AN: Hi, this is I think the first Les Mis fic I'm posting, though it's not the first I've written. I'm not new to the fandom, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the canon characters accurate, as I haven't read the book (I do plan on it eventually when I have time) and I'm pretty much going off of what I can glean from the musical and what other fanfic authors have done, with some very general help from Wikipedia. This is something I started and I don't know if I want to continue it or not, so any feedback in that department would be very welcome. Thanks, and enjoy!
She met Grantaire on a humid summer night, the damp smell of unshed rain in the air, while she was serving drinks and he was punching another man in the jaw. He was drunk, to be fair, as was the other man. She had no doubt that the fight started over something silly that would have been sorted with a few simple words had both men been sober, but alcohol riddled the mind with slow stupidity. Soon the thing became an all-out bar brawl thanks to a couple flying bottles that happened to collide with innocent bystanders. Half the customers were kicked out that night.
Well, that earlier statement was a lie. She didn't necessarily meet Grantaire during the fight. That was merely when he caught her attention and sparked a dull curiosity that had more to do with boredom than real interest. She met him a half hour afterward, when her shift ended and she was leaving the bar. Grantaire was sitting slumped over in the doorway across the otherwise abandoned street. The poor man certainly appeared much the worse for wear, so she huffed and crossed the pavement to at least check that he was still breathing. To her surprise and concern, upon closer inspection, she found that blood had stained his white shirt near his shoulder, and more blood glistened in a trickle down his lip from a crooked and swollen nose.
It took a few nudges with the toe of her shoe to wake him, but once he was conscious again, the job of hauling him to his feet might as well have been performed with his dead weight for all the effort he put into it. After a slap to the uninjured back of his head and a sharp word or two, she found herself supporting most of Grantaire's weight by way of his arm draped around her shoulders.
"Is your home far, monsieur?" she asked gruffly.
"Other side of town...I think..." he mumbled.
She brought him to her own apartment out of convenience. Unceremoniously, she dumped him on her couch, where he flopped with a grunt, so she could get a clean rag or two and some water. He introduced himself as she brought his nose back to its proper alignment with a soft crunch.
"I'm Grantaire, by the way."
She simple nodded in acknowledgment before going to wipe the blood away from his face. While she rinsed the cloth in the water, turning it a lovely shade of rosy pink against the white bowl, she saw him lick the rest of the blood from the corner of his mouth out of the corner of her eye. Thus, she switched her attention to his shoulder. The stain on his shirt had grown bigger. Not without annoyance at her lot in life, she growled, demanded he bare his shoulder while she went searching for large bandaids. She turned away and began rifling through drawers and cupboards.
"Lucky for you, I have some medical gauze and tape for whatever reason," she commented, returning with her prize (and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide) to her previous spot on the edge of the couch.
Wiping the blood from his skin revealed a stab wound, probably from a knife or a shard of something else sharp. Regardless, she cleaned the wound as best as she could before taping gauze over the injury. She held a dry towel firmly over the spot, hoping to stop any bleeding that persisted. Grantaire whined in his throat about the pressure, but she silenced that with a strong, quick glare.
"Either I put pressure on this or you bleed out," she hissed. "It's Juliette, by the way."
Grantaire crashed on her couch that night. She tried to ignore that he was there, snoring softly in his alcohol-induced slumber, as she washed her face and changed into pajamas. Around one in the morning, she managed to fall asleep with the Hamilton soundtrack in her ears. It was a very sound sleep, and she woke the next morning to her digital alarm clock raising hell across her bedroom and her earbuds wrapped harmlessly but annoyingly around her face.
She had no eight AM classes because she wasn't stupid, but she still set her alarm for seven-thirty. She moved slowly in the morning. With a withering glare shot at the grumbling man on her couch, she shuffled over into her small kitchenette to start to coffee pot before shuffling back over to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth. Only when the first half of her mug of coffee was gone did the realization hit her: she had let a stranger sleep in her apartment last night. He could've killed her, or stolen everything valuable, or something. A sip or two later, and she had made her peace with it and no longer cared.
Grantaire still lay on his back on her couch, both arms draped over his head, moaning about his headache and being woken up by her demonic alarm clock. With an exasperated huff, she stood to get him some ibuprofen and a glass of ice water.
"This is why you shouldn't get pissed drunk," she said, setting the water on her coffee table (with a coaster of course) with a thunk. "Ibuprofen if you want it, which I'm sure you must, and you should drink all of that water; you're probably dehydrated." She drained the last of her coffee and started towards her bathroom to take her shower.
"What was your name again?"
"Juliette," she called over her shoulder.
She emerged from the bathroom wrapped in her bathrobe and walked straight to her bedroom, not even flicking her eyes to Grantaire once. That would only make the situation awkward, which she did not need. Fifteen minutes later and she came back out to the sitting room/kitchen/dining room...area. Properly dressed now in jeans and a t-shirt, she noted that Grantaire had moved to a slouched but upright position, leaning against the far armrest of the couch. She perched on the other armrest.
Grantaire was young, probably not more than two or three years older than herself. He wasn't conventionally attractive, but she found his appearance fascinating, if only because of her artist's eye for unique and sketch-worthy people. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and the mass of black curls on his head were smashed down on one side and sticking up in the back. That was definitely a blue smear of dried paint on his chin, and his fingers were stained with pen ink and charcoal. An alcoholic artist, then. She'd heard of stranger things.
"So...I have class in about an hour." It was now roughly nine o'clock. "I'd prefer not to leave you in my apartment alone since I barely know you, so if you need a ride anywhere, I can-"
"Where do you go?"
She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Like, to school?"
"Yeah. I live on one of the campuses around the city." The normal-sounding explanation was accompanied with a weary eye rub and a wince, telltale signs that he was in no normal state.
"UPMC. If you live across the city like you said, then you definitely aren't on my way."
Grantaire scratched at the back of his head. "Remind me where we are?"
"This is the Latin Quarter...how drunk were you?"
"I've been worse. My friend's a UPMC student. Do you know a Joly?"
"I don't know. Sounds familiar." She shook herself suddenly. "Wait, we're getting off topic. Where do you live?"
The man grinned. Or maybe it was a grimace. "Latin Quarter, Paris IV campus. I must've been really turned around last night."
She snorted and got up. "Well I guess that means I don't have to worry about you. Are you a student?"
"No, but I was. I stuck around after graduation. Got a BFA. What about you? You're at UPMC, what are you studying?"
"I'm working towards a bachelor's in biology. Pre-med," she answered, standing with her hip popped. "Anywhere specific you want me to take you? Or would you rather walk?"
Grantaire stood, and his arm shot out to steady himself as he swayed. "You know the Café Musain?"
She nodded and looked around for her shoes. "If we leave now I should be able to drop you off there and then make it to class with time to spare," she stated.
"Perfect."
The car ride passed in silence. She didn't ask why he wanted to be taken to the café rather than an apartment building because it wasn't her business, and she wasn't all that curious either. When they arrived at the café, an older building with a fading sign and specials painted in the windows, Grantaire got out of her car, squinting and cursing at the sun, and turned to lean back into the car.
"Thanks for letting me crash on your couch. And the ride," he said.
"Any time."
He glanced back over his shoulder at the café. "Hey," turning back around, "do you want to come in for a latte or something? I think I see Joly in there."
She checked the time on the clock in her car's dashboard. "No thank you," she answered. "I should go now. Sorry."
"No problem. Thanks again." Grantaire backed away from the car and turned to head into the Café Musain. He didn't look back.
She drove away and thought that that would be the last she saw of Grantaire. She was wrong.
