libertined started following you.
For a moment Cosette stood a great deal away from this man, wondering who he was. Her eyes narrowed in perplexity, fingers hooking themselves with each other and yet, she was compelled to speak with him. Taking in a deep breath she walked over, letting the sound of clicking footsteps be her guide.
“Hello!”
To say that this is hardly something that happens to him very often is an understatement. People know him when he moves through the streets. Shopkeepers and innkeepers and all the regulars have seen him around at some point or another - Grantaire spends most of his time wandering when he’s not at the Musain, because he can’t bring himself to sit still. He moves and weaves throughout the streets of Paris like one of many dozens of people, hands buried deep in his pockets, one earbud in. Playing the melancholy tunes of The Smiths, the anthem of every unrequited young person since the 1980s. It suits his mood, it suits the melancholy buzz he’s got in his veins despite the fact that it’s barely the afternoon. He doesn’t hear her clicking footsteps approaching him until she actually speaks, and then Grantaire turns with a sort of startled confusion in his face.
Pretty girls do not stop him in the middle of the street. Pretty girls giggle when they look at him and walk away. “Hello. Did you need something?”
(via thelandslark-deactivated2013040)
He doesn’t mind. In fact, Grantaire rather likes the fact that Enjolras is honest enough to be heavily bordering on blunt. He appreciates the value of wordplay just as much as the next highly educated, classically trained young man, but there’s something about knowing that Enjolras doesn’t play around that captivates him. That everything he says is something that he wholeheartedly believes. And if that’s the case, then how could he do anything but hang on to every word? Besides, the comment feels like something bordering on concern, and even though Grantaire doesn’t expect that is the case ( Enjolras has more important things to be thinking about than him, after all ), it warms him a little all the same.
His tone is wry, his expression rueful as he waves Enjolras’ words about the state of his appearance away. “We can’t all embody the Greek divinity, Adonis. There is need for people such as myself, for mere mortals to reflect the state of the world as it is.” Grantaire leans over, to catch a glimpse of what Enjolras’ happened to be reading that morning, only to find it to be a political text. He hates those - they’re far too preachy for his liking. He wants to read about beautiful things, to create, to muse.
Lifting a hand, he orders a glass of water and gulps the whole thing down in an instant when it arrives. It does something to alleviate the headache he feels.
“Ah, the infamous Grantaire. T’ what do I owe the pleasure o’ you comp’ny t’day?”
Infamous? I wasn’t aware that I was infamous. In fact, I take great pleasure in not being seen. Life is far more expedient that way.
—; Sometimes he sat there all by himself in the café in the morning, he enjoyed doing his work in there when no one was around, his own apartment was just as good but the cafe did have something else, something that motivated him, kept him up.
Enjolras looked out of the window seeing the sun rise just now and read the piece infront of him, moments like these should bring him joy but it just reminded him of how of a loner he actually was - he would never complain about it and he would never even dare to tell anyone but it was a fact.
It’s a near-miracle if Grantaire happens to be up before noon on any given day, stumbling outside with scruff on his face and a collection of bags under his eyes. If, by any chance, he’s awake as the sun rises, it means that he hasn’t been to bed that night. That he’s probably spent his last sou on cheap wine and woke up on a hard floor, nudged by a landlady’s broom and her harsh admonishments to get out.
The life of a drunkard is a difficult one, surely.
But he is awake now, having passed out in the back room of the café musain without a second thought. He stumbles awake and his hair is a tangled mess, his clothes wrinkled and grimy. The world spins a little bit. Grantaire isn’t sure if he’s still drunk at this point in time, but he pulls himself together when he spots Enjolras, unmistakably his Apollo. He tries to be presentable, tries to smooth down his hair, tries to straighten himself up so it’s not so obvious that he’s been here all night. His heart is pounding the way it always does when Enjolras is near. When he approaches, he does so with his best attempt at cheer.
“Of course Apollo would rise with the sun,” and Grantaire grabs the chair across from Enjolras, seating himself there as if they were friends. As if he was worthy to be.
who is grantaire? victor hugo describes him as “a man who took great care not to believe in anything.”a cynic and a drunkard who had only one motto in life: “there is but one certainty, my full glass.” he is an artist, or he used to be at one point in time, and more than anything, grantaire should be known by his slavish devotion to enjolras. here’s what hugo had to say on the matter:
❝ However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. ❞
he isn’t unintelligent - on the contrary, he seems to be incredibly well-read. he spends pages and pages going off on speeches, dropping classical references like a true hugolian character. but unlike the rest of the amis de l’abc, grantaire chooses to have no ideals. his speeches are a disturbance in their meetings. he is tolerated, mostly, for his wit and good humour, kind of like a drunken uncle who is still somehow invited back for thanksgiving every year.
grantaire, in a nutshell.
❝ I want a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is worth nothing. One breaks one’s neck in living. Life is a theater set in which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says, ‘All is vanity.’ I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps.❞
barricades - stars meet me at the barricade, i’ll be at the barricade. oh, how could anyone not love the terrible things you do. oh, how could anyone not want to try and help you?
bleeding out - imagine dragons I’m bleeding out, so if the last thing that I do. is bring you down, I’ll bleed out for you. so I bare my skin and I count my sins. and I close my eyes, and I take it in. and I’m bleeding out, I’m bleeding out for you.
please, please please let me get what i want - the smiths good time for a change. see, the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad. so please please please let me get what I want. haven’t had a dream in a long time. see, the life I’ve had can make a good man bad so for once in my life let me get what I want. lord knows, it would be the first time
lonely boy - the black keys but i came to love you, am i born to bleed? any old time you keep me waiting, waiting. oh, i’ve got a love that keeps me waiting. i’m a lonely boy, i’m a lonely boy.
i can’t make you love me - bon iver ‘cause i can’t make you love me if you don’t, i can’t make your heart feel something it won’t. here in the dark in these final hours, i will lay down my heart if I feel the power. but you don’t, no, you don’t.
◉ I tend to prefer longer, paragraph or bracket-style threads over chat conversations. tl;dring is something I do often when I get into things.
◉ NSFW threads are totally fine, and I love them. That being said, I enjoy NSFW threads that have appropriate buildup and introspection behind them.
◉ I’m more than willing to ship or play grantaire across canons, as long as the basis between the two characters makes sense. I’m a ship whore. I’ll ship almost anything. No seriously.
◉ AUs I’d like to try: modern, thg, historical time periods ( vietnam war, rome, etc ). anything, literally anything.
