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There is a boulevard in Paris where it never gets light. The street lamps glow feebly, closed in on all sides by the dusky grey of 4am. Dawn never comes and the empty cobbled street echoes with the ghosts of feet, wheels, shouting. Even horses, muskets, cannons, if you listen hard enough.
It’s one of the hundreds of liminal spaces in the patch-work city, a place where the veil is thin from the treading of thousands of feet. Grantaire has his favourite streets all over the world: Jericho and Damascus, Rome and Alexandria. Paris, though; Paris is special. The houses are older than the dead, the streets still shine slick with ghostly blood, the lights on the Seine are will-o-wisp trickery, effervescent. Paris attracts spirits like a flylight: it’s the closest to the other side of any other place in the world. More than that, it’s a place where you will always find someone who can see you, even if that someone is one of your own kind.
Grantaire sits against a wall, sleeping bag tucked around him, McDonalds cup held between bloody fingers. There is one euro, 20 cents, and button in it. The Hellhound beside him watches a laughing group of humans as they stagger past. They sense her eyes on them and hurry on, pulling their coats tighter around themselves.
“Eponine,” murmurs Grantaire, the shadows around them flickering.
The hellhound’s head jerks away and they both watch as another group approaches, from the nearby corner. Ahead of them, dancing along from bollard to bollard, is the Jack O’ Lantern, orange coat flaring out behind him, maniac grin in place. The group behind are even rowdier than the last, staggering, flailing, laughing. Eponine whines high in her throat and the Jack O’ Lantern spins on his heel and bounds over to them, grin growing larger, till it takes up more than half his face. She snarls in greeting.
The human’s don’t hear her, as such, but the joy drains out of them. One of them says, “Wait, where are we? I’m sure this isn’t the right way…”
And another says, “Let’s just go already.”
They hurry off, bickering about who got them lost.
“Grantaire!” Bahorel cries, throwing out his arms wide, “Where have you been?
There’s a shuffling beside him and Eponine is human-shaped, red-eyed, with dark, dark hair and skull-white skin. Her naked body is skeleton-like, the colour of bone. “Where’s he been?” she growls, “I’m surprised to see you out of a department store, Bahorel.”
Bahorel scoffs and Grantaire flicks his fingers, whirls up some shadows to form a chair. Bahorel sits with exaggerated elegance, tossing his coat-tails out behind him. Eponine sniffs.
“It’s May Day,” says Bahorel, “And I didn’t feel like getting my limbs forcefully removed by Lady Luck. I notice neither of you are working for your livings.”
Grantaire rolls his eyes and sends tendrils of shadow across the street, around the stiletto heel of a girl wandering home alone down the darkest street in Paris. Her eyes are on her phone, glazed, unaware. Grantaire hums to the East Wind and she laughs a little, flurries down the street towards them. Grantaire pulls the girl’s heel and she trips, catches herself and looks around with the beginnings of fear creasing her mouth. The shadow twines up her leg, her spine, splaying out over her neck. She whirls around. Grantaire can hear her heart thudding in his ears, the dropping lurch in her stomach, the tension in her muscles. It drips down his throat like whisky, warming him. “Go home,” he tells her.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the Fates,” rasps Eponine to Bahorel, over the clattering of the girl’s heels as she breaks into an awkward run.
“I am afraid of Lady Luck, and so should you be, Puka,” says Bahorel, “She’s a scary woman.”
Eponine yawns widely, showing pointed teeth. Her mouth is very red.
Bahorel leans forwards towards Grantaire looking uncharacteristically serious, “I’ve been looking for you for a reason. When was the last time either of you saw Feuilly?”
“Few months,” says Eponine with a shrug.
Grantaire nods, “Halloween, and only then because you made him come along.”
Bahorel’s yellow eyes flicker a little, disquieted. The shadows around him stir restlessly and Grantaire observes them, expression blank.
“It’s almost like he thinks his work is more important than us,” says Eponine. Her bony feet are scarlet red, like they’ve been scalded. “When you see him, tell him we’re offended.”
“It’s Feuilly,” Grantaire says, “Feuilly is always busy. Isn’t there something in Sudan? I was there last week. I think.”
“You think,” mocks Eponine.
“Fear is fear,” says Grantaire. “Even when there’s lots of sand about.”
“I hate sand,” mutters Eponine.
“You hate everything,” Grantaire reminds her.
“I have a bad feeling,” says Bahorel, apropos of nothing.
“That’s Grantaire,” Eponine informs him.
Bahorel’s answering grin is a little weak and Eponine huffs out a breath.
“He should be easy enough to find,” she says. “Dance someone off a bridge. If that fails, just hang about a hospital.”
“Not the psych ward,” Grantaire reminds him, “Last time was a fucking disaster. I couldn’t get the Bluebird out of my face for half a year and it was all your fault.”
Bahorel rolls his eyes, an expression made alarming by the fact that his eyes are two burning holes in his head.
“I’m going to ask the Fates. See if they can point me in a direction or something,” says Bahorel.
“They’ll definitely point you in a direction,” rumbles Eponine.
“Probably won’t be the right one,” Grantaire finishes.
One month after that, neither Eponine nor Grantaire has seen Bahorel since he danced off into the night. Eponine’s ears are flat to her head as Grantaire grips her by the scruff of her neck - she hates travelling through the shadows - but it’s worth it when they slide out of a corner of The Fate’s favoured bar only moments later.
The noise and clamour of the bar goes suddenly dull, like the volume has been shunted down. No one looks at Grantaire and Eponine, but they turn further into their tables, as if away from a cold draft. The only one who seems not to notice anything unusual is the Wishing Well, who is making his way across the bar, face full of moving shadows like rippling water, but otherwise appearing unperturbed. Grantaire snakes out a tendril of shadow and hooks it around the Well’s wrist, yanking him out of his passing stride, into their darkened corner. To the Well’s credit, he only shrieks a little, and Eponine is looking particularly vengeful today, thanks to the trans-dimensional shadow travel.
“Er, hello Grantaire, Eponine.” he says, glancing down at Grantaire’s side to where the Hellhound’s red eyes are glowing, “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Eponine rumbles out a laugh that doesn’t seem to be received in the humour it was intended, if the Well’s nervous smile is any indicator.
Before Grantaire can so much as let slip a greeting, Lady Luck materialises at the Well’s elbow like she’s been summoned through some kind of blood rite. She’s taller than anyone Grantaire has ever seen, including Feuilly, with flaming red curls and black skin. She has a scowl that could flay flesh, and she directs it straight at Grantaire, who thankfully doesn’t have any flesh.
“I don’t recall inviting you in,” she says.
“That’s vampires,” Grantaire says, over Eponine’s answering growl, “If I waited around for an invite to go anywhere, I’d be pretty much immobile.”
“And that would be a great shame,” says Musichetta, with a sarcasm that is almost sincere. “Please let go of Joly, now.”
Grantaire snaps his shadow back from Joly’s wrist and does a quick check to make sure the rest are behaving themselves. One tendril is tormenting some poor drunk Seelie at the bar, creeping over his shoulder and into his peripheral vision. Grantaire twitches his fingers to reel the shadow back in, letting it settle around Eponine’s paws.
Musichetta narrows her eyes at Grantaire, as if contemplating how much of her considerable force would be necessary to throw him from the bar. “We’re looking for Bahorel,” says Grantaire, attempting to avoid any kind of supernatural showdown. “We know he came here.”
“The Will-o-the-Wisp?” asks Musichetta, apparently surprised that they have a reason to be intruding on her life. Grantaire is moderately offended. He doesn’t just turn up at people’s doors and start causing trouble without reason. He’s not the Angel.
“He was here a few months ago,” says Joly, “We’ve not seen him since then.”
Eponine barks, high and piercing. Across the bar, someone drops their glass.
“What did you talk to him about?”asks Grantaire, ignoring Musichetta’s sour look.
The people in the bar are almost silent now, looking down in their drinks. Card games and roulette have slowed to a stop. Fight, flight or freeze.
“Can we… Take this elsewhere?” asks Joly, glancing around, then back at Grantaire, who grimaces in apology.
Musichetta nods in agreement, and they lead Grantaire and Eponine across the bar and through a swing door into a back room. Some Leprechauns and Fear Darrags are playing poker with the minor arcana, looking particularly surly. At some sign from Lady Luck, they clear out, leaving only one figure, dressed in a white joker’s tunic with gold piping and white pointed shoes with gold bells on the end.
“Hello, Hallows,” he says cheerfully, “Long time no creep.”
“May King,” says Grantaire politely, because he wants something here and no matter what anyone says, he can be diplomatic. Eponine grunts non-threateningly and stalks around the table to better eye up the card game in play. She snuffs, unimpressed, and Grantaire raises an eyebrow at the April Fool. “You’re losing?”
“I always lose,” he beams, “Particularly to Leprechauns.”
Grantaire and Eponine share a look as she snorts. “I guess hope really does spring eternal,” Grantaire mutters to her.
“Bossuet,” says Musichetta, “The Hallows would like to discuss their friend’s recent visit, and then leave.”
Bossuete laughs in that loud, incredibly cheerful way he has that always makes Grantaire shudder.
“Where are the rest of the Hallows?” asks Joly curiously, from where he’s perched on a drinks cabinet. Watching the play of light on the Well’s face gives Grantaire vertigo so he focuses on Joly’s fingers, currently leaving salt residue on the surface of the cabinet.
Eponine growls under her throat.
“That’s sort of the problem,” says Grantaire, shooting her a look. Most people, quite reasonably, interpret Eponine’s death rattle as a non-specific highly-deadly kind of threat, rather than what it actually is - a blunt attempt at communication. The fact that Grantaire knows this is purely a testament to the amount of time he and the anti-social Hellhound have spent together over the millennia. It’s been a long time since Eponine stopped being a monster and started being a bona-fide Guardian in her own right. Granted, the Guardian of Rage was unlikely to put many people at ease, but she had her place in the world, just like him.
Joly tears his eyes away from Eponine’s teeth with a polite smile, “Sorry, er, what’s the problem?”
“We’ve lost them,” says Grantaire, “We can’t find the Jack o’ Lantern. And he went to find the Grim, who we also seem to have lost.”
There’s silence as the room attempts to process that.
“You’ve lost The Grim?” Musichetta says shrilly, as if Grantaire is somehow personally responsible for humanity’s mortality.
“It’s not my fault,” Grantaire throws his arms up in the air and the shadows follow, jittering across the room, “Excuse me for thinking that Death could take care of himself!”
“Are you telling us that the Will-o-the-Wisp, whose sole purpose is to mislead humans, has himself gotten lost?” Bossuet asks, attempting, and failing, to suppress his glee.
Eponine barks sharply.
“Once I’ve made sure that the world isn’t ending, I’ll be sure to tell Bahorel all about the irony,” Grantaire says acidly. Bossuet has the grace to look a little shame-faced. “This is serious. Powerful spirits don’t just disappear.”
“Surely they’ll turn up,” says Bossuet, “Feuilly works all the time, we can go decades without seeing him. And Bahorel goes wherever the wind takes him.”
“We’re his friends,” says Grantaire firmly, “We’re the other half of the Hallows. And we’re telling you, they’re missing. If one of you had disappeared, you can bet Lady Luck over here would have already torn our Boulevard apart looking for you, so at least give us the courtesy of taking this seriously.”
Joly raises his hands appeasingly, “We are taking you seriously. This is just a hard thing to come to terms with. We’ve never heard of a Guardian disappearing before…” The liquid light dissipates from his face as a darker shadow ripples over. He frowns at Grantaire, “If Feuilly’s gone, what’s happening to the dead? Or rather… Are there any dead?”
Eponine and Grantaire look at each other with matching expressions. “Oh fuck,” rasps Eponine, speaking for them both.
As it turns out, no, the humans have not been dying.
The hospital they’re standing in is more chaotic than ones that Grantaire has seen in active war zones. The fear around them is deafening, a thumping, hammering noise that echoes inside him, banging on his rib cage in the place where a heart might be, if he were human. He’s overwhelmed by it, the taste of blood, the smell of decay. People are screaming, everywhere.
Grantaire staggers against a wall and Eponine switches form to catch him, her long, white fingers gripping him firmly. People are lined up on hospital beds and mattresses along the walls. Exsanguinated, eviscerated, dismembered, skeletal and ghastly from cancer. They should be corpses but their spirits are still trapped, locked into their skin and cells, so they’re alive, suffering, terrified. Grantaire’s shadows rejoice, flooding out along the floor and walls, wrapping humans in their tendrils. Grantaire yanks back hard, giving himself the dizzying, sickening sensation of all the hairs in his body being ripped out at once. He determinedly keeps a hold on them. Fear is for survival, and these humans are certainly not suffering from an excess of that.
Joly is dripping water, walking from person to person, pressing his damp, salty thumbs against their foreheads. As he touches them, they stop writhing and screaming, their limbs go limp, their sobs cease.
He returns to them looking worried. “Something’s very wrong,” he says.
“Really?” asks Grantaire, staring wide-eyed, “What tipped you off?”.
Joly shakes his head, sending water flying. “Besides the obvious. I should be able to hear these people from the other side of the world, let alone the city. So many, all wishing for death? Something is blocking me from them.”
“But you can help them now?” rasps Eponine.
Joly nods hesitantly, “I can try. I’m not sure I’m powerful enough to go through them at the rate that I’d need to. And I can only help the ones who are actively wishing for death. Granted, that’s most of them at this point.” He lets out a small, frustrated cry of pain and makes an aborted motion to cover his ears. Grantaire knows the feeling. If feels like every person in the world is shrieking at him, in hideous chorus:
WHAT IF THE PAIN NEVER ENDS?
Bossuet shakes his head. He bends down and kneels next to a frail woman, hisses her on the cheek. She stops moaning and smiles peacefully, closing her eyes, calm enough to wait for her time. “This is awful,” Bossuet whispers, looking up at Musichetta, “We have to do something.”
She nods slowly. “We need to stop these people suffering, right now. Then we can find the Grim.”
“But only Joly can help them,” says Bossuet, “I can stop their pain, give them hope, but…”
Musichetta is shaking her head, “No, Joly can’t just take over from the Grim. It’s not his Purpose, even if he will do in a pinch.”
“So what do you suggest?” snaps Eponine.
“And suggest it quickly,” says Grantaire, watching his shadows twist restlessly, “Because I’m not helping anyone by being here.”
“Father Time,” says Musichetta, turning her golden eyes on Grantaire, “Can you get us there?”
Grantaire shifts, “Yeaah. But he’s really not, like, a fan.”
Musichetta fixes him with an incredulous stare. “Is anyone a fan of yours?”
Grantaire looks at Eponine for support against this heinous accusation, and she shrugs in a what-can-you-do kind of way. Unlike Grantaire, Eponine actually has a few friends out-with The Hallows, including all of The Society. It must be nice, Grantaire muses, to not be universally despised.
“No,” Grantaire says. “Fine, get over here, you two.”
Joly and Bossuet make their way back over, looking just as reluctant as before to actually touch Grantaire with their bare hands. Instead, they press close to Lady Luck, who grasps Grantaire’s arm like he’s something seriously unpleasant. Eponine observes this with steady, scarlet eyes, and shifts again, back into a Hellhound. Grantaire grabs her ruff tightly in a fist and slides them all out and sideways, through the shadows in the veil. Most of the time it’s easy for Grantaire to find wherever he needs to go, but Father Time likes to keep his home tucked away in unlikely places, tiny cracks of liminal space and time. After endless minutes of rushing through the shadows of the world, Grantaire spots the splinter of purple light he’s looking for. He presses forward, dragging with him the Hellhound and all three of the Fates, which is even more difficult than it sounds. He wrenches them free into what looks like a small, antique bookshop and collapses on the ground, exhaustion in his bones.
He turns to his passengers to find Bossuet with his head between his knees, Eponine a snarling ball of electrified fur, and Joly throwing up copious amounts of water into a plant pot. Only Musichetta seems unruffled, although she gives him a narrow look.
“Did you do that on purpose?” she hisses.
Grantaire scowls but doesn’t dignify that with a response. He is doing his goddamn best here. Around the room, hundreds of clocks are ticking, all exactly in time with each other, producing a terrible sort of echoing thump as every second passes. The whole place is thoroughly depressing to Grantaire, who accepts time as a necessity but has never been particularly fond of its Guardian.
Father Time is a benign-looking gentleman with a short beard and long hair, who wanders into the room a few moments later, arms full with a candle and a stack of books. He stops when he sees them, face filling with polite surprise. That is, until he sees Grantaire, at which point he scowls fiercely.
Lady Luck steps in quickly, “Father Time,” she says, “We’re sorry to barge in, it’s just that there’s a matter of some urgency and…”
“What are you doing here?” he hisses narrowly at Grantaire, who rolls his eyes.
“Let the lady speak, alright?” Grantaire says, slumping down to sit against one of the bookshelves, “I’m just the bus driver.” He eyes Eponine, who is looking particularly sorry for herself, and adds, “Evidently the incompetent bus driver.” He idly picks up a nearby book and flicks through it. Cyrilic, he thinks, haven’t seen that one in a while.
“I told you not to come to my home,” the old man hisses, “You’re not welcome here.”
“I’m never welcome anywhere, Kronos,” Grantaire says, not looking up from the book, “If you were banking on that critical damage to my self esteem sending me running, I gotta tell you, you're definitely going to need to up your game.”
Father Time makes a violent move towards him, and Grantaire rolls his eyes as the room’s shadows hiss threateningly around the old man’s feet.
“Sir,” Musichetta intervenes, getting into Father Time’s personal space, “I understand the impulse, really, but we have more important things to speak about.”
Father Time narrows his eyes at her but relaxes fractionally. “Alright,” he says, giving Musichetta his full attention, “I apologise for the poor welcome. I am not generally so rude.” He shoots Grantaire a scowl that Grantaire cheerfully ignores in favour of squinting at one of the many clocks in the room. “I go by Gillenormand, nowadays,” he says. “I haven’t seen you in quite some time, Lady Luck.”
“Musichetta,” she corrects him, “And this is Bossuet and Joly.”
Father Time nods, “The Guardians of Hope and Wishes. Glad to see you are well.”
“And you, sir,” says Joly.
“What is it that you came to speak to me about?” Father Time asks, settling back in one of his many stuffed armchairs.
“We need you to stop time,” says Bossuet, which really isn’t what Grantaire would have lead with, but they don’t call him the April Fool for nothing.
Father Time laughs, until he looks into Bossuet’s clear, hopeful face and realises it isn’t a joke, at which point he chokes.
“What?” he exclaims, looking appalled.
Musichetta shoots Bossuet a sharp glance. “The Grim Reaper has gone missing,” she says, “And now none of the humans are dying. We need to find him but until we do, there are thousands of humans in agony, without any release. If we stop time, we can end their pain until the Grim is found!”
Father Time stares at Musichetta and then, slowly, shakes his head, “I’m sorry, my dear,” he says, “But it is quite impossible. No matter the sorrows of the world, Time must remain absolute. That rule cannot be broken.”
“Bullshit,” drawls Grantaire from his corner, “Time isn’t absolute, it’s relative. Even the humans know that.”
Father Time puffs himself up like a ruffled bird and Grantaire abruptly runs out of patience with the entire ordeal he’s being expected to endure, all for the sake of Feuilly. He likes the guy, but this is all a bit much. He should have just told the Angel about it and then gotten out of the way. Which, ugh, someone probably should tell the Angel, Feuilly was one of his better friends. With a sigh, mostly at the prospect of that particular conversation, Grantaire stands up and slams one of his fists backwards into one of the wall-mounted clocks. His shadows scatter throughout the room, winding around grandfather clocks and opening books curiously. The ticking in the room slows, audibly, with time dragged out further and further, DUN, DUN, DUN. Grantaire’s shoulders go taut from effort until he lets go and all at once the ticking starts again, rapid and out of sync like the skittering of claws.
Now all three of the Fates are looking at him in abject horror and Father Time is vibrating with equal amounts rage and terror.
“Tell them, Father Time,” says Grantaire, pacing towards the old man, “Tell the Fates why you don’t want me in your bookshop.”
After a moment in which Father Time is white-lipped and silent, Grantaire turns to them and answers his own question. “My very presence messes up his precious Time. Or have none of you lot ever noticed that fear turns minutes into hours?”
From the looks on their faces, the answer is a solid no, proving once again that Guardians are shit at actually paying attention to humans.
Grantaire rounds on Father Time again and points one long, ghastly finger at him, “You will stop time,” he snarls at him, letting fear flood out around his ankles, dark and sticky, “You will do it now, or I will make your life a living hell for the next millennium. I’ll send Australia flying into GMT, I’ll make the quantum physicists wet themselves, you think Las Vegas and the Bermuda Triangle are bad, you wait and see what I can do to Times Square.”
Father Time is tiny against the towering shadows, but Grantaire doesn’t let up. “You are a Guardian, you have a duty to the humans, to protect them. So you will fulfill your Purpose or you will pay, am I making myself clear?”
Father Time nods frantically and cries, “Stop! I’ll do it! Just stop!”
Grantaire takes a step back and pushes all his shadows back into their natural places, appearing again as a slumped, ragged man, grey-skinned and disheveled. “So glad we could come to this agreement like civilised people,” he says with a bitter, ironic smile, “Now do as the Lady says and stop time, and then we’ll be off. Leave you to your important work.”
Father Time gives him a frankly hideous look but complies, turning a metal wheel on the wall until it comes to a creaking stop. There is an echoing silence in the room following the cacophonous ticking. Bossuet and Joly look at each other. “Is...That it?” Joly asks tentatively, “Because I feel almost entirely the same.”
Grantaire raises his eyebrows, “Almost?”
Joly shrugs, “I’m hungry.”
“That’s not a new development, my friend,” says Bossuet.
“It’s done,” says Father Time. “Guardians will not feel the difference, but they are the only ones. The world is still, the humans will feel nothing.”
“Great,” says Grantaire, “Can we go?”
Musichetta nods reluctantly and stretches out her hand towards Grantaire’s with only the slightest shudder of repulsion.
“Wait!” Father Time bursts in. “My son, he’s not missing, is he?”
“It took us a month to work out that the humans weren’t dying, he may very well be... Human romance is not at the pinnacle of my priorities,” says Grantaire testily. He feels, more than sees, Eponine roll her eyes at him.
Bossuet hurries to soothe the panicky spirit, “He’s not, sir. Musichetta saw the Bluebird only days ago, the Gardeners are all fine.”
Father Time still looks fretful, turning on Musichetta, “You’re sure?”
“The Bluebird would have said something,” Musichetta assures him, “She’d come to you herself if there was anything wrong with Valentine.”
Father Time nods, seeming a little more convinced. “She’s a good girl, that one. Keeps him grounded.”
Grantaire, who has been bored of the conversation since it started, grabs Eponine by the ruff, ropes Bossuet and Joly in on a shadow tendril, and quickly dissipates them into the night.
Eponine howls at him the second they touch down on grass, in the shadow of a big oak tree, and snaps at his fingers savagely.
“Well make your own way about!” he snaps back, “Honestly, what kind of self-respecting Hellhound gets travel sick?!”
Eponine roars at him, maw wide and feral, eyes a gleaming red.
“Whatever, Eponine.” Grantaire growls back at her, way out of patience. “We’re missing half the Hallows. I haven’t been this stressed out since the Puritans, save your bitching for when I actually have some bandwidth to deal with it. Or better yet, save it for Bahorel, wherever the fuck he is.”
Eponine snarls under her breath but subsides, leaving Grantaire to shrug helplessly at the shell-shocked Fates, who only just seem to be coming to their senses and looking around them.
“We’re in the Garden?” asks Joly tentatively.
Grantaire makes a show of looking around them at the vast open expanse of grass on one side and the field of sunflowers on the other. “Guess so,” he says, irritably.
“Valentine’s fine,” said Musichetta, “I wasn’t just saying that to Father Time. We don’t need to check up on him.”
“I could literally not give any less fucks about Cupid if my life depended on it,” says Grantaire, “I’m here to see a friend, ask him for help with our whole missing Grim problem, remember than one.”
The Fates share a glance of dawning comprehension as Grantaire stomps off around the meadow to the nearby glade of trees. “The Green Man,” he hears Joly whisper.
“Prouvaire,” he hollers into the startled, rustling forest. Eponine adds her own dusky howl to the end, just in case there were any creatures left alive or dead who hadn’t heard them already.
Jehan slides out of the forest like he’s a tree come to life, wood-brown skin, speckled with gold, like dappled light on the floor of a forest, pointed features and a delicate crown of leaves on top of his reddish hair.
“No need to shout, dear,” he trills. “You’ll scare my birds.”
“Birds developed migration patterns because of me, Jehan,” says Grantaire, a touch of fondness slipping into his voice, “I think I already scared them a smidge.”
Jehan smiles and pulls Grantaire down to kiss his forehead.
“Where have you been, darling,” he says, “I’ve missed you. It’s been years.”
“I know, I’m a terrible pen-pal,” Grantaire grins.
“You’re just terrrrrible, darling; my terrible darling.” Jehan kisses him on the nose, then notices the wolf at Grantaire’s side. “Hello, Barghest,” he says sweetly “How are you? Are you enjoying being a Guardian?”
“She’s been a Guardian for at least eight centuries Jehan,” mutters Grantaire, amused, “And it’s Eponine now.”
Jehan winks at him, “Time flies like an arrow, eh? And who are these lovely people, hmm?”
Grantaire waves his hand expansively, “Fates, Jehan; Jehan, Fates.”
Musichetta gives Jehan a deep bow, which, rude, he never got that kind of respect. “Gaia,” she says, “It’s an honour to meet you.”
Jehan curtsies back, slipping Grantaire a glittering smile from the corner of his mouth. “Hear that, darling. An honour.”
“I’ll be sure to remember for next time,” Grantaire drawls, to Jehan’s delighted bird-song laughter.
“Where are the children, I wonder,” sighs Jehan, “They should really get out more, meet new people, they’re always mooning around each other… Oh! There they are!”
Valentine looks just as ridiculous as the last time Grantaire saw him, with his swan-like wings and his bow and arrow. The Bluebird is almost as bad, with her royal blue ball-gown and delicate, transparent wings. There’s something to be said for not letting humans make all the design choices. Especially if you’re already Guardian of something as ridiculous as love or happiness.
“Chetta!” The Bluebird cries, embracing Musichetta warmly. She steps back and studies her, a crease forming between her brows. “Why are you here? What’s wrong?”
“Cosette,” Valentine says gently, “There might not be anything wrong.”
“There is,” says Musichetta bluntly, “Sorry Marius, but we’re here as bearers of bad news.”
Jehan turns to Grantaire with a blank, cryptic expression that Grantaire correctly interprets as deep, deep concern for the nature of any bad news that could drag Grantaire out of his Parisian boulevard.
Grantaire smiles, in tight-lipped confirmation that concern is overwhelmingly the feeling of the day.
“If this is important,” says Jehan, “The Society will want to hear it too.”
“That’s why we’re here,” says Grantaire with a sigh. Ignoring the Fate’s pointed News To Us expressions. “You know there’s no way of getting into the café through the shadows. I thought you could give us a hand.”
Jehan grins, “And see the look on the Angel’s face when you turn up in his Musain with half of the supernatural address book? I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Wait, we’re going to see the Angel?” asks Musichetta, with more than a little trepidation. Grantaire generously keeps his thoughts about how far behind on the awareness curve the Guardians of Fate are to himself.
“Yes,” he says, “We’re going to see the Angel. We’re going to tell him that Feuilly is missing, and after he kills me for not telling him sooner, he’ll sort everything out, and I can go back to scaring children back under their covers and not talking to anyone.”
Eponine grumbles agreeably at his feet in solidarity with this particular plan.
Jehan nods in agreement. “Cosette, Marius, will you stay here and keep an eye on everything? I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
Bossuet looks around in amusement, “What do they need to keep an eye on? The grass?”
Marius clears his throat nervously, “Ah, the sunflowers... They eat people.”
Bossuet and Joly blink at him.
Grantaire turns accusing eyes on Jehan, who smiles sweetly. “I’ve never heard of anything more unquestionably your fault,” he says.
Jehan traces gold, glowing lines onto the bark of a nearby oak tree of enormous breadth, forming an intricate doorway that flashes when he’s finished and opens to show the dark hollow of the tree, and beyond it a room.
Jehan bows Grantaire through first and the rest follow, emerging into the empty backroom of a café. Normally full of low volume chatter and mugs on wooden tables, the silence emanating from the front room is deafening. The Musain has been an airy, light-filled, noisy refuge of students, writers and the generally opinionated since the early 1700s. Silence does not suit it.
The backroom isn’t empty for long. The Angel careens in while Bossuet is still extracting himself from what now appears to be a broom cupboard.
Grantaire squawks, completely blindsided, as the Angel seizes him by the shoulders and demands, “Where have you been?”
“Er,” says Grantaire, attempting unsuccessfully to pry the Angel’s fingers from his trench coat. “The Boulevard.”
“No you haven’t,” the Angel snaps, “I looked there, I thought you were missing!”
Grantaire recognises within himself a ridiculous age-old fondness for the Angel’s sharp tone and dark, scowly eyebrows. He steps on it hard and the Angel’s words catch up to him. “Wait,” he says warily, “Why did you think I was missing?”
Wisdom emerges from the café wearing an apron, “Enjolras, you might want to see this. Our human customers are… Well, frozen? I’m not sure why or how. But the Bookworms are eating their clothes a little... Oh, hello Grantaire, Jehan.”
“How do you always know what names people are using?” Grantaire asks for the hundredth time, purely out of morbid curiosity, as Jehan kisses Wisdom (Combeferre, this decade, he tells them) on both cheeks.
“Courfeyrac is missing,” says Enjolras urgently, ignoring everyone in the room except for Grantaire with his usual laser-intent focus.
“So are Feuilly and Bahorel,” says Grantaire. Then, clarifying for Enjolras’s creased brow, “The Jack-O-Lantern. He went looking for Feuilly.”
“This is worse than we thought,” says Combeferre.
“How long since Justice disappeared?” Grantaire asks them.
“Since this morning,” says Combeferre, looking abruptly more exhausted than Grantaire has ever seen him.
“Am I hearing this right?” asks Jehan, wide-eyed , “Feuilly’s gone? He’s almost as old as me!”
Enjolras is still staring at him like the socially inept creep that he is. “But you’re alright?” he presses.
Grantaire spreads his arms, “I’m fine, Enjolras. Even if your lighting does give me a headache and you still haven’t offered me a coffee.”
“We’re fine too,” Joly chimes in cheerfully.
“In case anyone was wondering,” added Bossuet.
Enjolras seems to notice their presence for the first time, and gives a little start. “The Fates?” he says, turning to Grantaire, “Why did you bring them?”
“They’re the last ones to see Feuilly and Bahorel,” says Grantaire. “And I figure we could probably do with not losing anyone else.”
“Wait, are you babysitting us?” asks Joly, “Are we being covertly babysat?” he asks Bossuet.
“Grantaire persuaded Father Time to stop time,” explains Musichetta to Combeferre. “Too many humans were suffering without Feuilly.”
“I’m just glad we stopped time before Justice disappeared,” mutters Joly.
Jehan shuffles his feet nervously and asks Grantaire, “When you say ‘persuaded’... Father Time is still extant right? Only, Marius will be so very mopey if he’s not.”
“Relax Jehan,” says Grantaire, “You can’t kill Guardians.”
“You’re right,” says Jehan, “I can’t.”
“We’ve sent the Messenger to find out if there’s any news at the humans’ end,” says Combeferre, “If something’s going on, he’ll be able to find out.”
“And what if he goes missing?” Grantaire points out. “That kid has the self preservation skill set of a bumblebee, why did you send him after the unknowable evil?”
“He's as old civilisation itself,” says Combeferre, lips twitching with amusement. “He's hardly a child anymore.”
“Well I’m older than civilisation and I say he's a kid,“ maintains Grantaire stubbornly.
“We didn't have a choice,” says Enjolras quietly.
Grantaire scoffs and falls into the nearest chair, silently observing Enjolras from half-slit eyes.
Enjolras hasn’t changed since the last time Grantaire saw him, still the same androgynous greek features, with the cheekbones and the jawbones and the eyebrows and the hair. He’s looked the same since way back when the wheel was the big new thing, not bothering to change to reflect current fashions, the steadily increasing average human height and his own gender presentation. Some Guardians were like that, they got hung up on particular aesthetics of an era. Courfeyrac loved the whole Renaissance fat = inherently valuable thing so much he kept his belly and had to put up with 21st century humans spontaneously lecturing him about his lipid levels. Jehan, who had single-handedly invented deep-sea aquatic life, had more varied tastes still. The phase with the fangs still gives Grantaire nightmares.
“What?” Enjolras snaps testily, breaking Grantaire out of his daze.
Grantaire shakes his head, “Angel if you're to be believed there is never a choice.”
“Sometimes there isn't!”
“There almost always is. And somehow you consistently fail to see the choice that ends in people not dying.”
“I'm not talking to you about this now,” Enjolras snarls.
Grantaire laughs humorlessly, “You don't talk to me ever, Angel. You shout at me occasionally, but that's all that's really springing to mind.”
“I shout at you when you are deliberately sabotaging my Guardianship,” shouts Enjolras.
“If people are too afraid to do what you want of them,” Grantaire says darkly, “Then it seems to me that you're the problem Angel, not me.”
“Right, that's why I'm the Guardian Angel and you're the Boogeyman, right? Because the humans love you so much?”
“This isn't a mythical creatures beauty pageant, Enjolras, I don't care if I'm liked. I care that the humans survive your monumental stupidity for a few more millennia!”
“Well I'm glad to hear being liked isn't your priority,” hisses Enjolras, “There's certainly no danger of that.”
He storms out before Grantaire can answer him, effectively removing the opportunity for Grantaire to have the last word.
“You get in the way of a few teeny tiny uprisings,” exclaims Grantaire, whirling to Jehan for support, “Stop the humans from exercising their frankly ghastly tendency for beheadings. And suddenly you're the bad guy. In what world…”
Jehan’s disapproving look effectively cuts him off and Grantaire pauses for long enough to get a sense of his audience. Combeferre, bless him, looks politely bored. He's seen enough of these disputes to last several dozen lifetimes. Eponine grumbles at Grantaire but doesn't engage - technically beheadings and the like are much more Eponine’s scene than Enjolras’s; the Guardian of Rage is all about violence as a means to an end.
The Fates, on the other hand, look a little horrified at Grantaire openly, vociferously arguing with the Guardian Angel. Enjolras, in the spirit world, is about as close to a king as any being with violent anti-monarchy inclinations can get.
“What's wrong with your faces?” snaps Grantaire.
Joly shakes his head with a tight, non-confrontational smile. Grantaire sweeps out of the room with a suppressed growl of frustration, choosing to ignore Jehan's not-so-sotto comment about drama queens.
Unfortunately he has to sweep back in a moment later to retrieve Eponine, who has fallen asleep between Joly and Bossuet. Grantaire’s already lost 50% of the Hallows - two Guardians who he is, if only by the rules of ascension, responsible for. He's not losing sight of Eponine from here on out. Problematically, he doesn't want to receive a lecture from Jehan re: stirring up well, well established points of contention between himself and Enjolras at a time of minor crisis. He re-enters the room quietly, which is to say undetectably, keeping to the corners and the nearly non existent shadows in the room.
“Know each other?” Jehan is laughing, “You could say that.”
“Since when has the Boogeyman been so important?” asks Joly, without malice.
Jehan gives him a faintly pitying look.
“Grantaire hasn’t always been the Guardian of Fear,” says Combeferre gently, ever one to impart unneccessary knowledge upon his surroundings, “And Enjolras hasn’t always been Guardian of Bravery. However, they have always been antitheses. And you get to know your antitheses rather well, after a while.”
“Mostly I avoid Montparnasse,” says Musichetta, “We don’t see much of each other.”
Grantaire wishes he could say the same; he hates that fucking cat. Right on queue Eponine grumbles in token disent. As Grantaire has long discovered, only Eponine is allowed to bad-mouth her best friend.
Grantaire nudges her with one of the floor shadows, and she wrinkles her nose in comic distaste. He nudges her again and she snarls like a motorbike engine in something approximating his direction.
“Did you forget something, darling?” sing-songs Jehan, smiling right at Grantaire in exactly his direction.
Grantaire rolls his eyes, “The furry carburetor in the corner. I’m not losing all the Hallows. That would be just be carelessness.”
Jehan frowns slightly, “I should really go make sure Marius and Cosette are alright, tell them what’s been going on.”
“That would probably be a good idea,” says Combeferre, “No one has gone missing in a group yet. We should all stay together until we can figure this out. We’ve sent a message to the Man in the Moon, he should have told the Guardians of Childhood. But I don’t like Marius and Cosette being out in the garden on their own.”
Jehan nods, smiling brightly in that way that makes his eyes glitter green. “Look after them, ma cherie,” he tells Grantaire, who makes a face like if you say so. He doesn’t bother reminding him that he hasn’t had a girl’s name in at least fifty years.
Jehan traces his gold-leaf pattern over the cupboard door again, creating his shimmering portal to the Garden. He blows a kiss to Grantaire and steps through, leaving only a faint rustling noise behind him.
The sun doesn’t move in the sky, and Guardians never have excelled at time estimation, but Grantaire guesses half a day passes while they wait.
Jehan doesn’t return. The Messenger does.
Grantaire hears a commotion in the back room, which he’s been avoiding out of an intense lack of desire to have Enjolras either look or not look at him, he’s unsure which. He goes to the doorway and looks in, to see the Messenger screech to a halt at the counter, a trail of devastation in his path. Several humans are lying on the ground, still in their frozen seated postures, coffees and pastries halfway to their mouths. Combeferre twitches across the room, eyes on a coffee mug turned upside down but still not giving up any of its liquid contents, and almost visibly stamps down on the urge to investigate. Grantaire smothers a laugh.
Combeferre tears himself away from metaphysical phenomenon, cries, “Gavroche!” and hugs the flighty, impatient Messenger to his chest.
Grantaire hasn’t seen the Messenger in some time - since the kid ran around in a newspaper boy’s cap and breaches - and he’s changed quite a bit. He has huge headphones slung round his neck, jeans with holes in them, a cell phone in his hand, and - in a singular throwback to simpler times - sneakers with actual, working wings sticking out the back. Grantaire is not happy to see that they’ve made a reappearance. The Guardian of Communication caused enough destruction before the humans developed such a thing as No-Fly Zones and international air travel.
Grantaire stays mostly concealed by the doorway. He loves the kid - Gavroche - in a distant, Uncle-ish kind of way. Unfortunately for Grantaire this nicety is reciprocated by a fascination bordering on idolisation - if allowed, Gavroche would probably follow Grantaire around indefinitely. Thankfully, Grantaire is a good hider. The Messenger may be the only creature in the world that is literally fearless, and it is seriously unsettling.
“Hey!” says Gavroche, pocketing his phone along with his hands into the depths of his hoodie, and surveying the group, “Huh, the Fates.”
“Aren’t you the kid who keeps sneaking in and getting drunk with the Fear Darrags?” asks Bossuet, squinting.
“I keep telling you,” says Gavroche, “I’m technically older than you. I just age really well. Combeferre, tell em.”
“Gavroche,” says Enjolras - calmly, but Grantaire can see the lines of mania starting to crease around his mouth - “Can we start with what you found out?”
“Eh? Oh. Yeah.” He stops investigating the coffee-maker, which is stubbornly conforming with the laws of Time and refusing to make anything. “Sure. So, there are others missing. The Tooth Fairy, the Groundhog, apparently, although who knows with that guy. Maybe he’s just, like, burrowing real deep, you know? I tried to find the Monsters but I can’t find any of them, not even Montparnasse and normally I can’t get away from him. No one knows what’s going on. At least, no Guardians. The humans have loads of theories but I wasn’t hearing anything that sounded like it might be to do with us. But my mate Jack says some of the kids have been saying weird stuff recently, that they haven’t been playing as much, that they have nightmares.”
“Nightmares?” Enjolras asks sharply, looking straight at Grantaire.
“Hey, not my doing,” protests Grantaire, “I’ll have you know I’ve particularly lazy recently.”
“Sack Man!” Gavroche cries in delight, beaming at him.
“Gavroche,” says Grantaire, warily.
“Gav,” prompts Combeferre.
“Yeah okay, so I was gonna say. That’s what’s weird about it. The nightmares, I mean. They’re not nightmares. They’re… The kids say the fall asleep and into nothing. But like, Nothing. With a capital N. They’re afraid of the Nothing.”
The room goes riotously black. Grantaire’s shadows explode outwards, claw up the walls, swamp the floor. They wind up his body and wrap themselves around his neck. He hears Joly shriek and Eponine howl, but distantly, like he’s underwater. He feels his head bow under the cold weight of the whirling, torrential shadows.
Then there is a blaze of violent, searing light, and Enjolras is in front of him, glowing dazzlingly bright, a star in human form. Enjolras grasps his wrists as the shadows are blown out of the room like smoke. “Grantaire,” he says, then, getting no response, “Erebus, look at me. Nyx.”
Grantaire blinks, slowly, and raises his eyes to meet Enjolras’s fierce ones. “Hemera?” he whispers.
Enjolras pulls him in tight, wraps his arms around Grantaire with enough force to crumble stone.
“I’m here,” he says, “I’m here. Hush.”
“He’s here,” says Grantaire, his voice a rasp that frightens even Eponine, if her whimper is anything to go by. “He’s here. And I can’t. Enjolras, I can’t.”
He can’t speak is what, but Enjolras knows him, probably better than he knows himself, knows what he means. Can’t do this, can’t face this, can’t exist with this.
There is silence for a long, long moment.
“What...” begins Gavroche in a small voice, “What’s going on?”
Grantaire can hardly make him out, through the dimness of the room. Enjolras is bright but the darkness is dense, like lighting a candle in a cave, his glow can only travel so far.
Grantaire abruptly recalls the power of movement and makes to dash out of the room. Enjolras’s grip on his arm reels him back in before he can make it even a step. Not for nothing was marble carved to portray Gods.
“Ooof,” says Grantaire, as he collides with Enjolras’s wall-like body. “Let go,” he continues, “Can’t you see I’m trying to run away?”
Enjolras doesn’t even bother insulting him, which is really a new low as far as Grantaire’s concerned, just gazes at him with endless sympathy. “Grantaire,” he says gently, “Where on earth would you go?”
Grantaire scowls, “I don’t know. I’d find a place, there has to be somewhere.”
“There isn’t,” says Enjolras, “There’s nowhere.”
Grantaire flinches against Enjolras, who is the very definition of an immovable object. “There’s somewhere.”
“There’s not, I’m sorry.”
“What do you know, you weren’t there!”
“I’m telling you what you already know. What you told me, remember?”
With that he pulls Grantaire back in again, as if they’re people who hug, suddenly.
“I dislike you,” Grantaire mutters into Enjolras’s shoulder.
“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” says Enjolras, apparently deciding that now was the time to develop some emotional maturity.
Grantaire allows himself, with Enjolras, to slip into autopilot, giving his conscious mind plenty of space to explore the vista of utter misery that has just opened up in front of it.
Across the room, gingerly kicking a tendril of smoke away, Joly coughs politely, “I uh, We. Would also like to know what’s happening. If that’s… I mean, if anyone wants to share.”
Grantaire sinks down to sit on the floor, pushing Enjolras away from him when it looks for a dangerous instant like he’s going to settle in next to him. Enjolras hovers over him, looking decidedly anxious for someone who was the personification of Bravery. Eponine whines in her throat and curls around Grantaire’s feet.
Combeferre takes the Q&A, for which Grantaire is endlessly grateful. He’s currently suppressing the new and unsettling impulse to be violently sick.
“There’s no such thing as nothing,” Combeferre tells the collected Guardians, his eyes downturned. “Any science classroom will tell you that. Everything is something. Atoms, photons, everything. It’s all made of something.
“What they don’t know is that there’s no such thing as nothing anymore. It used to exist. In fact it used to be all that existed. And it was terrible. There was no life or death, no time, no love, or speech or wisdom. No belief. All the things we protect couldn’t exist because Nothing is poisonous to them. It is chaos, void. It is the only thing capable of destroying us all, and with us, all the things we protect.”
“And it’s back?” asks Musichetta hoarsely.
Combeferre raises his head slowly, “It appears so.”
There are questioning eyes on Grantaire, although no one seems to know how to ask the question.
“Grantaire is the only one of us to have ever met the Nothing,” Enjolras says, “Don’t ask him to speak about it.”
Grantaire bristles and relaxes all at once, the former for Enjolras speaking on his behalf, the latter because it means he no longer has to speak about it.
He should tell them the one strategic advantage they have, he supposes, “The Nothing can’t exist in light. It can only exist in the dark. So. Stay in the light, I guess.” Grantaire has no idea how that helps. Half the world is stuck in deep of night at the moment, and that’s saying nothing for the spaces under bed covers and in closets and at the end of forgotten streets.
With this new information in hand, Combeferre and Enjolras start talking strategy and Grantaire slip-slides into the shadows of the next room. He’d forgotten, till now, how much he despised a world without time. For all Gillenormand annoys him, Grantaire appreciates what he brings to the world. He sits quietly in the dark store room for an unappreciable number of minutes or hours or days. The oppressiveness of despair pushing down even harder without time to blow it away.
Bossuet finds him, eventually. “You’re really afraid of this, huh?” he asks, brow creasing.
Grantaire knows Bossuet can’t see a thing in the pitch darkness, but he doesn’t think there’s any call for walking face-first into a wall.
Grantaire snorts as Bossuet lets loose a stream of roman curses. “Sit down,” he says, “Before you hurt yourself any more.”
Bahorel cautiously lowers himself onto the floor, beside a wonder mop, which prompts Grantaire to think about how amazing humans are, in general. A wonder mop. Like, why is that a necessary thing to exist? Because some human wanted it, wanted to clean things better. Honestly. Amazing. He’s struck for a moment with what an existence without them would be like: his wonderful, lovely, genius, bat-shit crazy humans. Those creatures that he’s so filled with love for, who he’s so scared for, all the time.
He remembers Bossuet actually spoke to him, eventually, and says, “Look into the dark.”
“Uhh,” says Bossuet.
“I’m serious,” Grantaire says, “Look into the dark, really look. What do you feel?”
Bossuet’s silent for a long moment, his eyes are wide in the pitch black.
“You’re scared, aren’t you?” says Grantaire softly. “Just a little. At the bottom of your heart. All humans are, at least to begin with. There’s nothing more instinctual, more natural, than a fear of the dark. But tell me. What are you actually afraid of? What are you scared is there?”
“I don’t know,” says Bossuet.
“I do,” says Grantaire, his voice whisper-quiet. “You’re afraid of Nothing. You’re afraid that because you can’t see anything, there might not be anything there.
“That’s my fear you’re feeling. It’s just so big, it’s so important, that it became everyone’s fear. I’m scared of spending eternity in the dark, surrounded by nothing. And so are you. And so is everyone else. But I’m the only one that’s ever experienced it.”
They’re both quiet after that. Bossuet’s fidgeting company is actually sort of nice, in a way. It’s something.
“What are you going to do?” asks Bossuet.
Grantaire shakes his head, locks his shaking hands around his knees. “I don’t know,” he says hoarsely. He’s never known what to do with fear. It’s an immobiliser, it weakens him down to a rag-doll version of himself, making him malleable. Fear is useful for the living. It is torture for the immortal. Humans say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, Grantaire disagrees. What doesn’t kill you ruins you.
Fear is useful in the same way that pain is useful: it’s unpleasant, so you avoid it and survive whatever scary/painful experience was coming up on the horizon. The inherent problem is when there’s no avoiding the scary and painful experience, when your whole existence is a scary, painful experience that you just have to live through. And live through. And live through.
By far the worst part of being a Guardian, they will all agree, is the immortality.
Grantaire doesn’t know if they drift off to sleep or if he’s just shutting down, closing off the parts of himself that are awake. The parts that care and love and feel. Whatever he’s doing, he awakens at a loud bang.
He and Bossuet spring to their feet, but Grantaire gets to the front of the café before him.
He hardly recognises the place, because the daylight has gone out of it. The moon is still shining, determinedly, filling the room and the street outside with a dim, diffuse glow. The humans look like ghosts, still frozen in time, but duller somehow, as if the life has gone out of them.
The Guardians are gone.
“No,” says Bossuet, and Grantaire is overwhelmed suddenly by the tidal wave of terror that pours out of him. A life without Musichetta and Joly. A life without his other parts. A life with nothing.
Grantaire shuts it all out of his head, walks to the door of the café and steps into the boulevard. The street is ringingly silent but for Bossuet’s footsteps behind him. Grantaire looks up at the stone steps, where he watched Enjolras proletize, lifetimes ago, with mixed amusement and irritation. Amusement because Paris was his at that particular moment, his people were safe from riots and revolutions and the terror of foolish children with guns and ideals. Irritation because there Enjolras was, trying it anyway, inciting death in his darling humans, with no regard for their lives, their mothers and sisters, their children. (It is nothing to die, Grantaire. It is frightful not to live.)
Enjolras had, has a special loathing for ignorance and misery, a vengeful, furious ire, directed at those things that brought humanity low. Grantaire was more concerned with keeping humanity from not destroying itself.
At a distance from himself, he feels Bossuet put his hand on his shoulder. Grantaire looks up at the Man in the Moon, gleaming stubbornly in the dark, feels the Moon’s terror for his daughter like a cold breeze on his face.
There is a beat of silence inside Grantaire and then, for the first time in so many millennia, he feels the scrape-snick-whoosh of a fire inside. It roars through his lungs, scours his fingertips, whirls up until it fills his head and mouth and eyes. “Fuck. This,” he snarls, turning on Bossuet and grabbing him in one of his shadow tendrils. “Hold on tight,” he adds, his voice unrecognisably horrifying, and spins them off into the darkness.
They’re on his street, of course. His boulevard. Musichetta and Joly are bound to the streetlamps closest to them, along a bit, Grantaire can see Feuilly and Bahorel, orange glow extinguished. Eponine, unbound but unconscious, her human form terribly soft and vulnerable. Gavroche is gagged, looks more like a child than ever in the pale glow of the moon. He can’t see Enjolras
Grantaire feels Bossuet hurry to Musichetta and Joly, puts him out of mind. He’s focused on the end of the street, where the darkness tapers to a solid wall of black, an emptiness that makes convulsive shivers scuttle over his back. There are figures moving in front of it.
The Green-Eyed Monster, or what used to be, emerges. His long fair hair is dank, matted, his glowing eyes clouded over. His long, insectile limbs are broken at the joints, bending at unsettling, painful angles. Grantaire hasn’t come across any of the Monsters in at least a few decades but he doesn’t remember The Green-Eyed Monster or his wife, Baba Yaga, looking quite so fucking sepulchral.
There’s a hissing noise at Grantaire’s feet and he looks down to see The Omen, Montparnasse, curled defensively in front of Eponine. His ears are flat to his head, his back arched, claws out. He yowls at The Green-Eyed Monster as he approaches on one spindly limb. “Thenardier,” he screeches, “Thenardier, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Thernadier smiles in a horrifying stretch of teeth and points one of his long bony fingers at Montparnasse. The Omen slumps suddenly, bonelessly to the ground on top of Eponine.
“That bodes well,” says Grantaire, partly to distract himself from the increasingly compelling urge to run very fast.
Up ahead, half lost in gloom, Thenardier stills. Slowly, like some kind of macabre puppy, his head cocks towards Grantaire, and, even slower, his smile grows.
“Ahhh,” Thernadier croons, in a voice altogether too familiar to Grantaire, “My little thing!”
Everything that fear is, comes from Grantaire, and everything that Grantaire fears is the creature in front of him, who is not, in fact Thenadier. Grantaire is always scared, it’s his biology. Hold still, don’t say a word, don’t even breathe, don’t even blink. Or run, hide, shake, silent tears in the dark, always with that awful need to look behind you. It’s his Purpose. It’s survival. It’s what keeps the humans safe.
But right now, it wasn’t doing a damn thing. So, time for a new plan.
“Fuck you,” says Grantaire conversationally. “Where’s Enjolras?”
“I knew you’d come to find him,” says the Nothing, still in that saccarine, unholy trill that makes Grantaire’s ears ring. “Would you like to say goodbye? Pathetic creature. The sun goes away, some humans stop believing in him and poof! out he goes like candle. Don’t you get tired of how weak they all are? They need humans to live. Humans. My poor little thing, surrounded by all these silly little make-believe Gods. Not like you.”
“Call me your thing one more time,” snarls Grantaire, “And I swear I will hand-feed you back into whatever black hole you crawled out of. Now give. Him. Back.”
When the Nothing laughs it’s like broken glass.
“I’ve let you have your fun, now it’s my turn. Here, say goodbye to your little creation.”
Enjolras is tossed out from the darkness behind him, lands on the ground between the Nothing and Grantaire like a broken doll.
Enjolras’s normally glowing skin is dull and human-soft. He looks like the ghost of all the teenagers they’ve ever watched die in battle. A greek boy in the mis-fitting armour.
Those boys had made Grantaire feel small, awful and heartbroken and filled with a despair that seemed bigger than the world. So it’s a surprise now, when the sight of Enjolras’s lifeless body fills him with a huge, roaring, world-swallowing rage.
“Let me?” asks Grantaire. His voice sounds like a howl from hell, a thunderous, earth-crackling boom.
“Let me?” he says again, laughing, and the noise clatters around the boulevard. The Nothing puts its hand out flat, like it wants to stop Grantaire from getting any closer. It doesn’t work and Grantaire advances, flanked by shadow. “Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m not your thing. I am a God and my name is Grantaire and you should be very afraid of me.
“This is my world, and in my world, you know what nothing means? It means something that is entirely absent of worth, of value, of power. Something that no one believes in. You are nothing to me. And in case you hadn’t noticed, you are not welcome here.”
Grantaire stops, just in front of where Enjolras’s prone body lies, a foot away from the Nothing. He looks into its eyes and sees the echoing expanse of void that he has been running from for all of forever.
He smirks, “In the beginning there was Darkness, asshole. There was me. So I say: Let there be Light. And I say: Enjolras, I believe in you, so get the fuck up.”
The explosion of incandescent light that blows out from Enjolras blinds Grantaire, and he throws his hand up to shield himself from the scorching white.
The Nothing screams as it’s violently expelled from Thenardier’s body, a shrill, teeth-scraping noise that makes a suddenly conscious, wheezing Enjolras grimace, “Shut UP!” he shouts, and the Nothing immediately silences.
Just like last time, the end is maddeningly anticlimatic. The Nothing goes like the shadows in the earliest glow of sunrise, all at once, without anyone much noticing the change. Well, not exactly like last time. As far as Grantaire can remember, the last time he willed the Nothing out of existence he had sobbed hysterically for a few weeks and a newly-extant, very confused Enjolras was left trying to put together something resembling a coherent explanation for why he was suddenly sentient. And it had been in that sound state of mind that the two of them had conceived of Jehan, which really says it all, as far as their mental stability circa the Hadeon Eon was concerned.
Enjolras stumbles up from his crumpled heap on the ground and into Grantaire’s immediately open arms. Without his shadows and in the face of such blinding light, Grantaire feels oddly human. Enjolras’s eyes are intent on every detail of his normally-obscured face
“Missed you,” Grantaire says, entirely without the consent of his higher processing powers.
Enjolras smiles a little, leans in and kisses Grantaire full on the mouth.
They break off moments or minutes or hours later and Grantaire rolls his eyes. “You’re such a drama queen. You already knew I believed in you.”
“It doesn’t hurt to be reminded every so often,” says Enjolras primly. He turns on his heel and strides over to where Thenardier’s crumpled body lies.
Vivid potion-green eyes blink up at them, confused and angry.
“What?” exclaims Thenardier defensively. Enjolras scowls at him with all his bountiful wrath.
Grantaire turns away from the ensuing verbal evisceration (“It was my wife’s idea! We didn’t know it was sentient!”) and checks on the rest of the Guardians. Cosette and Marius are kissing under the beaming moon, Jehan throws himself into Grantaire’s arms, followed by Bahorel.
“You found us!” Bahorel cheers.
“Took you long enough,” mutters Feuilly.
“To be fair,” rasps Eponine, “We noticed Bahorel was missing much quicker.”
“I can’t believe none of you noticed I was missing,” says Feuilly in a tone of absolute exasperation, “I’m Death, I’m not exactly hard miss.”
“Wow someone’s full of their own importance,” remarks Grantaire.
“Yeah, dude,” Eponine chimes in, “Like, some of us have lives.”
Draped around Eponine’s neck, Montparnasse snickers. She pets him idly on the head.
“Darling, have you considered being a monstrous eldritch being of eternal shadow all the time?” Jehan chirps from somewhere under Grantaire’s armpit. “The look suits you!”
“Ahem.”
Grantaire looks up to see the Fates standing close by, Musichetta looking uncomfortable, front and centre. “We just wanted to say,” she begins, “That we’re sorry if we’ve ever treated you unfairly and from now on you’re welcome at Corinthian whenever you like. Drinks on us, of course.”
Grantaire makes a valiant effort to hide his amusement.
Behind him, he hears Bahorel mutter, “They are definitely going to regret that.”
And also Feuilly say, “That’s some damn shortsightedness, right there.”
“Fates my ass.”
Around them, various Guardians are recovering, helping each other to their feet, finding friends. Father Time limps past them at speed, muttering angrily to himself, heading for Valentine.
Gavroche barrels into them and throws his arms around Grantaire neck in a back-breaking hug. “How’d you do that, how’d you do that, how’d you do that?”
“What part?” Grantaire asks, because if it’s the big shadow-monster thing he honestly doesn’t know.””
“How come that thing couldn’t suck all the belief out of you like it did the rest of us?”
The Fates and Montparnasse look interested, obviously out of the loop on this one.
Courfeyrac approaches, arm in arm with Combeferre. His blindfold is pushed up around his forehead like a sweatband. He laughs delightedly. “Didn’t you know, Grantaire’s special! He doesn’t need belief to exist! He’s the first believer.”
Enjolras approaches them, leaving behind a sullen-looking Green-Eyed Monster, and slips his fingers quietly into Grantaire’s hand.
“Coffee, anyone?” he asks, with a smile.