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"She's so beautiful, Grantaire," Joly says, tilting his cup back and forth without ever raising it to his lips. "The most beautiful girl I've ever seen. And wittier by half than any of us."
"Careful," Grantaire tells him, "I may take offense. To her superlative wit, that is, though I'm sure I know a few ladies who would object to the other."
"You'll just have to meet her and see for yourself."
"Perhaps I'll have you blindfold me," Grantaire muses. "That way I can evaluate her wit without being unfairly distracted by her beauty. I find the latter has a way of augmenting the former."
"They're entirely separate attributes in Musichetta," Joly assures him, then adds with unexpected vehemence, "Bossuet doesn't deserve her."
"Come now," says Grantaire, taken aback, and clasps his shoulder.
He's expecting jealousy, or bitter-tinged lust; he's touched plenty of men spurned. Instead he's swamped with a wave of pure sadness. He swallows against it and holds on, leeching away as much as he can. Joly sad is not to be tolerated.
"It's not...there isn't anyone who deserves her," Joly says.
"Ah, but Bossuet isn't just anyone," Grantaire says, fighting to keep his tone light against the stolen emotion that weighs his head and his heart.
"Who is he, then?"
"Your particular friend, for one."
"And yours."
"Mm," says Grantaire, leaving that unaddressed. There's a pang of loneliness in amongst Joly's sadness. It's not the first time he's found himself jealous of their friendship, for all they extend it to him; there's something different about them, something that neither falters nor opens for anyone.
Except, it seems, for Musichetta.
"Joly," says Grantaire slowly, "if you're so taken with her, why not just court her as well?"
"And what of my particular friend?"
"What of him? I can hardly imagine he'll challenge you to a duel for her favor. Why not let the lady choose which she prefers? Or perhaps she'll prefer not to choose, and keep both of you for use on alternate days."
Joly raises his eyebrows. "You can't think Bossuet would be amenable."
"I don't see why not. Be honest, is there anything you can name that he wouldn't share with you if you asked?"
"Well-"
"What's to lose in asking, at least?"
"A little dignity, perhaps," says Joly, but a smile is tugging at the side of his mouth. Grantaire is glad to see it.
"Dignity? If you are to lose a little of that, who better to surrender it to than Bossuet? God knows he needs any extra scraps that might find their way to him."
"I suppose."
"Or is it the fair Musichetta you're so worried about? Does she have such an excess of dignity, then, that she'll look down upon you?"
Joly smiles in truth at that.
"I might fill pages describing her, but among all her praiseworthy traits I would not list dignity foremost, no."
"There you have it, then. I can't imagine you and Bossuet would ever let a woman come between you." He pauses, dredging up a sideways smirk. "Unless, of course-"
"Grantaire!" Joly protests, laughing and smacking him on the arm in feigned affront. Grantaire gets a moment of feeling from him, mostly hope and amusement, sadness still present but diminished. He pulls back quickly before he leeches away the good cheer.
Joly departs soon after that, off to a meal prearranged with the two people in question. Grantaire thinks that this bodes well for his amorous pursuit and says as much; Joly claps him on the back, a fleeting second of happy expectation before Grantaire twists away from it.
"You lighten the most somber of moods, R, you always have," says Joly. "You ought to charge a fee for your company, although your poor penniless friends will take it very ill if you do. Are you certain you won't come to supper?"
"Some other time," Grantaire says, and waves him off.
When he's gone Grantaire claims his unfinished wine as easily as he had his sadness. It helps, a little. So do the next several cups. Grantaire drinks too much; Grantaire is an empty vessel, filling himself with others' feelings until he fears to move lest he overflow, or scream, or rend his heart, until the only course left is to mute them with wine or abandon all reason. The others might frown less if they knew it was their own troubles he was drinking away.
He's been more prone to it of late, both the touching and the drinking. The fault lies in this group of men he's somehow grown fond of. Perhaps it's only the scraps of their own affection for each other, collected haphazardly in a thousand meaningless touches until Grantaire cannot be rid of the feeling. They are fond of him as well, the way people are when they discover that he can cheer even the most melancholy among them. That ability excuses many vices. Only Enjolras thinks him a nuisance, because Grantaire has never touched him and never will. Enjolras tolerates him for the others' sake, which is enough. Cataloguing the exact degree of his Enjolras' frustration and bafflement with him is one of Grantaire's chief amusements.
His intention is to only leech from his friends when they are unhappy, but self-denial has never been a point of his character. Sometimes happiness is too compelling to resist. It isn't what he wants- he doesn't touch Enjolras- but it contents him for a while even so. Besides, he can't always predict what a person may be feeling from their face or conversation. No one could blame him for misjudging a touch now and then.
Sometimes it's easy to find and follow a predictable cause and response: Courfeyrac anxious and guilty when he receives word that his father is taken ill, Joly sulking when Musichetta will not favor him even with Bossuet's blessing. Another day, though, Grantaire brushes Feuilly's arm and finds him furious with no outward sign or explanation, and there is a week when Combeferre is sharp and hurt and ashamed beneath his usual enthusiasm. It feels like the sort of thing that might have to do with a lover, but Grantaire never hears him speak a word about such a person.
They have a meeting in the back room of the Musain one night that week. Enjolras is holding forth in what seems to be one of his better speeches when Grantaire listens, but for the most part his attention is on Combeferre. He edges the long way around the room for another drink, making sure to brush by Combeferre's chair, idles for a while, and does the same on the way back to his seat. Despite every appearance of rapt agreement and perfect lieutenantship, Combeferre is definitely still dwelling on his mysterious hurt.
If Enjolras cannot even hold Combeferre's attention against personal matters, surely there is no hope for the strangers he proposes to inspire. Grantaire muses on this for a while. He's touched Combeferre but briefly tonight and only twice, but even so he is distracted and upset, too frustrated with Enjolras' naiveté to let even so pretty a speech go unchallenged.
"Your fault is that you think too highly of people," he says, addressing Enjolras from across the room, "though as faults go that is surely more commendable than many. You perceive others as like yourself- I cannot tell if that speaks of charity or arrogance- but in truth you are a creature of ideals, and the rest of we mortals are flesh and blood, and that flesh is always our first concern. Men may come and listen to your speeches, and make you many promises, but they will soon be forgotten in the face of hunger and heat and disease. When a man lacks a roof over his head his first thought is to find one, not to rise up against the way of the world which he sees as natural, even if the second may be the cause of the first."
"And none could criticize him," says Enjolras, less impatient than he might be. "Man's first natural imperative is to preserve his own life, for how else could anything be accomplished? That is why we who can see beyond such things have a duty to fight for equality, for the abolishment of hunger and poverty and war, that all those silenced by empty stomachs may in the future lend their voices and ideas to the betterment of society."
There are some murmurs of agreement from around the room. They all unite against Grantaire on such topics more often than not, and it rarely causes him any disquiet, but Combeferre's shame and hurt still prickling under his skin inspires him to a rude gesture before he turns his attention back to Enjolras.
"Still you romanticize humanity," he says. "I am beginning to find the fault weightier than I did initially. You are well-read, surely, you have traversed the best philosophies that we as a species can offer. You know much of the mind of the people, if we can call it that, but little of their hearts. Your hands may be stained enough to deceive at a distance, but the marks are ink, which is to say work, not labor. I think you have deceived yourself, a little."
"How is that?"
"With your compatriots." Grantaire waves at the room. "You must be commended for assembling such a nobly-minded company- myself excluded, of course, but then you did not assemble me so much as I assembled myself to you, so the only error that can be laid at your door there is that you have allowed me to stay- but it has tainted your view of the rest of mankind. Those who are here in this room will turn their thoughts to fair government and freedom and the equality of all, but it is precisely for that proclivity that they come. They blind you to the fact that most men are selfish, small-minded creatures. If you heal and feed and clothe the masses they will only use their newly freed minds to contemplate whether their clothes are in the latest fashion, or their food as good as their friends' food, or why their mistresses are cold and their summers hot and their children disobedient. Any man will sooner attend to his own woes than his own liberty, to say nothing of his neighbor's."
"Perhaps you are the one blinded," suggests Enjolras. "After all, what men have you seen who are not afflicted? You see them only in their current state, and you will not imagine what transformation may come. How can you know what their minds will turn to when they are freed?"
"I know because I am one of them," Grantaire says helplessly, meaning I know because I am all of them. He knows the hearts of every person he brushes past in the street, every acquaintance who clasps his arm and every drunk who stumbles against him, and though he cannot doubt Enjolras' ability to inspire passion even the fiercest fire cannot spread without fuel. He knows in his bones, in the weary, sick bones of the world, that the revolution will not catch.
"Very well," says Enjolras. "You are one of them. And you are here, are you not?"
It is a winning argument, and from the arch of his brows Enjolras knows it. It doesn't matter that it is false. Enjolras doesn't actually entertain Grantaire's views, only argues with him to strengthen his own position in the eyes of the others, and even a false win will suffice for that purpose. Though perhaps Enjolras doesn't know the flaw in his own proof; perhaps in the absence of any other explanation he has surmised that some interest in their shared cause is the reason Grantaire returns again and again. He would not be entirely wrong, though only inasmuch as the cause is inseparable from the person of Enjolras himself.
"I am here in spite of your revolution, not because of it," Grantaire tells him, but the point stands. Bahorel slings an arm around him and leads him back to the table where Joly and Bossuet are sitting, saying,
"Your complaints are well lodged, R, let Enjolras finish his tract. Some of us have other appointments tonight."
He thinks of arguing, but Bahorel's emotions- amused and fond and tired- mute that impulse quickly enough. Grantaire lets himself be led.
Joly and Bossuet and seated at the back of the room, at enough of a distance from their fair leader that it is possible to have a quiet conversation or devote oneself to a book or some other task without too much apparent rudeness. They are paying attention to Enjolras, though; Grantaire sighs and applies his own attention to his glass for the duration of the speech.
Later in the evening the room breaks into several pockets of discussion as it is wont to do, some following Enjolras' bent and some not. Joly and Bossuet are on the subject of Musichetta, who has finally succumbed to Joly's charms- or perhaps to his new trousers, which Grantaire will admit are quite fetching. They're laughing, comparing their experiences with her and singing her praises in ever-increasing innuendo. Grantaire doesn't mean to steal from them. His resolve is easily drowned, however, and by the time they depart the Musain he reasons that they won't miss just a little of their boisterous good cheer. He slings a companionable arm over both their shoulders, and the wave of sheer longing that swamps him is so unexpected that he stumbles.
"Have a care!" cries Bossuet in alarm. "I fear you'll take we innocents with you if you tumble."
"You're no more innocent of wine than you are of women, unless my memory of the evening is entirely in error," Grantaire tells him.
"I would prefer to remain innocent of this gutter, though," says Joly cheerfully. "Perhaps we could go somewhere ahead rather than down."
They settle on an alehouse where Bossuet hasn't yet exhausted his credit or the goodwill of the owner; there are only a few of the former left in the city, though more of the latter than one might expect, given that fact. It's difficult to uphold any ill will in the face of Bossuet's cheery disposition.
It makes the shock of his current mood all the greater by contrast. Grantaire holds onto them both for as long as he can stand, until his heart feels near to breaking and his eyes threaten to fill. Longing is a strange emotion to bogart when there's nothing near him to cause it naturally. His mind trips to thoughts of Enjolras, as if to match the ache in his breast, and he forces them away. Better to ruminate on Bossuet and Joly, the double secret he suspects he's just stumbled upon, whether he ought to do something about it. He plays Echo better than Cupid, though. Perhaps Musichetta might be of help; he'll have to sound her out on the topic if they ever meet.
In the end, there's no need. By the time Musichetta does make an appearance among them, some weeks later, Bossuet and Joly have seen fit to sort out their own hearts to everyone's apparent satisfaction. Grantaire has been idly worrying at the problem of whether they might be somehow enticed into telling him about it. Thus far they haven't breathed a word, but he keeps watch over their emotions and there's little else that could explain the way the two of them take a sudden turn for the giddy in each other's company.
The three of them tumble into the Corinthe one afternoon, in the hours most of them spend in eating and talking and the occasional fit of studying before they officially assemble. There's never any predicting who will appear in the early hours, though attendance has been growing of late, with the same steady increase as the tension in the streets and across Enjolras' shoulders. Today their leader's head is bent next to Jehan's at one table and at another Grantaire is gleefully haranguing Courfeyrac over his abominable taste in women, half with the goal of making Marius laugh so hard he spills something on his papers.
He's enjoying himself too much to interrupt when the happy trio arrives, so by the time Courfeyrac tires of him they're easily settled in with a bottle of wine and whatever Mame Hucheloup is declaring to be edible today. Musichetta seems to have fit herself into Joly and Bossuet's duet without the slightest note of discord. She isn't the least bit offput by their habit of leaving half-formed sentences dangling, assuming the other has already grasped the full of the thought and rendered the rest redundant, and seems well on the way to fluency in that strange language. She's a little older than Grantaire had imagined, and her laugh rings out unguarded over the room. He's inclined to like her.
When he makes his way over Bossuet introduces him and he bows over her hand as ostentatiously as possible, keeping his face even despite the shock of lust that runs through him at the touch. Now that he knows to look, the three of them do seem a little more flushed than mere laughter might explain. Joly and Musichetta are seated slightly too close for propriety, and Bossuet, across the table, is slouched rather lower than is his usual custom. Grantaire wonders what he'd see under the table if he feigned a search for some lost item, but in truth he's just as glad not to know.
He pulls up a chair next to Bossuet instead, looking for an opportunity to drop his suspicions about the exact nature of their arrangement into the conversation. In the end, though, the only thing dropped is Bossuet's cup. Something going on out of sight makes him jerk, swallowing a noise, and his wine splashes half onto the table and half onto Grantaire's sleeve.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry!" he cries, grabbing Grantaire's arm to blot at it entirely ineffectually with his handkerchief.
"Don't worry, I’m well-versed in the hazards of your friendship," Grantaire tells him. "I was meaning to be rid of this shirt anyway. You may as well leave it."
Bossuet doesn't leave it. His grip transfers a little embarrassment layered over a rush of arousal. Grantaire shifts in his seat and tugs his arm away before he finds himself appropriating the same awkward situation that Joly and Bossuet both are surely experiencing this afternoon.
"Bossuet, you are a scourge on polite society," says Jehan, approaching from the other side of the room. "If you keep on this way none of us will have any clothing left at all by the end of the year. Ah, and you must be the lady we've heard so much about."
"Everyone has been greeting me that way," says Musichetta. "I hope it bodes well."
"You needn't worry, it's only because Joly and Bossuet think so highly of you," says Enjolras. Grantaire starts. Enjolras leans over beside him to introduce himself and Grantaire stares fiercely down at the table, clenching his hands into fists. He isn't often around Enjolras in this state. Even out of the corner of his eye he finds himself arrested by the smallest details: the fall of Enjolras' hair over his shoulder, the delicate length of his fingers, the bare skin of his wrist where his shirtsleeves are industriously rolled. Grantaire wants to bear him down on the table and claim him. He swallows hard, feeling his face flush.
"Grantaire, are you all right? You look unwell," says Enjolras, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Grantaire wants the contact so badly he aches with it, wants the heat and strength of Enjolras' grip, wants to know-
He jerks away so violently that he nearly topples his chair. A lesser man- or one who cared an iota for Grantaire's opinion or affection- might have taken offense, but Enjolras merely raises his eyebrows in tolerant annoyance at this latest breach of etiquette.
"My apologies," Grantaire mumbles, and bolts for the street.
There's an irony in it. He is not a subtle person and his friends are not unobservant, and he is certain that some of them share his proclivities well enough to make the logical assumption about his regard for Enjolras. They would not be entirely wrong. Sometimes Grantaire does imagine it, though in a kind of abstract way where he might be a person in his own right and not what he is; he learned early that the emotions he leeches during sex are rarely all pleasant, and even if they are such prolonged contact will inevitably leave him overwrought and his partner drained and listless.
That is where his friends are wrong, imagining that he lives for Enjolras' touch. He yearns for it, that much is true, with a hunger that a hundred other vices never seem to dampen. If Grantaire is an empty vessel then Enjolras is the opposite, Enjolras is passion and presence and pure resolve, Enjolras is moreso than anyone Grantaire has ever known. He wants to feel that so badly he shakes with it sometimes, dreams about it in the back of the Musain and in his bed at night, profaning Enjolras' image as profoundly as he is sure his friends suspect, though in an entirely different manner.
There is only one thing in the world he wants more than to touch Enjolras, and that is for Enjolras to never be touched by him. When Grantaire touches he doesn't share, or borrow, or learn, he takes, and he cannot bear to see any of what Enjolras is drained away.
He is aware that this is what kills them all, in the end.
By the time the barricades rise it is too late, perhaps, but sometime in the weeks and months before he might have seized Enjolras and held him- he could have done it, he is the stronger of the two if only when measured in muscle- might have held on until Enjolras was drained entirely, devoid of his passion and rage and his terrible hope, and without him the others might have lapsed into inaction, or perhaps turned to Combeferre for their leader and adopted his gentler methods, just as unlikely to be heard by the world but with the cost only effort wasted.
In the end, Grantaire would rather see Enjolras dead than diminished—a truth about himself discovered where he thought there were none. He could hate himself for it, perhaps. Instead he wanders the barricades, absinthe in one hand and the other outstretched, gathering fear and regret and despair into himself and tamping it down with drink again and again, until it has filled every crack and crevice of his being. He feels more drunk on the emotions than the alcohol. His vision swims and time seems to stop unspooling in the way that he's accustomed to, as if they could be balanced on this precipice for eternity. He will always be walking, and there will always be men beginning to bolster each other and sing low and steady behind him, a weight lifted, and ahead of him there will always be more men with haunted eyes, and he will always be slowly drowning as he walks and touches and walks until the alcohol and the grief close gently over his head and bow it.
Grantaire wakes to quiet and clarity.
In the instant he opens his eyes he knows that the others are gone, from the world and from his heart, which is wiped clean and empty of the last scraps of their feelings. He knows also that Enjolras is before him, brave and terrified and so young, and he knows that Enjolras cannot be permitted to die like that. This resolve, found in the sober emptiness his friends have left behind, is his and his alone.
He stands, crosses the room, calls himself one of them. Let Enjolras think that Grantaire has proven his point in the end; it's no more true it was when they argued in the Musain, months ago, but it's no less true either. He offers his hand. Enjolras takes it.
Grantaire does the only thing he can, the last thing: with the utmost care he peels away Enjolras' terror, his defeat, his desperation, sinks it all so deep into his bones that he pales and trembles before the guardsmen even though he has never much valued his own life. Enjolras' head lifts. Through their joined hands he is washed clean; he is fierce and resolute and proud and as beautiful as Grantaire can ever remember him.
Enjolras turns to him, startled, and begins to smile.