There had been hypothetical talk about it for weeks, if not months but Grantaire never actually expected the day to come.
"You can't be serious?" He snorted, almost amused. Enjolras had plenty of preposterous ideas over the years, but this one took the cake. "Pirate radio? What is this? The 60's?"
"We wouldn't only be broadcasting our-"
"That's right. You also want to personally attack whalers. Not even you, Apollo, can take on men armed with harpoons and expect to get away with it." Grantaire hissed at Enjolras who was glaring at him with the same irritated expression he usually wore when dealing with the Grantaire.
A silence filled the room, an unusual silence since Grantaire's words where almost always met with either a counterargument or a plea for him to leave the room before his face became the target of fist moving at high speeds.
It almost made him so uncomfortable that no one spoke for as long as they did and he'd seriously contemplated leaving by the time Combeferre said: "We don't want to do this, R. We really don't. But something came up and-"
"What?"
"Pardon?"Combeferre's ability to stay calm whenever Grantaire was being a nuisance was more then a little bit impressive. The rest of the ABC put up with Grantaire because they actually liked him. He was friends with Eponine, Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel and even Jehan before any of then knew Enjolras, and everyone else took to him rather quickly, even seeing him as there go to drinking buddy. Mainly because he was always drinking.
Combeferre and Enjolras where the only two that didn't talk to him outside of meetings in which all Grantaire ever did was be a deliberate menace in an attempt to get Enjolras' attention, as petty as that may sound.
He does argue for more reasons then just that. The week previous when he told Enjolras that there protest against the banning of gay marriage was pointless and that humanity had reached it's peek and was exponentially working it's way back into the middle ages, he had meant every words.
Things like that weren't just for the sake of making his presence aware to Enjolras. The 'I told you so' when they got themselves thrown in a cell at the protest, however, was.
Grantaire's efforts where hardly ever in vain as Enjolras yelled at him, called him names, kicked him out and glared. There was an awful lot of glaring.
Combeferre however was always there to put a hand on Enjolras' shoulder and whisper "Leave it." or "We have more important things to worry about." Which Grantaire had to give him credit for. No one should be allowed to have that little of a temper. It just wasn't fair to the rest of the world.
"What came up?" Grantaire asked again, taking a swing from the wine bottle in front of him. He could have poured himself a glass but then he wouldn't have had the pleasure of Enjolras' disapproving look.
"Our lease's got canceled. We're homeless."
"You can't just crash on someones couch for a while?"
"ALL our lease's got canceled. except you and Marius." Enjolras decided to join the conversation again, his voice sharp.
Grantaire looked around the room at his friends. Joly gave him a small, sad nod confirming Enjolras' words and Bahorel gave a small smile paired with a shrug.
"Can they do that?" Grantaire asked. Shocked. Stunned. For the first time, probably ever, mad at the government.
"No." Enjolras roared. "We're making this up." Sarcasm didn't suite him. Not that it wasn't attractive on him. Everything was attractive on him. It just wasn't as attractive as everything else and it reminded Grantaire a little too much of himself. That completely defied the point of Enjolras whom Grantaire admired so because he was as different from Grantaire as humanly possible.
"Why didn't they do the same to me?"
"Why would they? You don't actually participate in any of our protests or riots. You just sit there with a bottle, mocking us."
"Okay. Marius then. Why didn't they kick him out?"
"We're still working on that." Combeferre said but everyone knew he still had his flat for the same reason Grantaire did. They where just more polite when it came to Marius. Apparently not committing to the cause because of a girl was more acceptable then not committing because of- well- lack of belief/motivation/will to live?
"Okay. So I'll house half of you. Marius will house the other half and you guys will figure something out. You always do."
Enjolras is about to say something. Angrily. But Combeferre stopes him with the usual hand on the shoulder. Grantaire is a little envious about how often Combeferre get's to do that but doesn't dwell on that.
"That's not all. We've all gotten fired from our jobs. Joly, Courfeyrac and I have been expelled. I think we're even banned from the Uni grounds. The government is fighting back, Grantaire and we're a group of 13 if you count Cosette and Musichetta-"
"Why would you ever not count me?" Musichetta chimes in from on top of Bossuet's lap.
"As I was saying." Combeferre continues. "There's only 13 of us on a good day. We can't exactly win in a fist fight against the government or France, let alone all of it's allies."
In the five years that followed that complete disaster that was 2016 the world fell to peaces. More and more people with no regard for human rights where put in charge and more and more citizens of those nations turned there backs on equality. France, England, Whales, Spain, and Portugal allied up to try and convince the rest of Europe to join them in there attempts to 'make everything better' which actually meant making everything worse. With America and Russia backing them up the situation looked pretty dire and the people where given less writes and less of a say. The death penalty was back, and a lot of things where punishable.
Combeferre wasn't wrong about there chances in a fist fight, or even a fight in which they where armed. They'd only managed to get about half a dozen good hit's in when the police started taking them in at the last weeks protest. About five of those hit's where courtesy of Bahorel which was an important fact, Grantaire thought.
Okay, so admittedly Enjolras and Combeferre where right. Grantaire hated it when that happened. The ABC needed somewhere to go, somewhere where they could continue to believe they had a chance of making a difference and the sea did sound like the only option at that point. Even if it was a bad one.
"Fine. You win. Go have fun on your sail boats but don't come crawling back to me when the whalers kill you." He was in the middle of getting up and leaving, he figured he could always say his farewell to Joly and the others after the meeting, when Enjolras stopped him with and unwelcome, mostly unwelcome, hand on his forearm.
"Grantaire, I know you don't believe in anything we do, and you've never shown any interest in helping us achieve any of our goals, but we need you for this to work."
"Yeah? Why's that?"
"You and Musichetta are the only two people in this room who know how to sail."
"WHO TOLD HIM?" Grantaire almost yelled. He glared at Musichetta then at Joly then at Bossuet. They where meant to be his friends. Those three, plus Bahorel and Eponine who where both missing at this meeting, more then the others and here they where talking to Enjolras about him behind his back.
"We didn't. I swear-" Joly started but didn't get too far before Enjolras cut in.
"You told me, Grantaire. You told me one night when you where really drunk and called my mobile by accident. I think you where trying to reach Eponine. You told me you missed sailing and how you used to be good at it and how you sometimes thought about competing again."
Grantaire remembered that phone call. It wasn't an accident. He just pretended it was after he realised what he was doing. He didn't, however, remember spilling his heart to Enjolras about something as trivial as sailing, a hobby he swore to stomp out the day his grandfather died.
"Please Grantaire." Enjolras said, loosening his grip on Grantaire's arm. "We need you."
"Fuck. FINE." Grantaire groaned. He couldn't say no to Enjolras especially when he asked like that, like he actually needed Grantaire. In fact Grantaire would have probably thrown himself off a cliff for Enjolras if there had been a 'please' and a 'we need you' in the request, so what was he meant to do but follow orders and sign the contract for his own emotional demise.