A/N: Wow so this is my very first fanfiction- Please don't eat me alive for this. I plan to update at least once every week, however these may be sporadic as I'm still a student with a rather gruelling schedule, so please be patient!

This chapter is very short- Being just a prologue and I couldn't think of a way to make it longer without it becoming tedious, and even then I think I've gone a little bit wild.
In any case, I hope you can look past the length and enjoy!

Hold my hand
Ooh, baby, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
Hold my hand,
Ooh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down

Grantaire remembered all of it.
Every argument, every shared joke, every drink and every night gone hungry. Every song and every scream that he'd exchanged with every one of them.
He remembered all of his friends- Boys he hadn't meant to know yet found himself fond of just the same. He may not have been close with them all, but it's difficult to remain around such a crowd without learning to love them all just a little bit. He had never been the softest sort, or the friendliest- Quite the opposite, because he was Grantaire, who mocked before he sympathized, who laughed before he cried.

Drank before he thought.

Still, he remembered each and every one of them.
Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jehan, Bahoral, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly. Hell, even Enjolras; as much as the man had despised him, Grantaire had always admired, even respected him.

He remembered their joy, their pain, their smiles.

Every exchange, even the smallest flew before his eyes- from laughter to tears, from parties to rallies he remembered them all.
Their shouts as they screamed out their need for change- Their will, and their souls. Their shouts as they fell on the battlefield, their screams for war and bloodshed that Grantaire, ever the reliable companion, had somehow slept through.

He remembered their lives.

He remembered their corpses.

He'd only seen a few of the bodies- When he'd stumbled upstairs and broken through the soldiers. Only a few, but he knew no-one else had survived. He knew but he still ran to look; a hopeful cynic, desperately wishing someone was left- Anyone, he'd settle for any of them, he just needed to know someone was left.
He was right of course. It made the most sense in retrospect that it would be Enjolras who outlasted the lot of them, who faced down their enemies with his flag clutched in hand and those marble features contorted in a stubbornness that was, in itself, beautiful. Enjolras was a great man; as often as they fought, and as much torture as it would take to coax Grantaire into saying it aloud, he had always known that.

It was funny, as useless as he was he'd never given thought to running away; not when he still had les Amis. He had no doubt that his choice was the best one.

Every moment spent with the lot of them flashed before his eyes. Only his friends, as there was no life before them- No Mother coddling him in a rocking chair, no Father rumpling dark curls as the bullets ripped through him, shredding something in him he knew was vital but felt too detached to care about. This was oddly painless, he decided. Stubbing his toe had hurt worse than this- the metal passed through him as quickly and easily as butter, and he swore he could count them all as they came. Three, three in all; collected in the wall behind him, it was almost funny- he never really expected the red Enjolras had revered so highly to have been his own, spraying against the wall like the wings of Death.

He hadn't felt himself hit the ground, but he was there and a glance up showed him the last thing he would ever see. Enjolras; their hands clasped no longer- the darker man upon the floor before the blonde's feet, unable to see more than leather boots as the rest of the man dangled out the window. A show off even in death- couldn't just lie on the ground and die like everyone else.

He laughed bitterly, blood bubbling to his lips. How fitting, Grantaire thought, to die as he had lived- Below Enjolras, and distinctly less glorious.
He coughed then, and the blood spilled out out onto the wood floors; he used to be an artist, he recalls faintly as black creeps up on his vision. He used to paint like this- Though he'd never been partial to red himself, he had just realized that it looked lovely amid the dust. Red and Black, filling his vision- His ears felt as if someone has stuffed them with cotton, stifling his brain and nose and making his body feel abruptly as though it were made of lead, yet somehow he still felt no pain.

He turned his head from the red and black, looking up at the National Guard. His expression was empty for a moment, and just as when he has shambled his way into the room, they were struck silent.
Then he smiled a little; lips stained and eyes hazed, taking a deep breath that tasted of rot and the tell-tale iron of blood. "... Vive la France." He whispered,
And before the troops could raise their muskets to shoot him again, René Grantaire was dead.