It had been such a fantastically pathetic idea on his part! Grantaire stood now in the middle of the room, knife supposedly ready to pierce his aorta, and felt stupid. But what else could he have done? Taking no action would have meant admitting defeat. In addition, if he had pointed the knife at Enjolras himself, the student would have simply laughed. Or wrestled the knife from him. Or called for help. Or something to that effect. In any case, not a favorable outcome.

To tell the truth, Enjolras didn't look like he was really buying this comedy either. But there was just a shred of worry detectable in his eyes which gave Grantaire some hope. Even if that worry was only caused by the prospect having to explain the bloody corpse in his apartment…

No, come on, Grantaire!

Even he wasn't that much of a cynic. Here was the boy he loved. And who, in a reality that was starting to seem alarmingly distant and frail, had loved him back. He knew Enjolras wasn't really that indifferent to anything not connected to the revolution. He knew it… Didn't he?

In any case, the fact that he had inadvertently convinced the man that he was barking mad with his earlier ramblings was now playing in his favor. Perhaps if Apollo really believed he had lost his mind, his suicide threats would look more convincing. But he had to be very careful how he played this.

"Grantaire, give me the knife," the blond commanded calmly, after looking at him for half a minute with a mixture of mild surprise and heavy doubt, tainted with the tiniest bit of apprehension.

"No. You will listen to me."

"Give me the knife now. I don't have time for this."

"You have a whole night. Sit down, stay quiet for a while and hear what I have to say."

"Give me the damned… Oh, to hell with it!"

And this was the moment when Enjolras lost his temper and stepped forward with the intention of grabbing his arm.

And this was the moment when Grantaire decided to risk a small injury in the name of the greater good.

Saying a quick mental prayer, he pressed the blade harder and twisted it slightly. It pierced the skin on the left side of his neck. He winced and felt a trickle of blood run down from the cut, ruining his shirt. Mon Dieu, had he really just done that? The knife must have been sharpened recently, he observed. All the better. He wasn't sure he could actually handle trying to cut himself with a dull blade.

Thankfully, Enjolras recoiled and raised his arms in a universal gesture of surrender. He looked genuinely shocked. Ironic, really. Apparently, everyone were used to the fact that Grantaire the Drunk was slowly killing himself with his drinking but no one had entertained the idea that he might decide to end it a bit quicker. In reality, such a thought had indeed passed through his mind once or twice, on some truly miserable evenings. But that had been a long time ago and he had never even gotten close to acting on the idea. For one thing, he might have been pathetic but melodramatic he was not. For another thing… there were certain aspects of his persona he actually liked and he wouldn't have been able to rid the world of those in cold blood. Not even in the depths of despair.

Now though, he was dripping blood on his clothes and that seemed to be enough to hold the attention of his current audience.

"Very well. Very well then, Grantaire," Enjolras said with forced calmness once the initial surprise had worn off and he had found his voice. He took a few more steps back and sat on the bed. "You have something you want to say that you deem more important than your life. I am listening. And, incidentally… here." He tossed him a towel from a pile of clean ones that had been abandoned on the bed. "You don't want to bleed to death before you finish what you want to say."

Grantaire caught it and absently pressed it to his neck while he backed away in turn and made himself comfortable on the chair by the desk. He took the knife away from his throat but kept it ready in his hand. This way, should he try, Enjolras would not be able to take it from him before he could react.

How he could possibly react was another question entirely.

He took a deep breath. Right. They were both positioned. Now, how was he supposed to tell the truth about what was going on here? If he himself was even sure he had not hallucinated that whole other life, that is… It was a chilling possibility and it was starting to present itself more and more often in his mind. Grantaire threw the notion out of his head hard enough to break its bones, had it been a living thing. His life with Enjolras had been real! It was real. It could still be real, if he could only pull this off.

He rubbed his forehead tiredly and fixed his eyes on Enjolras again.

"You know how you talk about what life would be after the revolution?"

A nod.

"You imagine it so clearly, don't you? You can almost believe that perfect world exists."

Enjolras frowned, still not getting where this was going but nodded again.

"Well," Grantaire continued, "I want you to do the same thing now. To imagine a world that does not exist at this time but to believe that it could be real. In that world… There was once this young revolutionary leader and this slightly less young drunkard who happened to be endlessly fascinated with him. So far, not very different from what we have here. But, you see, in that world, one day the drunkard was accidentally sober enough to get really offended by something the young revolutionary said…"

End Note: Thanks to Sythar for being so fateful and BTW I am a great fan of Scaramouch and have been for a while so I promise I will actually take the time to leave proper reviews the first chance I get.