A/n: Thank you so much to everyone who liked the first chapter! I hope you all like the direction this is going. After this chapter things are going to get darker.
There isn't much in this world sadder than the funeral of a 21 year old. It's the age teens look forward to turning, when they will finally be recognized as adults in the full sense of the word. The funeral for someone struck down at the very precipice of life is a toxic event. The funeral for six such persons was nothing short of pure horror.
The university had helped the families of the students to arrange a viewing for the six victims together: Combeferre, Bahorel, Bossuet, Joly, Jehan and Feuilly. The girl who had been sitting beside Courfeyrac and her two little brothers she'd been babysitting were killed as well. The morning of the viewing, Grantaire vaguely wondered what their family was going through as he realized how his "family" had been through hell.
Everything that happened after the accident was a blur. Grantaire had never, under any circumstances- not even getting arrested by campus police- seen Enjolras come anywhere close to crying. He was too stoic, too fierce to let such weakness show. But after smacking the cigarette from Grantaire's hand, the punches continued.
Stunned, Grantaire felt pounding on his chest before he stopped each blow with his hands, wrapping them around Enjolras' fists. Only then did he notice that the fearless leader was sobbing. He collapsed into Grantaire. Neither man could speak.
They had to stay at the park well into the morning. The usually eloquent Enjolras could barely speak. Grantaire, who sobered up pretty quickly given the circumstances, spoke to the police for both of them.
Olivia, the ride attendant who kicked them off the ride earlier, sought out Grantaire. A steady stream of tears ran down her face, and her eyes were so swollen from crying that Grantaire was surprised she had been able to find him. She didn't speak, just pulled him in for a brief hug.
As she walked away, he said to Enjolras, "Maybe I should've thanked her for saving our lives."
"I'd rather be dead," Enjolras said bluntly.
"Don't ever fucking say that again," Grantaire warned. The two were about to get into a heated argument, but fortunately Marius and Cosette showed up.
"We got here as fast as we could," Cosette said. Her face showed signs of crying the same as Olivia's had.
"Where is Eponine?" Grantaire asked.
"At the hospital to find Courfeyrac," Marius said. "We'd better get going."
Enjolras remained silent as the two newcomers ushered him and Grantaire out of the park before another police officer could stop to ask them to relive the story again.
For two days, they stayed at Cosette's house with Marius. She didn't live far from campus, and her father welcomed his daughter's friends with open arms. Grantaire thought that the time passed agonizingly slowly as they tried to find some semblance of normalcy in their lives.
Three days after the accident, Enjolras received a call from Combeferre's mother, who requested that he speak at a viewing for all of the young men together the next day. "Sure," was his only reply.
He was different, thought Grantaire. The passion that had so clearly defined Enjolras for so long seemed to be snuffed out.
"We should probably go," Grantaire said. "You know, get back to the apartments." Enjolras nodded, and they returned to campus. After leaving the dorms at the end of freshman year, the group had found a big old house that was converted into apartments, and they split themselves into groups of two or three to fill the house.
Enjolras had snagged the only single apartment in the building, which suited him just fine. Grantaire lived with Courfeyrac, and he'd managed to avoid thinking about whether Courfeyrac was going to be coming back or not.
Now, as he readied himself for the viewing, Grantaire couldn't stop replaying the events of those last few days in his mind. He surveyed himself in his mirror. His eyes were so tired and the bags under his eyes looked like bruises.
A soft knock came at his door. He strode across the room and opened the door to see Enjolras dressed in a similar black suit.
"Drink with me?" he asked.
"You're fucking with me."
"I am not!" Enjolras insisted. He withdrew a hand from behind his back, where he was holding a fifth of some clear liquid with cinnamon sticks floating in it.
Grantaire stepped backwards, allowing Enjolras to enter. "What the hell is that?"
"A present from Eponine. She said her dad makes it."
Grantaire took the bottle and unscrewed the lid, taking a whiff of the clear liquid. He smiled for the first time since that night from hell. "This, my friend, is what we call moonshine. Apple pie moonshine, to be precise."
Enjolras furrowed his brow. "I'm pretty sure moonshine is illegal in Pennsylvania."
"I'm pretty sure I need to be wasted to go to this shit, so pardon me for not caring," Grantaire said as he put the bottle straight to his lips.
"How do you know I didn't want any of that?" Enjolras murmured. He paced around the apartment, avoiding looking in the direction of Courfeyrac's room.
Grantaire sat on his couch and took another sip. "Alcohol kills germs, right?" He held up the bottle for Enjolras.
"Thanks to you, we can't exactly ask Joly, so I guess I'll have to take the risk," Enjolras snapped. He took three or four gulps before choking slightly.
"Thanks to me?" Grantaire retorted hotly. "Do we really need to go there right now?"
Enjolras shrugged.
"First of all, you're being an even bigger dick than usual. Secondly, I fail to see how anything that happened is my fault. You're the one who was too much of a chicken shit to go through Noah's Ark," Grantaire harshly said. Enjolras' mouth dropped open in surprise. Grantaire had never spoken to him like this before. He continued, "We probably would have still been in line for the Ark when that accident happened. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is your fault."
The tension in the room was nearly tangible.
"You really don't fucking get it," Enjolras said, before helping himself to more moonshine. "It's your fault we aren't dead. We deserved to die with the rest of them."
Grantaire had never been so confused in his life. He snatched the bottle back from Enjolras' grasp and drank before saying, "So in your quest to place the blame of a motherfucking freak accident on someone other than yourself, you've decided it's worse to be alive with me than to be dead with our friends?"
"Sounds about right," Enjolras bitterly hissed.
Grantaire, who had blindly followed Enjolras to meetings, clubs, protests, rallies, finally found a path down which he couldn't follow his leader. "Fuck you," he said quietly. "Let yourself out." He slammed the half-empty bottle down on the coffee table in front of the couch. He stormed out of the apartment, wonder whether Enjolras gave a damn or not.