Work Text:
The blue-white light of morning is pushing its way into the darkened room when Grantaire blinks half-awake before turning his face into the pillow, trying to recapture sleep and the dim comfort of unconsciousness. He feels the bed shake and dip and reaches out a hand without looking up to catch Enjolras’ wrist.
“Mm, where you goin’?” he mumbles into the pillow. Enjolras’ hand slides into his grip and squeezes before pulling away.
“Work.”
Grantaire sits up on his elbows and watches through sleep-weighted eyes as Enjolras steps into his pants. “Why?”
“Because I need to go make money so we can continue living our grand and lavish lifestyle,” Enjolras jokes as he buttons up his shirt. His blonde hair frames his face in soft curling waves, hardly mussed from sleep, and that’s just not fair. He smiles softly down at Grantaire, eyes that are so often hard and righteous softening when they look at the man in the bed. “I do need to make some money, you know. I’ve just got a couple meetings with people from the worker’s rights organization. I’ll be home early.”
Grantaire hums in response and drops back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. His body feels like it’s in a listless fog, drifting through some murky thought-river and he doesn’t want to do anything. He feels like a movie on pause. The ceiling is just as dull, but he doesn’t look away.
“Are you going to get out of bed today?” Enjolras asks, his voice gentle.
Grantaire closes his eyes. “I don’t know.”
A hand rests on the top of his head. He opens his eyes. Enjolras is dressed and looking perfect in his pressed work clothes; Grantaire wonders about the mess he must look in comparison, stuck in the same grey sweatpants and faded Ramones t-shirt he’s been wearing for the last four days. Gentle fingers press against his scalp and comb backward.
“Why don’t you try to paint something today? Or draw? You haven’t done any of that in a while. Maybe it’ll help.”
A sliver of indignant anger works its way through the listlessness. “Do you really think that will do anything? You always say it’ll help me if I try to paint, or draw, or get out of the house. It never does! Those things never worked before and they’re not going to magically work this time.”
“Maybe just trying to improve will help. If you do something, distract yourself, maybe you’ll feel better.”
“Don’t bet on it.” But just as quickly as it came, the anger is gone, replaced by exhaustion and he flops back onto the bed.
Enjolras kisses his forehead and brushes his knuckles against his cheek with a murmur of “See you later,” before making his way out of the flat. Grantaire rolls over to stare at the wall instead of the ceiling. He just wants to disappear, to just stop being for a while. The wall holds no answers, but curling up and staring at it is as close to nothing as he can get.
The route to work is tedious and familiar enough that Enjolras drives in a daze, lost in thought. Worry is threading through his veins. He’s never seen Grantaire so low before, never seen him so stuck inside his own head. He tracks Grantaire’s mood through the camera: the other man documents his days with it. The further down he slides, the less the camera leaves his side. Now the camera is always nearby, the shutter remote perpetually tucked in a sweatpants pocket or sitting in a loosely curled fist. He can see Grantaire floating away on a sea of depression, alone and drifting. And fear curls at the bottom of Enjolras’ gut, a constant terror that he might come home to something he dreads, a fear that he won’t be enough to fix his lover, that he won’t be what he needs. It settles in his bones and wraps around his veins, and he can’t shake it. So he parks outside his building and goes inside to throw himself into his work, to distract himself from the worry.
Grantaire sleeps for a few hours, because even staring at the grey-blue wall in front of him feels like too much, too exhausting, and it’s easier to avoid everything when he’s not conscious. He wakes feeling dull and muted, like there’s a film between him and the rest of the world. The sun coming through the window looks watery, like he’s seeing it through a block of ice, and he wonders if it looks that way to anyone else. His world has narrowed to this room and this bed and these blankets wrapped around him and it’s all he can do not to hide from even that. He untangles the white sheet from his waist and pulls it up over his nose. Fumbling a little, he retrieves the remote shutter release from his pocket and turns it on. He knows the camera is already on and set: it’s the only thing he bothers to do anymore. The shutter clicks and captures the curl of his body under the white sheet, the redness of his gnawed-on fingertips that clutch at the cloth, the dullness that throbs in his head and behind his eyes, the utter mess that he has become.
It starts small, like a little termite scraping away inside his head. The anxiety, the stupid self-hatred that pokes at him. He can feel it start, and tries to squish it, but it leaps away and continues chewing. It scratches, the sound louder than the afternoon traffic that’s picking up outside, louder than their neighbour’s awful one-thirty television program. It drowns everything out with its grating.
It wriggles in his belly, and Enjolras’ words from this morning come back to him. “I do have to make some money, you know.” And the world pares down to nothing. All he can think of are those words, is the food and internet and television shows and clothing and apartment and everything, all paid for by Enjolras. Grantaire does nothing. God, he’s a moocher. He just takes and takes from Enjolras and never gives anything back. He curls up into himself against the railing in his mind. He wants to pace out the tension, but he has no energy to move, nothing to tug him out of the stillness of the inertia he’s caught in. Minutes seem even stranger than usual, and an hour passes like molasses as he tries to blot out the sneering voice in his head telling him things that he wants to believe are bullshit. He rolls to Enjolras’ side of the bed to avoid the sunlight creeping in through the window and presses his face into the pillow.
But you are, you are a freeloader. It starts up again just as he’s managed to silence it completely. It taunts him with things he knows but doesn’t want to think about. He’s no good for anything. He just lies in bed all day and does nothing. Why does Enjolras even let him stay? He tugs at his hair as if the pain in his scalp might make him stop thinking. It’s useless. He’s useless. He just takes from Enjolras and that’s horrible, he’s a waste of space, he’s worthless and what if Enjolras starts hating him because he’s just taking up space in the apartment and rent for two and not paying for anything? Why does he even let him stay here? Why would Enjolras even like him after he spends all his time doing nothing, stuck inside this static in his head?
The thoughts chase themselves in circles round his head, crowding in on each other, twisting up in a storm and he clenches his teeth against their noise. Enjolras should just kick him out, it’s not worth it for him to stay. But shit if he left he couldn’t handle it, Enjolras is the one keeping him together and shit Enjolras knows he’s fucked up, knew before they got themselves into this. It wouldn’t be fair to make Grantaire leave. But he should, he really should. There’s nothing worse than a useless deadbeat lover who does nothing but sit around and sulk all day and won’t get out of bed and won’t even shower or eat or anything. That’s the kind of stuff you see on TV shows. And everyone always hates that character; they should, he’s an awful person. He’s an awful person for making Enjolras go through this shit. He’s just a fucking worthless, dysfunctional heap of a half-person and why the hell would Enjolras ever want him to stay?
The click of brass hinges and thud of paper hitting the floor alerts him to the mail being dropped through the slot. He turns his head towards the sound. Enjolras would be getting the mail right now, wouldn’t he? He’d be sorting through it, throwing away the junk and putting the bills and letters and important things in the stupid little metal cat napkin holder-turned-letter holder that sits on their kitchen counter. Maybe just getting the mail will be a start? Just to make Enjolras see him as something useful again, something that’s not just a black hole on a bed?
Bonelessly, he rolls himself out of bed, barely sitting up before finding himself mostly on the floor. He stands, his limbs feeling leaden and far too heavy to move. His body aches all over, and he feels like he’d rather just drop to the floor and stay there without moving, but he makes his way to the front door. The mail is in a scattered pile in front of the door, and for a moment the idea of sorting it out seems monumental and terrifying. He wants to slap himself. It’s just a fucking pile of papers, you dipshit. Pick it up and sort it out.
There’s not much in the mail, and he sorts it without much difficulty even though his hands are shaking, placing the three important envelopes in the ugly cat napkin holder and tossing everything else in the trash. He puts a kettle on for some tea, thinking maybe it’ll help him calm down, and looks around the kitchen. Their shared laptop—the one that Enjolras uses for everything but work and that Grantaire uses for everything—is sitting on the counter. Grantaire retrieves his camera from the bedroom, using all his energy to avoid getting back into bed, and loads his pictures from the last couple of days onto the computer. The tea is warm in his hands and tastes good, the sour-sweet of lemon and honey sharp on the back of his tongue. He sorts the pictures into their files and formats his camera’s memory card. He slings his camera around his body—diagonal across his chest so it rests comfortably against his hip—and stares at the little mosaic of photos in front of him on the screen. His body is still full of unease from the mountain that the mail had become for a moment, but he tries to push it away.
Closing the window, he manages to smile a little at the desktop image—Enjolras’ real life version of a doodle he’d drawn back when they’d first become proper friends. He’d drawn the blond man holding a sword aloft, with his hair breezing behind him and a proud look on his face, marching some invisible mob forward with “Revolution ahoy!” in a speech bubble in front of his mouth. Enjolras, in attempt to cheer him up last year, had taken a photograph of himself in a similar pose and put the words in with MSPaint. It’s still cute, and it still makes them both smile. But then there’s nothing else to do.
Grantaire shakes his head and wipes his palms on his sweatpants. He’s trying to keep busy, to keep the vibrating tension, the anxiety and sneering self-hatred that’s making his hands shake at bay, but it’s not working very well. He can feel it bubbling under the surface of his skin. He can feel his breath quickening and thoughts breaking apart into jagged little nonsensical pieces of “It would be better for him if you didn’t exist, he should leave you, you’re a waste of space, you’re a terrible human being, but he’d be a shit if he left he knows what he means to you and that he helps hold you together, but you would deserve it you would completely deserve it you know you would, but what would you do if he left you wouldn’t be able to take care of yourself you can barely handle stepping outside or walking out of the room to get the mail, you’re just a worthless little shit and—” He takes a breath, holds it, tries to shut out the whispers. They quiet a little and he finishes his tea and puts the mug in the sink. There are dirty dishes in the sink. If he does them, maybe Enjolras will be more willing to let him stay.
How does he do this again? Sponge. Right. The dry sponge is sitting behind the faucet, and he picks it up, shuffling it from hand to hand. He stares down at his task, at the metal basin full of tea mugs and dinner plates from when Enjolras tried to get him to eat and was unsuccessful. There are more dishes in the sink than he originally thought, and his body feels heavy and tired and why did he think doing this was a good idea? Because Enjolras will leave if he doesn’t do this, he’ll hate him and tell him he’s a failure and that he shouldn’t stay. He stares at the dishes, his rising panic at their vastness merging with the anxiety and dread and whispers from earlier until he’s frozen on the spot, so worked up that he’s not even working at all.
The doorknob rattles, the sound of a key in the lock, and he hears Enjolras come in, hears his little “oh” of surprise when he bends to pick up the mail and finds it absent. Footsteps precede his entrance into the kitchen, and Grantaire looks up to find him smiling.
“You’re out of bed! And you brought in the mail,” Enjolras comments. “Thank you.”
Grantaire nods distantly as Enjolras passes him to put his bag down on the counter where there’s a clear spot and then goes back out. He hears the shower start up. Was that enough? Was taking in the mail enough? Surely not. Surely that isn’t enough. The anxiety that paused for a minute when Enjolras smiled begins roiling again, grating in his mind and skittering in his belly and his muscles feel like they’re full of lightning and lead at the same time. He grips the sponge so tightly the fibres rip under his fingernails.
He’s still frozen when Enjolras comes back into the kitchen as he waits for his shower to warm up. It takes the blond a moment to notice that he hasn’t moved at all, hasn’t done a thing. Grantare doesn’t blame him. It’s not like he moves much any other time, but now he’s stuck and everything is yanking him in different directions even though he can’t actually move and it feels like something has taken his guts and twisted them.
“Hey,” Enjolras’ hand slides over his shoulder, his other hand takes the sponge out of Grantaire’s grip. “Hey, you don’t have to do the dishes or anything. It’s okay.”
Grantaire wants to lean into the warmth of Enjolras behind him, he wants to but he can’t. He can’t because his brain is chaos and his stomach feels like it’s full of snow and nails and this bizarre energy-tension panic that’s been building all day is boiling over and he can feel it climbing up his throat. Wordlessly, he shakes his head, attempting to communicate all the things going on inside of him. Enjolras misinterprets and squeezes his shoulder gently, a finger sliding under the strap of the camera hanging across his chest. “It’s okay. Really.”
Grantaire jerks away from the hand on his shoulder, everything going crazy inside him and flooding over and he smacks into the counter with a small thud before gripping it to keep himself upright. He feels too exposed standing in the middle of the tiled floor of the kitchen, scrabbling at the countertop and trying to breathe or focus or do anything at all. His camera lens digs into his side but it’s not enough to help him feel present. He shakes his head back and forth as everything in his head starts sliding sideways away from him.
“It’s not okay. It’s not okay, it’s not okay. I-I-I just can’t do it. I can’t.”
Enjolras frowns, blue eyes radiating confusion. “Can’t do what? Grantaire?”
“How do you let me stay here? You can’t possibly love me. I’m so useless. Everything is yours and I just take it and I use it and I don’t give you anything back except for a dent in the bed that’s getting deeper because I can’t fucking get out of it. I can’t get out of bed and when I do I still can’t do anything.”
He’s trying to articulate it all to Enjolras, but his thoughts fly out of reach every time he tries to grasp at one, and everything is breaking apart and he can’t stop even as he feels himself crumbling. Heat spreads up through his body, his limbs shake, everything is simultaneously muffled and too intense. It feels like he’s breathing through cotton, like he can’t catch a deep breath, his body tensing up like one giant cramp and he groans.
“Grantaire? What are you talking about?”
“The dishes! The dishes are too big. They’re too big and I can’t-I can’t remember how to wash them! I can’t remember and they’re too big and I’m scared of them because there’s too many and they’re too big and-and you should just leave me because even the mail on the floor is a fucking mountain and I can’t do it.” The words he wanted to say have disappeared, and everything is lost in the waves of anxiety and chaos that are washing over him. His hands come up to clench at his hair, tugging frantically. “You should just get rid of me, it’s going to get worse, I know it. And you can’t love me, not like this. Not when I can’t do anything because the dishes are too big and scary and you do everything for me because I’m just a useless moocher and you should fucking hate me.”
Enjolras voice is soft like he’s trying to be comforting, but his eyes are wide with surprise and worry and his face is pale. “Grantaire, calm down. You’re not being rational.”
Grantaire feels something sharp surge in his chest and he yanks harder on his hair before flinging his arms out in frustration. Because he’s stuck here pulling his hair out and making a scene when he knows what he’s thinking is bullshit but there’s no way for him to make his thoughts stop and he just wants to collapse from the weight of it all. He gestures wildly in front of him, unable to explain. “I know I’m not being rational. It’s not me! I mean it is- it is me but I know I’m being irrational. I can’t stop. I can’t help it, my brain is just doing this and it won’t listen to me but I know it’s wrong even though it says it’s right and I’m sorry I’m being irrational but I can’t stop thinking this way and it’s not my fault! I just-I just—”
There are no more words left; his brain is just scattered thoughts of chaos and anxiety and tension and everything is exploding. He can’t breathe, panting too quickly to catch any air. His skin itches like it’s too tight, like it’s going fall right off. His hands fly back up and he tugs harder at his hair as if the pain might help him focus, might make him stop being so stupid and terrified. And Enjolras is looking scared and worried and that’s freaking Grantaire out even more and he just wants to tell him to stop looking that way, it’s scary, but words aren’t happening so he can only gasp and groan and shake.
Enjolras reaches a hand out, “Grantaire,” on his lips, but his hand is too close and grasping and Grantaire knows Enjolras hasn’t done anything and he knows it’s not going to hurt him but he feels like it is and that’s enough and he bolts, shoving past Enjolras and out into the hallway, jerking into the wall as he turns left and scrambles mindlessly away, the only thing in his brain chanting “safe, safe, please somewhere safe I need someplace safe—” and the bathroom is to his left so he runs inside and slams the door and locks it. He can be safe in here. He’s vulnerable in here all the time, he knows nothing will hurt him in here, nothing’s scary, nothing changes. The sound of the shower that’s already been turned on is soothing, and he manages at least to catch his breath so it’s not stabbing him every time he gasps at an inhale. The camera is removed from its place around his neck and left on the counter where it’s safe. It’s safe.
He’s safe but his body is still buzzing with fear and tension. The shower curtain is pulled back, exposing the cradle of the bathtub, and it looks comforting. Grantaire nearly forgets to take the shutter remote out of his pocket and put it on the floor before he climbs under the spray and curls up in the curve of the tub with all his clothes on, Enjolras’ scalding hot shower water soaking through him, but he ignores the heat and hugs his arms around his legs. His muscles are still tense and locked and trembling and he wants to cry but no tears come, only shaking sobbing breaths as his body spasms against everything that has just happened.
Enjolras leans his forehead against the bathroom door, listening to the gasping breaths that are just audible over the rush of the shower. He knocks gently. “Grantaire? Please talk to me. Please.”
A whimper that sounds like “Go away” reaches his ears and he sighs, trying to get this heavy feeling off his chest. “Grantaire. I’m not going to leave you. I love you. I do. Please just know that.”
He’s almost gotten used to living in a constant state of concern for Grantaire, has allowed it to become a little thing that perches on his shoulder instead of shackles and a weight across his back. But now the fear crawls up his stomach and sits solidly on his chest like an eager pet. He’s never seen Grantaire like this before, this low, this frantic, this terrified, and it alarms him. Seeing him rumpled and frightened in the middle of their tiny kitchen, pulling his thick black curls into a blown out mess and wheezing out words that made no sense, scares Enjolras because he’s never experienced these extremes before. Last time Grantaire was this low, they had only just become friends, and he didn’t know enough, and Grantaire’s sister was still around to take care of it all.
He's seen Grantaire depressed. He's seen Grantaire panicking. But he's never seen Grantaire depressed like this and he's never seen Grantaire panicking like this. He doesn’t know what to do. Helplessly, he rolls his forehead against the cool wood of the door. He knows anything harmful is either thrown out or locked away, but he can’t suppress the thought that Grantaire might be hurting himself on the other side of the door. He remembers the talk from last time, the way Grantaire had joked about wanting to disappear, about how they’d all be happier if he didn’t exist. There was the joking expression, the grin quick to come and quick to fade, but there was seriousness in his eyes, and he remembers the weeks after when Grantaire was absent from the meetings and he never knew why. He wishes Grantaire’s sister was still alive, wishes he could phone her for help. He squeezes his eyes shut; doing this alone is terrifying, but he has to.
“Will you let me in? I want to help you, Grantaire. I want you to get better. I love you. I want to help you.” The only response is more whimpering gasps and Enjolras thunks his forehead against the wood and waits. The sounds coming from the little room echo pathetically, and it makes him want to cry or hit something just to make those sounds of terror and hurt stop.
There’s silence on the other side of the door now, and Enjolras finds that his legs are falling asleep, so he slides down to the floor to sit down, leaning his side against the door and staring tiredly at the doorjamb in front of his face. He wishes he could take away all of Grantaire’s hurt, wishes his love was enough to chase it away. He’s always been able to use his ambition and charm and sheer force of will to get the results he wants, to make the changes he wants to see happen. But his skills aren’t going to do anything here, and he feels powerless. There’s nothing he wants more than to be able to wrap his arms around Grantaire and take all his problems away, to see him happy and smiling without the dread of another dip darkening his eyes. He wishes he could shield him from the darkness, could throw all the pain away, could take it away with words or touch. He wishes he could curl around him and protect him from everything in his head. Instead, he’s stuck outside of the locked door of the bathroom, worry eating at his gut and helplessness sitting on his chest.
Grantaire has calmed enough now that he’s only sort of shaking. His mind feels less like a washing machine of inarticulate feelings and more like a storm beginning to break. The thoughts are slowing in their whirling madness and he’s able to breathe again. He’s aware that the water has long since gone cold and hot and cold again, but he can’t gather enough thought together yet to care. The camera facing him on the counter catches his eye, and he mindlessly gropes about on the floor outside the tub without looking, grasping until his fingers come in contact with the shutter remote. He curls back into the comforting position of arms clasped around his knees, the remote gripped in one hand. The shutter clicks open and closed a few times, so he has a selection, and he tosses the remote back out onto the floor. The patter of water against the tile and his body is soothing, and he focuses on that, still trying to wait out the shakes and cooling chaos.
The familiar high-pitched click of a shutter is audible above the susurrus of the muffled shower, and it startles Enjolras out of his thoughts. He listens to the clicks with uncertainty. He can’t decide whether he should be worried or relieved that Grantaire is recording this incident. It means he’s still drowning, still being dragged down by the suck of the darkness despite being desperate for a breath. It means it’s just another piece in the black construction that is Grantaire’s mental illness, that there might be other days like this, other months. But it also means that Grantaire hasn’t decided it’s the end of it all. He’s still recording, he’s still trying to cope. Trying. Enjolras is so tired of trying. He hates watching Grantaire stare at the wall for hours, hates having to hide razors and aspirin and keep half the medicine cabinet locked away, hates feeling the hopelessness in the curve of Grantaire’s body as he lies in bed and tries to sleep. He wishes there was something that could magically make this all better. And he’s sure Grantaire feels even worse than he does, and how awful must that be?
Closing his eyes, he taps against the door gently. “Grantaire? Can I help you? Will you let me in? I’m not going to leave you. I love you now and I will keep loving you. I promise I’m not going anywhere. Please, will you just let me in?”
Enjolras’ voice filters through the door and the water. The shakes have gone, replaced by bone-deep exhaustion. Grantaire feels drained, flat, like he’s a tire that’s had the air let out. His body feels heavy with the loss of adrenaline, but he leans out of the tub on his knees and reaches to unlock the door. The water is lukewarm, flat now like him after it’s been running for hours. He settles back onto his knees, body curved forward to rest his head against the rim of the tub. His limbs don’t want to move and his head is full of static again. He’s just so tired.
Enjolras opens the door slowly, trying not to frighten or startle Grantaire. His lover is draped over the side of the bathtub as if he’s deflated. His clothes are soaked through and hanging off him with their weight as the shower continues to beat down on him. His curly black hair is limp and plastered flat to his head in clumps, and the dark circles around his eyes are even further pronounced. Enjolras leans over and turns off the water before kneeling down.
“Grantaire?” He questions softly, smiling a little in what he hopes is comfort when exhausted eyes rise to meet his. “Come on, let’s get you dry.”
He slides his hands under Grantaire’s arms and pulls him upright, gently guiding him to step out of the bath. The dark-haired man is silent as he responds to the quiet commands to put his arms up or lift his feet as Enjolras removes the waterlogged clothes and tosses them onto the floor with a wet smack. Grantaire leans his forehead against Enjolras’ shoulder while he towels him down and rubs the terrycloth over his wet hair. Enjolras kisses the side of his head and presses gently at his shoulders, urging him to stand up fully. He retrieves the shutter remote from the floor and slings the camera over his shoulder once he knows the other man won’t fall over. Grantaire allows himself to be manhandled back into the bedroom, body loose and swaying. Enjolras makes sure his touch is soft against Grantaire’s waist and shoulders as he steers him down the hall and into the room to sit on the edge of the bed.
The dry flannel of the pajama pants makes a soft swishing sound as it slides up Grantaire’s water-reddened legs. Enjolras undresses into his own pair of pajama bottoms and crawls onto the bed, guiding Grantaire to scoot backward and lie down. Grantaire turns onto his side and closes his eyes, damp hair spilling across the pillow. Enjolras sits up and watches the slow rise and fall of his lover’s chest for a moment before lying down and curling around him, draping an arm over his chest and pulling him closer to wrap protectively around his body, wishing he could take all the pain away. It should be so easy, like taking vicodin or antibiotics, but it isn’t like that, and it makes Enjolras wonder whether it will ever get better, or if maybe it will pull him in and drown them both together.
