Chapter Text
Part 1: Grantaire gets real
The morning was a pain in the arse. It practically jumped into the sky and its overly positive attitude had pissed the clouds off enough for the day to at least start off clear. It skipped merrily through the blind of the motel room like a child shaking their parents awake at 4 o'clock on christmas morning. The whole motel collectively groaned. But this only encoaraged the morning further, as it loved the attention whether it be postive or negative, so it continued on its antics to the point where even the birds were yelling at it to and I quote 'calm the chirriping fuck down'. Birds can be terribly profane at times.
The motel room itself seemed awfully confused about the time period it was currently in. On one hand the murky green floral duvets delightfully mixed with the milk-you-probably-shouldn't-drink striped wall paper, gave the room a 70s, your- grandma-needs-therapy tone. On the other hand, a ...slick? glass coffee table paired with strangely aerodynamic chairs made you feel like a 2010s office dad who thought he was getting the job of his dreams but instead found himself as a glorified sales assistant. So it is somewhat of an understatement to say that the room was disorientating.
Sitting in said room was a.. deity? No, silly, deities don't have eyebags which could run for office. This was just a man, a sleep deprived, coffee jazzed man who either needed counselling or cocaine. Given, his features were carved in such a way, they conveyed both the strength of the lion and the subtlety of the lamb. He had a face (despite the eyebags and ink) that inspired poetry and awe in those who gazed upon it, no frustration or jealousy could be born from it, only clarity and love. He also had really good hair. His hair was superb. So you can be forgiven for mistaking this hunched over gremlin of a man for some sort of god.
Perhaps gremlin is not the correct term for Mr. Godlike over here, as it more fittingly describes his friend. Sewer rat or cretin could also be used to depict the man draped spread-eagle over the bed, but that seems too harsh an insult, so despite its use earlier on, we shall continue with: Grantaire was a gremlin. He was the embodiment of the word; he was in all senses, an imaginary gnome-like creature inclined to damage or dismantle machinery. He personified everything Mr. Godlike (or Enjolras if we are to be less derogatory) was not. Grantaire was a random dispersion of cynical chaos. A nihilist with flare, spice and definitely no convictions of any kind. He resided under a nest of black curls which tended to almost move, think and breathe to their own whims, matching quite fittingly with his clothes, which looked as if they were bargained from a charity shop for 50p and crayola pen.
‘Enj, is there anything on this godforsaken lump of rock that could drag you away from that cursed device of yours’ Grantaire sighed into the covers
‘Grantaire’ Enjolras grumbled ‘you know how important this is to me’
‘Right, the cause and all that’ Grantaire paused ‘but, for me love, have a shower before you head off on your divine mission, the coffee-sweat combo you’ve got going on is wafting over to my side of the room and bringing down the vibe ’
‘Grantaire’ Enjolras had ceased his maniacal typing and had now engaged in a staring contest with Word ‘This must be finished by tomorrow if I am to fully prepare for the Amis meeting’
Grantaire paused for a moment ‘Really?’
‘Yes, I should have completed this at least by yesterday but I found myself a little snowed under with work,’ Enjolras replied. It was the whole and complete truth if ‘snowed under with work’ meant trying to seek out Grantaire every waking moment so that he could look into his eyes and imagine combing his fingers through his hair for kicks. Christ he was in deep.
‘No, no not that, I just never thought you prepared for the Amis meetings’ Grantaire interrupted his chain of thought ‘I thought you just got up on your soapbox and gushed your heart to any poor sod willing to listen, like a sort of ken doll socrates’
Grantaire stretched off of his bed like a drowsy cat and in Enjolras’ silence, continued:
‘How you have felt, O men of Musain, at hearing the speeches of my accusers…’ Grantaire pranced not so delicately across the floor, arms flailing as he went.
Enjolras cut him off with a chuckle ‘For our meetings to be productive I have to prepare some what in advance; I am no god’
‘Then how come you bear such resemblance to our dearest sun- feind, Apollo?’
Enjolras clenched his jaw to fight off the familiar deep blush that plagues him every time R likens him to the deity.
‘Grantaire, your a pain in my arse’
‘Absolutely, but right now I’m a pain in your arse who's gonna help you finish this probably-not-compulsory essay your writing’ Grantaire strode closer to Enjolras and let out a sharp gasp
‘Fuck me, Enjy you smell like satan left one in your bed, Jesus Christ on a spatula’
‘I told you, I am no god’ Enjolras muttered, smirking at Grantaire's theatrics
‘Oh fuck you Enjolras, one day I’m going to introduce you to the cocept of a shower and your gonna loose your fucking mind’
Grantaire made a dramatic show of pulling his hoodie sleeves over his hands and the hood tight around his head, creating a rude excuse for a hazmat suit. He then pinched his nose and lent over enjolras to get a better look at the document. It was silent for a long while.
Enjolras held his breath. They were dancing on a minefield here. Not only was Grantaire so close that he could feel the waves of warmth rolling from his skin but their conversation had been possibly the most good natured they'd had in months and now a fluctuation in tone is all it would take for it to go to hell. Here, here was a sort of no man's land between them. Here it was volatile. They tended to tiptoe around politics, keep philosophy at arms length and avoid belief like it were the plague. But somehow they consistently fought and not in the scholarly no-worries-lets-makeup-and-play-cricket way, in the way that leaves one stumbling, lost around their own mind. Grantaire reading Enjolras’ work was a ballsy decision, he’ll give him that much, but he feared that it may have been the wrong one.
Grantaire heaved in a breath next to Enjolras’ ear
‘Enjolras…love…you’re… fucking wasted here’
Wow, that could have gone a whole bunch worse, Enjolras thought .
But Grantaire wasn’t done.
‘As the lovers say: it burns hot with the passion of the chest yet flows with the exacting logic of the mind, my darling you’ve written poetry’
Enjolras caught his words in his throat and checked them over and over but could not come to sound them. Of course he appreciated the enunciated flattery, he was always both annoyed and endeared when R spoke so eloquently. But his astonishment was not at the flowers that tumbled from Grantaire's mouth, it was towards the soft hues of forgiveness which entered his tone. Maybe forgiveness isn't the correct term here, to put it more accurately, Enjolras finally sensed a willingness to step past, well, everything.
‘I mean Enjolras, you keep writing like this you could convince anyone to believe like you do’
‘Could I convince you?’
Enjolras didn't regret saying this, he was, as he always was, curious to see how ‘Taire would respond. He wanted to test Grantaires' words, see if he was skirting their usual disputes with sweet talk and loose language.
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘ Why Enjolras? Fucking really? You never do learn.’
Enjolras turned to him. Grantaire's face was still nursing a pink flush from his drinking, but instead of his usual lopsided grin which accompanied this, his mouth was fixed in a bored frown; chapped lips pushed out into a thin pout. A loose curl had escaped the confines of his hood and swayed gently over his forehead. Enjolras longed to brush it away, but his mind, Grantaire's stern expression, and a force felt like God pushed him to resist the temptation. To Enjolras, R exhibited beauty which flourished and grew wildly outside his realms of comfort and even comprehension. At this moment Enjolras wanted to kiss him.
‘Enjolras, we always end up in the same place, you riled up with fury, defending change and liberation with an uncanny patriotism, me, sat in the corner making snide comments because you cannot and will not see the waste of it.’
‘ Waste? ’ Enjolras had raised his voice now, he had duly noted that the civil discussion had gone to shit and mostly set aside any other… feelings that could cloud his judgement. ‘You cannot speak of waste when you speak of service to the voiceless’
Grantaire's jaw clenched and he lent in close to Enjolras, their noses almost touching, sharing each breath ‘Can you call it service?’ he sneered back through gritted teeth
‘We all have a duty to our fellow men
Grantaire narrowed his eyes and Enjolras gulped. You know those feelings that he mostly set aside earlier? They had stowed away in Enjolras’ train of thought and were becoming much more…er … affluent. He mistakenly let his eyes wander free over the rest of R and was now struggling with English.
‘Is it your duty to lead those men into death, only for your precious cause to mean nothing at all?’
Enjolras wept internally. Is that what you truly think of me? No better than those war-mongers and aristocratic overlords? Have I failed in every conceivable way to be the leader you needed?
He was silent for a moment then said flatly ‘I need to finish this’
‘Jesus Apollo, you're getting like me, no-’
‘I am nothing like you.’ Enjolras breathed. ‘Stop’
He did not spit the word out like vile poison, nor did he inject his usual passionate rage. It was cold and empty like a bullet shell dropping to the ground.
Part 2: As it happens Enjolras is not real
Grantaire hadn't seen this part of him in a long long time
Enjolras had snapped. Grantaire told himself that he didn’t know why he prodded him like that, why he looked for open wounds and poked them with a q-tip. He wasn’t able to vocalise the truth of this, and left his honesty buried in a dank well somewhere in his subconscious, bound and shivering.
He shrank away from Enjolras, imiediatly feeling guilt for his victory in this argument
‘Taire began to flick through the channels.
The postal strikes in full swing, we ask--isn’t gonna help you, you--valued at £1500, this original-- escape to the county, Janet and Bill are looking for-- just love a deciduous tree to really frame-- but he never saw me there, one-- I have genital herp-
What in the living fuck. Was that Enjolras…singing?
Got to have been a trick of the light right? I mean they say you see the person you love’s face everywhere you go so that's sort of accurate… right? Christ, his life was sad, but no time to dwell. He just had to check that Enjy didn't have some kind of strange musical-y doppelganger. He changed the channel.
‘ WILL YOU TAKE YOUR PLACE WITH MEEEEE’
‘Holy mother of fuck, Enjy you gotta-’
But Enjolras was already staring wide eyed at the tattered screen.
‘Enjy, you got some musically twin that I don’t know about or-’
Enjolras didn’t react, he just stared.
‘No, Enj, your freaking me the fuck out now, cause thats you thats not some sort of look alike its you like I recognise it in in my soul? Enj, like I know that coat and that dirt on--’
‘Hello-’ there was a loud static burst then:
‘Hello? Is this-’ Another burst of static and then a lot of cursing and other uninterruptible noises
‘-stupid thing. Uh… alright, uh hello? Can you see me?’
‘Enjolras, I-’
‘Nope not Enjolras sorry, my name is Jean Valjean’
Grantaire starred, finally lost for words. He gulped and took a deep breath in.
`Uh ok um, Jean Valjean, me… uhh… me and my friend here, um… would really like to know what's… what's sort of happening… uh yeah’
‘Of course’
The guy sounded and looked alot like Hugh Jackman but acted like the English teacher whom Grantaire saw maybe too much as a parental figure in secondary school. It was extremely weird.
‘So,' Valjean turned stoic and morose 'you may want to sit down, this tends to be hard to take. You, my friends, are very influential characters, originally from a novel, in fact the same novel which I was inspired by.’
Something dawned on Enjolras and he looked down and shook his head,
‘Ok, I don't know how you hacked this motel room or whatever, but I'm not interested in buying anything, joining a cult or sending you pictures of my feet, so goodbye before I call the cops’
‘Ah, Enjolras pragmatic as ever, but calling the cops isn’t going to do you any favours, because at the moment your universe doesn't exist outside of this room’
This guy’s insane, Grantaire thought as he made his way back to the T.V
‘Ok thanks for calling’ he said bluntly and he shut off the screen.
Enjolras lifted his head, confusion and concern written all over features
'I should contact the main desk'
'Sure'
The phone rang through twice before:
'Hello?'
'Hi there, I'd like to report a malfunction of the T.V'
‘Ok, uh look Enjolras’ Fucking John McJohn again ‘the only way I can prove this to you is to show you-’
The line went dead
‘Ok so what the fuck’ Grantaire intervined
‘Remind me why we stay in these sorts of places’ Enjolras sighed
Grantaire laughed lightly but it soon went cold when he actually asked himself. Why were they here? Why were they camped out in this place? They lived… they lived somewhere else. So why was Enjolras prepping for an Amis meeting if they were on a trip? where were they actually going? Why were they here?
‘Hey Enj- uh’ Grantaire started ‘Uh… dumb fuck question but why do we stay in these sorts of places’
‘They’re the cheapest ones I can find because we only stay for a little while usually’ Enjolras dismissed
‘No no no, I'm not insulting your taste in shitty motel decor, I’m asking -with all due politeness- what the fuck are we doing here? Because for my sorry little life I cannot fucking remeber’
‘Taire’ Enjolras said sternly ‘as much as I’d like to deep dive into which divine being gave us life, we really have issues which must be addressed, for instance this strange hacking mcjohn man and also this essay and also the amis meeting and also-’
‘Shut your beautiful mouth, you stupid fuck’ Grantaire had put hand to Enjolras’ mouth, ‘Just think, we have no reason for being here’
‘Thep trpth’ Enjolras attempted against Grantaire's hand
‘There is no trip! We were never going anywhere! We’ve been here- oh God- we’ve been here forever.’ Grantaire's voice was injected with a certain kind of manicness which surprised even himself. Why was it such a relief?
Horror swept over Enjolras’ face, poisoning his features. Grantaire removed his hand. Enjolras half sat down, half collapsed onto his bed and started breathing heavily.
‘’Taire, we… we have to leave… now’ He paused, his eyes roving wildly around the walls of the motel as if he ws tracking some spectre. ‘That man, the one on the T.V with the red coat… I don’t understand… he looked different to me… like physically but spiritually or ‘in my soul’ or whatever… I knew he was me?’
Grantaire was at a loss for words. Enjolras was right of course, the red coat guy looked nothing like him- this guy significantly less vitamin D deficient and fucking stacked- but Grantaire knew in an instance that it was Enj.
‘But I still feel like a person, like I know I have emotion, I can love and hate and drink, like I don’t feel as if there are gaping hole in my memories or that I don’t have complex thought processes’
‘Ok, so we’ve established that your not an android’ Enjolras grumbled, still staring at that gaudy wallpaper
‘Ok, so we’ve established that you remain to be a bitch both in and out of reality’ Grantaire sighed back, completely done with Enjolras’ shit.
And then they were silent for a really, really long time. Silence that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, the kind which tumbles into a room like endless yards of fabric until one cannot even attempt to move against it. After what could have been days and what felt like just moments, Enjolras rose off of his bed to the door and swung it open in one noiseless movement. There was no outside world.
There was no outside world.
Warm light flooded into them motel room, accompanied by the waft of the soft record scratch of music
- Shall I stay?
Would it be a sin
If I can't help
Falling in love with you?
Like a river flows
Surely to the sea
Darling, so it goes
Some things are meant to be -
A soft drone of American voices was cut off abruptly by their intrusion
‘Uh hello? - this is new- ‘
‘WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU’
‘ Dean they're probably just lost’
‘THEY ABOUT TO BE EVEN MORE LOST IF NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT IN THE VOODOO CRAP IS GOING ON’