amen, amen | enjoltaire

Chapter Six

Enjolras dropped Jehan's hand, stumbling from the stage and towards Grantaire, who was cradling his head in his hands. There was a man standing over him, leering down at him threateningly. Enjolras watched in horror as he dragged Grantaire up by the collar of his shirt and punched him square in the face. The others were jumping up now, weaving through the crowd of people to get to Grantaire and pull the man off of him. Bahorel stood between the two, pushing the man back and glaring at him.

Enjolras finally made his way to Grantaire, pulling him away from the man. There was blood rushing from his head, and his nose was crooked in a way that definitely meant it was broken. His shirt was wet too, which didn't seem to have an obvious cause. Grantaire put his arm around Enjolras's shoulders, and he lead him out of the bar and into the empty beer garden.

The cool outside air hit them suddenly, and Enjolras was glad he'd kept his jumper tied around his waist. He sat Grantaire down on the stone steps, and tried to get a better look at his injuries.

"What the hell happened?" he asked, taking Grantaire's face in his hands. He had a nasty cut on his scalp above his temple, where all the blood was coming from. His nose did indeed seem broken, and was starting to bruise. There was also what seemed to be a black eye forming.

"I was hitting on this girl," he said, which was never a good way for Grantaire to begin a story, "apparently we had a thing before. Which I don't remember. She got upset and threw her drink at me. Then this guy came over to defend her and I told him to back off. Turns out, he's her boyfriend and didn't like that very much. So he broke his beer bottle over my head," he pointed to the gash on his head, "and then, well you saw him punch me in the face."

"The fuck did you do that was so shitty the guy decked you?"

"It's me. What didn't I do." Enjolras didn't want to agree with him there, but he was right. If Grantaire didn't even remember the girl, there's a good chance he treated her pretty badly. "God, it's fucking cold."

Without even thinking, Enjolras untied his jumper from around his waist, wrapping it around Grantaire's shoulders. "Here," he said, "just try not to get blood on it."

At this point, Combeferre came outside with a damp rag, a bucket of ice, and a glass of water.

"Here," he said, handing the rag over to Grantaire and setting the water and bucket down by his feet, "courtesy of possibly the angriest barmaid in the world."

"Does she want me to leave?" Grantaire grumbled, trying to clean the blood off of his face but doing a terrible job of it.

"No. The other guy was kicked out, but because you didn't do any of the actual fighting you can stay."

"Yeah, I was just on the recieving end," he laughed. Combeferre huffed a laugh in reply, smiling and walking back inside.

Enjolras turned to Grantaire, taking the rag from him and turning his head towards him.

"You're awful at this," he muttered, dabbing away the blood covering the side of his face.

"It's not like I can see what I'm doing, is it?" Grantaire joked back, hissing as Enjolras tried to clean the skin around his eye that was quickly bruising.

"He's done a complete number on you." Grantaire didn't reply, and he worked in silence for a while before continuing, "You can't keep this up."

"What do you mean?"

"Going through girls like you do. It's not good for you..." he trailed off at the end, hesitating before adding on what he really wanted to say, "I hate seeing you injured."