Archive of Our Own

“Right! No-, wait, left!” 

“Are you trying to get us into a head on collision?” 

“Are you trying to be boring as fuck?” 

“Oh yeah, I forgot how fun death is!” He laughed. 

The sound was loud - loud enough to be audible over some of the worst music he’d ever heard playing through the aux she had connected to her phone, and though he tried to keep his eyes on the road, his gaze often flickered to the passenger seat.

There she was.

A woman of darker skin than his own, though only by a small margin, kicked her feet up onto the dashboard. She leant back against patchy leather, worn down by years of use, dark curls practically being sucked out of the window by the rush of the passing wind. 

Passing by Grantaire’s own window, the run of country lanes made a mosaic of colour as the scenery flew by, far too fast to be considered. His hands tightened on the steering wheel, but everything feels loose. His limbs barely feel connected and the cold air that hits his flushed skin only worsens it. 

His head is hazy, and every laugh they share between them feels like the evidence of a connection no one else would get, but then she always just, well, got him. In the way someone who well and truly got under your skin could, in the way someone who had known you your entire life could. 

In the way only a big sister could. 

Grantaire tossed and turned in his sleep. His hands balled into fists at his sides, restless and unable to truly settle. 

He murmured and mouthed words, barely audible against the cotton of his pillow, voice slurred by the kind of sleep you had when you’d drank too much the previous night. 

“You...could, mm-...be-...” He began. 

“You could be fucking useful at some point, y’know,” R snorted, fingers tapping an an off beat tempo. “But what do I expect from someone with neon rear view mirror dice?” 

To emphasise his point, he swatted at said dice. She pulled them off and threw them at him, and as they hit the side of his head, he threw a grin at her and made sure not to warn her about an upcoming bump in the road. 

It threw her an inch into the air and her drink painted an angry coke-colour on her jacket. 

“You massive nonce!” She gasped, before repeatedly slapping his arm. “Do you know how much I paid for this?” 

“The bargain price of 20p from that charity shop in town?” 

“10p, so you need to immediately shut the fuck up. When you stop dressing like all of your clothes were second hand from the bin, you can talk about my incredible fashion sense,” 

Whilst she piled all of the tissues from the glove compartment she could manage onto her jacket, R looked over one last time. 

And caught her gaze as she stared intently back at him. Time felt frozen in the midst of her empty, icy look. 

Suddenly, R couldn’t breathe. 

“Wh-...what?” He trembled, the light disappearing from around them. He frantically tried to look anywhere but at the accusation in her hollow, once brown and bright, eyes. 

R thrashed, the blankets wrapping around him. 

“S-stop…” He whined, brow furrowing, beads of sweat appearing there. “I don’...no, I don’t want-...” 

“-to see this,” 

But his hands wouldn’t leave the wheel, ever as it started to shake out of his control. She didn’t move. Blood trickled from her forehead, from her nose. It was on the window - it was everywhere. 

“Why did you kill me?” 

R’s eyes widened, his throat closing up. 

“I did-...I didn’t mean-..” 

“Why did you kill me, Cl-” 

His head snapped forward, seeing the break in the road far too late; the ledge rose up against him, and he couldn’t have made the corner had he tried. 

It was too late. It was far too late. 

It was too late.

-

R had fitfully slept through his alarm, and only when he woke to a heavy weight against his chest did he stir. He woke, gasping for breath and with his sheets clinging to his heavy set frame. 

And on top of him, Bojangles the dog lay, as if sensing something amiss and wanting to somehow soothe it.

Grantaire pushed him off for need to breathe, to sit up. 

When he did that, it all rushed back in one moment of horrible clarity, teaming up with a motherfucker of a hangover to make him press his head into his hands and want to throw up into them. 

Bojangles, ever unable to help but be desperate to do something when R had moments like this, let out a soft whine and pressed his muzzle against his Grantaire’s trembling fingers. 

He lowered them, letting out heavy but even breaths now, loosely rubbing the irish wolfhound’s head with one hand and using the other to grab his phone. 

“Wanna make a bet on what day it is, buddy?” He groaned, unlocking his phone. 

There it was. 

Three days until- 

Until--

The dog took his opportunity to lick at R’s mouth, and R spluttered suddenly, pushing him away now. 

“I’m okay! Jesus, buy me dinner first,” He rolled his eyes, though if he could have mustered the energy to smile, he would have done in that moment. His gaze softened a little as he watched the hound roll onto his back and look up at him, and he sighed and scratched at his chin. “Shit, today’s gonna suck,” 

He paused, willing his breathing to finally settle and for his heart to stop pounding in his chest as if it were a terrible reminder that he was living. 

That he had lived.

And she hadn’t. 

He ran a hand through his own black curls and squeezed his eyes shut against the growing ache circling his head. If anything, he was always right about his gut feeling. 

Today was almost definitely going to suck. 

-

“Took you long enough to show up,”

R looked up into Courfeyrac’s face - he saw no malice there, and heard nothing but kindness in his voice.

So he looked as rough as he felt. At least the hangover had mostly passed by now, and all he was nursing was a strong desire to be drunk again. 

He must have been quiet for too long, because Courf’s internal conflict on whether or not to tease R into giving a shit about him drinking himself to death or to just rib him on why he looked rough fell away to genuine concern. 

“Hey, you alright? You look like you did a line of ket and you don’t know where you are right now,” He tried to joke, but there was an edge to his voice that R couldn’t have missed had he tried. 

At least the Cafe after hours was just the amis, because Grantaire couldn’t take the loudness and bustle of people that usually occupied their space in some way. He couldn’t take how loud his thoughts were right now either, or the headache beginning to make itself known once more. 

“Is ketamine the horse tranquiliser one, or the one that makes you black out for hours?” He squinted.

“R, I think it’s both, buddy,” 

At that, Grantaire couldn’t help but crack a half-smile, letting Courf nudge him with his elbow as he moved to set his bag down on a nearby table. 

“Seriously, what’s eating at you?” Courf tried to take on a gentler tone, a smile- 

A smile touching her lips. 

“He’s trying to say that you look like shit,” Bahorel piped up, listening in, as always. 

“Nah, he knows I think he’s ruggedly handsome. But you’re really hamming up the alcoholic chic right now, dude,” Courf laughed, a melodic and high sound that usually made R feel at home no matter where he was. 

But when he heard him laugh, he heard a different, much higher sound, and his nausea made a re-appearance. 

“R? You okay? You’re completely zoning out,” Courf asked, but his voice sounded far away. “You’re really-” 

“Freaking me out,” She said, with a very evident furrowed brow. “You sure you’re not completely out of it right now? Because if you crash my car, I’ll make you buy me a mercedes,” 

“Only pricks have mercedes,” R said, sticking the key into the ignition finally. “And I’m just vibing, chill. Relax. Have a snickers, or whatever,” 

“A snickers, really?” 

“Yeah, you’re not you when you’re trying to lecture me,” 

“Shut the fuck up and put it into gear, you reprobate,” 

“Earth to Grantaire?” He heard Jehan say, and someone was snapping their fingers in front of his face. 

He waved them off, almost getting irritable with the sudden attention, like a huge spotlight was suddenly on him and his fucked up issues. 

“Wow, can’t a man space out a little from time to time?” He retorted, but the humour was visibly dry. 

As he slipped into a chair, he pretended not to notice the way Jehan and Courf exchanged looks and was grateful that Bahorel slid him a glass of water and said nothing more. With the group starting to actually talk amongst themselves, he let himself slip into the comfortable familiarity of listening to their loud back and forth. 

-

“So you’re taking your driving test in like...two months, right?” 

Eponine asked a genuine question, but not one R wanted to hear right now. 

Two days. 

Two days until-

“R?” 

“Yeah?”

“Driving test, two months, you,” She outlined with an eyeroll and an equally as exasperated smile. “I was asking about you for once, instead of just bitching out my problems, so you could at least listen,” 

His fingers tightened on Bojangles lead, letting his gentle pull guide him along the pathway of the woods near the back of his apartment. They often went this route, but it was less frequented by Eponine’s company. 

Seems talk got around, and maybe his shitty attitude the day previously had passed on in word from Courf to the rest of them, ready to rally the scooby gang into making R feel better about whatever was making him avoid sobriety so hard. 

But he wasn’t going to shit on Eponine being there for him, especially not on a cold autumn morning where the wind was biting and the crunch of leaves under his heel offered a soothing relief from the buzzing in his head. 

“Uh,” He offered back helpfully, finally.

“Wow, exciting,” Eponine nodded. 

“Shut up,” He let out a huff of a laugh, shaking his head. When he looked up, she looked pleased that she’d caused some sort of laugh to come out of him. 

Sometimes, she looked so much like-

“So, what made you want to finally buckle up, no pun intended when ‘Ferre isn’t around to hear it?” She verbally prodded again.

“I dunno, I’m just sick of having my parents complain about the journey back the whole way to their stupid house out in the country,” He grimaced. “Speaking of which, I’ve gotta go this saturday. Some kinda-,” 

Anniversary. 

“Bullshit thing, like a family dinner or something,” 

Eponine looked sympathetic, like she knew R well enough to know that something lay hidden in all of that, but there was too much to unpack and like hell was Grantaire about to lay his luggage out now. 

“Don’t look at me like that, your family is way more messed up than mine,” R stuck his tongue between his lips, which thinned into a frown. He tried to sound like he was joking, but his energy had deflated and he just couldn’t look at her. 

But, as she did with everything, Eponine took it on the chin and snorted, breath fogging out. 

“I wouldn’t be able to compare, it’s not like you talk about yours,” She looked at him as they walked through the trees, a playful edge to her voice that masked the intent behind it. 

R rolled his shoulders into a shrug. 

“What’s there to talk about? They-,” 

They blame you. 

“They’re just a normal family. Pretty boring, hence why they live in the countryside and not the city, where shit actually happens,” He leant down and pet Bojangles as he padded languidly at his side. 

A moment of quiet passed between them, and Grantaire looked anywhere but at her. 

“What’re they like?” 

“What, cities?” 

“No, you dumbshit. Your parents. Are they together? Divorced?” She poked her finger into his shoulder. 

“Together. Like, they love each other, or some weird fucked up thing like that,” 

That got a laugh out of her, and he almost thought - hoped - that she’d stop there.

“Ok, so, we have that in common. What about siblings?” 

R froze. His heart hammered in his chest, as if it were under the floorboards of his guilt. 

“...R?” 

“Nah.” 

“Oh,” Her eyebrows raised, as if that answer somehow surprised her, and the paranoia that she knew rose like bile at the back of his throat. For a second, he wondered if she was going to press on the subject, but they were coming to the nearby road on the other side of the park, so they’d need to find a route back. 

As the trees thinned and cleared out to make way for the concrete there, Bojangles began to pull on his lead, catching a scent in the air. 

“You find a cat or something, buddy?” He watched his wolfhound approach a strange lump in the middle of the road, likely some kind of roadkill.

“C’mon, don’t eat whatever that is, that’s majorly gross, Boj.” Eponine chimed in, moving to go to gently guide him by his collar away from it, and lead him back on the path home. 

R closed the distance to join her, knowing that sometimes, his dog could be a handful if something had caught his interest, and random weird meat on the road was probably incredible in dog vision. 

Within a foot of being there, he noticed it.

The blood on the road.

It was dark, and he was awake, and he couldn’t think. 

Pain. It was in every limb, and up his back, and - - 

Where was she? 

From his position on his back, he could look sideways, and right as someone pressed a mask over his face, he tried to urge himself to get up. He needed to make sure she was okay. 

He needed to see her face, but all he could see was - was -- 

The blood on the road. 

“What is it with dogs and being obsessed with sniffing at gross stuff?” Eponine pulled a face, before she glanced up and her expression fell. “Holy shit, dude, are you okay?” 

R snapped back to reality. 

“What?” He asked, hoarse. 

“You’re, like... super pale,” She moved forward, and Grantaire flinched. Eponine stopped. “R, maybe you-,” 

“Don’t start,” 

“-need to see a doctor, or...or a fucking therapist, because I saw the empty bottles in your room when I came by this morning, and you’re really wigging out like ninety percent of the time,” 

“Ep’, seriously, I’m fine,” 

“No, you’re not, and that’s okay!” Eponine scowled, shoulders tense and, R could tell from how she wrapped her arms around herself, not happy with being unsure about whether or not it was ever okay to touch Grantaire, to offer him comfort. 

She didn’t even know what she was comforting him for. She wouldn’t want to, if she knew what he’d done. 

“You really need to start taking care of yourself,” She concluded, shaking her own head now. 

“Ugh, please. C’mon, don’t make me suffer more than I already am,” 

“So you admit that you’re suffering then?” 

“Don’t try to ‘Combeferre’ me, either. You know that’s not what I meant,” R tugged on Bojangles leash, avoiding eye contact with the washed up red near the pavement. “I meant with...this weird friend therapy thing. Trust me, ‘Ponine, you don’t wanna go there,” 

Now, she took a sterner expression, and R couldn’t see the love that it was borne from even if he knew it had to be there.

“I do, because I fucking care about you. It’s why Courf-,” 

“I knew that git had said something,” 

“Because he cares too! We all do, you dipshit of epic proportions,” She balled her fists at her side, starting to walk to match his pace, not letting him escape this. “Why can’t you let us in?” 

“No idea what you’re talking about,” R tried to exhale out a laugh, but it was bitter. Even he could hear the lie in his tone. “I love letting people in.” 

“Cla-,” 

“Stop.” R bristled, very visibly. “Stop, and I won’t walk in front of the next car to come down here to get out of answering the rest of your interrogation,” 

Another moment of quiet hung in the air. Eponine rolled her eyes, but she looked away, exhaling a long, controlled breath.

On the journey back, they changed the subject and began to discuss whether or not Marius would be at Courfeyrac’s place before they got there. In the quiet when he got home, Grantaire congratulated himself that Eponine hadn’t managed to chip away at his fragile armour. 

A victory that left a bad taste in his mouth, which he washed down with bacardi. 

-

3:24am. 

Bojangles nudged R’s hand, where he lay on the sofa, having fallen into a drunken slumber only an hour ago and woke up from yet more dumb nightmares. 

Because of course, it was today, and today always sucked. R was forever resigned to that fact. 

It was enough movement to startle Grantaire from his stupor, where he’d been staring at the tv for a while. 

He wanted to say he wasn’t thinking of anything in particular, but he was very aware that he was no longer hiding his skeletons in the closet, but sitting in his living room with them. 

With her. 

“You know, if you were here, you’d give me some kind of sign,” He said, to no one in particular. 

Nothing but silence followed, and Grantaire slumped back into the cushions, letting Bojangles rest his head in his lap. 

“That’s what I thought,” He slurred slightly, hand outstretched towards the ceiling fan. 

“Nothing.” 

-

The drive up to his parents’ house was, predictably, as boring as Grantaire had known it to always be. It was awkward, always with a tenseness beneath the surface, an extra effort and strain in his mother’s voice when she spoke to him with a gentleness he didn’t deserve. There was always an edge to his father’s jokes where they didn’t quite land, and R never really laughed right. 

Two hours of bad radio and with Grantaire pretending he was listening and not nodding off in the backseat later, and they were home.

But it wasn’t Grantaire’s home anymore. 

He was twenty six, and he had his own life, and his own friends away from this place that haunted him in every waking minute, like coming back to the moment your life ended and seeing the ghost of who you used to be in the reflection of every window pane.

And it was today, so he knew exactly how this routine would go. 

His dad would want to go for a drive. They’d drive around town running errands, which never really fulfilled anything, and they’d spend it in a weird trance where neither of them discussed what was lingering over them. They’d go back, and he’d catch his mother pretending that she wasn’t red-eyed, and that they hadn’t walked in on her wiping at her eyes with a tea cloth. She’d give him a watery smile and Grantaire would wish he was anywhere but here. 

He’d leave on Sunday and he’d let out a breath only when he finally got home. 

So it wasn’t any surprise that after dinner, which Grantaire could barely stomach (his mother insisted on making beef, and R never had the heart to remind her that it wasn’t him whose favourite meal it was), he tried to slip away upstairs to the spare room (never his old room) before his dad caught him. 

Unfortunately, the jingle of car keys told him that he’d been far too slow. 

“You coming?” His father asked him expectantly, lifting said keys up and jangling them. He tried to smile, but R didn’t return it. 

He just shrugged. 

“I was thinking-,” 

“I was thinking that I had an idea of something we could do together,” His father pressed on, as if he hadn’t heard him, pulling his coat on. “I think you’ll like it,” 

Now there was definitely no way of getting out of it. R simply let his shoulders relax a little, grabbing his own coat from the bannister, willing himself not to take out his stupid shit on his own dad.

That was the least he owed him. 

So he didn’t complain when his father drove them in silence out to a nearby carpark, just as the streetlamps came on and illuminated the quiet place stretching out before them, devoid of other people. 

It would have been peaceful, if Grantaire didn’t have a sneaking suspicion about where this was going. 

“So,” His dad began, making him jump slightly. “Your mum reminded me about your upcoming driving exam. It’s the practical one, right?” 

R nodded, clearing his throat. 

“Yeah. Already passed theory,” 

“Of course,” His dad smiled, and R immediately felt guilt claw at his chest. “Well, it’s been a long time since you’ve had lessons,” 

He felt sick.

He knew exactly how long it’d been since he’d had lessons, and he knew his dad was aware of that too, and could see it on his face. 

“Dad, I don’t-,” 

“So it’s a good idea for you to have a lesson or two while you’re down here, and as your dear old dad, who has been driving for years,” 

“I don’t think-,” “

“I can definitely impart some knowledge, so,” He began to unbuckle his seatbelt. 

Grantaire watched him get out of the car with some degree of disbelief, as if it was happening in slow motion. When his dad opened the passenger side door and looked at him, Grantaire still hadn’t moved. 

“What?” 

“You’re going to drive around the empty car park, and I’m going to give you tips,” His dad said brightly, but firmly. The way he used to whenever Grantaire had been in need of direction when he was younger. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Grantaire reigned in his overload of baggage and ignored every inch of him that screamed as he climbed out of the car, heading round to the right. When he got into the drivers seat, he looked up to adjust the rearview almost on autopilot, and he saw furry dice hanging from it.

But he blinked, and they were gone, and he was going to go insane if he didn’t pull himself together. 

Everything went okay, from putting the key into the ignition, to starting the car. He glanced back at his dad, and he nodded in encouragement, fastening the seat belt around him. 

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a seatbelt?” He raised an eyebrow, trying to find the bite in the clutch, before stalling the car. It jolted forward, before stopping completely, and Grantaire let out a frustrated noise.

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on how to start my car without stalling it and wearing out my gears every single time?” 

“I don’t speak...car, or whatever that was,” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t even know what that means,” 

“It means,” 

R lifted his foot up gently on the peddle. 

“-you gotta lift up carefully, wait until you feel that pull,” She said, rolling her eyes. 

As the engine let out a soft hum and Grantaire felt the car move forward, he willed the goosebumps on his arms down, starting slowly around the carpark. 

“See? Now, you’ve gotta really focus on the road, never take your eyes off it,” 

“Remember that I passed my theory, dad?” R quipped, not at all with malice aforethought. 

“It’s good to be reminded,” 

They went round like that a few times, and Grantaire could almost feel his muscles starting to relax a little, his heart feeling a little less prominent in his throat. 

That was until his dad pointed at the nearby road leading off from the car park. 

“Ok, now go right onto that road and then turn back when you get too far,” 

The lines of R’s jaw tensed, becoming sharper as he looked to the road. The road that led onto country lanes. 

In his head, he made a map that he’d known from the moment he could understand his own sense of direction of the place he’d grown up. He knew every path, every brick that made up every pavement that led to the place he’d-

Where she’d--

“Clarence, you’ve gotta pay attention to the road!” His father’s voice raised as R’s focus snapped back, and he realised that he was three seconds from making a decision to turn.

In those three seconds, several things happened. 

The first thing was that he’d frozen up - his hands had clenched tightly and nothing had prompted him to move from that. 

The second thing, that occurred after, was the sudden bump as he hit the curb, which jolted the whole vehicle. 

His father instinctively shot his hand out and grabbed the wheel, just as R slammed on the breaks. His breathing pooled in pants for air as he looked straight ahead to the nearby bush they were inches from, eyes wide and body stiff. 

There were a few seconds where all he could hear was the pounding in his ears. 

His father broke it, his hand on his shoulder. 

“We’ll just try again, that wasn’t the worst mistake I’ve seen,” 

“Oh yeah?” Grantaire started, realising that in the absence of being able to get away from the sound of scraping metal that he heard every night as he fell into sleep, or the way the wheel felt like an unforgiving, unyielding weapon in his hands, his need to fight arose instead. “Go on, dad. What’s the worst mistake you’ve ever seen?” 

“Clarence,” 

“Was it that one time I came home with a broken arm because I fell off my bike?” 

“That’s not what I meant,” 

“Oh, I get it, you mean when I drunk drove that one time?” 

His dad’s face fell. His mouth opened and closed. Finally, whatever had flitted across his face had been steeled away behind a firm mask. 

“You were under the limit. Now, I’m not condoning-,” 

“But we all make mistakes, right? It’s a pretty big fucking mistake, dad. It’s a pretty big fuck up.” Now it was Grantaire’s turn to press on, and his fingers clenched and unclenched on the wheel, staring into it. His voice pitched louder. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not, or that you don’t think it. Let’s talk about your mistake, dad, which was fucking having me in the first place.” 

“ Clarence,” His dad snapped. “You know we don’t blame you!” 

“But you should!” Grantaire shouted back, and blinked back the blur of tears in his vision. “But you should, because it’s my fucking fault! No matter which way you look at it, and I know you guys are trying for my sake, I did this!” 

“Your sister-,” 

“Is dead! My sister is dead!” R felt his throat become raw with the intensity with which he screamed it out. Not against his father, but into the universe. He banged his fists against the steering wheel. “Nothing is going to bring her back and that’s my fault!” 

He took in a sharp intake of air. He didn’t give his dad the chance to interject. It all came flooding out, a horrible truth that cast shadows longer than the dawn ever could. 

“Don’t...don’t say you don’t blame me, or that I fucking know that. How could I know that? I blame me!”

“But-”

“I blame myself because it was my fault and no one can tell me that it wasn’t. I took so many stupid bets on my own life and in the end, it cost us hers and dad, that’s my fault!” 

A silence followed; R’s erratic breathing permeated it and he pressed his forehead to the welcoming coolness of the wheel as his body shook with the force of them. His hands came up to make fists in his hair, clenching and unclenching without rhythm. 

A pressure built up at the bridge of his nose, but he refused to give in to his need to cry. That was the last thing his father needed on top of the long list of R’s fuck ups. 

His dad said nothing, but Grantaire could feel the destruction he’d left in the wake of his outburst. 

All he did was ruin things. 

After a moment, he felt the weight of a heavy hand on his shoulder once more and he practically recoiled from it, but his father persisted and when Grantaire looked up, he wore an unreadable expression. 

Without saying anything else, he just clapped him on the arm in what probably would have been a comforting gesture, had R been able to translate it. 

“Let’s go home.” He said, after a moment. His dad unbuckled his seatbelt, and the bang of the passenger door made Grantaire’s stomach turn over. 

He cast one last glance towards the rear view mirror, and in the light of the nearby streetlamps, he almost saw the ghost of someone else in the backseat. 

-

R had gone straight to the spare bedroom as soon as they’d gotten in; not a word was spoken between him and his dad the whole way back, and by the time he’d gotten through the front door, the weight of guilt made him feel like some kind of Atlas, but the world in which rested on his shoulders was a world he no longer wanted to be a part of. 

So he decided to sleep it off. That was a surefire switch off technique that was guaranteed to at least give him reprieve for a few hours. 

But his parents, specifically his mother, had other plans. 

In the bleak darkness of his room, a crack of rectangular light filtered in, blocked out only by his mum’s shape in the middle of it. 

“You never sleep in your old room,” She started with, sympathetically. Kindly. 

But R didn’t want nor deserved that. He thought he’d already outlined that, and he knew his dad had already told her everything that had happened. There was no way he hadn’t. 

Grantaire rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, as if he’d actually been sleeping and not just lying on his back and staring at the shapes in the dark. 

“People usually start with ‘hello’,” He tried to joke. Again, it fell flat, because she wasn’t laughing. He never saw her laugh anymore. “Hey, mum.” He finally settled on as he pushed himself up to a sitting position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. 

“I’m just worried that-,” 

“You and like a conga line of people, apparently,” 

“I’m just worried that you’re not doing as well as we’d like to think. You don’t tell us anything, Clarence. Your dad said that you had a little outburst when you went for your drive this evening, and-,” 

“-and you want to check me into the local hospital, I get it.” Grantaire laughed sardonically. 

“And I want to make sure you’re okay.” 

That stunned him into a moment of quiet. Eventually, he looked down at his hands. 

“What’re you trying to get me to say? That I’m alright with it being three years today that I-,” 

“No one blames you,” This time, it was her turn to interrupt. She placed her hand on his. “Least of all your father and I,” “

“I already said that I don’t need to hear it,” 

“No, you don’t want to hear it, which is different,” She said calmly, patiently. For a second, he wondered if she and Combeferre would get on. “Nothing I say will change how you feel about yourself, Clarence, but I don’t want you carrying around the impression that we hate you as much as you hate yourself,” 

He was momentarily shocked. His fingers trembled against hers, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go. 

“Fuck, ” He ran his free hand through his hair, hanging his head low. 

“No swearing in the house, please.” She said, but when he looked up, she was smiling. 

“Ha...I’m twenty-six, mum, you can’t stop me anymore,” 

“No,” She said, and this time, there was a film of water over her own dark eyes, clenching her fingers around his. “No, I know you’re too big for me to make everything better, like I used to,”

“Mum-,” 

“That’s all I want. I wish I could fix this for you, I wish I could find some peace for you, so that your heart could rest.” She continued, looking out towards the hallway. “I want peace for you as much as I want peace for her, but Clarence-,” 

“Mum,” R made to stand up, swallowing thickly. She kept a hold of his hand and the gentle tug of it made him look back at her. 

“I know that she has. I know in my own heart that she’s at peace,” 

“Stop, please,” His voice was so small, catching hard in his throat. “C’mon, mum, we don’t have to talk about this.” 

“But you’re not, and I hate watching you suffer.” 

“Well, I’m gone tomorrow morning, so that won’t be an issue for long,” He tucked his free hand under his armpit, looking away from her pained expression. 

“Clarence, listen to me. My daughter died-,” 

“ Stop, ”

“My daughter died, and the day that happened, we all felt a great loss, an indescribable pain. But she died once. How many more times must she die, in your mind, before you’ve suffered enough punishment?” 

R looked down. He looked at his feet, at the hem of his pajama bottoms, memorising details that didn’t matter as if they could replace the thoughts already plaguing him. 

“Whatever that means,” He finally said, voice half the size it usually was. 

“You’re keeping her here,” She said, and Grantaire’s heart broke. Before he could collapse completely into despair, she continued. “We all need to let her go, and accept that she’s at peace,” 

“If you wanna believe she’s at peace, mum, do that. If that helps you, I’m-,” He willed himself to slow down in his traction, feeling his voice raise again. It wouldn’t do good to take this out on her too, or have his dad come in to join in the berating for the murder of their first born.

He exhaled. 

“I’m genuinely, genuinely happy for you,” He couldn’t look at her. How could she preach pseudo-religious psychology at him and expect him to just believe that it was that easy? Her re-assurance felt pointless; R just couldn’t accept it, and he couldn’t let go either. “But that’s not out there for me. I don’t deserve to be at peace, that’s the truth.” 

“What’s haunting you, Clarence?” His mother pursed her lips, tears and pity shining in her eyes. 

“Her!” He laughed, the sound too broken, too high pitched to be anything but bordering on hysterical. How did they not get this? “You’re thinking about all those good things she did, but I’m not those awards on the shelf, and I’m not all those pictures of her in her room that make up some weird fucking shrine. I’m me, and that’s not good enough! That doesn’t bring her back, or make it so that I died instead,” 

“We could never want that-,” 

“What do you want me to say, mum? That I-...that I can’t remember all the good shit she did or even how great she made our lives because every time I try to picture her laugh, I just hear that fucking scream she made when we- when we went--...when we went over the--...” 

R’s voice trailed into silence, which was only interrupted by the sound of his mother’s hiccuping sob. 

He realised what he’d done too late. 

Another fuck up to add to your growing list. 

“Mum, shit, I’m-...I’m sorry,” He kicked his own arse into moving forward, closing the distance between them so that he could kneel on the floor in front of her. “I didn’t mean-...I’m sorry mum,” 

And that’s what it came down to. 

He couldn’t bring himself to cry, but he repeated the words like a prayer, or a mantra, and he meant them every time. His head lowered until it was against her knees, and she pressed her hands into his hair, as if soothing a small child.

“I’m sorry, mum, I’m-...I’m sorry,” 

“I’m sorry too,” She whispered, leaning over and down to press a kiss to the top of his head, holding him as he shook.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” 

She let him repeat it, offering only her own quiet crying and, despite that, comforting ‘shh’s, and like a man finally falling to the altar, he stayed there, broken beyond any kind of repair. 

“One day, this will all feel like a distant memory, I promise,” She breathed out, and he barely heard her. 

Wondering if that was a promise she could truly keep, R apologised again, and again, until his throat felt raw. 

When the dawn came the next morning, he packed up his bare essentials, and as he avoided his mother’s warm gaze as he headed out to the car, he thought about that promise once more. 

-

Two days after, R had been summoned to Courf and Enj’s apartment. 

Not that he’d been avoiding them, but he’d been avoiding them. And they definitely knew.

All the Amis had been giving him weird looks since he got back. Maybe it was the way he chased after an argument with Enjolras over and over, unable to see the reflection of yearning in his eyes when R looked away. 

Maybe it was the constant alcohol consumption, but when did that ever differ. 

R had had a lot to process, and instead of doing that, he’d chosen the low road of just ignoring that the last few days had occurred. 

So, when he arrived and Courf let him in with some kind of half-heard joke about his beard getting unmanageable-looking, R knew exactly what this was. 

“So, when does it start?” He said, arching an eyebrow as he made his way into the living room where he saw Enjolras, sitting as if he didn’t know that some people had bad posture and that was a thing that existed, looking too gorgeous, too perfect and too damn concerned for his own good. 

On the armchair nearby, Ferre sat with his laptop on his lap, but shifted to place it on the coffee table as R approached them. 

“The foursome?” Courf joked with a nudge and a very evident eyebrow waggle. 

“Nah, the intervention you’ve brought me here for,” R closed his eyes and held out his hand in a grabbing motion. “If you pass me a bacardi and coke, we’ll go through the usual,” 

“We do seem to do this monthly, R,” Ferre said, not at all cruel in his words, but Grantaire flinched internally nonetheless. “So it’s unsurprising that you know why you’re here.” 

“I’ll change my ways!” Grantaire theatrically clasped at his chest, reaching to the sky with his free hand. “I’ll only drink on mondays, tuesdays, and wednesdays. Maybe thursdays, but only if the sky is blue,” 

Even Courf wasn’t laughing, so the tone wasn’t good already. 

R raised an eyebrow, rolling his shoulders into a shrug. 

“Tough crowd, huh? What’s eating at you guys?” 

“R, these last few days-,” 

“-you haven’t been sober at any point I’ve seen you,” Enjolras continued where Courf began, and Grantaire wanted to think that there was hatred in the way Enj looked at him, but there was the kind of softness there that reminded him of marble statues, touched so beautifully by an artist’s skill that they looked real.

He had to remind himself for a second of how far away and impossible to reach Enjolras was, and that he couldn’t possibly lower himself from the pedestal R had put him on to have worry for whatever state R had chosen to put himself in. 

“We’re concerned.” Enjolras broke the quiet R’s thoughts had caused. Ferre and Courf’s expressions were almost unreadable, but R knew that there was truth in that statement if their reserved behaviour was anything to go by. 

“About what?” 

“Uh, you ? Seriously, R,” Courf laughed, trying to break the tension, and managing to by just a small margin. “If you’re so used to this intervention thing, you should have gotten that into your head by now.” 

“We wanted to check in,” Combeferre said, in complete agreement with Courf, who nodded along. His hands folded neatly on his lap, in that way R imagined therapists did when they were about to use their witchcraft to discover all of your secrets. “This isn’t so much an intervention as-,” 

“An interrogation,” Grantaire looked around, as if searching for a cup. He was too sober for this. 

“Do you see any handcuffs on you right now, buddy?” Courf offered in helpfully, the edge of his lips twitching as he folded his arms across his chest. “If they’ll make you feel better, we can break them out. I have some-” 

“R, we wanted to ask you what happened.” Enjolras said, less helpfully and straight to the point.

Grantaire bristled.

“Who? What?” He said, feigning ignorance to the best of his ability. Naturally, they saw through it. “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” 

Enjolras stood as R sat down, slumping into their sofa opposite them. He moved to stand at Courf’s side, and Grantaire felt his gaze burning into him as if it were the judgement of G-d himself. 

It was too much to hope that the pocket of silence would span into them changing the subject, giving up on getting anywhere with him yet again, but he hadn’t expected Ferre to speak up before anyone else. 

“What was her name?”

“Who?” R’s jaw clenched, looking anywhere but at them.

“Your sister.” 

His silence was enough of an answer, he knew. Enough for them to get an affirmation for whatever they’d put together. Panic rose within him, making his world spin. 

Not in front of Enjolras. That confirmation that he despised his very existence would send him to his grave, finally. He couldn’t handle the very thought of Courf’s smile souring, and Ferre’s accusing gaze when they knew. 

“Jesus fuck, get CSI Miami on the phone,” He said, bitterly, with a very brazen but empty laugh, leaning his head back on the back of the sofa. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” 

“What?” 

“If you’re not ready to open up to us about that chapter of your life, you don’t have to, but if you ever need us to reassure you, or to just listen to you, that’s what we’re here for. That’s all I wanted you to know.”

“We’re just here for you, whether you want us to be or not,” Courf chimed in with a genuine grin, which R knew he could just wipe off his face if he so chose to. He just had to tell them. 

Enjolras said nothing, and Grantaire looked up just to meet his gaze. 

“Nothing to add, oh fearless leader? What’s your astounding advice?” 

“I don’t know,” 

Even Courf seemed stunned by that admission. 

“You don’t know?” R’s brow knitted together. 

“I don’t know what to say to you that hasn’t already been said. We only want-,” 

“-what’s best for you,” She said, elbowing him unceremoniously in the ribs. 

“Stop,” R snapped, standing up again as if ready for some kind of confrontation, but as Enjolras looked at him, he visibly deflated, shoulders slumping. “I don’t need your pity, and whatever you think you’ve figured out, it’s probably, like, way off,”  

“R, you can’t tell us that our concern is made up. You’ve spent the last few days completely out of it, and we’d have to be blind to not notice how much you’ve been struggling. I-,” 

“-care about you, stupid.” She snorted, the same ugly laugh he’d always picked on her for. “Just-,” 

“-tell us how to help you, and we will,” 

And of course Enjolras had a big speech prepared. Of course he was pretending that he could even know the depths to which Grantaire had fallen for him, like he could care about him in the same way. 

“Nice ceiling we’re having today,” R finally replied, looking up at the patterns in the paint above him.

“Grantaire,” Ferre started. His voice was so patient that Grantaire couldn’t stand it. 

“You can help me by getting off my dick,” He snapped, finally, without completely meaning to. When he looked down from the ceiling, he felt his chest clench at their expressions. Ferre wore his steeled behind a wall of very evident concern, and Courf looked like he knew what this was like. Which he did, but he didn’t. 

He didn’t know what R had done. He would hate him, if he did. That’s what R repeated to himself as he felt his resolve start to fizzle out.

Just as Combeferre sighed, ready to tell R that another day, another time, they would have this conversation again, Grantaire threw out the silence. 

“Beth.” 

“Bless you,” Courf said, and R let out a barking laugh. 

“Her name, stupid.” 

“Well, duh,” Courf smiled, warmly. 

Grantaire decided in that moment to give up. He surrendered to the idea of confessing; he decided he could figure out how to navigate their inevitable disappointment in him later. 

If he lost them all, well, maybe that was the final punishment he deserved. 

“Was she older than you?” As if sensing R’s willingness to start opening up, Ferre offered him the chance to respond. 

“I never wanted a baby bro, you know,” She rolled her eyes, shoving Grantaire playfully. “Also, you need a shower,” 

Chasing away the ghosts in his mind, he looked away from them, out of the window. 

“Yeah, I guess. She was a bigger pain in the arse than me, though,” 

He’d said it. The ‘was’ in his sentence was both a mistake and a strange word on his tongue to say in front of them. 

“I find that hard to believe,” Courf stuck his tongue out, between his lips, throwing R a cheeky grin. 

“Seriously, she had-...she had this way of making people laugh, even when they were ready to deck her in the face with something. She was irritating like that,” Grantaire laughed, but the sound felt wrong. It all felt wrong. 

Suddenly, he was well aware that they were watching him, and he couldn’t stop. 

“She was one of those people that you said those cliche lines about, y’know? Like the ones about living and laughing and loving and all that shit. She always said corny stuff like that, and I have like sixteen injuries I can accredit to her through my life from her fucking...YOLO attitude to life, or whatever,” R brought a hand up to his mouth, biting down on his lower lip, staring out the window into nothing. 

“Like the one down your side?” 

R felt his whole body go into stasis. He’d forgotten that they’d seen him without his shirt on several times. The glaring evidence marred his skin in various places. 

“You’ll want to clean the wound twice a day-,” 

I want my sister back, he thought. 

“-and make sure that you keep the area clean.” 

R made no movement, or gesture that he was listening, throughout the entire litany of words he had to endure from the doctor. Outside his ward doors, his parents stood, talking to a nurse. 

To this day, he had no idea what they’d said, but there was no mistaking his mother’s gentle crying, or his father’s firm and clipped tone. 

“No,” He said, flatly. He lifted his hoodie up, and the scar glared back. He slapped over the area, emphasising his point. “This was all me. And hey, I got her back, eventually. I think I won that competition.” 

“What competition?” 

“I don’t know - world’s biggest fuck up, maybe? World’s worst brother?” 

R had stunned them into quiet once more, and that only encouraged him further on. 

“What did you do, R?” Enjolras finally asked, and R was all too willing to give. 

“I killed her.” 

Another pregnant pause. This one hung heavy, but Ferre, with his innate talent to navigate things like this, continued on as if he knew. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” 

“Don’t Good-Will-Hunting me, Ferre. You don’t know,” 

“I mean, we kinda do, buddy.” Courf winced, trying to alleviate some of the tension. “Eponine brought up that you said you didn’t have any siblings,” 

“Right after Jehan told us that you got incredibly drunk one time recently and started talking about how much you missed your sister,” Ferre continued. 

“Yeah! And remember how weird you used to get whenever my sisters came to visit, and I thought you hated them or had some serious beef with them or something?” 

“Yeah, ‘cause your sisters would come down and ruffle your hair and tell you that they-” R halted in his tracks.

That they loved him. That they missed him. Every time Courf parted with them, he gave them a goodbye that was full of the promise to see them again and R didn’t have that and it was his own doing. 

He didn’t have to say all of that, because Courfeyrac looked at him like he knew. Like R didn’t have to say it out loud. It had just clicked for them all.

“So, you were close,” Ferre asked, not tentatively, but not quite forceful enough to coax a proper answer out of the other. 

“I guess,” He shrugged, loosely, but couldn’t lie for long. “Yeah, she was some kind of star for people. We were all just in her orbit,” He laughed, the sound hurting his already raw throat. 

“Then why do you think it was your fault?” Ferre asked, waiting to put the final piece of the puzzle into the fucked up jigsaw that was Grantaire’s life. 

“Because-...because it-...” He pushed his hand through his hair once more, saw Enjolras start to pace out of the corner of his eye. “Because it is! Why does everyone keep telling me it isn’t? Were you guys there, or-?” 

“No, R,” Ferre spoke, calmly, but Grantaire wasn’t at all afraid to smash through the barrier of tenseness that was left behind in his destructive path. 

“Because I was there. I was behind the wheel the whole time,” He laughed, and couldn’t stop. It was a broken, empty sound. “And now I’m the poster boy for all drink driving accidents. And I got away with it! Because I was under the limit, so no one wanted to deal.” 

“R-,” Courf started up again, and R didn’t want to have to decide if he was pitying him or if the hatred had already set in, if he was about to confirm what R had always feared. 

That if everyone saw who he really was, they’d give up on him as quickly as he’d given up on himself.

“I don’t want your fucking pity, Courf. I don’t need it, I know what I did,” R said, spitting out the words as if they left a bitter taste in his mouth that he needed to desperately be rid of. 

“I don’t pity you, dude.” 

R looked up, expecting to see evidence that Courfeyrac, of all people, had decided he was no longer worth his time. 

“I just want to help.” 

Ferre nodded along, but Enjolras, again, said nothing.

His expressions had always been an enigma to R. That wasn’t Enjolras’ fault. R was just unwilling to think on the softer ones he sometimes caught a glimpse of, always in denial, and he could only see the sterner ones as proof that Enjolras thought less of him than he would something he’d stepped in. 

“I must reiterate, for your sake, Grantaire, that it wasn’t your fault,” Ferre began, but R wouldn’t lower his gaze from trying to figure out what lay in Enjolras’ blue eyes. 

“Hey, Enj,” R narrowed his eyes, hating how they burnt with unshed tears. “Nothing to say? If you wanna tell me all the ways I should be in jail, or burning in hell, feel free - I already know it all,” 

“Why would I-?” 

“Because you’re an avenging angel of the common man, far above us mortals. You want justice for people, right?” 

Enjolras lowered his eyelashes. 

“Grantaire, I don’t know how to tell you this-,” 

“Here it comes.” 

“-but there is no justice to be had here. What happened was out of your control, as far as I’m aware, and I agree completely with everyone else. It wasn’t your fault-,” 

Shit, this backfired. 

“-and I can’t imagine anyone blaming you-,” 

“Stop.” 

“-least of all-,” 

“ Stop !” 

And Enjolras did, but R didn’t have time to enjoy his temporary win, if it could even be considered that. Instead, they all looked frozen to him, trapped by the inability to say anything to make this better. 

“Stop pretending that you want to-- that you want to help me. I don’t want your help,” R said, dryly, as if he wasn’t sick with the urge to cry. As if hearing that they couldn’t blame him wasn’t poison to him at this point, far worse than any alcohol. 

At least with that, he knew how it would ruin him. Enjolras’ affection was far more dangerous.

“I don’t deserve your help,” He hammered home, finally admitting it out loud. He let out a sobbing laugh, as if the realisation came as a surprise to him too. “Don’t tell me that you think she wouldn’t blame me. You don’t know her like I do,” 

“So, would she?” 

“What?” R turned to look at Ferre, slowly. 

“Would she blame you?” 

“I-...I think-...” 

“I think that the only person that blames anyone here, Grantaire, is you.” Ferre said, and his voice was so gentle that R wished he’d just screamed at him instead. 

He let himself fall silent. 

He didn’t look up for so long that when Enjolras had approached him, he hadn’t noticed a single thing. He was so close, he could count each blonde eyelash. 

As if he didn’t already know every detail about him. 

“R,” He said, and Grantaire felt his breathing become shallow. 

“You didn’t know her,” Was the only thing he said back, shoulders shaking. 

“I’d like to, if you have time.” Came Enjolras’ retort, full of an earnesty R couldn’t quite face. 

“What, listen to me talk about my dead sister?” 

“Yes. Tell us about who she was,” His hand came up and pressed against his arm, and Grantaire could have died on the spot. “You still have your memories. You’re right; we don’t understand.” 

Grantaire opened and closed his mouth.

“But I want to. We want to know as much as you’re willing to tell us, and maybe in remembering those good things about her, you’ll find your way into accepting that your life is still worth it. I want to hear the kind of person she was, so that I can tell you for certain that she wouldn’t want this for you,” 

“Enj-,” R tried to form words. “Enjolras,” 

“And we don’t want this for you either,” Ferre added. 

“Yeah, R, my guy, my pal...I know she’s gone, but we’re still here and we can’t watch you destroy yourself.” He heard Courf say. 

Before he could think, Enjolras had pulled him into an embrace. 

The wind rushed out of his lungs. All at once, R could have, for just a fraction of a second, believed that maybe things would be okay. Maybe he could do this. 

Immediately, as he relaxed against him, he felt Courf’s arms find their way around him too, and heard Ferre make a comment, but he was no longer listening. 

Lost in the moment, he laughed, genuinely and freely; the first in months. 

As Courf pat his arm, and as he ignored the way Enjolras ran soothing circles with his fingers over his back, he fell into low, gasping sobs, and they let him. 

They didn’t hate him, and they let him. 

-

R ran his thumb over the mousepad of his laptop. 

Currently, it sat on his crossed legs, where he leant back against the headboard of his bed. By his side, and always a comforting presence, Bojangles lay sprawled, already asleep. On his screen, his cursor hovered over the video file but never clicked, simply taunting him with its stillness. 

Even now, and painfully sober as he was, he was still a coward. He was going to back out at the final hurdle he knew he had to jump over, but he was tired from running and his legs were giving out. 

So he clicked anyway, because if anything, saying ‘fuck you’ to his psyche was always something he was in favour of, even if that usually manifested into destructive self medicating. 

He groaned, pulling a face as he dragged his hand down it. He’d been listening to ‘Ferre too much, for sure. 

There were so many different things in this folder, labelled with a name, but this particular two minute clip wasn’t something he’d ever tortured himself with since-

…-since she’d died. 

He almost switched it off. His hand hovered over the pause button, right as sound began to crackle through his headphones. 

“Can you, like, not hold a camera properly? Is something wrong with you?” 

“I’m the one leaving - why am I recording you ?” 

“Because I told you to, and I’m older than you, and therefore have the final say on goodbyes,” 

The sound of what R’s laugh sounded like - what it used to sound like - came to his ears mockingly, and Grantaire almost couldn’t stand it. 

“Right, now you can start,” 

“I was recording the whole time!” 

A car beeped, and she yelled back through the nearby open window that they’d be out in a second, that R had finished ‘packing his shit’. 

When she returned to the front view of the jarringly bad cameraman-ship from Grantaire, R watched her face as she fell into a fit of laughter with him. 

In real time, he let out a watery sound that could have been a laugh. 

She returned to take the camera off him, holding it as if she were taking a selfie. R saw a younger version of himself lean into frame, having clearly given up on wrestling it out of her grasp. 

“Hey, Clarence, it’s your big sister,” 

“Hey Beth,” R said out loud, feeling stupid already. 

“-Oi, take your bags down to mum and dad, stop getting in my space!” 

Grantaire disappeared through a door, but not before knocking her with a bag or two on his way out. 

She looked to the camera, rolling her eyes and shaking her head with a gesture towards the space he’d left, as if there was always some secret audience to her life that no one knew about but her. 

“Little brothers, huh?” 

“I get you,” He snorted, thinking about Gavroche for a moment, how he followed R around sometimes with wonderment in his eyes, how he mimicked what he and Courf did. 

“So I just wanted you to have this on your phone for when you start obviously missing me while you’re off doing big city things,” She held the phone up, dropping down onto his plainly made bed. “Because I know for a fact that you’re going to come home every weekend complaining about all the friends you’ve made-,” 

Another laugh, and this time, it came out breathless, images of his friends’ faces flickering through his mind. 

“-and you’re gonna be bitching about your love life to me when you’re elbow deep in clunge or whatever you’re into-,” 

This time, a particular blonde’s features appeared in his mind’s eye. 

R brought his arm up to his eyes, where water had begun to prickle at them.

“-and we’re gonna, like, jam all the time on that guitar you still haven’t given back to me. I know that even though you’re going off to go be a depressed jazz musician in some bar in London, you’ll still miss your big sister,”

“Like hell,” Grantaire huffed. When she grinned in the video, it was like the space around her lit up. “G-d, so much. I miss you so much,” His voice cracked, fraying at the edges. 

When he looked up at the corner of his room, a guitar that had lines of dust collecting it stayed motionless in the corner. 

She laughed, a sound high in her throat, so melodic. So full of life. 

“So when you’ve got your full licence-,”

“I got it,” He couldn’t help but grin to himself this time, and Bojangles lifted his head to watch him. “I got it last week,” 

“-you can visit me and we’ll get high together every saturday-,” 

R’s breathing hitched. A sound escaped him, like he’d been punctured. 

“-make fun of terrible movies-,” 

All the things they were supposed to do together. The moments of his life she was meant to be a part of. 

“-and see how many things we can move to the left in mum’s cabinet before she notices and completely loses her mind!” 

He’d broken all those promises. 

It was supposed to be him. It was supposed to be him, not her. 

Like a dam breaking, R felt that pressure in his forehead shatter as he heaved a sob into the sleeve of his hoodie. They kept coming, almost drowning out the sound of her talking into his ears, as if she were still somehow there, not just a memory. 

“So here’s your advice for the future, a la Beth.” She tilted the camera, throwing up a peace sign. “And if I find out you’re not following it, I’ll pour bleach into your shampoo again,” 

He let out another laugh. This time, as he cried into green fabric, he echoed her words, as if he knew them by heart. 

“One, you gotta take care of yourself-,” 

“Take care of myself,” He whispered. 

“ -love yourself-,” 

“Love myself,” He let out a broken ghost of a laugh.

“-and be yourself, and I know you’re probably calling me cringey right now, but it’s true. You’re great. You’ve got so much ahead of you, so much potential - if you’re not on TV by the time you’re-” 

“Twenty-six,” 

“-twenty-six, it’ll be a shame.” 

He couldn’t hear the rest of her words. Knowing that he’d inevitably let her down, even after she’d passed on, was almost too much. He nearly turned it off then and there. 

“-but I’ll forgive you-,” 

“ You would,” R wiped furiously at his eyes. “But you shouldn’t,” 

“Clarence,”

“Yeah?” He said, weakly, lowering his arm slowly. 

“If you ever need me, you know where to find your big sister, okay?”

Some kind of bitter retort died on his tongue, but before he could pull his headphones out, she continued: 

“I love you, baby bro.” 

Another beeping sounded in the distance, and this time, the shout of his faraway voice sounded in the distance, though whatever he said was lost to time. 

“Right, gotta go! Peace out, yadda yadda-,” 

Grantaire paused. Then he rewound the video back by a few seconds. 

“I love you, baby bro.” 

And again. 

“I love you-,” 

“I love you too,” R finally said, coming out of his throat as if he’d barely managed to make it audible. 

I love you. 

“I love you, baby bro. Right, gotta go! Peace-,” 

His dog made a valiant attempt in that moment to climb on top of him, wanting to occupy as much space as possible as if he were five times smaller than his actual size, but R didn’t have the energy nor the desire to push him off right now. 

Instead, he wrapped his arms around him, letting the headphones be tugged out of his laptop and out of his ears roughly by the sudden weight of an irish wolfhound. 

“No more bullshit goodbyes. This isn’t the last time you’ll see me, after all,” 

“I didn’t say goodbye-,” Grantaire began. “I didn’t-....I didn’t get to say-...” 

“Laterrrrrrrrrrrrrs!” 

The video went black, and the sudden shift in tone from her was so... her , that it took him a second to remember his own thinking process, falling into another wet laugh once again as he  buried his face against the fur of Bojangles’ neck. 

He shut the laptop lid down, laying on his side with his dog, thinking for a second as he let himself cry, let himself laugh. 

“Bye, Beth.” 

-

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. 

- Aeschylus