Firstly, I got the idea for this story when I was reading "Collisions," an awesome one-shot by shadows-of-1832, so thank you very much to this author! If any of you have not read that fanfiction, please do! It is a beautiful story, and it isn't very long. So read away! You won't regret it!
Secondly, this is the first modern AU I have ever written. Look at me, moving up in the world! Almost two hundred years, actually! ;) The amazing writers in this fandom have inspired me to be brave and finally try something new. Thank you all very much.
I know that I am writing some longer fanfictions right now, and I promise they are still my top priority. But I got this idea and thought it best to get it down while it was still fresh in my mind. But this still will be pretty short and should not take up too much time. And hopefully, I will be able to post the next chapter of "Between Love and Loss" this weekend also, if not this weekend by next weekend for sure! I am sorry I have not posted anything in so long, but I have been very busy.
Lastly, thank you all so much for reading this. I could not do it without you! Please, let me know what you think!
CHAPTER I
~SPARKS OF FIRE~
Enjolras had warned him about drinking and driving. He said it would be the end of him. The end of everything. Still, never once did Grantaire imagine it would really end this way. Never once did he even begin to think fate and God - if there was a God - could be so cruel. So terrible. Yet it had happened. Now it was too late. There was no way to fix what he had broken...
...
...It was already late in Paris, France, but the city was far from falling asleep. The waxing moon, only a few days away from its fullness and glory, was a silvery lantern in the sky: a dark navy tapestry embroidered with tiny white diamonds that sparkled and winked as they looked down over the earth like angels. The stars were too many to count. Together, with the moon as well, these celestial beings bathed the earth in the veiled luminosity of night. The candles of the night are not so bright, or fiery, or blinding as the lights of the day; the sun's glare is so mighty that it can burn the eye and steal a man's sight. Not the moon. Her light is softer. Gentle. She casts a soft gleam, silver made into translucent beams, upon the earth, and the creatures of the mortal world can bask in the moonlight and bathe in its strange yet beautiful mystery. They can sleep on the earth under a blanket if stars.
However, Paris was not sleeping tonight. It was a warm night in early June, that time which falls between the end of spring and the start of summer. The sky was clear, the curtain open and the stars on display. The weather was beautiful, a perfect display of a summer night. The air was clean and pure, and to breathe it in was to inhale a taste of freedom. A warm breeze blew through the city, stirring the trees and the leaves, which whispered and gossiped in blissful excitement, stirring the joy and the glee in the heart of Paris's young.
The date was June 5. In the year 1832, on this very day, the citizens of Paris took to the streets in rebellion. Barricades arose all throughout the city. Sparks of Revolution erupted with the sparks of muskets. Sparks of fire. Outside this very building a barricade was raised, and within this very building several young men, students, were killed. For years, until the wooden floorboards were ripped up and replaced with artificial tiles, their blood stained the floor. On this day, but in 1832, a calamity assaulted Paris's youths and destroyed them when they were still children. On this day, death came too soon…
Almost two hundred years later, this date held extreme significance to the youthful students of Paris, because it was the last day of school. Their university was over for the year, and at last they could relax and enjoy another carefree summer. Revelry and excitement coursed through the city in such a way that a traveler passing through might have thought France to have announced the victorious end of a great war. At least, a traveler might have thought so if he passed through the Café Musain (which is, regrettably, not a historical memorial site today but a tavern "enhanced," so they say, from the 1800s cafe to a modern McDonald's).
A large crowd was gathered in the McMusian tonight, and the largest group was, not surprisingly, a celebrating army of students. They gathered in the back room of the café—as if to pay tribute and respect to the brave young men, not so unlike themselves, who died fighting for freedom in this very building, this very room, to honor the heroes that the world had forgotten, to silently declare loyalty to a Revolution that never truthfully ended, these boys still called this place "the Café." They still called it "the Musain." They still gathered in that back room where less than two hundred years ago another company of students, rebels, gathered and whispered triumphant cries of freedom and of Revolution.
Just like in 1832, these students came together to talk and take action about injustice, and oppression, and violated liberties, and corrupt governments, and God-less leaders, and helpless citizens. They were the voice that cried out for those who could not speak: the unborn, the unclothed, the uncared-for, the unloved, the wounded, the sick, the helpless, the heroes that the world forgets, ignores, despises, and unjustly accuses of treachery. The selfish world calls its soldiers, its protectors, its own children! villains for fighting against his country's enemies; the selfish world calls a police officer a monster for arresting a murderer; however, at the same time, the selfish world imprisons a man who has done nothing wrong; the selfish world feeds the lazy and turns its back on the innocent who need help the most. This group of rebel students fought against these injustices. They fought for change. They hosted speeches, and rallies, and marches, and protests... by the end of next spring, they planned to host a rebellion. Tonight, however, they were not here to talk of revolution. Tonight, they were here to celebrate the end of the school year and the start of the summer. They were here to enjoy one last night as a family and then to say goodbye.
Of this company of Friends, Feuilly, Bossuet, Bahorel, and Marius planned to stay in Paris throughout the summer. Feuilly because he was a working man not a student, and he worked and lived in Paris; Bossuet because his parents had died, he had lost his inherited fortune, and Paris was a place as good as any to make a living, or if not a living a life; Bahorel because he was so thrilled by the rogue life of independence and excitement that he only could find when he was in this city, and he was unwilling to give that up; and of course Marius, because his rich grandfather lived in Paris and, even if his grandfather lived a thousand miles away from Paris, because he was unwilling to leave his girlfriend, Cosette, whom he was so deeply in love with that he would have given her anything, whom he seemed to think royalty, a princess, a goddess, an angel. Courfeyrac, Joly, Jehan, Combeferre, and Enjolras would return to the homes of their parents for the summer.
Grantaire was still undecided about what he would do this summer. His parents wanted him home, he knew, but he really did not want to go home. So for now, he would stay in Paris and wait to deal with the elders until they sent him a stream of angry phone calls and voicemails (His parents didn't know how to text or use any type of social media. He told his friends that one night and shared a laugh with some them; but Enjolras frowned and informed them that not only did he not know how to text, or use social media, or Skype, or FaceTime, or Snapchat, or any of those ridiculous inventions of the twenty-first century, but he also thought them a foolish waste of time and a cause of many unnecessary problems) and ceased to pay for his rent. For now, he was content simply to sit back, enjoy what little his life had to enjoy, and drink a beer.
These rebel students always gathered in the backroom, just like the rebel students of 1832. This is where they could conspire in secrecy and, hidden in unseen shadows, advocate for the Revolution. This is also where they could smuggle alcohol into McDonald's and drink it unnoticed, a habit of Grantaire's that Enjolras might have scorned above all his other sins.
"You have had enough to drink, Grantaire," Enjolras said darkly in a low and warning tone as he glared across the long table—rather, the two tables they pushed together in order to form one large enough to sit all of them—and fixed his icy blue eyes on the man who sat at the polar opposite end of it.
Grantaire, who was already working on his second large McDonald's coke cup, which was not filled with coke, laughed, and smirked, and brought the straw to his lips once more. "Lighten up, Enjolras," he chimed smoothly after swallowing another large mouthful of beer down his throat. "It's the first night of summer; do you think I'm not going to celebrate?" He pounded a hand noisily on the table top as if striking a drum in festivity and held up his cup. With loud whoops and cheers, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, and Bossuet, all who were considered "party animals" on the college campus and all who were sharing in Grantaire's celebrations tonight, raised their own large McDonald's not-coke cups together for a toast.
Enjolras, whose arms were crossed over his chest and his red button down shirt, scoffed. "If you insist on intoxicating yourselves," he snapped with disdain, "then you best do it somewhere where alcohol is actually allowed. You can conceal the drink in your cup, but you will not be able to conceal your drunkenness when they find you passed out on the floor tomorrow morning."
"It won't be morning, Enj," Courfeyrac corrected matter-of-factly, but he was struggling to suppress a smirk as he said it. "Only drive-thru is open twenty-four-seven, and the Musain doesn't have a drive thru. It closes at midnight… or something like that."
Enjolras checked the gold watch around his wrist. It was fifteen of eleven now. Good. That gave these idiots only another hour to get themselves drunk. Then again, he realized grimly, after they got kicked out of this place, they would probably go off, find a real bar, and start on some heavy stuff. Beer was pretty light for especially Grantaire but also Bahorel and Bossuet and even Courfeyrac.
"I like your watch, Enjolras," said Bossuet with a grin and a teasing air. An expression of annoyance on his face, Enjolras raised his eyes and looked across the table. "Is it real gold?"
"Yes," Enjolras muttered after a moment, unsure if he should answer the question for fear that he would fall victim to some embarrassing joke. "It is not pure gold, but it has a real gold coating on it."
"Really!" exclaimed Courfeyrac. If this was indeed a prank of some sort, he seemed to be on the same page as Bossuet. Grantaire and Bahorel were also grinning as they watched. It was as if whatever they were drinking infiltrated their minds and made them think the same things, laugh at the same things, understand jokes that nobody else found humorous. Courfeyrac stood abruptly to his feet, despite the fact that Enjolras was sitting right next to him, and snatched Enjolras's wrist in both of his hands. "My, and it's not even digital!" he overdramatically cried as he held Enjolras's hand in front of his face to examine the watch. He looked up to meet Enjolras's skeptical eyes and not-amused expression. Courfeyrac smiled. As if in true bewilderment he added, "I did not know they still made those things."
While Courfeyrac and his partners in crime snickered immaturely, Enjolras rolled his eyes. He pulled his wrist out of Courfeyrac's grasp and crossed his arms close to himself once again. "It was a gift from my grandfather," he said shamelessly. "While he was alive, men knew how to tell time without relying on numbers to tell time for them."
"Fair enough," agreed Courfeyrac as he sat down once again, and the students resumed their joyous and carefree chatter.
At the head of the table, with his beautiful eyes of blue-steel, blazing fire and frozen ice, his fair skin, soft and pure like freshly fallen snow, his curls of gold like a halo of flame around his handsome face, clean-cut and formal, dressed nicely in a red button down, with sleeves tight on biceps, and black pants (as if school was still in, his friends had teased him) was the leader, the chief, Enjolras. To his right was his right hand, his second-in-command, his most trusted advisor, best friend, his brother, Combeferre. Beside him was Jehan and Feuilly, both of them classily dressed and groomed like the other two.
Next to Feuilly was one of the three women in the company of all of these men. She was a very pretty girl: long blonde hair, huge blue eyes, red lips, fair skin, and a face like an angel. She wore an attractive but modest summer dress, pale pink in color, and pink flowers were braided into her golden hair. Her entire being glowed with purity and innocence. She was constantly smiling, and giggling, and bubbling with joyous ecstasy. She was not drinking, but the summer itself and her love for the man beside her was the drug going to her head and making her blind to all else. This man was Marius.
He was too entranced by Cosette to pay much heed to anything else around him. He paid little attention to his friends. He paid no attention to the girl on his left. He did not even notice, it seemed, that she was there.
She was not a student. She didn't go to college. Her parents could not afford it. Even if they could have, they would not have been so generous as to send their money on their daughter. She was the exact opposite of Cosette. She had dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. Her face was pretty but dirty. It was obvious that she had not taken a shower in many days (her parents hadn't paid the bill, and their water was shut off… that was about a year ago). Her entire body was dirty, unwashed and unclean. Her hands were smeared in dirt, black grime had gathered under her fingernails, and there were visible calluses and cuts on her palms. Her skin was rough, tanned, burned, scarred, bruised in some places. Her long almost-black locks were pulled back in a loose, falling-out bun in order to hide the knots and tangles in her hair. Her clothing was minimal and in great contrast to Cosette's. Her slime frame, her tight muscles—quite impressive for a girl—and her sensual body were on display for all to see. She wore a skin-tight tank top, black in color, that left her shoulders, arms, upper back, and much of her chest bare, low and V-shaped on her chest, even with her bra line, displaying a bit too much of her breasts. Her tight jean-shorts were defiantly short, leaving almost her entire thighs uncovered, and even still they had large tears in them, showing more skin. Most young men looked at her with lust and desire, and most "respectable" people looked at her, glared, and muttered something that included the word "slut." What they did not know, however: this girl did not choose to dress the way she did. These clothes, and a few articles similar to these, were all she had. Her father was unwilling to buy her anything else. Her shorts were full length pants when she first bought them and without a single hole. But every year, it seemed, they tore and frayed more at the bottoms, and she had to cut off another three inches of stringy tatters, until the jeans were as short as they were now, barely covering her rear. As for her shirt: this was her undershirt. She used to have real clothes, but when he got desperate for money her father sold them away. He did not care if she shivered in the winter. He did not care if people called his daughter a slut. In fact, to his advantage, her lack of clothing made more men offer a price for her.
Next to Éponine, at the end of the table, directly opposite of Enjolras, with as much possible distance between them, which was needless to say Enjolras's doing, was Grantaire and his gang. All night, and for the last several weeks, with passionate efforts, with all of his wit and charm, Grantaire had been trying very hard to win over Éponine. Grantaire, a charmer and a womanizer, was highly accomplished in the art of seducing women. Yet Éponine knew him, and she knew his game too well. Thus far he had been unsuccessful at winning her heart, and she was still pitifully in love with Marius. It was useless: Marius was deeply in love with Cosette, and it was clear to everyone this was not going to change. If Éponine really fooled herself into believing that he might change his mind one day, then, just like those who put their faith in an invisible God, Grantaire had to commend her for her faith. However, the way he saw it, he was a much better match for her anyway. Marius was ignorant, and innocent, and pure, and respectable, and honorable, and moral, and well… Grantaire and Éponine were not.
Tonight, Grantaire was in a black leather jacket, a faded green T-shirt, ripped up and fraying jeans with holes in the knees, dirt stains at the bottoms, and a pack of cigarettes in his front pocket. His long black hair was a wild mess of curls and knots around his head. His suntanned face had not been shaven in almost a month and was covered in coarse hair. His eyes were darkened and reddened from expressive consumption of alcohol, which Enjolras could smell from the other side of the table.
To Grantaire's left was Bahorel, who had a rough look about him, auburn hair, brown eyes, sunburn, and a farmer's tan; decked out in boots, faded blue jeans, a camouflage shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a camouflage hat; when he turned his head to the left side, one could see the tattoo on his neck. He grew up in the country with his parents, working hard in the fields for crops, hunting and fishing for meat, gambling and drinking in bars at the end of the day, and usually starting a fight or two by the end of the night. He could drink whisky like Grantaire and moonshine that impressed even the drunkard. Of all of the students, Bahorel was the only one who gave Grantaire great competition when it came to gambling, fighting, and even drinking.
Beside Bahorel was Bossuet, who was laughing at nearly everything that had been said that night, even things that were not meant to be funny. He was already considerably drunk. Next to him was his best pal, Joly, a medical student and a hypochondriac who had a bad cold but a jubilant spirit nonetheless, and beside Joly was a very attractive woman in her every-day-attire of a tight-fitting dress that highlighted her amorous figure, five-inch heels, jewelry, necklaces, bracelets, jewels and rings, carefully applied makeup, as well as perfectly polished and manicured finger and toenails. She had fiery red hair, the body of a goddess, the shrewd face of a diva, and the eyes of a fortuneteller. When she looked at a man, it was as if her gaze—sharp, precise, and lethal like the blade of a sword—penetrated into his very soul. It was as if she put him under a spell, and immediately he lost his heart for her. Her name was Musichetta, a name whispered amongst the young men of Paris as if it was made of pure gold. Like most boys their age, Bossuet and Joly were both in love with her. Although Bossuet had been the first of them to ask her on a date, she ended up with Joly. Bossuet was not surprised: with his habit of terrible luck, he could expect nothing else.
Purposely seating himself beside the gorgeous woman, scooting his chair as close to her as he possibly could without attracting the suspicions of her oblivious boyfriend—due to the vaguely amused, vaguely jaded looks she kept sending in his direction, it was quite evident to him that Musichetta knew exactly what he was doing, however she let it go with only a smirk—was Courfeyrac. A charming young man, a joker, a trickster, a pistol, a good man, and a great friend. He was the link between the wayward rascals like Grantaire and Bahorel at one end of the table and the well-mannered gentlemen like Enjolras and Combeferre at the other. He was the bond of friendship that held them all together… no matter how different they were alone.
"After the café closes," Courfeyrac was eagerly explaining to the rest of them, "Grantaire, Bahorel, and I plan on going to the bar." A conspicuous grunt of disapproval came from chair beside him. Ignoring it, he went on, "You all want to join us, I trust?"
"Of course!" Bossuet readily agreed. Making the decision for them without so much as a word of discussion, he added, "Joly and Musichetta will come too."
"Actually—" Joly started to protest, but Musichetta elbowed him in the side, and she smiled at him in a way that made it physically impossible to tell her no. For a moment, Joly forgot to breathe… which troubled him later, because he already had a nasty cold, and he was already coughing, and his breathing was already a bit off, and he was staying up later than he should have been, he really needed more rest, and he feared that he might further irritate his diseased lungs.
"Come on, Joly, it will be fun," said Musichetta, and he could do nothing but sigh and give in.
"Excellent!" said Courfeyrac. "And you, Jehan?"
"Um…" Jehan's face reddened, and he dropped his eyes as everyone's attention fell upon him. In that soft, gentle voice, he answered shyly as if afraid he would disappoint them, "I do not think so. I have to get up early tomorrow morning, and…"
"Oh, come on! It's our last night together! Don't spoil it!"
"I…" Jehan muttered, and for a moment Courfeyrac thought he would give in. He didn't. "…don't think I can."
It turned out that none of the others could either. Most of them, uninterested in the idea, found a delicate excuse and a polite way to refuse the offer. They said they had to get up early tomorrow, or they had to clean their dorms or flats, or they had other plans already. All of them except for Enjolras, who said very bluntly and a bit harshly, "I have better things to do than going to a bar and watching all of you intoxicate yourselves."
"You don't have to watch, Enjolras," Grantaire said from across the table. "You can throw a few back, yourself, you know." As Enjolras's severe gaze landed upon him, Grantaire could not help but grin and chuckle. With a smirk, he added teasingly, "Have you ever been drunk before, Enjolras?"
"No, I have not," replied Enjolras with a note of pride rather than embarrassment in his bold voice. He straightened his body a little more and held his head a little higher. He heard them struggling to suppress their laughter, and he glared at Courfeyrac, skipped over Musichetta and Joly, and glared at the boys at the other end of the table.
"Well, then, you haven't lived!" cried Grantaire with exaggerated drama for comical effect. "You do not know what you are missing! It's amazing." Leaning back in his chair, he smiled, kept his eyes fixed carefully on Enjolras, just waiting to see his reaction, and he mused, "It's better than a night in bed with a pretty woman… well not really… not at all actually, not even close, but I guess it doesn't matter, because you haven't done that either so—"
Enjolras's reaction was everything Grantaire could have hoped for.
"Enough, Grantaire!" Enjolras shouted in a panic, his eyes widening, his lungs sucking up a short gasp, his heartbeat increasing. His face was at once flushed in embarrassment and outrage. Enjolras, a respectable and virtuous man and, like Grantaire had recently broadcasted for everyone to know, a virgin, was extremely uncomfortable at the very mention of this topic, especially in the presence of three women. His eyes darted anxiously about the table, looking for his friend's reactions, ready to apologize for Grantaire's vulgar behavior. However, of the three girls, only Cosette was uncomfortable: her cheeks turned pink; she dropped her gaze and seemed to find the straw in her Styrofoam sweet tea cup—unlike the cups of most of the people present, it actually had tea in it—suddenly enthralling; she fixed her eyes on it as if hypnotized by the red and yellow stripes running down its sides and began to swirl it around in her drink, making noise with the ice. Musichetta, although trying to hide her grin with the back of her hand, trying unsuccessfully to make her laugh sound like a cough, was giggling with most of the boys. Éponine was indifferent, unbothered and un-amused. Marius looked a bit awkward, most because he saw that Cosette was embarrassed. Combeferre and Feuilly disapproved of the comment but merely sighed and shook their heads. Jehan smiled slightly, despite his blush and discomfort. Everyone else with blatantly smirking and laughing.
You should not say such things, especially in the presence of women! Apologize to the ladies at once! Enjolras was about to yell at the drunkard, but he hesitated, because he feared that speaking out might make this situation more awkward than it was already. Fortunately, the moment passed before he had a chance to address it, and it seemed to be forgotten.
"Courfeyrac, give Enjolras a drink," said Bahorel calmly, smiling as he reclined in his chair and sipped on his beer. "He's a little stressed. He needs it."
Laughing, Courfeyrac shoved his cup in Enjolras's face, forcing the straw toward his lips. His expression crumpling in displeasure, Enjolras jerked his head backward and pushed Courfeyrac away, pushing away the cup with his hand and Courfeyrac with his elbow. "No," he immediately refused even a sip. "Aside from the fact that drunkenness is a sin and a disgrace and I will have nothing to do with such insolence, I have to drive tonight—"
"It's only beer, Enjolras," Courfeyrac cut in. "It isn't that strong. It won't get you drunk."
"I mean, it might get you drunk, Enjolras," laughed Bossuet loudly and obnoxiously. "You are not used to alcohol like the rest of us! Ha-ha!" This comment was very ironic, because, of all of them, Bossuet was the only who was already intoxicated.
Ignoring Bossuet entirely, Enjolras repeated himself, "I have to drive tonight." His expression remained as hard as stone and his decision not wavering for even a moment. Like a man of marble, he could not be penetrated. He could not be moved. "I don't want it."
"Suit yourself, then," said Grantaire with a shrug and a sigh. "You're the one missing out."
Enjolras rolled his eyes. He could have said so much to this alcoholic, but instead, for the sake of everyone else and for the sake of his own sanity, he let it go with only a grunt. He restrained his burning desire to open his mouth and turned this friendly gathering into a heated debate, which would certainly transform and quite quickly into a fiery argument.
"Well, then," said Courfeyrac after a moment, ending the silence before it could fully set over the friends. "No one but Bossuet and the lovebirds will be joining us?" He groaned and muttered sarcastically, "What a turn out."
Cosette bowed her face to stare at her hands folded in her lap, feeling a bit guilty that so few were going to the bar. A sudden idea occurred to her, and she looked up with abrupt perkiness. "Oh! I have an idea! Next weekend, Marius and I are going to Deauville Beach! It's only a few hours away; you all could come with us!" She had her own drink, but nonetheless, as if only because she could taste his lips on the plastic, she leaned across Marius and took a sip of his sprite—a gesture which, judging by the expression on her face, sickened Éponine to her very core. Grantaire could have sworn that he saw her shudder in revulsion.
"That would be fun," agreed Courfeyrac with a smile and a nod. He turned his eyes and snickered at Marius, who had remained silent but whose expression made it obvious that he had been hoping to take this vacation with Cosette. Only Cosette. Nonetheless, Marius was too polite to speak out about it or tell his friends that they wanted to go alone, so he looked a bit helplessly at the faces around the table and hoped they would refuse the offer.
Not noticing Marius's unhappiness, Cosette leaned forward excitedly in her chair and looked around him to beam at Éponine. "You can come too, Ponine!" she cried in delight as if she and this girl were best friends—which could not have been further from the truth. Well… perhaps not. Cosette might have become her best friend if Éponine would allow it. But she wouldn't. She wanted nothing to do with the rich, pure, beautiful young woman who stole from her the only treasure that she ever had: Marius.
"No thanks," muttered Éponine in her raspy and roughened voice, her cold and joyless tone. She had to try very hard to keep herself from scoffing, or rolling her eyes, or snapping something bitter and sardonic. Somehow, she managed to restrain herself. "I've got things to do."
"Oh." For some reason that Éponine could not fathom, unless of course it was all an act to impress her boyfriend, Cosette looked disappointed. "Maybe, next time then. We will have to plan ahead and find a weekend that you are free."
Éponine's face remained stony. Biting back her spite so that it would not show too clearly, she answered flatly, "I'm never free." Just as always, Cosette kept reaching out to her, and Éponine kept pushing her away.
Cosette closed her lips as her face fell. She did not seem to know how to reply to this remark. Marius spared her the trouble. "I'm sure we will work something out sooner or later," he said kindly. Éponine looked up, and her eyes met his. She gazed upon his handsome face and his gentle smile. With that simple smile, he disarmed her of her strength and her indignation. Everything. Her heart melted inside of her, and her anger and resentment disappeared from it, draining from her soul like flowing streams of melted ice running down a windowpane. For only those brief seconds, her spirit took wings and began to soar in false hope. Happiness. Love. Love that would never belong to her.
Then, still smiling at Éponine, as if to mock her—but of course this was not his real intension; he was so oblivious, so blind; he did not even realized that she loved him—Marius wrapped his arm around Cosette. The smile faded from Éponine's dry lips. The warmth faded from her dark eyes. The joy faded from her wretched soul.
Marius did not notice this. However, it seemed that Grantaire did, because hardly a second later, he attempted to casually snake his own arm around Éponine's waist and pull her toward him, but as soon as she became aware of what he was doing, she shook him off and sent a harsh glare in his direction. He smiled at her innocently. It was an innocent smile that was overflowing with guilt. She rolled her eyes so that he could see and turned her back to him.
It turned out, that Courfeyrac was wrong in his witty claims. The inside restaurant did not close at midnight, it closed at eleven o'clock. Less than fifteen minutes went by before the noisy group of college kids were told to leave. "I'm sorry," said the employee as he ushered them out the door and into the street, "but we have to close up."
"It is no trouble at all," brightly replied Enjolras, who seemed rather pleased about all of this, and who was not attempting to hide his eagerness to leave. He rose immediately from his seat and began to push his friends toward the exit. They embarked out into the street, the warmth of a blissful summer evening, the darkness of the night, and the red glow of the restaurant's lights. The black pavement was like the ground of a battlefield after the war has ceased: an ominous gravestone painted scarlet. In fact, aside from the new streets lamps, the traffic signs, the circular garden and water fountain put up in the intersection, the end of Rue Rambuteau, which was called Rue de la Chanvrerie in 1832, looked much the same as it did on the night of June 5 many years ago, after the fighting had ceased and the rebels counted their dead.
When they got outside, Grantaire immediately pulled a cigarette out of his front pocket and a lighter from his back pocket. Holding the roll of paper and tobacco in his mouth and the flame in his hand, shielding them both from the wind with his other hand, he lit the cigarette. Wispy threads of smoke, like serpents slithering through the sky, infiltrated the clean air, polluting its purity. At perhaps the worst possible moment, Enjolras stepped out of the café door behind him, almost bumping into Grantaire, who was standing very close—just as Grantaire was exhaling great lungfuls of smoke.
Enjolras's face withered in disgust and his body stiffened and immobilized—he even stopped breathing, which was probably intentional—as a gust of smoke like a blustery wind hit him in the face. A moment later, he was cringing at the foul odor, squinting as the smoke burned his eyes, and coughing as it, like an enemy army assaulting a fortress, rushed up his nose and down his throat, attempting to penetrate his lungs. He perceived that it was like inhaling fire.
At the sound of his coughing, almost gagging, Grantaire turned around. Accidently, another breath of smoke was blown, this time directly, into Enjolras's face. Enjolras choked. "Woops!" said Grantaire. He stepped quickly backward, pulling his cigarette away from Enjolras, giving the boy space to breathe. "Sorry, Enj," he said sincerely, but at the same time he was struggling to withhold his laughter.
Enjolras, with a very disgruntled look on his stern face, said nothing but, ignoring the chuckles emitting from the students around him, walked pointedly past Grantaire and took his place beside his friend, his best, responsible, and sober friend, Combeferre.
Still grinning, Grantaire turned his back to Enjolras, trying to hide his laughter from him, and said to the others, "Come on, guys. We're going over to the bar now. Who needs a ride? I can drive you."
"No you cannot!" Enjolras exclaimed in outrage and terror. He rounded on Grantaire as if the madman had pulled a gun and was aiming it at all of his friends, threatening to murder them. Enjolras strode a few bold steps away from Combeferre and stood before the drunkard. He scoffed at the stench of the smoke once again. "Are you insane!? You have been drinking, Grantaire! You cannot drive!"
"I'm fine," Grantaire blew him off with a wave of the hand, as if this suggestion was the senseless concern of a child who is afraid of the dark. "I'm not drunk."
"Not as drunk as you will be before the end of the night," Enjolras agreed censoriously. His brows were angled angrily over his smoldering eyes, and there was a harsh, lethal, edge in his voice like the sharpened blade of a dagger. "But you have been drinking, and not only is it illegal to drink and drive but it also endangers people's lives."
"It's fine, Enjolras. I'm not drunk."
"I do not care how drunk you are. You have been drinking, and now you plan to drive—"
"I'm used to driving like this. I do it all of the time."
A look of hatful scorn came over Enjolras's marble face, and he glared at Grantaire with contempt greater still. Grantaire looked at this man, whom he admired, and looked up to, and cared about so greatly, the only person that he believed in, that he would die for, and Enjolras's harsh gaze pierced his heart like a knife. Enjolras was the only one whom he would have wanted to make proud, and Enjolras hated him. It hurt. But by this point in their friendship—which was in truth not a friendship at all, because as much as Grantaire admired Enjolras, Enjolras did not think of Grantaire as a friend; Enjolras despised him—Grantaire was used to it. Enjolras wielded the whip, and he took each blow silently, biting his tongue to keep himself from crying out.
"One day," warned Enjolras in a low, dangerous, and ominous tone, in a voice like the doctor's when he comes out to tell the family that the victim has been lost, "you are going to end up killing yourself. Or worse, someone else. If you survive, you will not be able to live with yourself."
"Enjolras," Combeferre muttered, when he knew that Enjolras had gone too far, when he saw the bleeding wounds of hurt come into Grantaire's eyes. He put a hand on Enjolras's shoulder, and that was enough to silently say, Enough. Enjolras obeyed. Turning to Grantaire, Combeferre offered a compromise, "Let's let Bahorel drive, alright, Grantaire?"
"Bahorel has been drinking too," grumbled Grantaire.
"Not as much as you have," said Enjolras indifferently, his arms crossed over his chest and his handsomely dimpled chin raised. He looked down on Grantaire.
"Yeah, sure, I'll drive," said Bahorel, already halfway across the street and heading toward a camo hunting truck that was parked parallel (and probably illegally) on the side of the road. The vehicle was small for a truck and only had two seats of worn and dirt-stained fabric, a driver's and a passenger's; it was thin and low to the ground, but it had lots space in the open bed. There was a large black sticker of a buck's skull across the tailgate, a small image of a riffle's silhouette in the lower right-hand corner of the windshield, and a pair of antlers resting on the dash. "Hey, boys, let's go! I'm driving!" he called to the others, and Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, and Musichetta climbed into the back of the truck on top of more camouflage: coats, blankets, blind netting, gear that the non-hunters did not have a name for.
"Musichetta, please don't sit on the edge!" Joly cried in anxiety. He fearfully seized her slender waist, pulled her closer to him, and clung to her, afraid that she would lose her balance and fall.
"Don't worry, Joly," she said with a smirk. "I'll be alright."
"I would feel better if you sat down inside the back."
"Let her be," said Courfeyrac as he sat in the truck next to the place where Musichetta was sitting on the tailgate. He became eyelevel with her thighs. Grinning, he grabbed a tender hold on one of her glamorous legs. "We'll hold onto her."
"Alright," Joly grudgingly agreed, and he knelt down by Musichetta's side, the side opposite of Courfeyrac. He wrapped both of his arms around her and held on desperately, practically hugging her as they prepared to drive.
From the front seat, Bahorel turned the key, started the engine, and put the truck in gear. He looked out the open window and called across the street. "You coming, Grantaire?"
"I'll meet you all there," he replied.
Enjolras groaned as it became apparent that Grantaire was going to be driving tonight after all. "You will not be taking your motorcycle, I hope?"
"Nah, I brought my truck," said Grantaire. He also had a truck. It was bigger than Bahorel's, faster, stronger, bulkier, harder to maneuver. Enjolras nodded. This made him feel a small bit better, because a drunken accident on a motorcycle was as good as a bullet to the head. At least if Grantaire crashed in this huge truck, he had a better chance of surviving.
As Bahorel pulled off and his truck—the windows down, the radio blaring, and the students loudly laughing in the back—and disappeared past a corner and into the night, the rest of the friends made their way around to back of the building, where their vehicles were supposed to be parked. Like a man determined not to waste even a second of valuable time, Enjolras approached his little red car, unlocked the door, slid into the driver's seat, closed the door, and started the engine. Combeferre got into the passenger's seat beside him, and Jehan and Feuilly climbed into the back. Grantaire hauled himself up into the high seat of his black truck. Marius and Cosette got into Marius's white, scratch-less, luxury Volvo. Éponine started off in the other direction, walking through the darkness alone.
"Hey, Éponine!" Marius called after her, as he rolled down the window with a press of a button on the steering wheel. As if entranced by the sound of his voice, Éponine stopped and turned around. Through the open window of his car, she saw Marius's adorable smile, and not far behind him Cosette was smiling at her from the passenger's seat. "Do you want a ride? There's plenty of room."
"No thanks," she refused their hospitality once again. "I can walk."
"It's late," Marius protested, as if he really cared about her. "You shouldn't walk around by yourself this late at night. There are maniacs around. It is dangerous for a young girl to be alone on the streets."
Éponine laughed at him. It was not a joyful laugh. There was not a hint of joy about it. "You don't need to worry about me, Marius," she said, and it was hard to decipher her voice: was it cold? Bitter? Resentful? Did she blame Marius for what she was about to say? "I live on the streets."
Before he could reply, she turned and she was gone. Like a shadow, she vanished into the darkness.
She had not gotten far, hardy down one street and around one corner, when danger did assault her. She watched her feet, clad in black boots that were meant to be worn with pants, not shorts, but she had no pants to wear them with and these were the only shoes she owned. She tried to block out the hurricane of emotions colliding inside of her like a tornado. Hatred, anger, spite, jealousy, envy, regret, sadness, despair, indifference, hope, wondering, wishing… It was all so confusing: the past, the future, the possibilities, the things she could have done and did not do, the way things might have been… If only…
She was crossing the street, her mind possessed by this tumultuous confliction, when a huge beast of black metal, invisible in the shadows, sprang forward like a panther pouncing out from the darkness.
Éponine's heart jolted in terror. She threw herself backward.
For a moment, she was certain that the car was going to hit her. In that fraction of a second, she saw her past and her inevitable future flash through her mind, appearing before her eyes as clearly as if she were looking into the glass ball of a fortuneteller. In less than a moment, she would be bleeding in the middle of the road. Bleeding. Dying. She would be dying in the street, in the darkness, all alone.
She should have listened to Marius.