Well. Hello again. I am not dead, as you now see. Probably everyone who was following this story doesn't really care anymore. It's been a while since I updated (or, tried to update). For that I apologize. It's been two years. My goodness. Anyway. Here's the next chapter. Thank you all.

Four Years Earlier

When Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac entered the Musain, they soon found that finding a seat would be the greatest obstacle to their customary night out. They observed this night out religiously, taking great care to schedule one each and every week. It was a constant. The college freshmen needed this constant to continue to be sane throughout the hectic second semester.

"The place is teeming," Combeferre observed with a sense of terrified awe. The three teenagers hesitated by the door expectantly, as an obviously annoyed waitress shoved through the huddle that blocked the airway.

Enjolras shook his curly hair free of the cold rain that had pelted them as they had walked from the dorms all the way to the restaurant. "Teeming with what, may I ask?"

"Vermin," Courfeyrac spat.

"My, my, Jean Courfeyrac," quipped Combeferre in a faux British lilt. "What brings on this foul mood, my friend?"

"The foul weather, friend," Courfeyrac returned hotly. "I'm freezing. Do you see me? Do you see this?" He pulled at his thin maroon sweater that was completely soaked through with precipitation. "And neither of you offered me your coat, you ungentlemanly freaks."

"I thought you could deal with a bit of rain," Enjolras replied, concerned.

"He can," Combeferre reassured, "He's just being overdramatic. Aren't you, Courf? You can't expect any less from a theater major."

"That is correct," Courfeyrac grumbled. The lanky youth ran his fingers through curls the color of chocolate, then gingerly slid off his sweater. As he did so, his continuous cry of "Cold, cold, cold, cold," deeply confused the patrons in the nearby vicinity of the conversation.

Upon inspection, Courfeyrac's v-neck tee beneath his outerwear was only slightly damp, so the teen relaxed, content. Meanwhile, Combeferre had been scouting the area to find an open table. There were none to be found.

"Maybe upstairs?" Enjolras suggested. Though the trio had not yet visited this cafe on any of their weekly outings, it was well known in the Quarter that although the lower floor was often crowded, the upper rooms were calmer. Apparently the liquor served at the bar upstairs was horrific, and this deterred customers from venturing to that region. This information did not affect Enjolras, as he did not drink out of fear that he would temporarily lose his faculty of thinking - a prospect that terrified him to the bone. Combeferre, likewise, did not drink. This was due to his strict adherence to the rules set in place, though he was indeed a radical and rebellious in spirit.

Courfeyrac drank.

Just not in public.

So the three students climbed the tiny stairwell precariously, feeling their footfalls creak riskily as they ascended. Tiny windows every few steps showed them the charcoal city of Paris, tiny fires of lightbulbs dotting the soaring landscape in every direction, the mountains to the north barely visible behind clouds made of the steam of life.

At one point, Enjolras stopped behind Courfeyrac as they passed one of these openings. He pressed his fingertips briefly against the pane, mist rising at the touch.

"This is my city."

Courfeyrac and Combeferre did not hear his words - they had gone on ahead. He was grateful for their ignorance of his sentimentality. He didn't know them quite well enough yet to trust them with the carefully cultivated emotion that he had brought with him from Arras. Paris was his city. France, his nation. He owned these pieces of land just as they owned him. Combeferre and Courfeyrac were his companions that he had known for only six months of his meager existence. He was not sure yet that he could trust them with his innermost thoughts, however simple his musings might be. They were his fellows, his comrades - but were they yet his friends?

"Enjolras!" Courfeyrac called cheerily from the top of the stairwell, "Have you fallen and died? We would greatly miss you if you have done so, but since I have heard no cry of pain, I assume that you are simply being a bore."

"Imbecile," Enjolras whispered with tenderness.

"What was that insult I just heard you softly say?" Courfeyrac shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I'm coming, you idiot," Enjolras called. He leaped the stairs two at a time to reach the top, coming face-to-face with a damp, beaming Courfeyrac, and a half-smiling Combeferre sitting at a small three-chair table that was shoved haphazardly against the wall. A diminutive, curly-haired waitress stood by the table, one hand on her hip. Her coffee-colored face was hardened in an expression of mild disdain as her gaze traversed the few patrons that remained under the dim lighting.

"Sorry, ma'am," Enjolras murmured to her as he slid into a chair by the wall. This left Courfeyrac with the seat that jutted out into the room. His expression indicated that he did not enjoy this arrangement, but flopped into the seat nonetheless. The disdainful waitress looked Courfeyrac in the eye until he reluctantly sat up straight and brought himself to stop fidgeting.

"It's all right, sir," The waitress said graciously to Enjolras. "Now, what can I get you boys?"

Combeferre slid his glasses off so that he could glance at the menu briefly. "A pepperoni pizza for the table, thanks. And a coke on ice for me, please."

"Water," Enjolras continued shortly.

"Sprite with vodka," Courfeyrac demanded brashly. Combeferre's eyes suddenly went wide, as he replaced his glasses in order to stare Courfeyrac down with eyes that burned like the sun. Enjolras waited expectantly for the waitress to scoff at Courfeyrac's request, but she simply nodded and turned to go get their orders. Enjolras and Combeferre stared at Courfeyrac with a mixture of disbelief, amusement, and disapproval.

"Are you crazy," Combeferre said. It was not a question.

"Yes. I am crazy," Courfeyrac chuckled. "I know that girl. She thinks I'm over twenty-one, trust me. I think she likes me, to be honest."

"Yeah, right," an unknown voice scoffed from a table over. "She's taken, kiddo, calm yourself." The man who spoke was covered in shadow that emanated from the broken bulb, hanging like a condemned criminal above his head.

"Oh, and how do you know?" Courfeyrac snapped. "Are you her lover, mister?"

"Please don't," Combeferre groaned.

"No, hotshot, but I do know her lover," said the man. He was significantly older than Courfeyrac, but still young. His thick, dark, tangled hair hung in clumps over an emaciated face that seemed to hold a perpetual smirk in its half-lidded, dark-circled eyes. A long white scar reached from his right temple to his jawbone, and he looked dangerous. But he also looked irrevocably drunk. "And I know that if he catches you looking at Musichetta the wrong way, you'll be in for it."

"He'll be careful," Combeferre interjected, "Won't you, Courfeyrac?"

Courfeyrac fumed.

"I think that's a yes," The drunken man slurred as he took another sip of the bottle clutched in his hand. "Please resume whatever inane adolescent conversation you were engaging in."

Combeferre turned back to face Enjolras and Courfeyrac. The latter was still steaming, but Combeferre knew that the actor's temper would soon dissipate into stupidly innocent laughter. Not because of the vodka, no - because Courfeyrac could not help himself. The young man was perpetually high off of the drug of life. Such colors suited him well.

"What have you been studying?" Combeferre asked Enjolras with a twinkle in his dark green eyes. The passionate History/Political Science double major was perpetually obsessed with something other than his (rather boring) freshman curriculum.

"Ah," a ghost of a smile flickered over Enjolras' stern face. "I knew you'd ask," he prophesied as he pulled (seemingly out of nowhere) a hardcover tome whose page number most likely exceeded one thousand. Broad, bold letters on the cover and spine fairly yelled, The Life of Napoleon.

"Oh, no," Combeferre laughed, sliding the volume over to his side of the table so that he could read the inside of the dust jacket.

"I hate him," Enjolras spat, "I absolutely hate him. The bastard. He takes the Revolution, everything that people like Marat and Robespierre had strived to build, and he uses it, tears it apart to serve his own personal ambition. It makes me sick."

"Enjolras, Napoleon has been dead for one hundred and ninety-six years." Combeferre indulged with a smile in his tone, "But I agree with your point. For the most part. Marat didn't truly strive to build anything, he really just had a vendetta against… I don't know. Everyone. There was some serious bloodlust involved. Have you read his writing?"

"But Robespierre. He wasn't moved by personal vendetta," Enjolras shot back.

"Isn't Napoleon that really super short guy?" Courfeyrac questioned ignorantly.

"How are you a Frenchman, but you don't know who Napoleon is?" Enjolras asked, bewildered.

Silence fell as Courfeyrac and Combeferre stared at each other.

"I'm not French," Courfeyrac said, "Didn't you know? I'm Spanish."

Enjolras was taken aback.

"Your French accent is remarkable." said Enjolras with deep surprise. "And it makes sense why you wouldn't know him quite as well."

"Yes, I just knew him as the short man who conquered things."

The drunk man from the table adjacent coughed conspicuously. "Actually, Napoleon wasn't all that short for his time period."

Enjolras set a cold gaze on the other man, who had so rudely interrupted their conversation once again. "And how would you know, sir? Were you there?"

"Obviously not," the loafer replied, "However, when one visits Les Invalides, which I have done at multiple occasions to study the art therein - The architecture at Les Invalides is spectacular - One quickly notices that Napoleon's coffin is roughly around five feet eight inches long. This can only mean that Napoleon himself was not very much shorter. Perhaps around five foot five or six. The size of a tall woman. Yes," The drunkard knocked back the dregs of his liquor, "Five foot five or six."

The three university students stared, in slight awe of the speech that had just been given, and in equal annoyance that the man had been allowed to interrupt their perfectly good conversation twice already.

"Sir," Combeferre began, clearing his throat, "What is your name?"

"Grantaire," the man rolled the R in his name, a peculiar light sneaking into his eyes. "My name's Grantaire. My friends call me R, like capital R? You know? Grand R? I think that's a clever pun. My friends think so too. Not that I have any friends. But if I did have friends, that's what they would call me."

Combeferre sniffed, pushing his glasses back to the bridge of his nose with an index finger. "Nice to meet you… Grantaire…"

"Don't wear it out," Grantaire suddenly snapped.

Enjolras, increasingly more perturbed, rose to his feet. He ignored Combeferre's questioning stare, walking with purpose to the place where Grantaire sat. The man was knocking back another glass of something foul-smelling, something intoxicating.

"What are you doing?" Enjolras hissed, "What are you doing with your life, Grantaire?"

Grantaire smirked. He set his empty glass on the edge of the table, leaned forward until his dark blue eyes met Enjolras' head on. He clenched his fists. "I don't see why that's any of your business, boy," he hissed back with just as much fire.

"You must have relatives or something. A girlfriend, even. What would they think of you drinking yourself away in here? This isn't the first time, right?"

Combeferre was shaking his head out of the corner of Enjolras' eye, trying to get him to stop and think about what he was saying, doing. Enjolras was prying into unknown territory with a man who they didn't know. Didn't know what he was capable of.

Enjolras ignored him.

Grantaire stood up, every limb rigid. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," Enjolras spat. The golden-haired fellow resumed his seat abruptly, having angered someone he knew he should not anger.

The three pairs of eyes were only on Grantaire as he stalked out of the room like a hyena. He threw his coat on, and it was only when the door savagely slammed that the three students could breathe easily again.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" Courfeyrac screeched.

"I don't know," Enjolras admitted.

"I really don't know."