in his body is awake, humming just beneath his skin. The barista calls out flat white! and the blond man stands up, elegance incarnate. Grantaire stares at him as he steps over to the counter to collect his coffee.
It’s him. He’s as beautiful as Grantaire didn’t dare hope he would be; he’s got light eyes and a fierce expression and curling golden hair. He’s elegant in a way that Grantaire could never be, and he moves with a kind of arrogant grace that feels like a slap. He turns, coffee in hand, and their eyes meet for half of a second before Grantaire slams his eyes back to his keyboard, feeling his face flush dark red. He can feel the man staring at him for a moment before he sits back down at his table, pulling something out of his bag.
Grantaire fights the immediate impulse to run out of the café and keep running until he’s safe back home in his shitty apartment. This is not happening. He feels the tremors in his hands; he’s right there, this mystery man whom Grantaire has always known and never met. A voice in his head suspiciously like Eponine’s prompts him to approach the man, say hello, ask for his number, but Grantaire glances down at his paint-stained jeans and ratty sweatshirt and immediately dismisses the idea. Who is he to interrupt the daily life of an Apollo?
He tries to focus on the essay in front of him, the cursor on the text blinking inquiringly at him, but instead he ends up surreptitiously pulling his sketchbook from his bag, fingers fumbling for a pencil somewhere in its depths, and he starts sketching the man sitting across from him. He emphatically does not look at him again; if he dares it there’s no way he won’t look like a creep.
He’s nearly through with the rough sketch when someone clears their throat above him and he jumps, looking up and reflexively pulling the sketchbook up against his chest.
It’s the blond man. Grantaire’s throat contracts, and he swallows.
“Excuse me,” says the man. His voice is mellow and cultivated. He has the face of an angel. Through the terrifying anticipation, Grantaire thinks that he messed up the nose in his sketch.
“Y-yeah?” says Grantaire, voice cracking.
“Are you a student?” he says, gesturing to Grantaire’s half-hidden bag, emblazoned with École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in red embroidery.
“Uh, no, I’m teach - I’m a teacher,” he says hoarsely. “I mean, I just teach a couple of classes as - as a favor to my old mentor. I’m doing the Italian Masters course right now.”
Apollo smiles, and Grantaire feels his fingers digging deeper into the paper of his sketchbook. His brain is blissfully blank.
“May I give you a few flyers? I’m part of a graduate student-led social justice club and we’re always looking for new members to come to meetings.”
Grantaire blinks, trying to focus. “Um, sure? You mean flyers to hang up on campus?”
“Yes,” says the blond man determinedly, and Grantaire can’t fault him for confidence even though he has no idea what’s going on. “We’d love to have you there as well,” he adds, and Grantaire’s heart starts beating faster.
“Okay,” he says carefully, taking the pack of flyers the man extends to him.
“I hope to see you there,” says the blond man with a slight smile, turning back towards his table.
“Yeah - wait, what was your name?” asks Grantaire, clutching the flyers like a lifeline.
“Enjolras,” says Apollo, peering at him strangely.
“I’m Grantaire,” says Grantaire, trying to sit up a little straighter.
“Yes,” says Enjolras, as if Grantaire has just stated the obvious. Before Grantaire can reply, he’s turning to gather his things at the table and balancing his empty coffee cup on top of his laptop. He shoots one more smile at Grantaire as he leaves, carefully placing the cup in the dirty dish tray and pushing open the door with the grace of a matador swinging a cape.
Grantaire sits back in his chair, swallowing hard, heart pounding. Yes, Enjolras had responded. Yes.
He doesn’t tell Eponine. He doesn’t tell anyone. The flyers sit on the corner of his kitchen counter, staring accusingly at him.
None of this makes sense. For some reason, he had thought he had months or even years before he would meet this mystery man from his subconscious pseudo-memory. Or maybe he’d meet the guy and he’d be pretty normal, actually, and quite mediocre. Or maybe things would get worse, he’d start hearing voices and seeing signs and Eponine would drive him back to the hospital and he’d finally get some sort of coherent diagnosis for whatever the hell is wrong with him. He didn’t expect confirmation of the stuff he’s been trying not to remember .
The club meeting is next Tuesday. Obviously, he’s going.
He slumps over on his ancient couch, face in his hands, and groans.
Tuesday rolls around and Grantaire makes sure to get comfortably buzzed before stepping reluctantly onto the Métro train car bound for Saint-Michel. The address on the flyer that’s shoved in his pocket is a bar right across from a swanky restaurant called, with terrible apropos, La Jacobine. He can feel some sort of cataclysmic event looming, and as the chipped sign reading Musain comes into view over his head, he has to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.
Well, he’s come this far.
He takes a deep breath, scrubs a hand through his hair, and pushes open the battered green door. He’s hit immediately with sounds of voices, the smell of hot pastries, and golden light. He blinks, and the room comes into focus.
There are groups of three or four people, all about his age, scattered haphazardly around rickety tables, leaning towards one another, deep in conversation. Despite this, they seem to all be facing the same direction, occasionally glancing towards a group on the far side of the bar, who have their heads huddled together conspiratorially.
One glance is enough to inform Grantaire that Apollo - Enjolras - is the central figure in this trio. The sight of that blond head alone still feels like someone has slammed a hammer into his chest. The back of his mind screams it’s him, it’s really him, and he swallows hard, uncomfortable at this sudden devotion to a man he met a week ago at a nondescript café while grading exams.
He’s interrupted from further thought by a gentle tap on his shoulder. He turns and is immediately met by warm brown eyes and a fierce handshake.
“Are you new? Hi, I’m Feuilly! Here, come sit with me up at the front. Feel free to ask questions, we’d love to hear them! What’s your name?”
He’s a bit too bowled over to prevent himself from being pushed right to the front of all the tables, a scant fifteen feet from Apollo and his accomplices. He tries to remind himself that he’s not a supplicant at a shrine, he’s just a man at a social justice club meeting, but somehow it falls flat when Enjolras looks up suddenly and catches his glance.
The response is immediate. Enjolras beams, and it’s as if he can’t look away. The corners of his eyes crinkle and his smile is so wide it’s kind of gummy.
Grantaire is nailed to his chair. He feels paralysed, like a butterfly on a pin, under such scrutiny. It’s not an entirely unwelcome feeling; he doesn’t know if anyone has ever looked at him quite as - as entirely as Enjolras is looking at him right now. He doesn’t know what to do.
“Hi,” Grantaire sees Enjolras’s mouth form, but it’s too loud for him to hear, so he just nods, waves a little, awkward as hell, and looks down at his lap.
“That’s Enjolras,” says Feuilly cheerfully, blissfully unaware. “And next to him are Combeferre and Courfeyrac, they kind of run the club as a triumvirate.”
“Like a Consulat kind of triumvirate?” mutters Grantaire in reply, glancing at Enjolras, who is explaining something a bit testily to - Combeferre? He’s not sure.
“Christ, don’t let Enjolras hear you say that, he hates Napoléon, ” says Feuilly, laughing a little fearfully. “They all play their parts. But yes,” he continues, a little quieter, “Enjolras is the main leader. You didn’t hear it from me.”
Enjolras stands abruptly and claps his hands a few times imperiously. The room gradually falls silent.
“Alright,” he says, clearing his throat and squaring his shoulders. It’s obviously not a conscious movement, but it’s so gracefully executed that Grantaire’s fingers are itching to sculpt him, paint him, immortalize him in media. “Let’s call the meeting to order.”
Grantaire zones out after that. There’s discussion of the last meeting’s minutes, current legislation under review, protests, activism, things he neither understands nor cares about. He’s deep into imagining just how to use a tooth chisel to perfect Enjolras’s cupid’s bow in white marble when Enjolras, mid-sentence, glances at him with a meaning he can’t quite decipher, and suddenly he’s tuning back in.
“ - such that conflict must be exploited when possible to further our aims. Capitalist colonial expansionism is now eating its own tail territorially; at some point this ideology will consume itself in the same way. We have a duty to hasten its end, so that all men may be free.”
“Hear, hear,” come a few voices from the back of the room.
Grantaire shifts in his seat.
“People are hungry, people are overworked and underpaid, and this cannot be allowed to continue. We must bring this to the attention of the upper classes, by any means necessary, so that we may begin to cause real change for those of us below.”
“Feuilly,” mutters Grantaire out of the corner of his mouth. “Feuilly, I have a question.”
“Raise your hand,” whispers Feuilly immediately. “Go for it.”
Swallowing the butterflies in his stomach, Grantaire raises a tremulous hand.
Enjolras turns to him, watching him again in that strange way that Grantaire can’t qualify. “Yes, Grantaire?”
“Uh,” says Grantaire hoarsely, trying to regain his train of thought. “When - when you say by any means necessary, are you talking about protests and marches? Or, like, arson and class war?”
“Any and all of those,” says Enjolras simply. “Conflict is inevitable against the capitalist machine.” He turns back to the group, opens his mouth to continue, but Grantaire jumps in before he can stop himself.
“Wait a minute,” he says, his voice gaining strength. “You want working class people to put their lives on the line to get tear gassed and machine gunned in the streets?”
Enjolras frowns a little. “Our surveys have shown that once a population reaches a breaking point, mass insurrection is almost guaranteed, and it overwhelms the upper classes so that change is destined to happen. It happened in the Arab Spring, it happened here in France, it happened in Haiti, it’s inevitable.”
Grantaire laughs bleakly. “How many people died in the Arab Spring? Do you honestly think that war has changed since the Prussians invaded? Since Algeria? The people handing out the rifles tell you it’ll be over by Christmas, and it lasts for years and years. Have your surveys studied the actual impact of the war you want so badly, Apollo?”
Enjolras jumps at the nickname, eyes going wide as he stares down at Grantaire, but Grantaire pushes on, stronger.
“Europe was decimated in the twentieth century, not to mention their colonies. During the First World War things got so bad that France melted down 100,000 church bells to make bullets. Just like that, the sounds of 100,000 bells were blotted out forever from those villages, so people didn’t know the time anymore, they didn’t hear the call to Mass, they didn’t know when to wake up and when to sleep. Gone just like that, just like all the kids they sent off to die. Real people, Enjolras, real families and real casualties. Their sons were killed in an endless war, and they had no bells to even toll for the dead. On top of their children dying, they had no voice for their grief. That’s what you want?”
Enjolras blinks down at him. The bar is very quiet. Grantaire watches a veil come over his eyes; he’s suddenly elegantly aloof.
“Blood must be shed for change,” he says haughtily, and something in his arrogance makes Grantaire’s stomach curdle in disgust.
“Blood alone moves the wheels of history!” he quotes, sneering, and waves his fist. “Three cheers for the war!”
There are a few gasps from behind him. He watches Enjolras’s face go completely white. He doesn’t care.
“I'm not going to tell you what happened the last time I went to a protest, because I don't want to be another statistic in your surveys,” Grantaire spits, clutching his thighs so hard that he feels his nails through his jeans, staring up at Enjolras. “But when you say blood must be shed or whatever, you should know the fucking cost before you say it.” He stands up, chair shrieking across the wood floor, and glances down at his shaking hands. “People - people aren't statistics,” he says quietly, looking up at Enjolras, whose white face looks spectral in the low light. “They're not numbers.”
He hesitates, almost asking why did you invite me here? because Enjolras doesn’t know him, doesn’t have any idea who he is. Yet Apollo bid him come, and here he is, causing problems like he seems to do everywhere he goes - he shakes his head, turns away, and walks quickly through the silent tables to the door.
He looks back; everyone is watching him with varying levels of shock in their expressions, but he only has eyes for Enjolras.
He’s still standing underneath the light, illuminated like an angel. He looks, to Grantaire’s astonishment, near tears, as if Grantaire has just torn open some old wound he worked very hard to close. But he doesn’t know Grantaire, there’s no way that he - a random stranger from a coffee shop - could cause that kind of reaction in someone as poised and punctilious as Enjolras. Grantaire turns and pushes open the door, the cool dark of the night enveloping him, and leaves the Musain with all its light and warmth behind him.