Incorruptible
Grantaire had spent the past two years learning where to find the best of everything in Paris, including the best of the worst.
The youth had hungry eyes. Not the same hunger as the men who came looking for him- Grantaire could see that the boy would as soon roll him as earn an honest, disrespectable living. If he put on any more muscle, another inch or two, in the next few years, he'd probably start demanding your life first, your money later. But now he was still scrawny, if beautiful, and vain of that beauty, and if it could bring him a taste of the finer things in life that he thought he deserved, so be it.
Sharing the best wine he could buy did not win the boy's trust, but he probably did not have any to win. Not that Grantaire minded. All he cared to buy with the wine was permission to buy more with cash. When a man looks like the son of Hephaestus and a gorgon, after an unsuccessful boxing career, sometimes he has to attract the attention of a pretty creature with gifts, before the young man will condescend to take his money.
Grantaire did not trust him, either. Not as they sat at the table finishing the bottle (the wine did nothing to blunt the hard edge in the boy's eyes); not when they left. That is why he never considered taking the young man home. If he lost what little of the money his sister sent that he had not already spent, so be it; that was better than having the little thief rooting through his possessions if he turned away for a moment. Any dingy room or blind alley the boy usually used would make more sense than that, and contrary to popular opinion (and his own), sometimes Grantaire could be sensible, in limited areas.
Frankly, if the beautiful little devil decided the fee he agreed to wasn't enough, and slipped off with all of his money once his grip on it was loosened and he was thoroughly distracted, he didn't care. The boy was worth it. He was beautiful, and he was evil, and that was why Grantaire wanted him. The young man could not be ruined; nothing could make him worse than he already was. He had no innocence left to steal, and he probably never had. Nobody could fear dirtying a sewer.
Grantaire felt no romantic notions about him, so he would pay as much as he had to for him, so long as he would take it: the most beautiful creature he knew who never made him feel as he should be the one falling to his knees.
