Save You, Save Me (2436 words) by Renee-chan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Grantaire & Jean Prouvaire
Characters: Jean "Jehan" Prouvaire, Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Additional Tags: Suicide Attempt, Depression, Bad Parenting, Background Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Romantic Friendship, Angst, Heavy Angst, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Series: Part 3 of Follow You, Follow Me
Summary:
Grantaire's hands were too large - clumsy and rough and ill-suited for everything that mattered. The bottle looked so small sitting inside them. and when Grantaire opened that bottle and shook out its contents…
…the pills looked smaller still.
August 29, 2013: Right off the bat... this is not a happy fic. It is canon backstory for FYFM, but it wasn't something I intended to introduce until the sequel, so if you'd rather not be spoiled, by all means, please wait to read it. RL events, however, prompted me to get it down on paper now rather than later and a friend prompted me into posting it, now, and... well. You're all responsible people, you can choose for yourself if you want to read it now, right? ^_^
Anyway, for continuity's sake, a little backstory on the backstory... This story takes place when Jehan and Grantaire are about 16. They've known each other for maybe a year at this point. After a long hiatus from art, due to having formed a truly awful association with it when he was young, Grantaire has finally plucked up the courage to take an art class to fulfill a humanities requirement for high school graduation. His parents are... less than supportive.
...enjoy?
Save You, Save Me
by Renee-chan (eirenical on tumblr)
"He's stable."
Jehan heard those words as though from far away. He'd heard them so often in his fitful bouts of sleep over the last twenty-four hours that he hardly believed they could this time be real. He lurched to his feet, spun towards the source of the sound.
A harried-looking, dark-skinned woman in a white lab coat, stethoscope slung around her neck, was even now reaching out a hand to him to follow her words. "Son? You don't look all that stable, yourself. Do you feel all right?"
Jehan gaped at the doctor for a moment, stared down at her hand on his arm, then up into her concerned, dark eyes. For a moment, every word he'd ever known in any language, whatsoever… collided and broke apart in chaotic bursts of incoherence. When they finally stopped their imploding and attempted to emerge from where they'd been trapped in his throat, they were a garbled mess that even Jehan could make no sense of.
Halfway through his terrified babbling, Jehan's mother stepped up and pulled him from the doctor's hold into her own, softly cradled him against her and ran her hands through his hair in a desperate bid to soothe. His mother's supportive arms around him, Jehan was at least able to force his final words to restrain themselves to one language… even if choked and harsh… and not one native to the country on whose soil he stood.
"Mon meilleur ami… mon frère… mon coeur… a essayé a prendre sa vie. Comment vous sentiriez-vous?"
The arms enfolding him tightened and his mother begin whispering reassuring words into his ears, beginning in French with "mon pauvre petit" and traveling through as many languages as Jehan had garbled in his desperate attempt to make sense of what was happening. And it was all gibberish to him. Words had deserted him, yet again, left him helpless, alone and adrift in a way he hadn't been since meeting Grantaire last year.
Jehan couldn't lose him. He just couldn't. In a life so weightless, so mercurial and full of wanderlust, Jehan had never understood why a person would choose to stop their wandering and settle down, why one might choose to tie one's self to a single place when there was an entire world to explore… until Grantaire. Grantaire had anchored him, not so as to tie him down, but so as to give him a place to return to when he wearied of his travels. Grantaire had not given him a prison… he'd given him home.
Somehow, Jehan would make this right. Somehow, he'd get to the bottom of what had happened here. Somehow, he'd find the destroyed pieces of Grantaire's heart and repair it. And someday… when Grantaire could once again be trusted with it, he would find a way to give it back. Until then… Jehan would keep it, himself, and protect it even more fiercely than he did his own, because no one - no one - was going to break Grantaire's heart, again.
If they even want to try, they'd have to go through Jehan to do it.
And G-d help anyone who dared.
…Jehan would rip them into far more pieces than two.
24 hours earlier…
Grantaire's hands had always been large, ill-suited for delicate pursuits. He used to believe he'd grow into them - that's what he'd always been told. Someday, they'd be just right.
~You'll grown into them someday, little brother. Those hands were born to create. You just wait and see. They'll be just right someday and you'll do amazing things with them.~
Grantaire had believed that once, believed it fiercely enough to defy his parents and pursue that elusive gift of creation he supposedly possessed. He'd learned better, since. His parents had seen to that. His hands were still too large, still clumsy and rough and ill-suited for everything that mattered.
The bottle looked so small sitting inside them.
And, when Grantaire opened that bottle and shook out its contents…
…the pills looked smaller still.
Papa? When will Mama get better?
I don't know, sweetie. Mama is… she's very sad.
But, Papa, I miss her.
I know you do. I miss her, too. The pills will make her better. You'll see.
The pills… Prozac, Zoloft, Xanax, Cymbalta, lithium… so many pills, and none of them helped. Grantaire could tell that easily enough by how many had been left in each bottle - unfinished, some unopened, ignored. Like him. His mother hadn't gotten better, not really. She'd rediscovered a purpose, but she was far from better. The laughing mother of his youth, the one who pushed him on the swings at the park, the one who cooed over his finger paintings and crayon-block lettering, the one who made him baked apple crepes with raspberry sauce and an extra helping of whipped cream… she was gone, as dead as the son she'd put in the ground all those years ago. She wasn't coming back. She'd proved that today.
The only mother Grantaire had left was the one who frowned when she once smiled, who scolded when she once praised, the mother who never had a kind word for her remaining son - the son who wasn't good enough, the son who would never be good enough. At anything.
Frivolous.
Useless.
Barely enough passable skill to pursue as a hobby, at that.
You've wasted enough of your time and our money. It will stop. Today.
Grantaire shifted the pills into one hand - blue and white, green and white, tan, pink, white… so small, so innocent-looking, pills to make you feel better - and lifted his other prize from the floor. Those too large hands of his had been clever enough for this - two small thefts, unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, but they would get the job done.
Unscrewing the bottle of brandy, cursing when he realized he'd forgotten to get a cup, Grantaire had a precarious moment when he nearly dropped both pills and bottle, but he recovered just before one or the other could go careening to the floor.
And not even that small excitement was enough to kick his heart rate out of its slow, deadened beat. His heart had been beating slow and heavy in his chest since that morning. His mother had called him into her study, hadn't even looked at him when she'd spoken those damning words. Then again… she hadn't needed to. She had his heart filleted open on her desk in vibrant blues, purples and greens, reds and blacks, and had proceeded to shred it right in front of his eyes.
Frivolous.
Useless.
You'll put this nonsense aside, son. There will be no room for it in the life you will lead.
Rapier-sharp, the calculated cruelty in those words had slipped between Grantaire's ribs, into the space left by the heart she'd already removed, and left him bleeding. And Grantaire had watched as she then gathered those pieces of his heart together, tapped them against the desk to neaten the stack, and then - all uncaring of what she was destroying - thrown them into the fire. The fire had blazed at that, the oils catching quickly, and burning hot, the charcoals taking longer and burning with a sullen, ill grace and a horrid smell.
Worst of all, though… was that Grantaire should have felt it, should have mourned his heart as it burnt to ash... but he couldn't. He had no more heart with which to feel.
Grantaire had gone through the motions of the day with mechanical precision, after that. He'd eaten breakfast that tasted like charcoal in his mouth. He'd gone to classes and, though the colored chalk on the blackboards melted like acrylics in a blaze, he'd written the words down, copied with dedicated precision. He'd stumbled his way through gym class, heart beating so slowly, so reluctantly, that he couldn't even lift his feet to jog the track. He didn't remember getting home, didn't remember visiting the liquor cabinet or the medicine cabinet… didn't remember locking the door to his room and sitting down with his prizes… but he had.
And so, Grantaire sat in the middle of his bed, a pile of pills in one hand, a bottle of brandy in the other. He wondered what Jean Prouvaire would say, to see him like this. They hadn't known each other long, but Grantaire had a feeling that Jean wouldn't approve of either choices. Jehan was a boy who loved life, even when it hurt… especially when it hurt. He was at his most brilliant when melancholy, could break a thousand hearts with two words and a look when he turned maudlin.
Grantaire… wasn't. He wasn't brilliant in his melancholy. He found no beauty in despair. He found only pain. And now, brutally ripped from the one and only thing which brought him joy, closed off from the only avenue he had left to give those too-large hands of his any purpose that was of his own making and not his mother's… pain was his only companion, and it was an unwelcome one.
Grantaire tipped the bottle to his lips, poured that liquid fire down to ignite at least some small measure of warmth in his belly, some small measure of courage. It wasn't much, but it was just enough to give him the strength to accomplish the rest.
Before he could change his mind, Grantaire lifted his other hand and tossed back that handful of pills. He'd thought initially to be choosy and only take the ones with the least potential for awful side effects… but he'd seen the expiration dates on the bottles. He daren't take the chance that he'd choose the ones that wouldn't work. This was one nightmare from which he had no desire to awaken.
Grantaire followed the pills with a large swallow of brandy, nearly gagged when the combination hit the back of his throat, but somehow still got it all down. He took another large swallow of brandy, then another, slowly forced that lump of pills down further. And when a spike of white-hot pain pierced his chest, he pressed a hand to it, thinking those pills had fetched up near his heart in the most ironic fit of indigestion ever… or was it?
Palpitation.
Chest pain.
…maybe it wasn't the pills lodging in his throat, after all. Could it happen that quickly? Grantaire slowly lowered the brandy to the ground. He'd thought he'd have more time. Time to do… something. To write a note. To wave to his father from the front window as he came home before dramatically collapsing out of sight. Anything.
Swallowing was suddenly difficult, the oxygen fleeing from him when Grantaire tried to suck it into suddenly panic-starved lungs. Someone… someone had to know why. He couldn't go like this with no chance to tell anyone why he'd done it… forever a mystery. His father would drown himself in booze and his mother would simply get more pills, newer pills, pills that weren't expired and sitting forgotten in a cupboard. He didn't care about either of them - after all, when had they cared for him? - but Jehan… Jehan would blame himself and Ellie just wouldn't understand. Grantaire had promised to take her to hear the Longwood carillon on Saturday. Jehan should know that. Jehan would take her.
Grantaire fumbled in his pocket, found his cell phone and Jehan's speed dial more by instinct, muscle memory and dumb luck than by coordination, his too large hands somehow still refusing to betray him, even at the last. When Jehan answered, Grantaire smiled. Jehan somehow always made him smile. He was glad… glad that Jehan's voice would be the last he would hear, that he would have a chance to go out with a smile on his face.
There was a flash of pain, then, before he could properly speak, and at the accompanying lurch of his long-dead heart, Grantaire suddenly wanted to take the English language's idiom and throw it out the window. It wasn't supposed to hurt when your heart skipped a beat, wasn't supposed to feel like someone had torn open your chest and slammed your shuddering heart up into your throat… it was supposed to be soft… romantic - the feeling you got when you met the one you would love for the rest of your life.
This was not that feeling. It was the feeling you got when you were to have no life, at all. Someone should be told that, should do something about it. It seemed important, suddenly, that all these years the writers had gotten it wrong. Jehan… Jehan should know. He would fix it.
"Jehan… you should know… falling in love feels like dying."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line and when Jehan answered, there was a slim hope threaded through his voice that Grantaire hated to cut… but cut it, he would, if he had to. "Grantaire…? Is there something you want to tell me…?"
Grantaire smiled, couldn't help it. That was Jehan, all over - always seeing the bright side. He shook his head. "Just… when your heart skips a beat… the world doesn't pause. It fucking ends. It feels like someone taking your heart and ripping it in two, man."
"…it hurts. And I thought you should know."
The room was spinning, now, and Grantaire, finding it more and more difficult to stay upright, finally let himself fall back onto the bed. Jehan was talking, again, voice now frantic, high-pitched and desperate, begging Grantaire to explain, to talk to him, to tell him what was going on. There had been something else, though… hadn't there?
Grantaire's heart spasmed, again, lurching in his chest like a roller coaster run off the rails, and he couldn't help the soft cry he let out as he curled himself tightly around the pain, panting for air. It wasn't supposed to be like this. None of what he'd read had prepared him for this. Pills were supposed to be an easy way to go, just like going quietly to sleep. Trust Grantaire to fuck up even dying. Focusing on Jehan's desperate words, Grantaire finally managed to get out that last, most important thing…
"Jehan… promise me you'll take Ellie to hear the Carillon on Saturday. She loves the chimes and she was so excited… I hate to see her disappointed."
The last thing Grantaire heard as his heart spasmed one last time in his chest, was Jehan's voice crying out for him, as though he were the one dying…
"GRANTAIRE!"
…and the rest was silence.
A/N:
I'm sorry. I'm not sure I ever really intended to write this side story, but well... suffice it to say, I've had a rough few days and writing this story was massively therapeutic. Don't worry, I'm not suicidal or anything - I just had some personal and family-related angst that needed to be away from me before it did me damage and the best and fastest way I know to cleanse my palate of that brand of crap is to dump it off on a character. And since this suicide attempt has been part of Grantaire's backstory in my head from the beginning, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to flesh that backstory out. ...sorry, again? -.-;;;
Some French translations:
(My apologies - it's been a long time since I've been fluent and I'm rusty as all get out. If anyone reading this is more fluent than I and I've made a mistake in here, please let me know. Thanks! ^_^)
**"Mon meilleur ami… mon frère… mon coeur… a essayé a prendre sa vie. Comment vous sentiriez-vous?"
-"My best friend... my brother... my heart... tried to take his life. How would you feel?"
**"mon pauvre petit"
-"my poor little one"