part i

grantaire was in love with enjolras, this was an indisputable fact. even a fool or a blind man could see that his heart belonged to the man who could not see beyond his duties to the country. his entire life was devoted to the preservation, and the concealment, of such emotions.

on the other side of this pair was enjolras. no matter how badly he needed it, enjolras could not afford himself a break. if he had taken the time to look around, he might see the furious love which grantaire threw at him, and he might even find it inside himself to reciprocate such feelings, but alas. that is not how our story begins.

it was the darkest night he had ever seen. grantaire, ever the artist, noticed every color that graced the sky in the nighttime. deep blues pierced with sparkling silver stars, grantaire was able to see what others could never notice. but in the night where we meet our protagonist, the only color he saw was black. the night that ends at last, he grumbled to himself, thinking back to a speech enjolras had given weeks ago, his furious voice ringing through grantaire's ribcage, resonating in him and filling him with the intense, unquantifiable emotions that he had become accustomed to. the memory made him bitter, so he knocked back his bottle, closing his eyes shut as the liquor filled the cracks in his insides, hoping desperately that it would kill him soon.

he sat outside le café des amis de l'abc, drink in hand, the paris heat sizzling on his skin even in the absence of the sun. he intended to spend the night drinking until the stupor finally put him to rest, and he had gotten far. his mind was already swimming in alcohol when he heard the cafe door slam behind him.

grantaire turned around with a snarl on his face, expecting to see joly, come out to rid himself of the oppressive stigma of the cafe. instead, he was greeted with the last face he expected to see. he hiccuped in spite of himself, and turned back around, focusing hard on a spot in the pavement, lest enjolras see his face flushed so red. "come inside, grantaire. there are important matters to discuss."

grantaire did not respond except to grunt gruffly. he loved enjolras with every fiber in his being, but he was exhausted of having to see apollo's face every day, with no solace except in his own imagination, in a world where nothing was complicated, in a world where enjolras was glad to see him, instead of mildly disappointed every time he had to deal with the poor drunkard. grantaire was so tired of being drunk, and so he dealt with that by drinking some more.

enjolras took a step closer towards grantaire, now yelling at him from almost directly behind him. "grantaire! i must remind you that, no matter how hard you try not to be, you are one of us, and i simply cannot allow you to-"

he was cut off by the sound of grantaire throwing his bottle to the ground, the glass and alcohol pooling around the cobbled steps. grantaire stood up and turned around so that he was inches away from enjolras' face. he breathed a puff of brandy-ridden air into the man in front of him, and then stood there, paralyzed.

grantaire was angry, of course he was angry. he was almost always angry. but there was something about enjolras that made grantaire's anger feel useless. staring into the intensely focused eyes of the revolutionary, all the anger seemed to fall straight away from grantaire, replaced by an uncomfortable emotion that squirmed inside his gut, whispering into his brain thoughts that he could never dare to repeat.

all that is to say that what grantaire did was only a reaction of said squirming feeling that overtook him. it meant nothing, it couldn't possibly mean anything. there were no confessions of love or gingerly placed hands, stroking one another sweetly. that night, on that corner, there was only the aggressive cries inside grantaire's mind, so loud that he could not ignore them. he had spent all night trying to kill those thoughts with brandy, but even that failed. he simply had no other option. so grantaire jerked his head forward quickly and mashed his lips against enjolras', wrapping his hands around the other man's waist as to pull him closer to himself.

enjolras was paralyzed, to say the least. he spent a moment that seemed to last an eternity trying to process what had just happened. but once he accepted it, his rational brain seemed to leave him, and his speeches about putting the country's life above his seemed not to matter any more. in that very instant, for whatever reason it may be, enjolras put himself first. and that meant reciprocating the kiss, pushing back against grantaire's lips, which were still pressed firmly to his.

enjolras took grantaire's arms wrapped around him as a sign to continue, and he raised his own hands up to grantaire's face, feeling the rough skin of his cheek. he parted his lips slightly, and the kiss deepened, sending shivers throughout both of the offenders' bodies, chills that were felt not just on their skin, but deep within them.

they stayed, entangled like that, for what could have been a time from a minute to hours, for to them the bliss was more important than measures of time could ever be. but of course, our two protagonists could not stay like this forever. from the moment their lips united, they knew that their happiness could not last forever. this too shall change, and so it was that, at least in this part of our tale, there is no happy ending.

the end of their kiss was not dramatic. no one came outside and saw them wrapped up in each other, no police came to arrest them. they did not suffer the humiliation that they were too sure they would. in the end, it was grantaire who pulled away, would you believe it? the man he had loved from afar for years on end was kissing him passionately, and he ended it. how could it be?

things are not as simple as they seem. similarly, grantaire's love for enjolras was not simple, not unconditional as romantic stories would have you believe all love is. grantaire was caught up in his own euphoria when he first connected his lips to enjolras', but even in his drunken state, his mind caught up to him, reprimanding him for such careless activities. grantaire had lived years not caring (or at least, pretending not to care), but the one thing that could always elicit emotion from him was enjolras. enjolras, the man who made him care, who made him painfully aware of his own actions. and that's why, in the end, grantaire pulled away, and shot down the street.

that is not to say that enjolras was blissfully unaware, either. of course, the passion of the kiss had pulled him in at first, urging him to drop all pretenses. but when grantaire fled, all of enjolras' rationale came flooding back to him. he had let someone- a man, no less!- seduce him, tempt him, into actions he had sworn against when he first committed himself to revolution. worse still, he had enjoyed it immensely.

and that his how this story ends: a drunken, love-stricken man runs away from the closest to true happiness he's ever felt, leaving behind a confused revolutionary whose entire principle has just been turned upside down. it's a tragic story, this of love that cannot face love, but it was true when they were ecstatic and it is true now that they are destroyed: this too shall pass.