A/n: Thank you all so much for the kind reviews! Please just don't kill me for this chapter. Also I apologize for all of the typos and things I've noticed from previous chapters; I usually write really late at night and some things slipped by me! I plan to fix them soon since I'll be done with this fic this weekend most likely.
Enjolras fell asleep in a little pool of his own red blood, the shard of glass he used to maim himself held loosely in his fingers. He was curled up on his side. Grantaire woke with a start when the movie's credits ended, the silence penetrating the room loud enough to rouse him. His head swam. He noticed Enjolras wasn't beside him and assumed he was in bed.
"Maybe I'll swipe a migraine med for this," he muttered under his breath as he stood, swaying a little bit. He crept as quietly as he could manage into Enjolras' room, feeling his way to the desk by the tiny amount of light let in through the space in the window between the windowsill and the curtain. As he got closer to the bed, he could tell Enjolras wasn't in it. Frowning, he groped for the desk lamp and switched it on. He picked up the baggie he saw earlier, and he squinted at the pills. He didn't recognize them as any painkiller he'd ever taken before.
Then, it sunk in that Enjolras wasn't in bed. Grantaire shook his head and walked back into the living room, starting to panic when he saw his friend wasn't on the couch or a chair or even the floor. He caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye and he looked somewhere he had thus far neglected. "Passing out drunk in the kitchen, Enjolras?" he softly chided. "You're becoming more like me by the day."
Nothing could have prepared Grantaire for the sight that greeted him as he neared Enjolras' sleeping form. The man he admired lay as if he were a broken china doll. His limbs were bent unnaturally, his skin pale instead of glowing. His left arm was cut in a sloppy line from elbow to wrist. "What the fucking goddamn fuck," Grantaire choked out. He dropped to his knees at Enjolras' side, and gently shook him. "Please wake up, please," he begged.
Enjolras, so slowly that Grantaire thought perhaps time had actually slowed down, woke up gradually. First his lips parted and he gulped in air, then his eyes fluttered open. His dark blue eyes met Grantaire's light blue ones, which had become absolutely wild with panic. Grantaire put an arm behind him and hoisted him up, dragging him into a sitting position against the closest cabinet.
Enjolras looked down at his arm, making no indication of alarm. "Enj, what the fuck happened? Did you fall or something? We should get you to a hospital." At the word "hospital" he finally seemed to snap back to life.
"No," he said.
"No to what," Grantaire practically screamed at him. The wound was no longer bleeding freely, but Enjolras clearly needed some medical attention.
"To everything." His face went blank again.
Grantaire could have shaken him. "Enjolras. Fucking answer me."
"No, this wasn't an accident. No, I'm not going to a hospital."
"I don't understand."
"Good thing I'm not asking you to."
Grantaire felt as though Enjolras had slapped him. "I'm trying to help you!"
"I don't want your help."
Grantaire stood and kicked a chair, ignoring as it crashed to the ground and skidded into a wall. Enjolras still hadn't moved. Grantaire, who was still slightly drunk, whipped out his phone.
"I said no hospital." Grantaire shushed him and started speaking in a low, hurried voice to someone on the other line.
When the call was done, he returned and crouched by Enjolras. "No hospital," he confirmed. "But Eponine is on her way and I don't think she's had a great day either by the sound of it. I think she was crying. So you're going to explain to me what the hell this is while I clean you up before she gets here."
Enjolras didn't respond. Grantaire sighed and walked to the bathroom, and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. He sat back down by Enjolras, who was still as a statue. He wiped up the blood from the floor, blanching as he did so, and threw the rags out. "Get your shirt off, it's covered in blood," he requested. Enjolras didn't move, just pressed his lips together tighter. "Oh for fuck's sake," Grantaire said before grabbing the hem of the gray polo and yanking it over Enjolras' head along with his undershirt.
Seeing the blonde without his shirt on wasn't anything new to Grantaire since they played intramurals but God, he looked good. Even in this pitiful state. Especially in this pitiful state, begging for someone to save him, even if he wouldn't admit it, Grantaire thought. He just shook his head and wet a cotton ball with peroxide, and gingerly picked up Enjolras' arm. "I wish I knew what was wrong with you," he whispered as he wiped off the dried blood.
"I wish I did too," Enjolras replied for the first time in a while.
Grantaire didn't answer, just cautiously dabbed at the wound. He wanted to be sick, thinking that his friend had done this to himself, and kept anxiously glancing at the door for Eponine. When he had the blood cleaned up, he gently applied Neosporin. He wasn't sure if it was the best thing to do to wrap the arm with gauze secured with medical tape, but he really didn't want to look at the gash anymore.
Enjolras, meanwhile, was completely overcome with the depression that haunted him. The new medicine hadn't done anything except maybe make him even crazier, he thought. He now felt like there was an anchor attached to every limb, dragging him deeper and deeper by the second. He wanted badly to cry, to thank Grantaire, even to hug him with appreciation, but his limbs wouldn't move.
Eponine finally burst through the door just as Grantaire started to clean up the things he'd used.
"Grantaire…" Eponine trailed off. She ran to him and all but collapsed in his arms. She was wearing the same jeans and olive green t-shirt that Grantaire had seen her in a day ago. The bottoms of her jeans and her once-white Converse were splattered with mud from running to the apartment. She immediately fell apart, sobbing against Grantaire's shoulder, soaking the sleeve of his black v-neck.
She whispered, "Courfeyrac didn't make it." This was all she could get out. Grantaire's world spun. He finally snapped, became undone. He had been trying so, so hard to feel something and now he felt every emotion all at once. He was angry, scared, confused, exhausted, heartbroken, maybe just plain broken like Enjolras. He didn't know how much time had passed before he heard a new sob from the corner.
Enjolras was on the floor again, nearly in the position where Grantaire had found him. Grantaire released Eponine and dragged Enjolras up and over to the couch. The three friends collapsed together on the couch, and it wasn't long before Cosette and Marius found them. The five students sat for hours in silence, holding each other as if their friendship was all they had left in the world.