Chapter 4

Day two Grantaine still managed to resist the food. When the captain brought him food, he would toss it back, would throw a curse or two at the goldenhaired man. Enjolras just smiled like he didn’t hear the things Grantaire would call him. Like he wasn’t hit on the head with a piece of bread. Like this whole situation wasn’t maddening.

Like Grantaire wasn’t scared to hell of what would happen if the mask of the captain would actually break.

Because the captain didn’t hurt him. The captain didn’t hit him, didn’t tease him with stories of what had happened with his crewmates (what had happened with Éponine). He just cleaned up the mess, and returned a few hours later with another portion.

But at the end of day two (according to the light) even this rebellion had to end, as Grantaire’s stomach made loudly clear. He hated himself for it, but when the captain (always the captain, only the captain) returned, he had to take the food. He couldn’t throw it back, like everything inside him told him. He had to take that bite, and take another bite while the captain was watching him.

“How are you feeling?” the captain asked him when Grantaire had finished the meal. There was no point in not finishing it all. He had lost this little defiance. He had lost everything. What was the point in fighting when the only possible outcome was losing?

“What do you think?” The captain nodded before leaving the room again. But this time he returned almost immediately, carrying a bucket and some linnen.

When the captain sat down next to Grantaire, he involuntarily moved back. He didn’t want to be this close to the captain, didn’t want to see the golden hair this close and wonder what it would feel like to touch a god. But god, he wanted to touch that man, especially to punch him in the face or wrap his fingers around that throat. Enjolras didn’t even look scared now he was within reach of Grantaire. Like he knew Grantaire wouldn’t hurt him.

Grantaire wanted to hurt him, just to prove he had been wrong.

“Here, let me see it.” When Enjolras’ fingers touched Grantaire’s skin, he flinched. Yet his touch was soft, almost tender. He was looking at the cut in his arm. “We don’t want it to get infected, don’t we?”

“You should have thought about that before cutting me,” he muttered. There was no defiance in his voice, not really. No challenge, no bitterness. He was just tired. Tired of being scared, tired of waiting for his destiny to unfold itself. The captain could have killed him by now, and yet Grantaire lived. He somehow felt like the captain wasn’t planning on killing him anytime soon.

Enjolras cleaned the cut, put a fresh bandage on his arm. Then he nodded again before leaving the room again, not speaking to Grantaire.

Grantaire wasn't sure whether to appreciate the silence or break it on purpose. He wanted to ask the captain why. Why was he here? Why was the captain treating his wounds? Why wasn't he dead?

Why him?



But as the days passed, he didn't ask those questions. Every day Enjolras came to the room (no, to the cell. It was a prison, he couldn't forget that). Every day he cleaned the cut, watched as Grantaire ate his food. Every day he smiled like Grantaire was some sort of stray cat that was slowly starting to trust the person that fed him.

Every day they didn't speak a word.

Grantaire never forgot who he was looking at, who was bringing him the food. Every day Enjolras would enter the cabin and his hair would light up in the sunlight. He would look just as godlike as he had when Grantaire had seen him for the first time. Maybe he looked a bit more like a god every time Grantaire saw him. He had never been one for religion, but if there ever had been a god, they would look like Enjolras.

But Grantaire still heard the way Enjolras had talked about life and death. How he hadn’t cared about those who died, how Éponine could be one of those people. Maybe that made him more godlike, in this forgotten place full of pain and suffering. Only a god who didn’t care about the world, would be able to watch from above.

Grantaire didn’t want to believe in a cruel god. And yet, the way Enjolras just… was, made it so difficult to keep reminding himself of that.

But after a few days, Grantaire couldn’t keep the silence on. He didn’t know what was better, the cursing or the silence. He knew the captain didn’t seem to care about his responses either way.

"Why?" he finally asked.

Enjolras had been staring at a map, but when the darkhaired man talked, he looked up.

"Why what?"

Grantaire scoffed. "Don't play dumb Apollo. You know damn well what I mean." And yet, Enjolras didn't answer, but looked back at his map.

"Why am I still alive? What do you want from me?" The chains rattled when Grantaire moved. He wanted to shake that man, force him to answer him. Wrap his hands around that neck and feel the life leave his body. "Answer me, goddammit!"

"We won’t hurt you, I promise you that," the captain answered, calm as ever. Why wasn't he shouting? Why wasn't he showing anything other than this calmness?

Once again Grantaire scoffed. "And why do I find it so hard to believe that?" He moved a bit and the chains rattled. Here he was, stuck in chains, a fucking prisoner, and that man wanted him to believe that they weren't going to hurt him? That he was going to be alright? (But after everything Grantaire had shouted, had thrown, they had brought him food, hadn’t they?)

“I get it," Enjolras said. The no, you don’t almost slipped Grantaire’s mouth. "You’re angry, you’re scared maybe. You’re stuck on a ship, stuck with the ones you’ve always learned to fear and to hate. The ones who are, according to your stories, monstrous and non-human. And yet you are offered food, and yet your wounds are treated, like they care about your needs. Like you are human. But if we treat you as human, that makes us human too. And that is something you cannot rhyme with your reality.”

Almost, almost , Grantaire would have thought Enjolras could actually get it. But then these words had come out, and that illusion was over. Of course the bloody pirate captain couldn’t understand it. Of course he had to think he knew Grantaire better than Grantaire knew himself.

"And yet every myth, every tale has an origin story," he said. Every single tale warned people of the brutality of pirates. Every child knew the stories of captain Enjolras and Les Amis. How they took what they wanted, how they terrorized the seas.

Enjolras smiled. "I'll tell you this. Tomorrow I'll show you around on the ship, introduce you to my crew. Then you can decide for yourself whether those stories are right or whether history is just written by the victors."