Spoonful of Sugar (Les Mis)

I seek an escape

Grantaire's POV

Being painfully asocial, I rarely receive texts. My own friends don't even text me all that much, so to see my screen flashing with a message from Combeferre is a rarity, and frankly quite unnerving. Combeferre is as diplomatic as people come, so if it were to be texting me, the immature one, then I must be the last resort for an emergency, and I'd better answer that goddamn text. It's not like I really care about shit anymore, but Combeferre has been my friend for a while, so it's kind of my duty to assist him, in addition to the fact that lots of self-help manuals will tell you that helping others can improve your mood, too, although the painkillers seem to be doing that just fine.

I swipe the screen of my phone, enter in my password (which is really just a reference to rats using the number codes to accommodate letters), and peer down at the text I've received, which, as I read it, isn't so much an emergency, surprisingly.

Meet me at the Corinth? I need to talk to you.

I don't know what he could possibly want, considering he doesn't go out of his way to talk to me, despite our friendship spanning the terrain of a couple years, but I close my phone, sighing, and make my way down to the destination with nothing better to do. Hopefully it will occupy me, at least.

~~~~~

When I arrive at the Corinth, a homely wine shop a couple blocks down the street from my apartment (protruding from the opposite direction of the Musain, my other frequent hangout), the place is desolate, which can be mostly attributed to the time, an era when most people would be at home, cooking dinner or performing other evening activities about which I would have no clue because, as I mentioned, I'm a very asocial person. Kenopsia weaves into my mindset, an eerie warning that not is all that it seems. This shop is so desolate that Combeferre is the only person here, or so it seems, as a shadow lurks in the corner, somewhat familiar but somewhat distant simultaneously. I just assume he's on his own in this place, unrelated to Combeferre's business with me, business whose intentions I have no idea about.

Combeferre flags me down, scooting out a chair for me with his foot, which I graciously accept. I'm more nervous than I usually am, more on edge, which is either a side effect of the pain killers or a side effect of being stabbed in the back by someone I only wanted to please, maybe both. And something about the fishiness of this situation leads me to believe that the person I only wanted to please may be the center of the discussion I'm about to have with Combeferre.

My companion doesn't talk for a few moments, instead taking the time to absorb what's become of me. I'll admit — my appearance is more haggard and disheveled than it would normally be, which is a difficult status to achieve, so I can understand why Combeferre would be a bit more than astonished to see me like this, but, because he's Enjolras' roommate, he probably knows what went down between us, and because he is one of the many people who wants us to end up together, he's most likely just trying to recover from the way my love for Enjolras manifests upon my rough figure.

Since it's clear that Combeferre is too stunned to talk, I proceed with the conversation, having dealt with this awkward silence for long enough (I don't appreciate being stared at, even if I do it to other people all the time). "So why did you call me in here?"

Combeferre snaps back to the present with an alarming jolt, and once he works his way through registering my question, a smile plucks the remnants of confusion from his face, but bits of mischief replace them. "Enjolras!" he calls.

Enjolras? What is Enjolras, of all people, doing here? That must've been the lonely figure creeping in the edge of the Corinth, and that's why he looked so familiar yet so distant to me. Nevertheless, I do not want to see Enjolras under any circumstances, but my brain soon splits away from that statement so that there are two halves, one that yearns for Enjolras' forgiveness, one that yearns to be free of this trap into which my so-called friend lured me.