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When Grantaire was fifteen, he worked the soundboard at his church. It seemed an easy job, if not for the fact that he didn’t believe in a god and hated everything the Church stood for. Which was precisely what put him in that spot in the first place. Earlier that year, he’d come out to his parents after years of it wearing down his mental health. It didn’t go so well, he was hit and cussed at more often than not, and as punishment, his ‘family’ put their resident godless cocksucking heathen in a place that would hopefully cure him. He digressed.
Grantaire joined the GSA and the weird social justice club Combeferre was obsessed with in retaliation. ABC something or other. He didn’t really pay attention during meetings.
But the leader, oh the leader of the club. He was a golden boy, one who seemed to exude an aura of purity, a beacon of hope. He was an angel of reckoning in Grantaire’s mind, a deity sent to Earth to bring about the end times. Grantaire couldn’t help but listen to what he had to say, the passion in his voice a better drink than the finest whiskey. Grantaire was hopelessly smitten.
The first incident happened the third weekend he was manning the soundboard. The priest was giving a sermon about the sin of homosexuality, and Grantaire panicked and muted the priest. Luckily, everyone seemed to assume it was an accident and let it slide.
Enjolras always seemed to want to start things with Grantaire. First it was yelling at him because he was drawing instead of participating, then it was fighting when Grantaire finally did speak up. It was aggravating and terrifying and Grantaire just wanted to grab the other boy and shake him and tell him to listen, or maybe to shut him up with a kiss.
Grantaire started with the nickname the day after he first met Enjolras, christening him “Apollo.” Enjolras seemed to take it alright for the first few times, then got increasingly annoyed and tried to kick Grantaire out of the club. Maybe it was because Grantaire always hid how much he meant it in a curtain of sarcasm and lighthearted mockery.
The second incident was a few months later, after Grantaire had turned sixteen. There was an entire homily about abortion and how wrong it was. Grantaire let his hand slip one more time, muting the priest again. He flipped open a magazine, looking for a distraction so he didn’t have to see the priest staring him down. It had just been too much, these comments about how a sack of flesh is more important than someone’s life. Grantaire knew firsthand, he could vividly remember Eponine knocking on his window and stumbling inside, bleeding and crying after a shady back-alley abortion. He was the one to get drunk on cheap vodka with her in the weeks following.
The third and final incident that landed him out of a job was on one of the really crowded Sunday masses. It was the final mass of the day and he’d been put in charge of locking up after everyone left. So he waited, scribbling modern Jesus leading a social justice protest on the back of a bulletin. After the altar servers left, he went to work turning off the lights and locking the place up. And then a thought popped into his mind, becoming more nagging and insistent the more he tried to push it away. A test of faith, he supposed. He walked over to one of the stained glass windows and looked over it for a few minutes, thinking. Somewhere in his mind, there was one thing he was certain of. If the window broke, there wasn’t a god. If it held, that was some thick glass.
His body seemed to move of its own accord before he had finished processing his thoughts, and suddenly he was flying through the window. He rolled onto the grass with surprisingly fewer cuts than what was expected, and limped home. The church never realised it was him, but fired him for “not locking up properly.” He was immensely grateful.
His parents managed to pull more than a few strings, however, and he became an usher for the Saturday mass.
Every Tuesday and Thursday was the social justice club, and every Friday was the GSA. Grantaire often missed the latter of the two to spend time with Eponine, drinking as much as he could to forget about the week (which was only barely better than his weekends). He was always at the ABC club though, at first for the sole reason of seeing Enjolras (he pretended it was because he wanted to piss off his parents). As time went on, however, there was a subtle change in the boy. He spent less time drawing heads full of familiar blonde curls, more time participating in the discussion, being an active part, even. Enjolras seemed to consider him a pest and waste of time at first, but now he'd look towards Grantaire as if waiting for his opinion on things.
Mass was uneventful. Grantaire's parents began to yell at him more often.
The Amis and the GSA had been campaigning for a gender-neutral bathroom all year and the school had finally relented. Combeferre decided to throw a party at his house and cornered Grantaire after the next meeting, making him promise to go.
The party wasn't at all what Grantaire expected, but it was Combeferre's. He should have known.
It was loud and crowded and a lot of queer people from some of the other schools nearby showed up. All of the Amis were there and it was chaos. Courfeyrac and Combeferre were trying to get Enjolras to drink, Marius was fawning over Cosette, Eponine was making out with Musichetta as Joly and Bossuet looked on. Just the kind of party Grantaire loved.
A few hours later found Grantaire piled on the couch with the rest of his friends, a shitty romcom playing on the TV. Enjolras was standing on the table in the kitchen, drunkenly preaching about gay rights. Grantaire kept on sneaking glances back at his Apollo. Enjolras was even more animated than usual when under the influence and Grantaire couldn't stop laughing. He found himself moving towards the kitchen, towards Enjolras. He had a few more drinks, bonded with Enjolras over a discussion of sexuality and their shitty parents. He even ended up coaxing Enjolras through his first hangover.
During Collection at Mass, something compelled him to take a five-dollar bill out of the basket right before he emptied the money into the bin. He slipped it into his pocket and returned to the pew, tuning out the priest's drone as always. When he went home, his father was drunk and hit him. The next day, bruises covered his chest and arms, so he wore a sweatshirt. It was the hottest day of the year so far.
Enjolras and him seemed to fight less now. In fact, Enjolras seemed positively amicable. They sometimes had conversations outside of the club, had even hung out once. Sometimes Grantaire would catch Enjolras staring during class.
At Mass, Grantaire had gotten in the habit of taking one or two bills each time. Sometimes it was as little as two dollars, others, it was thirty. No one ever said anything because no one ever noticed. He kept a box in his drawer full of money, and then a jar when that was full. He wondered what he'd do with the money sometimes, thought of maybe driving away and never coming back. He'd count it and put it in his wallet occasionally, but it'd always end up back in the jar at the end of the day.
Towards the end of the year, Grantaire found that he was staying longer and longer at the end of meetings to help Enjolras clean up, a poor excuse to talk to the boy he admired so much. Enjolras never seemed to mind, seemed to enjoy his company, even. They'd trade shitty jokes and witty jokes, talk about their home lives and the cause. It was soothing, in an odd way. Grantaire normally didn't like opening up to people, but Enjolras was just so easy to talk to. He had a feeling Enjolras wouldn't judge, either, the only one to not besides Eponine.
Grantaire took fifty bucks from the collection once, and the altar server (a tiny slip of a girl, a little blonde thing) noticed. She approached him after Mass and asked him what he was using the money for. He just stared at her.
The last week of school found Grantaire standing on Enjolras' doorstep with shaking hands holding a wrinkled envelope bearing the words "Pour L'ABC". He didn't ring the doorbell, just stared. Then Enjolras' mom came home and ushered him in and he stood in his Apollo's surprisingly cozy-looking living room, quivering, reduced to the panicky boy he was freshman year.
It was awkward, to say the least. Grantaire tried once, then tried again to give the parcel to Enjolras. The other boy seemed to get it and took it, opening it and then blinking in confusion as he asked where Grantaire had gotten the money. He sat down, warned that it was complicated, and began to tell his tale.
When he finished, Enjolras leaned over and kissed him and he had a feeling everything was going to be alright.