I had a couple loose ideas for oneshots based off Enjolras and Grantaire's death scene that were too short to stand alone. I decided to make this into a 5+1 thing where each part would be a completely separate story that takes place in canon era but is significantly different from canon in at least one way. Each is different in mood and characterization because I wanted to play around with different interpretations of Grantaire. This first one is a bit of a downer but not all of them are (as much). It is based off the 1982 French movie because I thought the way they portrayed it was interesting.
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The barricades are falling, just as Grantaire always knew they would. He does not revel in his accuracy, rather, he mourns it, for he would like to be wrong. He wants his friends to succeed and live, he wants their dreams to come true, he wants a republic that listens to its people, he wants everyone to have rights and for no one to be poor. It's only that, unlike everyone fighting for the barricade, he does not believe it can happen.
Soldiers storm the Corinthe, trailing corpses and destruction in their wake. Grantaire ignores it from the corner where he sits. He leans against an empty barrel, averting his eyes from the slaughter. There is no point in trying anymore, he thinks. It is too late for that. He can join in the last desperate attempts, but nothing he can do will be of any use. He cannot save any lives, nor prevent the fall of the barricades. It is easier to simply sit there, with all the same effect. He isn't harmed this way; the guardsmen pay no attention to him who does nothing.
People scream and shout and guns are fired, the noises all blurring together with the smoke and the sound of panicked footsteps. There is so much noise and movement, but Grantaire sits in a small bubble of stillness. It is impossible to block out everything happening outside of it, but he still feels set apart, as if he is a distant viewer rather than someone in the midst of everything.
He stares forlornly at his empty hands. These barricades are doomed to fail and there is nothing he can do about it. Grantaire knows that, has known it for a long time, yet the knowledge is no preparation or comfort. He is always surrounded by a bleak heaviness of pessimism that cautions him against hope in the cheeriest of times, but now it fully envelops him, suffocating him. There is no escape from this now, no happy ending, no last minute rescue, no anything.
Silence falls suddenly and without warning. Grantaire glances up and sees his friends, the core of Les Amis on the top of the stairs. A dozen soldiers aim their guns at them, waiting for some unknown signal. Before, in the turmoil, Grantaire was lost in his mind, as hazy as the fog and smoke around his body. The actions of those around him seemed far away and vague. Now, in the stillness, everything is clear and sharply real. It is over. There is nothing left. Not for him. Everything he cares about is on the floor above him, moments away from death. There's only one thing to do.
He stands up, slowly and solemnly, as if in a dream, though he knows that it is anything but. A couple paces brings him to another table where a cup of wine remains. Grantaire raises it, pausing for an instant in a silent toast, before tilting his head back and pouring it all down his throat. He unhurriedly places the cup back where it was and trudges to the staircase, taking his time. He is in no rush to die. The soldiers wait with patience, the moment too funereal to interrupt with want of speed.
As he walks, a few tears trickle down his cheek. He weeps for the loss of his friends and the loss of their dreams and the loss of his own life. He weeps for everything they never did and the utopian future that could not be. He weeps for what they left behind, all their unfinished business, all the things they would never do. He weeps and knows that only he will mourn them all as they deserve to be: as both heroes and ordinary, individual people.
Grantaire climbs the stairs faster now. There's no point in dragging this out much longer. He steps around the fallen corpses as he marches somberly, as though on the way to a guillotine. The difference, after all, is not great.
His friends stand, defiant and proud, so that even their execution will not be shameful. Their expressions hold a certain unity that comes from friends facing death as one. They lived together, and dreamed together, and fought together, and when this is finished, they will sleep together in the stars.
Grantaire joins them at the top. He is one of them, and always was, yet even now, he stands differently. His back is slumped, and his posture is one of defeat, rather than obstinacy. Not that it will matter for long. Once the bullets hit, there will be nothing left to distinguish him as separate. In death, they will all be the same.
He is dying out of cowardice, because he is too afraid of being alone. There is no good reason to die, but if there was, dying for the freedom of one's country would be an honorable one. Grantaire is not doing that.
"Fire!" Someone shouts, and the peace is shattered. Almost faster than thought, the soldiers follow the command. In the instant before death, as the bullets strike him, knocking him off his feet, Grantaire remembers a different time, from before things went so badly. A day like any other day, nothing exceptional. The wind blew strongly and everyone had to hold onto their hats to keep possession of them. But they were a group, carefree and still excited about the future. Even Grantaire was swept up in their optimism and cheer, loving them all for it. He remembers savouring that moment, knowing that it could not last forever, but that while it did he would appreciate it.
"Do not forget this," he thought to himself then. "Remember this feeling so that when all this ends, you will know that it was not worth regretting."
As the end comes, he mourns the loss, and hates the guards, and fears the future, and laments the waste of it all. But he cannot regret having his friends nor their hopes.