I was born in America at the end of the millennia, so therefore I cannot own Les Mis (I know I usually don't do disclaimers, but... RENT...)

Grantaire was an interesting human. Most humans are selfish and think not of others; their priorities rest in their own health and wellbeing. Grantaire was not known for being selfless the way Enjolras was. He didn't spend sleepless nights thinking of how to help the poor, nor did he give alms to the poor when he went into the city.

But Grantaire did something that Enjolras did not. Enjolras was not in touch with his emotions, and now that his stone heart was beating, he didn't know what to do. Instead of doing what most would expect him to, Enjolras let it pump feeling into his marble mask. Grantaire, however, felt too much. Every little thing had a certain effect on him, and alcohol only did so much to dull these intense emotions.

Unlike Enjolras, however, Grantaire put his heart in a low place of importance. He and Éponine were similar in this way, although Éponine's selflessness in the matters of the heart would last only so long. Grantaire's was infinite.

He saw things, the drunk did. People confided in him, not expecting him to remember the following morning. He remembered when Joly came to him late one night, crying. Joly had been raised in a religious household, so he was in hysterics over his taboo relationship with Muschietta and Bossuet. Grantaire gave him some drunken words of wisdom (Something along the lines of 'I'll save you a spot in Hell, buddy.') and sent him on his way. To this day, he was the only one other than the three of them that was aware of their situation.

And he saw Éponine clear as day. She was him in female form. Albeit, slightly less cynical and much more hopeless about her love life. She loved with no fear of not being loved in return. She endured the pain of being ignored with a tight-lipped smile. However, she was just as blind as Marius and Enjolras if she couldn't see the feelings that their golden leader harbored for the strange street girl.

Éponine just needed a little push, Enjolras needed a shove, and who was Grantaire to not supply the necessary means of match-making?

"Jondrette!" Enjolras called up the stairs. "You're going to be late." He gently eased Gavroche through the front door. "Go wait in the car, we'll be right out."

Gavroche nodded and went to wait in Enjolras' car, his thumbs tapping Enjolras' phone's screen furiously as he tried to beat his personal record in Angry Birds. Enjolras spared one longer look up the stairs before groaning and going to see what was taking Éponine so long.

What he didn't expect was to see the girl standing in the hallway, putting on her clothes as she made her way to the staircase. What he was most certainly not prepared to see was her topless chest that was still slightly damp from her shower. He felt his face turning an embarrassing shade of red and he cleared his throat before turning around.

"What's the big deal, Enjy?" She asked, a smirk in her voice. He settled for a nonsensical noise to answer. "You've seen me shirtless before, remember?"

How could he forget? He was occasionally visited by a nightmare in which he got there too late, and she was crying and bleeding out on the bed and Montparnasse had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth as he buttoned his jeans. But the actual event occurred before these damn… feelings.

"That… Um… Was.. Different…" He stammered, and he felt her hand on his arm and tried not to jump at the welcome contact.

"Whatever. I'm decent, ready to go?"

"Uh… Yeah."

"Can you believe it?" Bahorel asked the table. "We didn't even actually fight. We just sort of shouted and now I have detention. Complete bullshit."

"Well, what were you shouting?" Asked Combeferre, ever the reasonable one.

"He took my gum! The little fucker actually went into my backpack and stole my gum!" Bahorel seemed truly appalled that someone would dare to do something of the sort.

"I'd kill him." Supplied Feuilly. Enjolras glared at him.

"That's no excuse for Bahorel to miss the meeting! You've got to learn to control your- uh-" Enjolras had begun to rant at the wrestler before he suddenly caught sight of something that was annoyingly distracting. Éponine sat next to Grantaire on the other side of the table, and her shirt was slipping down her thin shoulders and showing more cleavage than usual. "Barbaric instincts." He managed to continue.

Unluckily for him, Éponine caught him staring and she was in a particular mood to make Apollo turn the lovely shade of red that he'd been that morning. So, as Enjolras continued his speech about modernizing one's thoughts to be less violent, she crossed her arms so that her breasts (pleasantly larger since her new diet made her fleshier) were pushed up and in Enjolras' sight.

"… And if we continue thinking like cavemen, to the caves we…." His eyes travelled down and he gulped loudly, his Adam's apple moving amusingly up his throat. "Shall return. What's the point in advancing in such areas as technology if-" His eyes were immediately drawn back to Éponine as she raised her arms' position on her torso. "We… Uh…"

"I know I'm not the only one thinking this, but what the actual fuck is going on with Éponine's boobs?" Grantaire asked, and her arms dropped faster than he could continue the sentence. The table erupted into rambunctious laughter, leaving both Apollo and Selene bright red in the face.

"Hey! I've succeeded where no one else has!" She managed to choke out, saving herself from being the butt of their jokes. "I've turned the marble-man red!"

"So she has!" Bossuet exclaimed, and their laughter increased as they focused on Enjolras' sputtering appearance.

"And for that, dearest Éponine, we toast you!" Grantaire raised his milk carton and the others followed suit, cheering for the girl who, weeks prior didn't have any friends at all.

"Éponine…. Your name is realllly pretty, you knowwww…." Grantaire slurred, and Éponine rolled her eyes.

"Grantaire, it's not even four in the afternoon." She scolded, slinging one of his arms over her shoulder and dragging him to his car before one of the administrators caught him in his current state. "What were you thinking?"

"Hey, it's five o' clock somewhere!" He giggled, rolling out of Éponine's arms and to the pavement. She sighed and massaged her temples. The other students milled around them in their own world, sparing them no attention but for some sophomores who laughed at Grantaire.

"Come on, we need to get you home. I promised Enjolras I would go to the meeting tonight, and with Bahorel already not coming, I can't risk being on the end of his wrath." She said, hauling Grantaire up and deeper into the parking lot with an experience that few others had.

"What, and I can?" He asked, jokingly, his words still blurry from his drink.

"Grantaire, he's always mad at you." Éponine managed to make it to his car, shoving Grantaire into the passenger seat. She climbed into the driver's seat and adjusted it so that she came closer to reaching the pedals. "Where are your keys?"

He groaned and indicated his backpack, not specifying which pocket. Éponine spent a good ten minutes rummaging through his mess to find the small silver objects that were required to drive a car. When she finally grabbed his gymnastics key chain, ten wasted minutes were added to the time that she was late.

To add onto everything, Éponine didn't know how to drive.

So it took her several ruined bumpers and a few threatened lawsuits to just get out of the parking lot. Once they got onto the full road, cars started honking their horns for things that Éponine didn't know she was doing wrong. She kept mixing up the accelerator and the brake, resulting in a strange jerky pace that was quite terrifying.

"Jesus, woman!" Grantaire yelped as she hit the curb for the fifth time in a row.

She didn't look at him as she grumbled, "Oh, so now you're sober."

By the time they made it to Grantaire's house, Éponine was convinced that she was never going to drive again. Grantaire flung himself out of the car and kissed the ground, shouting praises in gibberish to the sky. Éponine rolled her eyes and kicked him in the direction of his front door.

As she left and Grantaire let himself into his house, he straightened immediately. It was all an act, and quite frankly an easy one, to get Éponine to the meeting late. If it was just the two of them in an empty classroom…

It broke Grantaire's heart to think of it, but he knew it was what they both needed.

Knowing that Enjolras was going to be less than pleased with her for her tardiness, Éponine rushed back to the school on foot, even taking off Mrs. Enjolras' shoes and holding them in her hands so that they wouldn't interfere with her quick pace. By the time she made it back, most of the cars were gone except for two, presumably the principal's and Enjolras'.

Éponine walked down the empty hallway, feeling incredibly lonely as she took in the fact that there were only three people in the entire building. She hurried her steps as she came to the drama classroom, the one that was readily available for the Friends of the ABC to meet.

As she came into the classroom, she was met with a very fit and very shirtless Enjolras.

Again, another unedited piece of... Okay, yeah. NEXT CHAPTER we shall discover why exactly Enjolras is shirtless.

This chapter was going to be all R's perspective, but then I thought of the connected hallway/lunch-room scenes and I just had to do it in this chapter, because... (The only thing I'm telling you is that the sexual tension will go up another notch.)

So um. Yes.

Review!