Enjolras woke up several hours later in the familiar comfort of his own bed. He could tell that he had a hell of a hangover. It was dark out, and the harsh red glare from his alarm clock announced that it was nearly midnight. He squirmed, feeling extra uncomfortable in his dress shirt and pants, and vaguely wondered what the fuck had happened to him.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," he heard, and he sat up way too quickly for his hangover.
"Eponine?" He screwed his eyes shut in an effort to stop the room from spinning around him, and he had no idea where she was until he felt her weight at the foot of his bed. He clenched his clammy hands in the sheets that were twisted around him.
"About time you came back to the land of the living," she muttered as she surveyed him. Grantaire had given him a remarkable black eye when he'd tagged the drunk Enjolras, and shame did not suit the handsome man's face. "God, you look awful. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Enjolras looked infinitely more uncomfortable than she, or anyone else for that matter, had ever seen him. He pulled his knees up and rested his head on them, overwhelmed with the heavy weight of dread a person experiences when they feel guilty and don't know exactly why. "Eponine, I can't lie to you, so please don't lie to me." She arched an eyebrow, urging him to continue. "The last thing I remember is drinking in Grantaire's apartment. Or maybe calling a taxi to take me to…the funeral home?"
The color drained from Eponine's face. "That's all?"
"I think Grantaire picked a fight with me," he alleged.
"You're a real fucking piece of work, you know that?" she sighed. The girl stood and retrieved some aspirin and water for him. As she related the entirety of the events of the day to Enjolras, he visibly transformed back into something terrible. His eyes clouded again with the same shadow that possessed them since the accident.
Eponine shifted uncomfortably, scooting a little further away from him. "Please, snap out of this. I'm begging you, not for my sake or yours but for Grantaire's," she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. Enjolras looked positively manic.
"For him?"
Eponine steeled herself. "You need each other."
"How do you figure?" He looked up at Eponine with genuine defeat on his face.
"Don't you believe that tragedy bonds people?"
"They were your friends too, and Marius and Cos-"Enjolras started, but he was cut off.
"I didn't see their blood on the ground, Enjolras," she winced. "I didn't hear the screech of steel on steel or the screams or ambulance sirens or anything else you had to go through that night!" she shrieked. "Nobody on this planet knows what you're going through, save for each other."
Eponine stood and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind her before she said something she would regret. For a few minutes, Enjolras contemplated this phenomenon. For the first time in his life, he wasn't sure what he believed.
Enjolras wanted to go puke. He wanted to find his phone and call Grantaire. Hell, he wanted to search the building until he found his friend. He wanted to get out of the uncomfortable clothes. Despite all of these desires, Enjolras was stuck in place by a much, much stronger feeling. Or maybe it was numbness, he had never quite been sure.
His depression was an anchor that tethered him to the floor of an ocean no matter how far above the waves he rose. No matter how accomplished, or intelligent, or anything else he was, he always felt the chain digging into his ankle and nothing he did could loosen it. Worst of all, he never told a soul. He lied to his doctor about having chronic migraine headaches because he knew an antidepressant/painkiller combination was the typical prescription.
Instead of doing any of the things he wanted to do, he simply opened the drawer of the nightstand beside his bed. He cast his hand around the contents of the drawer until he found what he was seeking. A prescription bottle.
Enjolras's head absolutely pounded. He popped the two pills in his mouth, swallowing them dry. He couldn't even move to get more water. The glass Eponine brought him was long gone.
The next morning, Enjolras woke up groggily. Grantaire replaced Eponine at some point in the night. Enjolras rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and gave a small yelp when he saw the man perched in his desk chair. Grantaire smirked at the sound.
"Morning, sunshine," he said. Enjolras blinked at him. Without a word, he reached for the medicine at his bedside, not caring that he was only supposed to take it once a day. His head freaking hurt.
"Why are you here?" Enjolras asked. He couldn't think of anything more eloquent to say.
Grantaire paused. "I don't know how to put this any nicer, but clearly, you need a babysitter." The irony of this statement was not lost on Enjolras as Grantaire took a swig from a can of beer. He was sitting in Enjolras' desk chair, his feet propped up on what Enjolras noticed was a small red cooler.
"No, I don't," Enjolras countered. He sat up, feeling a little better than he had last time he woke.
Grantaire blinked incredulously. "Obviously, someone needs to keep you from making an even bigger ass of yourself than you have already managed."
Enjolras didn't take kindly to what he saw as an insult. "You do realize," he snarled, "that I acted yesterday the way you act every damn day of your life?"
Grantaire blushed furiously and ignored the dig. "Eponine invited us to this new bar, the Corinth. They're having a karaoke night tonight. "
Enjolras felt a wave of fear wash over him as he considered the possibility of having to leave his apartment, his room, his bed. He scratched at his ankle where he felt the weight of his anchor. "I have to study for my finals," he pretended. The school had graciously allowed him and Grantaire to take their finals a few weeks later than planned.
"Bullshit," Grantaire said. "We can take those basically whenever we damn well want. Seriously, we get to play the all-my-friends-are-dead card." For the briefest of moments Enjolras actually considered telling Grantaire the truth about the prison in which his mind held him hostage. But his eyes met Grantaire's, and Enjolras' resolve vanished. Grantaire, he thought was looking at him with a peculiar expression that Enjolras couldn't put his finger on. Not quite respect, maybe veneration.
"Fine."
Grantaire rose from the chair and picked up his cooler. "I'll be in the living room. I think you have a lot of apologies to make." He threw Enjolras' phone to him. Enjolras missed the catch, and the phone bounced on his bed. "I'm the expert, remember?" Grantaire added bitterly.
Enjolras watched his friend leave the room, cracking a beer as he shut the door behind him.
After he made his phone calls, the most painful one to Combeferre's mother, he took another dose of his medicine. He couldn't shake this pain.
Later, Grantaire and Eponine practically dragged him to the bar, which wasn't far from their building. "Come on, Marius and Cosette have a table for us," Eponine pleaded as she prodded Enjolras in the back. "And I promise they don't hate you, we're all just worried."
The night unfolded as you would expect a karaoke night would, the highlight being the color red Marius turned when Cosette sang a particularly raunchy number to him after her fourth vodka cranberry. None of them really cared for Eponine's new boyfriend, a guy a year older than them, named Montparnasse but he joined them after a while anyway. He was kind of shady for their standards.
Enjolras was just leaving the bathroom when Montparnasse walked in. They exchanged a brief nod, and Montparnasse commented, "You look like shit."
"So I've been told," Enjolras haughtily said. The dingy light in the bathroom made his black eye look particularly severe. They stood at the threshold of the doorway.
Montparnasse opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but he hesitated. He quickly withdrew a plastic baggie from the pocket of his jeans. "Here, man, you look like you could use this." He held the baggie up, and Enjolras saw a couple dozen white pills with little blue specks on them. His eyes widened. "I can't imagine what you're going through," Montparnasse encouraged.
"I don't do drugs," Enjolras hurriedly said.
"Think of it as…self-medication," Eponine's boyfriend shrugged. "This is a scrip for phentermine I bummed from some chick. It's an upper. Just for a little bit til this shit gets easier to handle."
Enjolras was torn. Self-medication was basically what he did anyway and he was absolutely terrified to lose the fight with his depression like he had in high school. He never wanted to feel the way he used to again, and he knew he was walking the dangerous line. He felt like at any second he could snap, and succumb to the weight of the anchor. So, he took the baggie with a slightly trembling hand.
"What do you want for it?"
"Just have that. You need it more than I do, that's for damn sure." Montparnasse said.
"Thanks." The exchange was over and Enjolras returned to the table. Marius had just ordered a round of tequila shots. Enjolras sat down, feeling the strange weight of the pills in his pocket. He tried his best to smile with the others and picked up the shot glass in one hand and the lime wedge in the other.