Chapter Text

Enjolras clutched his bag as he stared at the white walls of the hospital. Why had he let Joly talk him into this? He had more important things to be doing than be taking a trip to the mental institute.

“There’s someone I really want you to meet,” Joly told him quietly as he straightened his white nurses uniform. “He’s got some really good opinions on politics, and—ever since he saw the video of you at the rally last year—has been talking about you.”

“I really don’t want to get in an argument with a medically insane guy,” Enjolras stated. “Courfeyrac is as close to ‘medically insane’ as I’m willing to get.”


The nurse let out a chuckle, but didn’t respond.

They continued to the mental ward in silence, and, when they arrived, Joly pushed open the white doors without hesitation.

Enjolras wasn’t necessarily afraid of the patients in there. But, upon seeing them in various states of mental health, he gripped his bag a little tighter, his knuckles turning as white as the walls around him.

“Over there.”

Joly didn’t stop until they reached a table, hosting a little boy of maybe eleven. He had stringy, shoulder-length blond hair, the bright eyes of a child, and a small armband around his wrist that read, “Gavroche Thénardier” in bold letters. A teenage girl sat next to him, having long brown hair that she constantly pushed out of the way so it didn’t get in the way of the paper they were profusely coloring on.

“Joly,” the girl stood when the two approached, whereas the boy—Gavroche—just glanced up. “And you must be Enjolras.”

Enj shook her hand and then, nervously pushed his curly blond hair out of his eyes. When Joly had talked him into coming, he hadn’t mentioned that the boy in subject was… well, a boy.

“I’m Éponine,” she continued past Enjolras’s silence. “And this is my little brother, Gavroche. He really loves the work Les Amis de l’ABC does, and is incredibly excited to meet their leader.”

“It’s good to know we have admirers this young.” He knelt down and examined what the boy was drawing. “Nice color choice.”

Gavroche cracked a smile and set down his red colored pencil. “I’m not as young as I look.”

“Is that so?”

“Sometimes the littlest people can do the biggest things.”

With that, Joly took his hand. “It’s time for your medication, Gav. Come on.”

Reluctantly, the boy stood up and followed Joly across the ward and out of sight. Éponine was still standing.

“I’ve seen you around before,” Enjolras said, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt.

“And I, you.” She sighed and sat down where Gavroche had been sitting, carefully avoiding eye contact with one of the patients. “I mostly work for my father at his inn, but I’ll occasionally pick up shifts at the café downtown… the Musain.”

“Yeah, the ABC often has meetings down there.” He paused. “If you don’t mind me asking… what’s your brother in here for?”

She looked away. “My parents were always neglectful of their boys. They left Gavroche at a gas station when he was five, and he got hit by a car and rushed to the hospital. He got hit in the head pretty badly, and they were afraid of letting him back into the ‘real world.’ So they stuck him in here, and he gets all of his schooling and education and shit done specially. I don’t see them releasing him anytime soon, either.”

“And you stayed with your parents?”

“They’re my legal guardians. If I tried to get away, they’d find some way to get me back… say I’m good for business. I visit Gavroche as much as I can, try to compensate for my parents not coming at all. I’m all he’s got.”

Enjolras finally started to loosen his grip on his bag, but didn’t respond. His gaze was currently focused on a man who had stepped into the ward. The only thing that gave away that he was a patient was the armband around his wrist. Otherwise, Enjolras would have thought him to be just a visitor. He looked fairly normal—to be in a psychiatric ward, at least.

He wore black sweatpants, a long-sleeved white shirt, and black socks. His black hair was wild with curls. The strange man also had electric green eyes that lit up the majority of his face, except what was darkened by the scruff on his chin. Enjolras struggled for a word to describe him, for he wasn’t beautiful, he was… ruggedly handsome.

As he got closer, Enjolras began noticing little details about him. His hands were shaking violently, he had bags forming under his eyes, his skin was abnormally pale, he was incredibly thin and lanky; he looked anorexic, he was so skinny. The man’s complexion was death-like, and he kept staggering.

“Who’re you staring at?” Éponine asked suddenly, and Enj jumped a little at her voice. He watched than mysterious man sit down across the room with a rather large book.

Suddenly, a small boy was punching his arm playfully. Gavroche head-butted his shoulder and was saying something to him—Enjolras was too far away to make it out.

Éponine stifled a laugh. “Oh, him.”

“Who is he?”

She didn’t get a chance to answer, as Gavroche had returned with Joly by his side. “Grantaire doesn’t want to be bothered right now. Seems like he had a tough night.”


“He probably did, kiddo.” She ruffled his hair as he began coloring again.

“Why don’t we go, Enjolras?” Joly said, smiling. “Don’t we have a meeting this afternoon?”

“Yes, the meeting. Yes.” He shook his head to try and clear his thoughts. The man—who had picked up his book once again—had completely startled him.

“Maybe I can get you clearance to come next week,” Enjolras faintly heard Joly say to Gavroche. “I’m sure the ABC would love to have you.”


Enj made an attempt at nodding in agreement, but his eyes had returned to the man.

“Alright then.” Joly’s fingers grazed Enjolras’s arm, shocking him back to reality. With one last glance at the ruggedly handsome man, the duo bid Gavroche and Éponine goodbye and left the mental ward, Enjolras moving a little too hurriedly.

~

Les Amis de l’ABC had three “golden” members: the chief, Enjolras, the center, Courfeyrac, and the guide, Combeferre. Often called the Golden Trio, or Trinity—mostly by Bahorel and Feuilly—they were the best of friends. All three of them shared an apartment close to ABC’s meeting place, the Musain, and had grown up together.

They were the root of the ABC, and had recruited the others around them. There was Bahorel, the joker, Feuilly, the redheaded orphan, Jean “Jehan” Prouvaire, the shy poet, Joly, the hypochondriac nurse, and Laigle, the unlucky man. The Friends fought for what they believed in: equality and justice. Each of them—excluding Feuilly—were students at the local university, studying for one thing or another.

When Enjolras and Joly arrived at the Musain, Courfeyrac was the only one of Les Amis there. The rest were civilians casually drinking coffee or another festive drink. Courfeyrac had his head on the table he was sitting at and a glass of water in his hand.

His wildly curly brown hair was flat today; drooping, almost. His mood brought the entire room into a more depressing state.

“Courfeyrac?”

The man looked up, his face sullen. “Combeferre kicked me out of the apartment during my nap.”

“That doesn’t sound Combeferre,” Enjolras murmured, taking a seat.

“I may have provoked him just a bit.”


“There we go.”


“He said my ‘snoring was too loud.’” Courfeyrac scoffed. “He’s sure as hell lucky he’s adorable.”

Enjolras just smiled in response.

“You okay, Enj? Something’s… different about you.”

The blond man shrugged easily, allowing his shoulders to gently rise and then fall again.

“Hmm. Misty eyes, goofy smile, far-away look… you met someone.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Courf raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t exactly meet him.”

“Oh, Enjolras!”

“It’s nothing, Courfeyrac. He was attractive, that’s all. I noticed a man. Where’s the crime?”

“No crime. Just… aw!”

“Will you shut up?”

“When are you going back to see him?”

Enjolras sighed. “I’m going back to the hospital tomorrow to visit Gavroche.”


“Sure.”

“Go to hell.


“Love you, Enjy.”


“Love you too, Courfeyrac.”


~

“Want to know who he is?”

Éponine slid into the seat next to Enjolras. He had been staring at the mysterious man in the psychological ward. Today, Enj had position himself in proportion to the man, especially so Enjolras could see the way he read—today, his book was The Grapes of Wrath. Enjolras respected that.

“I’m not sure.” Éponine raised her eyebrows at his response. “I’m afraid what you’ll tell me will ruin my image of him.”

“That man comes in and out of a mental institute!” she exclaimed. “What did you expect?”

Enj pursed his lips. “You have a point. I guess… tell me. Who is he?”

“He goes by R—most of the time—but his real name is Grantaire. He’s pretty cool… probably my best friend. He looks after Gavroche when he’s here and I’m not, which is less often than you’d think. Taire is super smart, and he is one of the greatest artist I’ve ever known. He’s not a permanent resident of the ward; gets out for good behavior, a lot of times. The doctors observe him and don’t think there’s any reason to keep him locked up. Then he goes, does some stupid shit, and gets thrown back in.”


“How? I mean, what does he do?”

“Watch him for a second.”

They observed Grantaire, silence passing between them. Enjolras had been watching R for awhile; he didn’t understand the difference another few seconds would make. He followed ‘Ponine’s line of sight right to Grantaire’s hands—his beautiful, shaky hands—as the man gripped the sides of the hardbound book. When he turned the page, the sleeve of his white shirt rode up and revealed what Éponine had been trying to show Enjolras.

“Is it depression?”

“The doctors aren’t entirely sure. Joly has money on it, though—he’s the only one around here who seems perfectly sure that Grantaire’s clinically depressed. But yeah. He’s on suicide watch.”

“Why the hell would they let him go if he’s on suicide watch? Even with good behavior?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I mean, he doesn’t really act depressed. Besides making an occasional negative comment about himself, he’s not exactly showing the symptoms of someone who is on suicide watch—depression, maybe, but not suicide watch. He reads books, he interacts with the kids in here, he doesn’t even try to pull anything like he does outside the institute. He’s squeaky clean in here.”


Enjolras glanced again at the long cuts on Grantaire’s wrists. There were some fairly fresh ones along the scars, showing his life story on his sleeves. Literally.

“Outside the institute, he’s a mess.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I know him quite well, both in here and out there. He drinks abundantly, he’s a total cynic, he does drugs. He’s technically unemployed, too, but he’s a brilliant artist. Even when he’s drunk, he can paint like a badass. They let him paint when he’s in her, but he gets repulsed by his own work a lot of times. Really, he’s often repulsed of himself.”

“When did you meet him?”

“After they admitted Gavroche. He’s about your age, so he’s a couple of years older than me. I don’t think it was the first time he’d been in here, but they were practically wrestling him in here the day Gav was assigned a permanent room. I was in seventh grade, and I thought… well, he was hot.

I started talking to him a week later, when he started reading to my brother. Gavroche hardly ever lets anyone do anything for him, so I let the kid have his fun. Grantaire started helping me watch over him, and then, the year I got into high school, I started seeing him at school. He was a junior, I was a freshman, and he talked to me more than he talked to anyone. I had my first drink with him. I first smoked pot with him. I stopped smoking pot awhile back—even if he didn’t—and my boyfriend buys drinks for me nowadays.”

“What about him?” Enjolras quickly diverted the subject back to R. “Did he stop? Is he… in a relationship?”

“Not that I know of.” She smirked. “Why? Interested?”

“No. Just curious.”

Suddenly, Grantaire set his book down and stood up. Upon glancing around, his eyes met Éponine’s. They didn’t linger for long, though. His gaze was locked onto Enjolras the second he caught a glimpse of him. R examined Enjolras, his eyes wide and… enchanted.

It took him a minute to gather his bearings before he worked up enough courage to walk over to them.

“Éponine. Who’s your friend?”

“Hello to you, too.” She chuckled. “This is Enjolras, the man Gavroche has been going on about lately.”

“The ABC leader?” Grantaire asked. “You’re… not what I expected.”


“I find that often happens. Les Amis is a very high class group, few people know that we’re run by a bunch of rebellious college students.”


“I’m Grantaire,” he introduced himself, holding out one of his shaky hands. Enjolras examined it for a moment. His hands were beautiful. Chiseled to perfection, tan with perfect fingernails. Enj had never had a fetish for hands until he met Grantaire.

Enjolras shook it, a tingling rushing up his spine upon R’s touch. They felt as smooth and perfect as they looked.

“Are you getting out out anytime soon, Taire?” Éponine asked, ripping into their delicate moment that Enjolras was sure was just in his head.

“They might actually keep me this time,” he responded, withdrawing his hand from Enjolras’s. “Say I’m ‘too reckless’ and that they can keep me under control here. I guess they’re also trying to keep me out of prison.”

“What did you do this time?”

“I may have been caught with some illegal drugs in my possession.” The tone of his voice was hilarious to Enjolras; R was so proud of illegal drug use. “If they can prove me to have some kind of mental disorder or disease, I won’t have to go back to the correction facility. And no—they don’t consider depression a real disease.”

“Bullshit.”

“Doesn’t matter much. They wouldn’t diagnose me anyway. Joly is the only one here who actually knows what he’s doing.”

Enj tried to smile.

“Anyway. Where’s Gavroche? I’ve got a present for the little squirt.”

Grantaire turned around when he received a sharp tug on his sleeve. Gavroche was grinning up at him, his bright blue eyes innocent and pleading. R was obviously immune to the rather adorable look, but laughed and knelt nevertheless. He popped a towelette out of his pants pocket.

“Found this in an antique shop the other day. The owner was looking to be rid of it.”

Gavroche took the cloth and unwrapped it gently, revealing an ancient-looking dagger.

“Whoa!”

“Taire… how did they let you in here with that in your pocket?” ‘Ponine asked suspiciously.

“I told them what it was. You can’t use it—not anymore, at least. It belonged to a young revolutionary during the French Revolution. If anyone were to use it, the metal it was made of would crack right down the middle. It’s nearly two-hundred years old.”

Gavroche carefully used his fingers to graze the dull blade.

“Be careful with it, kid.” R patted the boy’s back and he ran off, probably to put the knife under his pillow.

“You gave a ten-year old a knife? God, you’ll be the death of him! Do you know how many ten-year olds own a fucking knife?”

R cocked his head at the beautiful stranger’s rant. “I got my first knife when I was nine. My father told me that every man should be ready to kill somebody at anytime. Then again, dad was pretty senile at that point. Whatever. At least I didn’t get Gav something he could actually use. I got it for him because that young revolutionary I mentioned reminds me a lot of Gavroche. He was young young.”

“Yeah. It’s really not a big deal, Enj.” Éponine gave him a sympathetic smile as she agreed with the cynic. “I had a dagger when I was that young, too. A working one, as well. We—Gavroche and I—were raised by con-artists. He would’ve gotten one sooner or later, whether mom and dad care about him or not.”

Enjolras sighed, but didn’t say anything more on the subject. He was staring, once again, at Grantaire. One thing he noticed, since he had a better view of his face, was the thin little scars over his cheeks. Enjolras wondered what had been the source of those scars. Then he thought about it.

“It was nice to meet you, Enjolras,” Taire said, shaking the blond’s hand again. “I hope to see you sometime soon.”

Enjolras left the hospital with many things cycling through his head, the main thought being how he couldn’t wait to go visit the Thénardiers again.

~

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes as Enjolras collapsed onto their couch that night.

“Tired from staring at your dream boy all day?”


“Hush.” Enj pulled the plate of takeout Chinese food that was on the ottoman closer to him. “How was your exam today?”

“What are we, an old married couple?”

“Apparently. Now tell me how badly you failed your Algebra exam.”

Courf released an exasperated sigh and slammed the back of his head on the couch. “It was so bad, Enj! Why the fuck do I even need this for life? When will I ever use a fucking quadratic equation in the real fucking world?”

“Thanks for that, Courfeyrac.” Combeferre groaned as he emerged from his bedroom, phone in hand. “That was my boss I was talking to. He heard your rather loud cursing and ‘didn’t appreciate it.’”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Ferre.” He paused, carefully phrasing his statement. “Your boss was a dickbag anyway.”


The look Combeferre gave him was a pure look of annoyance that both Courf and Enjolras knew too well.

“Did you get fired?” Enj questioned.

“No, thankfully. But I’ve got to work overtime tomorrow because he got so pissed off. And probably for the next two weeks, as well.”

“How long?”

“At least an hour.”

Enjolras frowned. “You’ll miss the meeting! I got permission to bring Gavroche, too. We were gonna go down to the park.”

“I don’t have a choice, Enjolras. If I don’t work this shift, there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to keep my job. And I need this job to keep paying rent.”

The leader nodded. Combeferre had always struggled with money for as long as Enj could remember. His dad couldn’t work, and, even though his mom worked two jobs, it was barely enough to pay the rent of his parents’s house. He never wanted to ask his parents for money, and had had a job since he was old enough to have one. He worked hard as a bag boy to maintain his income. And, thankfully, he’d gotten a full scholarship to an established university and split the rent of an apartment with his two friends.

“Well, we’re here for you,” Courfeyrac murmured with an apologetic look on his face. “Never forget that.”


Ferre snorted. “You wouldn’t let me forget it.” He paused, sliding between to his friends on the couch. “Oh, and by the way, the quadratic equation has many uses in ‘the real world,’ especially if you aspire a career in science of mathematics or architecture—”

“That’s the problem!” Courfeyrac all-but shouted. “I don’t know what I aspire to be! But this is a required class and I can’t fail it or I’ll graduate late and Dad will be pissed and I won’t walk with you guys because you’re so goddamn smart and—”

“Courf!” Enjolras and Combeferre cried out in unison. He stopped his ranting and glanced at his two best friends.

“Do you need one of us to tutor you?”

“That would be fantastic. Because unless I pull my fucking grade up, all that stuff is gonna happen and it’ll be bad.”


“I’ll tutor you tomorrow. You’ll just have to come up to the hospital with me.”

“You spend an awful lot of time at that hospital, Enjy. Did you catch a case of love?”

Enjolras snorted. “Fuck off, Courfeyrac.”

Laughing, Courf spread out on the couch, throwing his feet on top of Enjolras. Enj made a playful attempt to push him off. Failing, as he thought he would, he curled his body around the other man’s legs, resting his head on Courfeyrac’s stomach. Ferre slid his body underneath Courf’s chest, folding in on his friends. The trio burst into giggles, but not one of them moved.

“It’s pretty sad that we’re grown ass men and we still do this,” Courfeyrac murmured between chuckles. “This is something we did when we were seven.”

Combeferre kicked his loafers off. “Well, our seven-year old selves knew what was up, because this is pretty damn comfortable.”

“Pretty damn comfortable indeed.”

Courfeyrac’s eyes were closed, and the other two were sure—based on his lack of response—that he was asleep. Enjolras, too lazy in that moment, decided against going to his room to sleep, and shut his eyes.