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Chapter Text

November, 1916

The city of New York was always bustling, and the tiny cafe on a winding street in the oldest part of the city was no exception.

But there was a difference between the bustling of the city on an average day and the bustling of the city as it waited for election results.

When Les Amis had departed at the end of the previous night, many people were calling the election in Hughes’ favor.

Combeferre had reminded them all that California’s results had not yet been tallied.

Enjolras had all the energy of a cat trapped in a small box, and even Grantaire was clever enough to steer clear after he entered the cafe. The bell above the door jangled and the pale, slightly scrawny boy behind the counter nodded at him.

He ordered a coffee and sat in the corner and pulled out a sketchbook. With careful lines and half of a charcoal pencil he pulled from his pocket, Grantaire began to draw Enjolras’ profile.

His drawings were more realist than anything else he did. Grantaire captured the Aquiline nose, the somber eyes and the tense frown - he was trying to draw the swirl of Enjolras’ curls when the boy handed him his coffee.

Grantaire took a sip. A drop of the liquid fell on his piece of paper and he ignored it, continued to sketch. The charcoal stained his hands and he was so absorbed that he almost did not notice Courefeyrac - who was wearing wrinkled clothes, and whose black hair stuck up in all directions - burst in.

“The telegram is in!” Courfeyrac said gleefully, “California went Wilson - we’re out of the war!”

Grantaire grinned. Enjolras’ face twitched into a smile for a second.

“I voted for the socialist party,” he said.

“You had to have known they wouldn’t win,” Grantaire called out, drawing bags under the eyes of his sketch.

Courfeyrac was still gleeful. “Hughes is a conservative,” he said, “Big business has practically proposed marriage to him. Enjolras, I know you’re happy about this, you can smile if you want to.”

Enjolras let a proper smile slip out.

“We dodged a torpedo!” the boy said suddenly. He sounded like he came from New York's tenements, and if Grantaire had to guess which country his parents came from he would say it was Italy.

All three of them looked at the boy. Enjolras smiled again. Grantaire raised his eyebrows and started darkening the background behind his sketch. Courfeyrac beamed.

“Quite right,” Courf said,”A torpedo, quite right.”

“What’s your name?” Enjolras asked.

“Feuilly,” the boy said, “I know you - you’re - Enjolras, and that’s Courfeyrac, and the one in the corner is - Grantaire?”

Grantaire saluted.

“You should have talked to us sooner,” Courfeyrac said, “You already have interesting things to say, and we’ve only just met! That hardly ever happens. Do you know -”

And Courfeyrac launched into the speech, and Enjolras interjected with questions every few moments. Grantaire had the sudden sense that he was witnessing a proper recruitment. He himself had joined the ABC through a combination of loitering in the cafe all the time and making friends with everyone but Enjolras, but no one had ever asked him to show up every damn time.

He was going to paint this later, he could tell already. Properly surrealist - Enjolras and Courfeyrac massive, glowing, and the boy - Feuilly - reaching up to take Courfeyrac’s hand. The title would be something about progressivism, probably more heavy-handed than his usual nonsense -

The cafe door opened again and Combeferre trotted in. His suit was askew, his glasses were in hand, and he clutched a copy of the paper - he toppled into one of the seats at one of the tiny tables before he spoke.

“You’ve heard?” he chirped. Combeferre gave Grantaire a little nod, and Grantaire saluted again - his gesture of the day, so it seemed - and Enjolras nodded.

“We did!” Courfeyrac practically sang, “And we’ve met someone new - this is Feuilly! He works here! He’s excellent, you have to hear his thoughts on -”

and on and on and on.

Grantaire had moved on to drawing a tree, stretching far with wide branches that were weak and strong and drooping and perky and everything in between, when Courf and Combeferre left to accompany Feuilly to lunch. And so he was left alone with Enjolras - apart from the scruffy teenager who was now manning the desk - and after a few moments of no one talking to anyone else, Enjolras sat down across from Grantaire.

“Who did you vote for, Grantaire?” Enjolras asked, settling back in his chair with all the grace of a Greek god.

“I didn’t vote,” Grantaire replied, lazily sketching a falling leaf into blank space underneath his tree.

“Huh,” Enjolras said.

“But if I had,” Grantaire continued, having decided to make an attempt, “It’d have been for Wilson. Or Roosevelt - did he run again?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No,” he said, “The Progressive party didn’t put up a candidate.”

Grantaire made a ‘hmn’ sound in the back of his throat and sat up, leaving his piece of charcoal lying on the paper. “The Bull-Moose party, you mean,” he said, the corners of his lips twitching up.

“Officially, it’s the former,” Enjolras said with a slight pout.

“I think you’d make a good moose.”

“I - what?”

“You’re stubborn and you would always be head-butting things if that was something people in polite society did,” Grantaire said, “Someone tries to restrict the rights of the working class - bam! Headbutt! J.P. Morgan does his thing - headbutt! A conservative runs for office - headbutt!”

Enjolras stared at him.

Grantaire cleared his throat and started drawing leaves again.

“Anyways,” Enjolras said, “You should consider voting. It’s important.”

“Some of us have more important things to do than to cast a vote that doesn’t, in the scheme of things, matter,” Grantaire said, “Besides, I always knew that Wilson was going to win.”

“Why?”

“I can tell the future, obviously,” Grantaire said, wriggling his charcoal-coated fingers at Enjolras.

Enjolras snorted. “Well,” he said, “You should consider it.”

Grantaire shrugged rather impassively. Enjolras glanced at his watch.

“Listen,” Enjolras said, “My parents are expecting me, so - I’ll see you tomorrow, I suppose?”

“Mmn,” Grantaire said, “Good luck.”

Enjolras nodded and walked out. The door of the cafe closed behind him with a bang and the scruffy teenager - child, really - snorted.

“Could you be any more obvious?” the child asked cheekily.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m young and poor, not stupid,” he replied. After a beat: “Also, the temperance movement people are outside of that pub again.”

Grantaire sighed.

March 1, 1917

The months passed, as months do, and when February ended Grantaire was still a member of the ABC. Still living in New York city - so far from his native Boston, and always busy - and still trying to avoid the temperance movement people who inevitably loitered outside of saloons. Still pining over Enjolras.

He knew the scruffy blond teenager’s name, now - he was Gavroche, and he sold newspapers when he was not working in the Musain - and Feuilly was officially an activist.

Grantaire was painting a bear at the table in the center of the room. Across from him, Joly - a slight man with dark eyes and mousy hair - was reviewing a book on amputations, and Courfeyrac was fiddling with a pocketwatch.

Enjolras shoved the door open and stormed in. He looked more nervous than Grantaire had ever seen him - that was, not very, but his hands were shaking - and he threw a newspaper down on the table. It missed Grantaire’s painting - good - but landed on Joly’s book and Courfeyrac had to pull his watch out of the way.

Joly gave Enjolras a look.

“Look,” Enjolras said, prodding the paper with his thumb, “At this.”

Grantaire, and Joly, and Courfeyrac looked at the front page of the newspaper.

“Oh, my God,” Joly said in a trembling voice, face pale, “My God. Oh, no.”

“Well, shit,” Grantaire said.

“Is it - is it real?” Courfeyrac asked.

“Yes,” Enjolras said. He sunk into a chair and his hands were still shaking. “It’s utterly real. The British - they intercepted it, and they gave the telegram to Wilson and the press.”

“Good lord,” Joly said, burying his face in his hands. Grantaire reached out to pat him on the back, once, as though that would help anything.

“Wilson is - we’re going to - oh, no,” Joly said, “This is - shit.” He looked up. “This is everything we never wanted.”

“It’s everything we've feared,” Courfeyrac affirmed, “But nothing is certain yet, he hasn’t even asked congress to -”

“We’re going to war,” Enjolras said, “Make no mistake. This takes away all other options.”

“Christ,” Grantaire said, “Are we sure it isn’t faked, maybe the Brits just wanted -”

“It’s real,” Enjolras said, “It’s real, and we’re going to join the war.”

“Wilson is a progressive, Joly,” Courfeyrac said, “And he’s pro-peace. It won’t be - it won’t be terrible.”

Grantaire thought that he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than anything.

Enjolras scooped up his paper again and clung to it like it was a lifeline. “Courf is right,” he said, “We’re not - we’re not going to get mired for years like those European countries. If anything, it’ll be -”

“What?” Grantaire said, “If anything, it won’t be a war? You’ve seen the casualty numbers from those battles. They’re fighting in trenches, and they’re dying in such extreme numbers that your ancestors would faint. Thousands and thousands of people are going to die and we’re just going to end up locked in a stalemate like the rest of them, and to say anything else is to be deliberately ridiculous. People are going to die and it is going to be horrible.”

Enjolras glared at him. Courf’s eyebrows were raised, and Joly was just staring, mid-panic.

It was the latter expression that made R feel guilty.

“You’ll be fine, though,” he said, “If anything, you’ll end up a medic, and while you’d see tragedies you wouldn’t be in them.”

Joly nodded. Grantaire patted him on the back once more.

“You don’t know anything,” Enjolras said in his harshest tone, “You don’t read the paper - my God, you don’t even vote, what do you know -”

“I listen to you,” Grantaire spat, “And I know atrocities. And I’ve seen headlines - I’m not an idiot, and if none of you are going to be realists about it then someone might as well be honest, Christ, war is always horrible and it will always be horrible and the entire country is going to change.”

“Nothing is settled,” Courf said quietly, “Wilson hasn’t even asked Congress to declare war yet.”

Enjolras nodded, once, and Grantaire went back to painting with his heart thrumming in his chest, faster than it had any right to.

He did not care about politics, and he only cared about progressivism when it kept the garbage off of his streets. But war -

war was something else entirely.

Especially one like this.

“Someone should tell the others,” Joly said quietly, “They’re going to want to know well - they’re going to have wanted to know now.”

“The newsies are shouting about it,” Enjolras said, “They’d have to live under a rock to miss it.”

“I need a fucking drink,” Grantaire said.

“I’ll go with you,” Courf replied, standing up. Joly followed in silence and, seeing everyone leaving, Enjolras went with them.

Grantaire could not help but notice that their leader's hands were still shaking, and that they did not stop even when the four of them were drinking the strongest Western whiskey the sleazy pub had to offer.

April 2nd-6th, 1917

The world was holding its breath.

America wanted peace. Wilson wanted peace. His campaign’s catchphrase had been ‘He Kept Us Out of the War,’ but now, with the telegram released - there was very little to be done.

Public opinion towards Germany was venomous.

On April second, President Woodrow Wilson asked congress for a declaration of war on Germany.

Enjolras had sat in the corner of the Musain, more quiet than anyone had ever seen him. Occasionally he interjected with cutting comments, harsher than usual.

Bossuet, whose parents were German immigrants, had to have a cut to his face stitched up by Joly. Everyone and no one had watched.this.

Musichetta, the half-Montauk woman who was one of the best people Grantaire had ever met, bought them all pastries, and Gavroche promised to keep them up to date on any and all developments.

On April third, neither the senate nor the house had yet spoken.

Grantaire’s paintings were splattered with flashes of light and red and dark, and he could not focus on any of them.

Jehan’s poetry was scattered, full of enjambment and incoherent similes.

Marius fought with his parents and everyone was terribly proud of him.

On April fourth, the senate voted in favor of war on Germany.

Gavroche made more money selling papers than he ever had. Everyone else was miserable.

On April fifth, Grantaire finished putting them all in the largest painting he had ever done.

And on the sixth, the house agreed with the senate, and the country was officially in a state of war.