Happy Barricade Days!
...
Contrary to common belief and logic, Grantaire did not die at the barricades. He didn't expect to, even as he rose up from the table to stand by Enjolras's side. Not that he wanted to survive this; Grantaire wanted nothing more than for his gesture to mean something, for it to truly be the sacrifice it appeared to be. But it wasn't like he had a choice.
"Do you permit it?"
As Enjolras smiled in reply, Grantaire felt his heart lift a little. For a moment, he hoped, he almost believed that now his curse would break; that now he could be mortal once more, that this time he would stay dead. Somehow, with that half-believed hope, Grantaire had never felt more alive. This must be how Enjolras had felt everyday, bursting with passionate exhilaration and the dedication to do anything for what he believed in. No wonder he had always scorned Grantaire's apathy.
Anybody who knew Grantaire at all would be surprised by his hope and blinding faith to the man beside him. Grantaire himself was surprised. But Enjolras had always had a way of causing Grantaire to act differently than expected.
The moment of hope lasted less than a heartbeat before the pessimism, doubt and the certainty that everything would go wrong, came rushing back in. It was silly to think that he might not survive this, it was naive and foolish to hope that anything good could have ever come of befriending a group of revolutionary students. All it ever could of have brought was heartbreak, and with the corpses of his friends strewn across the ground outside the Corinthe, with his idol about to be shot by a dozen Guardsmen, Grantaire knew that today was the day everything collapsed.
Then Enjolras grasped his hand, the smile still on his face, and Grantaire let go of all the negativity and skepticism. None of that stuff held any importance, because right now, this moment was all that mattered. Right now, Grantaire was going to be shot for and alongside the only thing he believed in. Right now was the most noble and glorious moment in his too long life. Grief and doubt would definitely come later. Not now, Grantaire thought right before the bullets struck and he slipped out of consciousness, hovering tantalizingly near the long claws of death.
As expected, Grantaire soon woke up, his clothes bloody and torn, in a pile of other bodies ready to be buried. He tried not to look at the corpses. Grantaire didn't want to see the faces of his friends pale and lifeless.
He left Paris, and tried to go on with his life. After a few decades he grew sick of France and Europe in general, and so he moved to America. Grantaire had lived there since, moving to a new place every few years so that no one would notice his perpetual youth.
Today, November 19, 2008, one hundred and seventy six years after the barricades, sixty four thousand, four hundred and forty eight days after the death of Enjolras, he was eating a simple breakfast of toast and coffee, reading the newspaper. He found what he was looking for: another mysterious murder, the fourth one so far. Grantaire sighed and put the newspaper on the table. It was getting to the point where he needed to do something about it.
...
That same day, two Winchesters were sitting in an old, black car.
"Are you sure this is our kind of case?" Dean asked.
"Yes, I'm positive," his taller brother replied exasperatedly. "Four victims, all shot in the head, but no bullet was actually found. They were all alone at the time and there was no sign of a break-in or struggle. Some of the neighbors reported flickering lights in the victims' houses at the time of death."
"Alright, it sound like a hunt." Dean conceded. "I'm thinking, maybe a ghost?"
"It might be," Sam said as they drove on.
A few hours later, the two men, now dressed in black suits, were sitting on a couch belonging to the third victim, talking to the deceased man's wife.
"I-I wasn't home at the time. Neither were any of the kids. We were sh-shopping for the Th-thanksgiving turkey. Oh, God. If only h-he went w-with us..." The woman burst into sobs. Sam put a comforting hand on her shoulder and spoke in the most sympathetic and sincere tone he could manage.
"Do you mind telling us what happened next?"
She nodded brushing away her tears. "I came home and went upstairs to our room. H-he was l-lying on the f-floor, and there was blood—" She shuddered and broke off, unable to continue.
"Is there anyone who had a grudge against your husband? Any reason why someone might've wanted revenge?"
"Uh... There were lots of people, I guess. Matthew wasn't v-very well liked by his employees. He's gotten into legal trouble before with them. But I can't imagine that anybody w-would want to d-do this to h-him!" She sniffled.
Over the top of her head, Dan and Sam exchanged significant looks. They stood up simultaneously.
"Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Jefferson. Call us if you think of anything else." Dean handed her a slip of paper with one of his many cell phone numbers on it. "Our condolences."
"It seems like a vengeful spirit. The EMF readings were high," Sam said after they had stepped outside of the house.
"Okay, but those were four completely different people. They didn't work together, they didn't even know each other. There's no connection. Why would one spirit be after all of them?"
"It could be more of a vigilante type? I mean, it seems like all of them were rich and corrupt people who have a history of doing something against lower classes or minorities. I might say it's a trickster, but the deaths aren't really his style."
Dean thought about it. "That makes sense. But how is the ghost getting to all of them? Aren't ghosts normally stuck in one place? The victims are scattered across the town."
"I don't know. Maybe there's something else tying them all together. Let's go see if there's any clues at the last victim's house."
They drove to the location of the fourth murder, the most recent one. Elisabeth Gaufrey followed the pattern of the last few victims. She had argued for lowering the school levy, successfully convincing voters to vote for paying less taxes to go to school funds. Her body had been found face down on the carpet of her living room, blood leaking from what looked exactly like a bullet wound in her head. But like the others, no bullet was found.
As the two left the house, they almost walked straight into a man with curly dark hair wearing a suit.
"Excuse me," he said. He took a badge out of his pocket. "Georges Provaire, FBI."
Dean and Sam glanced at each other. It was just their luck to run into an authentic FBI agent.
"Erm... no. We're also FBI agents." Dean pulled out his false badge while Sam did the same. "We were put on this case. They must've forgotten to tell you."
"Let me see that." The man reached out and examined their badges. "As is clear to anyone who looks closely, these are fake."
"Look, we're just—" Sam started.
"I don't need to hear whatever story you're going to come up with. If you're looking into this case, with those badges, you're probably hunters. Am I right?"
Caught off guard, Dean stuttered out "Uh, yeah?" Then, his voice regaining its confidence, "Are you?"
The stranger, whose name was not actually Provaire, shrugged. "Is Pluto a planet? Not exactly. I have experience with the supernatural and I will get rid of any trouble near me, but I'm not insane enough to actively seek out monsters. I can deal with this, so you can leave." It wasn't noticeable at first, but he had the faintest traces of an accent.
"Sorry, but we should stick around to make sure," Sam said, giving him a look that dared him to argue.
The man looked them over consideringly. Then sighed in a can't-be-bothered-to-put-effort-into-fighting-it sort of manner. "Alright. Fine. What have you found so far?"
"Let's go somewhere other than here and then we can talk." Dean suggested.
"I know a place nearby." The stranger said.
...
A few minutes later, the three men were seated at a table in a local café.
"What information have you gathered?" asked the man, who had reintroduced himself as Grantaire.
"We think it's some sort of vigilante type spirit. The only problem is that we don't know how it's getting to all the victims. Or why it started now," Sam explained.
"That's possible. I think that it came with the new museum exhibit."
"New museum exhibit?" Dean asked.
"I don't remember exactly what it was about. Something French. Like me. It opened three weeks ago, just before the first murder happened. And, at Mr. Malent's house, I noticed a brochure for the Museum of Arts and History."
"Ms. Gaufrey had a nephew visiting her. He mentioned seeing the museum the day before the murder," Sam realized.
"Right, next stop is the museum," Dean said.
...
"Hi." Sam smiled at the lady at the front desk. "Uh, we're writing this article for a magazine about the new exhibit here. Could you give us some background information about it? Like, why that exhibit of all things?"
"Of course," she replied with a friendly smile. "A few weeks ago we were given quite a few documents and artifacts from around the time of the French Revolution and from some years afterwards. It was the prize for a nationwide children's art contest. The museum nearest the winner would receive the prize, and it happened to be us."
"Congratulations." Sam said, looking impressed.
"Thank you. They'd been in our benefactor's family for years and he didn't know what to do with it all, so he donated it."
"What was his name?"
"Um... It was a Monsieur Pontmercy? Or however you pronounce that." Grantaire winced internally at the butchering of the French pronunciation. He wondered if the last name was just a coincidence.
"Do you know about the specific documents? And maybe more about where they came from?" Grantaire asked.
"Well, there's plenty of information in the exhibit, of course, but I can tell you..."
Sam and Dean both stopped paying attention as somehow the conversation turned towards a debate about the Committee of Public Safety, and the republic that was born from the first French Revolution. Grantaire was far more knowledgeable about the topic, having been alive and in France at the time. His lazy and rambly yet jarring cynical arguments effectively cut through her defense of the revolutionaries, leaving the women looking flustered and angry. Dean tapped the smirking Frenchman on his shoulder.
"Enough. Are we actually going to look at the stuff?" he demanded.
Grantaire looked up and shrugged. They made their way through the museum. They entered a dark room filled with glass cases lit from the inside holding dozens of old, yellow papers and quite a few paintings covering the walls and shelves. At the entrance was a large black sign covered with white words, beginning and ending with a set of quotation marks.
" 'Everything in these rooms I inherited from my father.' " Sam began reading out loud. " 'But long before that, they belonged to my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Marius Pontmercy.' "
"Huh." Grantaire looked startled. So it wasn't a coincidence. Or in a way, it was more of a coincidence than before. When the Winchester shot him questioning looks, he shook his head. "Never mind. Continue."
Sam did. " 'He was a leader of a minor rebellion a couple of years after the second French Revolution and was the only survivor from his barricade. On the 5th and 6th of June, 1832, my ancestor fought to overthrow an unjust government. Everything in this exhibit belonged to him and his friends, who fought along with him, all of which died on that fateful day. Some of these artifacts were originally from the first Revolution, which took place at the end of the 18th century, and then read and studied by the rebels, decades later. Other documents are pamphlets and speeches from the insurgents who fought in the June Rebellion of 1832 to create a better world.' "
Sam kept reading, but Grantaire wasn't listening. He hadn't known that Marius had survived. Grantaire hadn't seen his body, but he'd just assumed that everybody had died. Everyone except himself. If the papers belonged to 'Marius's friends,' it was likely they belonged to Les Amis. While Grantaire wouldn't have considered all of the members of the group to be Marius's friend exactly, nor Marius as anything resembling a leader, he knew by now that people remembered dead people differently than from how they thought of them when they were living. Besides, almost two hundred years had passed since then. Things were lost and forgotten and exaggerated.
This did bring in a new problem, though. If the stuff in here belonged to Les Amis, it was probably one of them who was killing people. Grantaire didn't want to see any of them die for a second time. He couldn't even bring himself to start considering which one of them it might be.
As soon as he was finished reading, Sam voiced his own thoughts quietly so none of the other people in the room would over hear. "It makes sense, if you think about it. They were mostly students trying to dethrone the king and aristocrats. Now the ghost is killing rich, corrupt people. Who else would get such a strong emotional attachment to a bunch of revolutionary paper, enough to cause them to stay in this world?"
"Any ideas on who it might be? Maybe Robust Pierre or whoever you were talking about?" Dean asked, turning towards Grantaire. He had evidently decided that Grantaire was some sort of French Revolution expert during his debate with the receptionist.
"Robespierre. It's possible. But it could be pretty much anybody. We don't even know for sure when they came from. The ghost probably died during the June Rebellion, but they could be from the first revolution, or even one of the other hundreds of tiny riots. Thousands of people died. We don't even have any proof that the ghost was killed during the one of the revolutions. It could be Pontmercy for all we know. It would be like looking for a specific grain of sand on a beach without knowing anything about the grain of sand you're looking for. There's no way to narrow it down." Liar! Part of him thought. Chances were, it was one of eight people. Actually, less. There was no way Provaire or Combeferre would do this. Then again, Grantaire couldn't really imagine any of them murdering people in cold blood like that.
"It doesn't matter. Let's just come here tonight and burn everything," Dean said. The other two nodded, Grantaire rather reluctantly. Grantaire really hoped they could find another way. This was all that was left of his friends.
"We should search the room for any clues to the identity of the ghost," Grantaire suggested. The other two agreed and they spread out.
The exhibit consisted of two rooms, connected by a doorway. The first room was filled with artifacts from the first French Revolution. They were all pretty predictable: copies of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the Constitution of 1795, and many other documents that were written in that time period, especially ones by political leaders such as Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins. Large signs were posted on the walls explaining the causes and events in the revolution. However, as he entered the adjoining room, Grantaire would have said he felt his heart stop if he hadn't known how it felt to have his heart actually quit beating.
This room was dedicated to the rebels of 1832. One display shelf contained some of the few speeches Enjolras had written out beforehand. The English translation was on signs attached to the railing in front of the corresponding paper. Grantaire didn't bother reading through those, his eyes instead skimming through the painfully familiar words of his native tongue.
On show for the world to see were various pamphlets that they had passed out, trying to convince people to support the republic and come to General Lamarque's funeral. On another shelf were items from that time period: guns, swords, money, even the tri-colored rosette that the revolutionaries had worn.
He moved on, halting in astonishment in front of a painting that Grantaire himself had made. It showed all the main members of Les Amis sitting around tables in the backroom of the Café Musain on an ordinary, non-specific day. Perhaps it wasn't even one day, but a combination of many, all blurred together into one picture.
The room was dimly lit by fire, casting a warm glow throughout the room. Courfeyrac and Combeferre sat the closest to the fireplace, discussing something, gesturing with their hands to accent their point. Marius was nearby, looking shy and slightly out of place. Joly was worriedly examining his tongue in a mirror. Bossuet and Bahorel sat next to him, chuckling at something the latter had said. Beside them, on the table nearest them, was a partially empty bottle of wine. Feuilly had just finished painting a fan, the delicate object open in his hands, a look of triumph and contentedness on his face. Provaire sat across the table from him, doing nothing in particular, his eyes dreamy and distant. In the corner was Grantaire himself, quiet that day. Only the back of his head was visible in the painting. The table in front of him was littered with empty bottles. Grantaire was thankful for his reluctance to draw his own face; it would have been difficult to explain to Sam and Dean why he was in a painting from the 19th century.
Across the room was Enjolras in his red coat, somehow more radiant than all the other men. He was watching the rest of them, the faintest hint of a fond smile on his lips. His eyes were thoughtful and passionate; he was probably thinking about France then. In the background, against the wall was a map of France under the old republic. The painting was signed in the bottom corner with a large, fancy R.
Next to the painting was some of Jehan's poems. How on Earth had Marius gotten all this stuff? Grantaire wondered. Each object nudged his mind, stirring awake old thoughts and memories. It was strange to see reminders of those hoarded memories laid out so methodically and clinically, so exposed and bare. Whoever had organised this clearly knew so little of the emotion Grantaire had attached to them. The speeches, the poems, the painting, one of Feuilly's fans, an anatomical drawing by Joly, one of Courfeyrac's hats...
Although those countless days spent in the cozy back room of the Café Musain were long gone, and despite years of forbidding his mind to dwell on those times for more than an instant because of the familiar slicing pain it brought his heart, Grantaire had never forgotten them. Over the centuries, he had changed, just as the rest of the world had. He was not the same man who would drunkenly ramble to anyone who would listen in a Parisian café (although he still did ramble at times when he was nervous or upset), or admire from a distance, that blond revolutionary and his fiery, heartfelt words. But he still remembered being that person and the golden-brown, warm feeling that belonged to that time alone. And no matter how many centuries passed Grantaire could never forget them because a part of his soul had been trapped there, in that age before the summer of 1832. Never in his life had there been a time quite like that one, and never again would there be. Enough years had passed since then for him to reintegrate himself into the world and function as a (mostly) normal human being, but never could he put his whole self into something because some of it still clung to another time. (Although not all of it clung to 1832. The barricades were not the only major shifting point of his life.) The memories of Les Amis held more clarity to them than any of the other vague impressions of the countless, repetitive days since. No matter how much things changed, they would remain untouched by the passing of time because it did not exist in the present world. Home was where heart is, no matter how far away.
"Are you alright?" Sam interrupted his thoughts. His eyebrows were scrunched up in a concerned expression.
"Wh-what? Yes. I'm fine. As fine as silk. As fine as anybody can be in a world like this. As fine—" He broke off when Sam gave him a vaguely annoyed look.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Sam frowned. "You didn't actually see one, did you?"
"No, no." Although in a way, Grantaire had. "I was just thinking."
"Well, if you've found nothing, then we should be going soon. It's near closing time."
Grantaire dazedly followed him out of the room, fighting to keep himself from being lost in his memories. He glanced at a clock as they walked by. More time had passed than he had realized.
The hunters were walking through the main entrance hall when Grantaire spotted a familiar face. He stopped.
"I think I know who the next target's going to be." He nodded in the direction of a middle aged man in a grey suit.
"How?" The Winchesters asked simultaneously.
"That's Patrick Delthane. He ran for governor a few months ago. Nearly succeeded too. If anybody's rich and corrupt it would be a politician, which history can attest to over and over again. 'Those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it,' said Douglas Adams. And that is true," Grantaire babbled, still feeling rattled from the exhibit he had just left.
Dean cut him off before it could turn into a ramble about the problems that would show up in any governmental system that people had organised, caused by the problems in people themselves. "I say we follow him home and keep an eye on him till we can salt 'n burn the papers."
...
A few hours later, the trio were sitting in the Winchesters' car outside the politician's house.
Dean peered impatiently at his watch. "It's almost 10:30. How much longer are we going to wait here?"
"Maybe another half hour," Sam replied. They had agreed to watch here until it was late enough to break into the museum. If the ghost didn't show up, they could burn the papers before it killed another person, but if it made its move before they left, the hunters could stop it.
Suddenly, the lights in the house they were watching began to flicker.
"Shit!" Dean cursed, grabbing a gun filled with rock salt and jumping out of the car. The other two were right behind him as he kicked open the front door. They followed the sound of sobbing and pleading to an office on the second floor.
Dean kicked open that door as well. Grantaire froze as they burst into the room. A familiar blond rebel was crouched over Patrick Delthane, a gun in one hand, which was pressed to the politician's head, a pocket watch in the other.
"Enjolras," Grantaire breathed softly as the brothers rushed past him and shot the ghost, dissipating its form. While he had only seen the back of the ghost, he would be able to recognize those blond curls anywhere.
"What happened?" Sam asked, rushing to the man's side. Dean had his gun pointed down and his eyes were intent as he examined the room, prepared to shoot again if he needed to. Grantaire still stood unmoving in the entrance of the room.
Delthane sputtered for a moment, unable to form coherent words, before he visibly drew himself together with a deep breath. "I-it just—I was—well, th-the man just appeared out of nowhere! Next thing I know, I'm on the ground with a g-gun pointed at my head! And then he said I had a minute t-to live, so I should think or pray. Then you came in and..."
Sam frowned thoughtfully. "Did he say that in English?"
"Yeah, he said that in English." The politician said, bewilderment replacing some of his shock and terror. "How else would he say it?"
Well, Grantaire reasoned detachedly, Enjolras had been hanging around for a while now. He'd probably picked up a few languages, and wouldn't bother using French if no one could understand him.
"Nevermind, I—" Sam started before he was interrupted by a few gunshots. A stillness that felt as if it should have been silent followed. However, noiseless it was not. The Winchesters swung around to face this new threat which had come running down from the end of the hall where it had fired the gun. Patrick Delthane turned towards the doorway, with less speed than the Winchesters, and gasped.
"Th-these are the ones that saved my life! Not who attacked me!" he sputtered in horror to the large man who still had a gun in his hand. By his feet, on the ground near the doorway, Grantaire's clearly lifeless corpse lay face down on the floor, blood streaming from the bullet wound in the center of his back.
"What the hell were you thinking, shooting random people like that!" shouted Dean, angered by the sudden and pointless death of his ally. Both he and Sam had pointed their guns at the man. That they were filled with rock salt and not bullets didn't matter as long as the large man didn't know that. And though they were not as deadly as metal, it would still hurt.
"Those bullets are spelled. They wouldn't have hit him much less killed him unless he weren't human," the large man glared, daring them to try to contradict him or suggest he had done something wrong.
"How do you even know about the supernatural?" Sam asked suspiciously.
"I hired him for that purpose." Patrick Delthane said, nervously trying to ease the tensions in the room. "I heard about what happened to the others, and, well, I didn't want to be next, but they didn't seem to be exactly... normal murders. So I found a professional who knew about that kind of thing to guard me just in case."
"That doesn't mean you can just wave your gun around and shoot everything that moves!" Dean hissed.
The large man shrugged uncaringly. "If it's not human it don't deserve to live. And if it weren't, it wouldn't matter with these bullets."
Having only started to question the truth in that philosophy recently, Dean found he had no comeback. Sam, however, looked as if he had plenty of things to say. But Patrick Delthane spoke up before he could say anything.
"Look, it doesn't matter now. There's nothing either of you can do about it. I'll give you five hundred dollars each if you let it be and don't say a word about this incident to anyone."
Money was money, and the Winchesters didn't have much of it that they hadn't come by illegally, so they took it and left. And if they kept the latter half of that bargain, it was only because it would have been impossible explain to the authorities what they were doing at the politician's house in the first place and that, no, of course they weren't the wanted criminals, Sam and Dean Winchester, why would you ever think that? Weren't they dead?
...
Not knowing what else to do, Sam and Dean took the body with them. It lay in the back seat, wrapped in a tarp, to avoid getting blood on the seats. As soon as the case was finished, they agreed, the brothers would give the Frenchman a proper hunter's funeral, despite whatever secrets he had been keeping. He had died helping them track down a ghost, after all.
They were on their way to the museum when a choking cough from behind Sam startled them. Dean swerved in shock, then quickly regained control and pulled the Impala to the side of the road.
During this time, Sam had grabbed a gun and was now pointing it at Grantaire's very not-dead head.
"What the hell?" he demanded.
Grantaire winced. "It's not what it looks like, I promise."
By now, Dean also had a gun pointed at Grantaire. "What are you? A witch? Did you sell your soul?" His voice was harsh and accusatory.
"I swear, it's not black magic. I didn't want this. And shooting me won't do anything."
"Do you always come back to life?" Sam questioned. Dean sent his brother a glare, reprimanding him for being so accepting. Sam shrugged, conveying the message that he didn't actually trust Grantaire or anything, but they should at least try to find some answers and give him a chance to explain.
Grantaire, who had completely missed the non-verbal conversation replied. "Yes. And believe me, I've tried. I even cremated myself in 1832. I didn't wake up for 15 years... but as you can see, I'm still alive."
"If you didn't want it, how'd it happen?" Dean asked questioned aggressively.
"I angered a god," Grantaire answered simply. It had been 1686 when he was 25 years old. Ever since then, he could not age or stay dead. "He cursed me so I would live forever, unable to save or even help those I care about." No, all he could do was to stand next the man he admired more than anything, knowing that while the other man would lose his life, he would come back, as alive as ever. It was because of the curse that he had fallen asleep and missed nearly the entirety of the rebellion. It was why when he was sent to Barriere du Maine, he hadn't spoken to the artists and people there, but instead had played dominos. Indirectly, it was partially the cause of his drinking and cynicism.
"You helped us," Sam pointed out.
Grantaire snorted. "No offence is intended, but I don't really care about you. I don't want people to die in general, which is why I'm helping you hunt the ghost, but I don't personally hold any emotional attachments to you."
Sam lowered his gun. Dean gave him a slightly incredulous look which quickly turned into an exasperated one, before he too, lowered his weapon. He didn't put it away completely.
"Can I have a first-aid kit?" Grantaire continued.
Sam took one out of the glove compartment and tossed it to him. "It's not healed completely?"
"No. Fatal injuries heal at a quicker pace and more completely than it normally would, but it is not instantaneous. It still hurts."
Grantaire started to clean up the blood and bandage the wound. Sam turned towards Dean. "What kind of person would want that?!"
"I dunno, Sammy. People do a lot of stupid things for immortality." Dean argued.
"Because being a cynical drunkard who spends most of his time painting and mocking society and other people's ideals has so much to live for," Grantaire drawled sarcastically.
Dean intensely studied the dark haired man for a few moments. "Alright, fine. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. For now." He turned to glare at Grantaire. "You'd better not make me regret it."
"I'll do my best." Grantaire replied solemnly.
Dean started the engine of the Impala. "Now let's go burn some papers."
"No!" Grantaire shouted panickedly. "I mean, I know another way to stop him. One that doesn't involve burning museum artifacts. Just drop me off at the Museum of Arts and History."
"No way. You just got shot in the back, and I don't trust you that much." Dean objected.
"Give me one chance. I swear it will work, and if it doesn't, it won't cause any harm and you can try it your way."
"How confident are you that it'll work?" Sam asked, shooting his brother a glance to confirm that they were on the same page and would let Grantaire go, thinking that he was alone, but secretly follow him.
"I'm never confident in anything I do."
"Salt and burning sounds simpler," Dean suggested.
"No! We're not doing that unless there's no other option. If it backfires, it will only hurt me, unless you two do something incredibly stupid like follow me in there."
Neither of them pushed it any further.
...
Breaking into the museum hadn't been exactly easy but Grantaire had over three hundred years of knowledge and experience, giving him an advantage. Soon, Grantaire stood in the doorway that connected the two French Revolution exhibit rooms together.
"Hey!" Grantaire shout-whispered in French. "Come here and execute me, you naive, idealistic fool! If there's anybody who deserves it, it's me!" Grantaire had always been very good at antagonizing Enjolras. Well, idealists in general, but he'd had lots of experience with this one. He knew the right words and tones to make the blond revolutionary flush red in anger and irritation. In the past, Enjolras would then begin to reprimand Grantaire and try to push him into believing in the cause, into caring for the People, or at least to stop hindering and vexing the ones trying to help them.
Grantaire had counted on this to make his ghost appear. After all, while he may be a cynical drunkard, he was no rich, pitiless bourgeois. But as he opened his mouth to say the cruel, mocking words and any lies that could possibly draw Enjolras to him, he discovered that he couldn't. He couldn't disgrace and scoff at Enjolras's cause. It wasn't that Grantaire had suddenly begun to believe in the goodness of humanity. It was something different. While he had been alive Enjolras seemed like a fire, a marble statue, a Greek hero. In his death, grief and time had warped and twisted his image, and the revolutionary had grown to become the sun, the Statue of Liberty, a god. After so many years of mourning his presence, after Grantaire's 'sacrifice,' he couldn't insult and tear down everything Enjolras had lived and died for.
So instead, he tried a different, more blunter tactic. "You better show yourself before I burn every single document in this museum!" It was a bluff, obvious to anybody who had heard Grantaire defend the artifacts mere minutes earlier, but Enjolras couldn't know that.
Sure enough, the instant the words had left his mouth, Grantaire found his knees kicked out from underneath him, forcing him to the ground, the cold metal of a pistol pressed against his skull.
"You will not stand in my way." Enjolras's voice was cold and wrathful, full of power and intense fury combined with a bit of disgust. Any other man upon having those words and that voice directed at them, would have wept or begged for mercy. Grantaire, having had a less intense version of that tone aimed in his direction countless times over the course of over five years, did not even whimper.
A small, rational part of the back of his mind was wondering why Enjolras was killing people like this. Ghosts normally killed people similarly to how they were killed or how they killed others when they were alive. As far as Grantaire knew, that was shooting people in battle or execution by multiple bullets in various locations on his body, not the 'one minute to live' nonsense he'd done with Delthane. However, there was a lot he didn't know, both about ghost-hood and Enjolras.
The rest of his brain was being preoccupied with startled joy and wonder at hearing the man's voice again. Without thinking, he lifted his head, eager to see the beautiful, almost feminine features again, after 176 years.
In an instant the face that could have been worn by an avenging angel was gone, replaced by one of doubt, confusion and disbelief.
"Grantaire?" Enjolras asked cautiously.
"Enjolras." Grantaire replied in breathless amazement. The grin that grew on his face was blinding.
The two men stood in an awkward sort of silence, the type where all participants have a million things to say, yet are incapable of voicing a single one.
"Why are—what happen—how can you possibly be alive?" Enjolras finally broke the silence, looking a thousand times more agitated than he had moments before his death. (Where he had actually looked pleased and a little triumphant. At least, after Grantaire joined him. Before, he had looked defiantly proud.)
"The story is a long one," Grantaire admitted. The gun had fallen to the floor, so Grantaire decided it would be safe to stand. All thoughts of persuading Enjolras to stop killing people had temporarily escaped his mind. Enjolras gestured for him to continue.
"I was cursed by a god. I live forever, unable to help anyone I truly care about. That's why... the whole Barriere du Maine thing. And why I was asleep at the barricades."
Enjolras looked down a little guiltily. His harsh words, especially the last ones he had spoken to Grantaire, seemed even more cruel and unfair now. "How..." he stopped for a moment, unsure whether to continue. "How long have you been alive?"
"I was born in 1661."
"You were alive during the Revolution?" Enjolras asked excitedly, because of course that would be the first thing he noticed. His guilt was quickly washed away. In life, Enjolras had never been the type to linger on negative emotions, and as a ghost, he was murdering people, so Grantaire didn't take it personally.
"Yes. Perhaps this time you will believe me when I say it wasn't near as great as you made it out to be. They don't call it the Reign of Terror nowadays for nothing." Grantaire gave the blond man a disapproving and disappointed look. "But I'm not sure if you would agree with that, what with you murdering people just as they did."
Enjolras's ferociously righteous expression returned to his face. "The people I executed were vile, cruel and despicable. They do not deserve to live while they harm and oppress those weaker or poorer than them. They are everything I fought to stop, everything I died to destroy." His voice was hard and cold, though passionate, and his words pierced through Grantaire like spears made of the sound nails make when they scratch against a chalkboard. It was painful to see how much death had changed the man he had once idolized and irrationally believed was inhumanly perfect. The barricades had changed Grantaire, and in the end he realized Enjolras was just as human and mortal as everyone else, though probably a much better one than most.
"They were people. They had lives and families and jobs! They weren't good people, but that doesn't justify execution!" Grantaire's voice climbed higher with desperation. Never in his life had he been able to convince Enjolras of anything. But perhaps this time he would be lucky. "As a wise wizard once said, 'Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice.' "
"They harmed innocents with lives and families of their own. Are their lives worth any less? The people I killed stole money and rights from the people who should have been their responsibility to protect, they—"
"That doesn't matter!" Grantaire cried. "Can't you see?! You've changed. Nearly two centuries of drifting on Earth, neither truly dead nor truly alive has warped your ideals! The Enjolras I knew and admired never would've killed anyone unless there was no other way! You're becoming like those you vowed never to go as far as, like Robespierre, like Saint-Just."
Enjolras hesitated. Then he spoke, but this time there was a little less conviction and a little more doubt. "But I must. For the People and the Republic. For a brighter future."
"Enjolras, what you're doing isn't helping." he said, gentle and pleading. "You never wanted a blood stained future. That's what you're creating. The violent revolutions were necessary in a time where there was no other option. At least that's what you've always claimed. But now there are other options. The government does listen to its citizens. Not very well, and not to everyone, but it's not the 19th century anymore; things have changed, a lot for the better. People can make their voices heard in this country without fear of death or imprisonment. Well, mostly. But only living people. You're dead Enjolras." Grantaire could not have said that more tenderly. He could hardly believe it was him convincing Enjolras that the world could change for the better. The modern world truly was a bizarre place. "You've got to let go. Leave it to those that are alive. You've had your time and chance. Staying will only make it worse. Look at what you've become. What would Combeferre say? This isn't what our friends died for. They would never condone this."
Enjolras's stony expression had shattered, guilt and horror leaking through, the moment Combeferre had been mentioned. "I—what have I been doing? You are right. None of Les Amis would approve. We fought to end the necessity for violence. Not to continue it." He sounded heartbroken.
Grantaire had to say something reassure the righteous man. "Anybody can die for something. All it takes is a spur of the moment decision, a few moments of pain and regret, mixed with uncertainty and desperation, before it's all over. But you lived for the revolution. Living for something is a thousand times harder. Dedicating your mind, heart and soul to one thing for years, unwavering in your faith and ideals, sticking steadfastly to it... I could never do that. Don't blame yourself for letting yourself be driven insane by all that."
"But then, now what do I do? I simply... stop? I can't. I owe it to the people—"
"Do you expect the other Amis to come back from the dead and join in your bloody crusade?" Grantaire asked sarcastically. Enjolras shook his head. "Then don't expect yourself to. You've done more than enough. Just let it all go and move on. Nobody would expect you to continue fighting after death."
"Just because no one expects one to do something, does not mean one should not—"
Grantaire interrupted him with an annoyed look, because that was not the point he was trying to make. Enjolras seemed to understand because he looked a little sheepish and changed the subject.
"What about you? You are still alive. You are not going to start...?"
"I think going crazy and killing people is more of a ghost thing. Besides, I am not as passionate about anything as you are."
"So... I should just leave now?"
"You're not doing any good staying here," Grantaire said, but it was reluctantly. Despite all of his arguing, he didn't really want Enjolras to leave.
"My revolution failed, succeeding only in taking many good lives before their time. I cannot help but wonder if I have been misguided my entire life as I have been now. Have I done anything in my life that has changed the world for the better?" Enjolras asked miserably. After Enjolras realized how far he had gone for the sake of a better future, he had seemed a little shattered. Still hurt from Les Amis's deaths and defeat, he had begun to question everything he had believed so strongly in.
"Yes." Grantaire stated with so much sincerity and conviction that Enjolras actually looked surprised. "You're the best person I've ever known," he added.
"You honestly believe that," Enjolras said in astonishment.
"If I believe in nothing else, which I don't, I believe in that."
For a couple seconds, Enjolras simply stared at him, looking very flattered and honored. Belief was very important to Enjolras, Grantaire knew. After so much time and effort spent trying to making the self-proclaimed cynic believe in something, that declaration must have meant a lot to him.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because..." Grantaire tried ordering his thoughts to fit them into words that would convey what he needed them to. "You actually care. You care so much. About everything. I'm cynical, so whether it's true or not, when people start talking and making speeches about a better world for 'the People,' I see people who are trying to make a better world for themselves. People who are trying to take advantage of bad situations to get more power. Or sometimes I just see people who want to tear down the government for the sake of destruction. But not you. You are genuinely bothered by injustice for its own sake, not yours. And you weren't afraid to show that to the world and try to stop it. You have everything I lack: a purpose in life, ideals, passion, courage, hope. You had so much of all of those that it almost passed on to me, and for the first time in decades, you made me almost believe that things could become better. Maybe I've met people just as good as you, better even, but nothing they ever did stuck to me the way the first speech of yours I've ever heard did."
"I..." the ghost began, for once at a loss for words and looking flattered. He started again, this time with much more confidence. "I think you underestimate yourself. You are a much better person than you think you are. If I had been in your place, and Combeferre or one of the other Amis in mine, I could not stop them and force them to realize what they were doing as you did. Thank you. For standing beside me when I died and for your belief. I am sincerely sorry for anything I've done to wrong you."
Grantaire didn't think he deserved that praise from Enjolras, who he, despite everything, still admired and venerated. He wanted to tell Enjolras that he was forgiven, but he didn't know how. Grantaire had never been as good with words as Enjolras was.
"I'll always believe in you," he said simply and hoped it was enough.
It seemed to be so, because Enjolras smiled at him in relief and happiness. A sensation, much like drinking hot chocolate on a cold day settled in the bottom of Grantaire's stomach. A warm feeling of affection and bittersweet joy settled into somewhere in his middle, radiating outwards, flowing through his veins to the rest of his body, streaming into his soul. He looked away awkwardly, feeling a little overwhelmed by the nonverbal emotions Enjolras was sending him. Sensing the need to change the mood, Enjolras spoke,
"Some of your words before led me to believe that you have wrongly assumed something about me. I have not been on Earth for nearly two hundred years. I only came back when my papers with the words of the great revolutionaries of the past were shipped to America. Perhaps my spirit woke when they left France."
Grantaire gave him a stunned, disbelieving glance. "Then how do you know English? And modern stuff?"
"I did know some English when I was alive," Enjolras told him, amusement flooding his face. "And I never claimed to know 'modern stuff'.' But I did learn many things in these last few weeks."
"Oh," Grantaire said, for the lack of anything better to say.
He gazed at the ghost of a great man, longing for some good way, and reason for him to stay. He was terrified of trying to live once again without this final reminder of better times, this echo of a less lonely past. Grantaire knew he was desperately clinging on the last few inches of a slippery rope, about to plunge back into a chasm of aching emptiness and uncaringness and the constantly changing world of strangers. All he could do was enjoy the last few moments before the inevitable. Enjolras was a supernova, momentarily lighting up a bleak void, before flickering out of existence, leaving behind only the lingering sense of loss and regret.
His dark eyes were met by Enjolras's blue ones, and he was afraid to look away for even an instant. Grantaire watched, trying to memorize the fiery determination and belief that he knew he would never see again, trying to soak in as much of that devotion and pride and Enjolrasness as he could, hoping that it would be enough to last him through the centuries.
"What?" Enjolras frowned confusedly.
"N-never mind." Grantaire realized he had been staring and quickly fixed his eyes somewhere behind Enjolras, too embarrassed to even attempt to explain the stormy emotions in his stomach. To his surprise, a flash of movement caught his eye. Even through the dark, he could tell who it was.
...
After Sam and Dean had left Grantaire near the back of the museum, they had waited approximately five minutes before following him in. It was with great difficulty that they passed through the museum security, but they managed. The Winchesters' guns were out as they swiftly and silently swung around the corner to the French Revolution exhibit room.
"Ç-ça ne fait rien," (Never mind) they heard Grantaire say. With his back towards them was the blond ghost. Beyond him, Grantaire stood facing them. His eyes darted ashamedly away from the ghost. A multitude of intense emotions had flickered across his face, none of which were normally found on a hunter about to kill a ghost.
Then Grantaire noticed them. His expression morphed into one of shock and something almost like annoyance but far more nervous. The blond ghost spun around to face them after noticing the sudden change in the Grantaire's expression.
Dean raised his gun. "What the hell is going on here?" He demanded. Grantaire looked rather panicked.
"Look—I, uh, well—"
The ghost stepped forward, pulling the Winchesters' attention onto him. He gave the brothers an assertive, protective look that wasn't quite aggressive. He then spoke in an accented speech. "Grantaire knew me when I was alive. He has reminded me of my morals and ideals. I apologize for my actions. I will leave."
Grantaire seemed to be begging them to give him one more chance with his eyes.
"If this turns out to be a trick..." Dean threatened. Sam lowered his gun first, though he didn't put it away, and Dean followed.
The ghost turned back to the immortal and swiftly embraced him. Grantaire's frozen expression of helpless grief and tentative joy looked more shocked than the Winchesters had felt when Grantaire popped back to life on the back seat of their car.
"J'ai eu tort de tu," (I was wrong about you.) the blond man murmured to Grantaire.
His face was the picture of heart-shredding anguish as Grantaire stuttered out, "Je-" (I-)
The revolutionary only smiled and clasped the cynic's hand. Then he faded out of reality.
...
The room was filled with tense, heavy silence. Grantaire faced the spot where Enjolras had last been. Dean and Sam were tensed and uncertain. The three of them stood there, unmoving. A few moments later, Grantaire visibly pulled himself together with the air of someone who had broken apart and been pushed back together almost more times than they could bear, and knew it was only a matter of time before they fell apart again.
Sam and Dean followed him out of the museum. Grantaire climbed into the back seat of the black car and neither brother protested. They got into their usual seats. Not a single word was spoken. Dean turned on the engine, but the steady whirr of the motor did nothing to alleviate the suffocating silence. The car hesitated there for an instant before finally, someone spoke.
"I could use a drink," Dean said, knowing well that he was not the only one. The car finally started moving, somehow a little more forlornly than it normally did.
...
"I know it doesn't really help, but I am sorry," Sam told Grantaire as Dean filled up the Impala's gas tank the next day.
"It doesn't," Grantaire said, but not bitterly. "But it's not as if I haven't already had one hundred and seventy six years to get over their original deaths," he continued hastily, trying to brush off the serious conversation. His eyes told Sam that those years did absolutely nothing to muffle the pain the recent reminder had brought. That they, in fact, made the loss all the more agonizing.
"There were others?" Sam asked, even though he knew Grantaire likely wanted to change the subject.
"Yes." Grantaire didn't elaborate.
"If it's any consolation, the world might end in a few months if Dean and I don't stop it."
Grantaire laughed, but there was no humour in it, or any other emotion other than a weary hollowness. "It really isn't. Knowing my luck, I'll survive that too."
"Well, maybe if whoever cursed you dies, it'll break." Sam suggested, desperately trying to salvage the conversation by dragging it onto slightly more hopeful grounds.
The immortal considered it half-heartedly. "I don't believe it works like that. I doubt the god would want to continue sustaining the spell with his own energy for centuries."
"Well, keeping someone alive for so long has to take a lot of magical energy. It would either have to run out some time, or have a replenishing source."
Grantaire shrugged in a way that implied he thought Sam was completely wrong, but wasn't going to take the energy to actually say so or try to prove his point.
Somehow, that gesture caused little sparks of irritation to swell up. It would be one thing to disagree with him, but to be so unconcerned about his own future! Grantaire should hear him out, or since Sam knew that not everybody wanted help, he could at least specifically refuse his suggestions. Instead, Grantaire seemed to not care one way or the other at all, drowned as he was in lazy apathy.
"Well, you should at least try to find him, right? So you can convince or threaten him to giving you back your mortality," Sam persisted.
Grantaire started to shrug nonchalantly again, more out of habit than anything else. Then he paused. Slowly, like a computer whirring back to life after years of no use, Grantaire turned the thought over in his mind.
Sam caught the gleam of desperation that passed the man's eyes. He wondered if he had done the right thing, making his suggestion so soon after Grantaire had experienced again the death of someone he so obviously cared deeply about. Which almost definitely reawakened the memories of the rest of the others Grantaire had mentioned. Sam was encouraging Grantaire to seek his death, and with his emotions how they were, Sam had no doubt that was exactly what he would do.
But Grantaire was centuries old. The idea must have crossed his mind at some point. Perhaps he had even, at one point, tried hunting down the one who cursed him. Perhaps after failures and dead ends he had given up on the idea. Sam didn't think it would take long for that to happen; Grantaire wasn't the persistent sort of guy. Perhaps Grantaire had told himself it was impossible and, over the years and decades and centuries, forgotten all about it. Perhaps even if Sam had said nothing, the renewed memories and grief would have caused him to remember.
Buried under all the crushing despair and emotional scars, a flicker of hope lit up in Grantaire's face. The first time in a very long time, Sam felt. It was a mad, frantic hope, born of a slavering hunger, of having nothing left to lose, of a raging, defiant hatred against fate and the universe, but it was hope, nonetheless.
Grantaire was interrupted before he could respond.
"Enough of your chit-chat, Sammy. It's time to go," Dean called out from the driver's seat, where he had missed the entire conversation.
"Uh, yeah. Okay. Just a sec," Sam yelled back. He turned to Grantaire. "Bye. And good luck."
"Thank you." Grantaire said, and it wasn't just for the wish of better fortune.
Sam climbed in the front passenger seat and swung the door shut, just as he had done at the end of countless cases. Dean pressed the gas pedal and they drove off without looking back. Another case was finished. People had died. Lives were saved. One life had been ruined a little more, but this time it was not their fault, nor that of a monster. Somewhere, there was another supernatural creature to kill, another villain to defeat, another town to defend.
Sam stared out the window as they passed houses and cars and trees. Perhaps Grantaire would go after the cause of his immortality. Perhaps at that very moment, Grantaire had already started planning and and researching and gathering supplies. Perhaps this time, he wouldn't give up. And maybe, one day, he might succeed in his quest.
"In executing this man, I have obeyed necessity; necessity is a monster of the old world, necessity's name is Fatality. Now, the law of progress is, that monsters shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before Fraternity. It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I do pronounce it. And I glorify it. Love, the future is thine. Death, I make use of thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, in the future there will be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no more Michael. In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth will beam with radiance, the human race will love. The day will come, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to die." -Enjolras, Les Misérables
AN: Enjolras's quote is from after he killed Le Cabuc, which I included because of irony.
The quote from the "wise wizard" was from Gandalf in the Fellowship of the Rings.
All translations come from Google Translate so I apologize if the French is incorrect.
When I wrote this, I kind of vaguely imagined the god that cursed Grantaire to be the Trickster, mostly because most of the other gods we see in Supernatural are more likely to kill someone than curse them so that they really suffer. But I didn't really specifically try to imagine who cursed him and left it up to the readers' imaginations because I'm sure that some of you could come up with better ideas than that one.
But then my friend Gingehfish came up with a truly awesome headcanon for what happened where Apollo was the one who cursed Grantaire. It's so awesome that I'm planning to write a sequel/prequel explaining it and what happens to Grantaire afterwards. Thank you, Gingeh, for editing this and generally being encouraging and helpful and answering all of my stupid questions.