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Grantaire begins to wonder how he came to be standing at the peak of a makeshift barricade, made up of furniture thrown into the streets, when he watches one of his friends fall into the street with a bullet through his head. Grantaire aims his at the man who killed his friend, shooting on instinct, shooting the wretched man dead.
He looks around, trying desperately to find Enjolras. He needs to find Enjolras, needs to know that he is okay.
“Damn bastard is the only reason I am here,” Grantaire says to himself, curling his fingers tighter around the handle of his gun. “Where the hell is he?” he hisses.
He stares around at the people who are falling and dying around him. He looks down at the blood that’s pooling in the street. He looks up at the darkened sky, wondering how the fighting can still be going on.
“Red,” he murmurs as he watches another comrade fall into the street, sprawled out, limp and lifeless, “the blood of angry men…”
He turns again to find several men — good men, men he has known for years — lying face down in their own dark blood. A picture flashes before his eyes, a vision of Enjolras lying like that, cold and alone and dead .
“I have to find him,” Grantaire says aloud to himself.
He climbs down the barricade as rain begins to fall. It is, at first, a light sprinkle, but it quickly grows to large drops falling heavily into his eyes. His dark curls are weighed down and they stick to his forehead.
Grantaire wraps his arms tightly around his body, doing his best to get some warmth back into his bones. He is soaked, rain dripping from his hair in a light but steady stream.
He squints into the darkness. He is somewhat blinded by the raindrops in his eyes, but he swears he sees Enjolras not too ahead and despite the horrific screams and terrible gunshots that continue on around him, he grins.
“Enjolras!” he cries almost joyously. A sense of relief washes over him as he grows nearer to the man who he knows he can never be allowed to love but does anyway.
The man bends over and picks up his fallen hat, sticking it back on top of his head.
Grantaire freezes, because that is most certainly not Enjolras. No, that is just another man with a head of blond hair. Just another man raising a gun at Grantaire and his friends.
It takes him a moment to register that the blond man is aiming at him. He fumbles with the gun in his hand, struggling to get a decent hold on the thing.
Someone shouts, “Look out, Grantaire! Look out!” warningly, over and over, and it would be great if they could just shut up because Grantaire can see the man ready to fire a bayonet right at him, dammit, and he’s doing his best but the handle of his pistol is wet from the rain and he is soaked to the bone, freezing, and his hands are going numb.
Marius is running in his direction, he can see him out of the corner of his eye. Enjolras is ahead of him, but he’s headed for the man getting ready to kill Grantaire.
A lot of things happen at once, then.
Grantaire, still struggling helplessly with his pistol, allows his gaze to lock onto Enjolras and really, what an idiot he is for doing that, but does it all the same. His pistol slips from his fingertips and he just stares at Enjolras, thinking that he’ll never get to tell him how he feels. He’ll never get to kiss him and hold him close. He’ll never get to keep him warm in the dead of winter.
The blond man from the National Guard fires his weapon at the same time as Enjolras. The bullet from the bayonet strikes Grantaire below his ribs at the same time the bullet from Enjolras’ pistol tears through the soldier’s brain.
“ Grantaire! ” Marius bellows.
Grantaire feels as if he is suspended in time — as if time itself has frozen. He slowly looks down at the hole in his vest, the hole in his fucking stomach, the blood flowing from the wound.
Time moves slowly at first, then all at once it catches up with him. He falls, his body slams into some piece of furniture — a dresser or a table or something of the sort — and the wind his knocked out of him.
He screams in agony, hands flying to the wound on instinct, but the angle is too awkward to put any pressure on it and he knows that it’s useless anyway, he knows that he’s going to die. He raises both hands up to his face to see them coated completely in his dark red blood and he screams even louder.
“Grantaire,” Marius says, falling down beside his friend. “Grantaire, sshhh. It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” he lies. “Enjolras!” he cries over his shoulder. “Enjolras, come quick!”
Enjolras runs toward them and Marius moves out of his way. “Grantaire? Grantaire, can you hear me?” He pulls Grantaire into his arms, pushes down on the wound.
All it takes is Enjolras’ touch and Grantaire feels light as air. The chill down to his bones from the rain is suddenly gone, and in an instant his pain is gone.
“Speak to me, Grantaire,” Enjolras says urgently.
Grantaire laughs, “Don’t fret, Monsieur. I do not feel any pain at all.”
“You are badly wounded,” Enjolras frowns deeply.
Grantaire only laughs again, “Yes.”
“You are shivering,” Enjolras says, worry etched clearly across his face. He wipes Grantaire’s wet hair out of his face.
“A little fall of rain can hardly hurt me now,” Grantaire smiles up at him, looks into his love’s blue eyes, as deep and mysterious as the ocean. He lets his eyes fall shut, lets his head rest against Enjolras’ chest.
“ Look at me ,” Enjolras says and it comes out much harsher than he means it to, and though Grantaire is so very tired, he has never been able to say no to Enjolras. Enjolras smiles when Grantaire’s eyes meet his own once more. “Do not sleep, Grantaire. You are going to make it.”
Grantaire shakes his head. “We both know that is not true,” he said. He tilts his head, “You’re here.”
Enjolras nods slowly. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“That is all I need to know,” Grantaire smiles.
“Grantaire, stay with me,” Enjolras says pleadingly, but Grantaire just smiles and shakes his head.
Grantaire takes hold of Enjolras’ hand that is keeping pressure on his wound and drag it up to cup his own cheek. He does not let go of Enjolras’ hand. “It is worth it. It is all worth it. Just to be in your arms, anything is worth it.”
“What are you talking about?” Enjolras frowns.
“All I have wanted throughout all these years that I have known you,” Grantaire says slowly, keeping one hand on Enjolras’ hand that was cupping his face, he reaches up with the other to touch Enjolras’ cheek, “is to know what it would feel like to be held by you, to be wrapped in your warm embrace.”
“Grantaire,” Enjolras tilts his head, frowning.
“Now I know,” Grantaire beams, “and it is everything I hoped that it would be. I can die happy.”
“You are not dying,” Enjolras tries to convince his friend again even though he knows that it’s beyond useless. Grantaire is many things — certainly a drunk, possibly a fool, a nuisance at times — but an idiot is not one of those things.
“Yes, I am,” Grantaire nods. “You and I both know it, so you can stop pretending. But I know that you will keep me safe until then, and that you will hold me close until I am gone.”
Enjolras doesn’t have time to even consider blinking back the tears that sting at his eyes, they fall of their own accord. It hits him all at once: Grantaire is going to die and there is nothing I can do to stop it, he thinks to himself helplessly.
Grantaire. His friend. His best friend. His friend who he has always cared for more than anyone else. The man who he loves as if he is more than a brother because, he realized one day a while ago, he is .
“I met you because of a rebellion that you dreamed up,” Grantaire says in a tone full of wonder, a voice growing weaker with every moment that passes him by. “I am in your arms because I’ve been shot. And you know what?”
Enjolras swallows hard. “What?”
Grantaire smiles again, looking up into Enjolras’ eyes like he has never seen anything more beautiful because he hasn’t. “It has been worth it. I do not regret one second of it.”
Enjolras shakes his head slowly, holding onto his friend a little tighter. He strokes thumb back and forth across Grantaire’s cheek.
“I would not trade my memories of these past years for anything,” Grantaire says honestly. “Not my life, not the whole world.”
“Grantaire, please,” Enjolras says shakily.
“I am so sorry,” Grantaire says. “I am sorry for always being drunk, for mocking you and picking fights with you.”
“Grantaire, please. ”
“I love you,” Grantaire confesses and Marius, who both Grantaire and Enjolras had all but forgotten was standing idly by, gasps. Enjolras just blinks. “I love you so much, and I am so very sorry to be leaving you. But do not fret. I feel no pain.”
Enjolras sniffs. “A little fall of rain can hardly hurt you now,” he says.
“Yes,” Grantaire breathes out a short laugh.
“I’m here.” Enjolras leans down and presses his forehead to Grantaire’s, earning himself a smile from his friend — more than a friend, more than a brother.
“And that is all I need to know,” Grantaire inches his lips closer to Enjolras’.
“You will keep me safe and warm, and you will keep me close,” Grantaire says, maybe more to himself than to Enjolras. “You will shelter me, you will comfort me.”
“Yes, I will,” Enjolras assures him before he closes the barely-there gap between Grantaire’s mouth and his own, kissing him with all the love and affection that he could muster into one kiss.
When their lips part from one another, Enjolras looks down to find that Grantaire’s eyes are shut.
“You will stay with me,” Grantaire says softly, almost inaudibly.
“I will stay with you until you are sleeping,” Enjolras whispers gently.
“I…” Grantaire says slowly, “love…” one final breath leaves his lips and his hand falls from Enjolras’ cheek and he goes limp in his arms.
“I know,” Enjolras says, though he knows his friend — his love — cannot hear him anymore. “I love you, too.”
Enjolras stays there for a long time before Marius speaks, “We need to go.”
“Yes,” Enjolras nods. He sets Grantaire down gently amongst the furniture that makes up the barricade. He stands and ignores the way that Marius looks at him, like he doesn’t quite understand what just happened.
Enjolras picks up his pistol and sets off into the rain, into the night, into the fight where all of his friends are dying as Grantaire did in his arms, and he thinks that at least if he is to die tonight, he will be with Grantaire again soon.