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Grantaire is staring down his undrunk cup of coffee, now cold, with a strange frown on his face. The first two fingers of his right hand tap out an arrhythmic beat on the tabletop. His chest feels hollow, but this time is different from usual. There's less emptiness there, and it's closer to a tickle of warm air fluttering across his ribcage.
"You all right?" Jehan slides into the chair across from him. Grantaire holds up a hand.
"Shh. I'm readjusting my worldview to include the fact that Enjolras actually considers me a good friend."
"Oh, Grantaire--"
"No, no, it's all right. It's a good thing." And the self-deprecation is gone from the smile he gives Jehan, Enjolras' words bending the emptiness in him into something new, something a with little more light. The fog in his head is still there, but this time it's a little thinner. "It makes me feel better, actually."
Jehan smiles at him then, and reaches out to take his hand. Grantaire pushes his stale coffee out of the way and meets him in the middle. "That's really great, Grantaire. I'm glad you're feeling good."
"Well, it had to happen sometime, I think."
Jehan's name is called out over a hiss of steam, and he scurries over to retrieve his coffee and a pastry. Sitting back down, he cocks his head, scrutinizing Grantaire.
"You look better, too. More rested."
Grantaire considers the feeling in his ribcage, the fog in his head that has cleared enough for him to hold a conversation, the feeling of being back in his own body. "It's a bit of an upswing. I'm not as good as I could be, but it's certainly a change from before."
"I've been worried about you. I was scared you were going to leave us soon. Some of the things you say..."
Grantaire's chest clenches, and a ball of emotions sticks in the base of his throat. He wants to say no, don't be scared for me, I don't matter quite that much, but the light in his chest reminds him that Enjolras and the others care for him, that half the time those speculations are just vague thoughts trying to find solidity. He sighs and smiles a little and reaches out to cover Jehan's hand this time.
"I don't always mean those things." And it's not really a lie, he really doesn't sometimes. "It's just my brain thinking out loud. Usually I don't really want to act on the things it comes up with. I'm sorry for making you worry."
"Grantaire, we're your friends. It's our job to worry about you. It just makes me sad to see you like that because I don't know what to do to help you."
Grantaire shakes his head quickly and releases Jehan's hand to flap his own in the air. "Oh, god, no! Don't be sad because of me. One sad guy is already enough. We don't need another one, especially you."
Apparently Jehan has nothing to say to that, because he just sighs through his nose and twist his lips together, so Grantaire changes the subject to the story Courfeyrac had relayed to him earlier about Enjolras shutting down a sexist classmate in their Political Theory class the other day. Finally, it feels nice to think about Enjolras. In fact, the thought of him leaves him with lightness in his belly instead of heavy dark, and the sensation of a rope to grasp onto instead of a noose tightening around his neck. His smile, though small and trembling from disuse, is pure and constant while he talks. He doesn't notice, but Jehan does.
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“Look,” Enjolras stops walking. The flow of pedestrians only splits like a river around a rock, ignoring them. “I don’t know anything about it. Depression? I mean, when I think of that I think of, I dunno, Girl, Interrupted and kids cutting up their wrists.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes to the heavens. “His friends told me you could be a bit dense.” She jerks her head in the direction of the café. “Come on. You have a lot to learn.”
Once they’ve settled with their drinks, Enjolras makes a face and begins to pick at his croissant, peeling the bread off in little flakes. He's worried about Grantaire, worried about the bags under the other man's eyes, worried about the self-deprecating things he says, but he doesn't know how to express it, or what to do.
He's trying. He's trying to dissociate his original assumption of blind cynic with this new information. So he chips away at the layers of his croissant, bottom lip trapped between his teeth. “Okay. I don’t understand. Obviously I’m not grasping something here. He’s depressed, I know that. You said so, he said so. Half the time he looks like shit and the other half he looks worse. He says some awful stuff. Sometimes I can't imagine how he believes what he says. Sometimes he sits in the back of the café and looks like he's eight hundred miles away and I don't know why. He was gone for weeks one time, and I know he was with you. I don’t—”
Charlotte covers his hand to stop his rambling, and to get him to quit mutilating his pastry and eat it. “The media’s portrayal of depression is pretty crappy and also really over the top. Depression doesn’t mean he’s constantly crying or trying to kill himself or whatever else it is you think of when you hear the word.”
“I gathered that, I guess.”
They take a sip of their drink at the same time. Charlotte grimaces at the overload of cream in hers. Enjolras listens to the white noise hiss and roar of the café around them as she pauses to gather her thoughts. She spreads her hand palm-up on the table and leans forward.
“It means he’s not functioning at the top of his game, ever. It means his mind is drowning in this weird fog that makes it hard for him to think or even feel. It means everything is a challenge for him. It means simple things like getting up in the morning or going to the laundromat take ten times more energy for him. It means his entire body sometimes hurts for no reason and he can't stop it, and there's an ache in his chest that he can't even describe to me. It means all he wants to do is sleep, but when he tries, he can’t. It means he just wants to stop existing for a while— that doesn’t mean he wants to die, it just means he wants everything to stop for a little while. It means he has this darkness in his head that everything filters through, so he experiences everything a little dimmer than we do. It means that even on days when he’s happy and laughing and joking with you, he’s still scared that tomorrow is going to be shitty again, and that always dampens his happiness. It’s like a terrible cycle that he can’t break out of. And you can’t," she thumps her fist on the table and he jumps a little at her force. "--you can’t tell him he just has to ‘try to be happy’. It doesn’t work that way. The chemicals in his brain are all messed up, he can’t fix that by ‘trying to be happy.’ You just have to take care of him and savour the good days.”
"That's awful."
Enjolras can hardly imagine what Charlotte has just described. He knows doubt, he's been sad plenty of times, but this-- he doesn't know what to think. A part of him is terrified. To hold a hand out to that kind of darkness, it's strange and frightening. But he thinks of Grantaire's soft expression, and the conversations they've had when they're not arguing politics, and the way his face lights up when he graces them all with the rare smile that isn't self-deprecating, and he knows how much he wants this friendship.
"I know. It can be hard." She scrapes the stir-stick against the side of the cup and drinks the rest of her coffee. "It's hard for him."
The croissant has been deconstructed under Enjolras’ nervous fingers. “And he’s been like this his whole life?”
“Since we were kids. It—It was worse before he got clean.” Charlotte stuffs her napkin into her empty cup, watching the dregs soak their way slowly up the thin paper. “You have to be patient with him, okay? He knows you’re proper friends now. He’s going to cling to that. He adores you, and he’s going to use you to stay afloat when he feels like he’s drowning.”
“I want to help him. I want to.”
“He’s not something to be fixed, Enjolras.” Charlotte points her finger at him. “I know how much you love causes. He’s not a cause. He’s a person. You have to remember that.”
“I know. Charlotte, I like him. I like him a lot. He’s smart, and he’s sweet when he’s not interrupting my speeches.” They both grin at that image. Enjolras feels a rush of fondness even at the annoyance that comes from Grantaire’s interruptions. He knows Charlotte is right, though, he does love his causes. He makes a mental note to keep himself in check. “And I want to be someone he can lean on, or whatever it is he needs.”
“You give a compelling argument.” Charlotte smiles, and stands. They toss their trash in the bin and head outside. Enjolras holds the door open for her. “So. Good talk. You know you can call me any time you need help with him, right?”
“Right. Of course.”
“It’s good to know there’s someone else around who will help him besides me. Thank you.”
Enjolras smiles at her. “You’re welcome.”
He hopes he can be as helpful Charlotte is to Grantaire. There's something in his chest that's trembling, and he's not sure whether it's out of fear or hope or something different altogether. He hopes he won’t decide to run. He waves her goodbye as they part ways, promising silently that he'll try and stay, and decides on a whim to head back to the Musain. There's a newly brightened smile he wants to see.