Chapter 21

Drinking a drink with Éponine had never been more scary. They were just in the pub, sharing a drink, but Grantaire felt like a hundred pairs of eyes were watching him. Like every movement he made would be reported to the inspector. Maybe he even expected the inspector to walk across the corner and arrest him on sight.

He laughed a bit too loud, wanted to let everyone know this was normal for them. It was, to a certain point. Up until their department on the Mussain, they had never spent more than a few days apart.

“What is it like?” Éponine asked. Grantaire had just given her a very detailed description of the security he had seen outside.

“What is what like?”

“Seeing him there.”

Grantaire had no idea what she meant. Or maybe he did, but she couldn’t mean that. She couldn’t know how he had wanted to pin Enjolras down on that bed, but instead of doing that he had just shouted at the man.

He shrugged. “It was weird, seeing the way he is guarded. They almost make it seem like he is no prisoner on the inside, but the entire building is designed to keep him there.”

It wasn’t what he really wanted to say.

"It's weird not having him around giving orders," she said, suddenly reminding Grantaire she was sailing under his command.

"It's weird not talking to you and the others," he responded. At least she had had the crew around her. He had been all alone - unless you counted Gavroche.

She put a hand on his, almost like a gesture of comfort. It wasn't though, as he felt how she pushed a bit of paper inside his hand. "Well, I should be going," she said. "Combeferre as first mate in the lead is a horror."

Grantaire laughed. "I can imagine that," he said. He had visuals or how Combeferre would push everyone to scrub the ship clean, so Enjolras would return to a blinking Mussain.

Even though Éponine went back to the ship, Grantaire had no thoughts of returning to his own house. It felt so empty, and the way he had found Enjolras just wouldn’t leave his mind. It was for that reason that he found himself walking om the beach, whistling for a certain boy.

He had made sure he wasn't followed here. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Javert had sent some men to see about his whereabouts, but they couldn’t know about Gavroche.

"What's going on in town?" Gavroche asked him when they had settled down on their favorite spot, an open space in the woods near the beach.

"As if you don’t already know," Grantaire answered. For a boy who was barely in town, Gavroche seemed to know quite a lot about its secrets and whereabouts.

Gavroche shrugged. "Just making sure you know as well," he said grinning. Somehow it all seemed like a joke to him.

"And what do I know?" he asked suspiciously. Somehow he didn't like the way Gavroche was grinning.

Once again Gavroche shrugged. "Nothing special. Just that that captain of yours will die in seven days." He put one of the cards down like he hadn’t just told Grantaire Enjolras was gonna die in a week's time.

The paper inside of Grantaire's pocket suddenly seemed to burn a hole in his clothes. If they only had a week time, they better made sure Enjolras was out of there by then.

"He- what?" Grantaire didn't even question the boy. Somehow Gavroche knew everything inside that town, even things he couldn’t know. But his information had always been correct.

"Yeah, they're making quite a spectacle of it, I heard. A public execution, making sure the whole town is watching. It’s a warning I suppose, that even captain Enjolras cannot escape his fate."

"And how can you be so calm about it?" Wasn’t Enjolras a friend of Gavroche? Or at least a well-doer?

Gavroche shrugged again. He seemed to do that quite a lot. "He's been in worse situations and survived. I'm pretty sure that man cannot die." Those words didn't comfort Grantaire at all. If he knew one thing, it was that inspector Javert would do anything to punish the infamous captain. He had seen the way Javert's eyes burned when talking about Enjolras. The inspector would not let the captain go easily.

"How do you even know all these things?" Grantaire asked. "You live in the woods, you don’t even exist for the world. How do you know what's going on? For what do you live this life of loneliness?"

He couldn’t imagine anyone willingly choosing this life of solitude, let alone a ten year old boy who definitely still needed his parents.

"Because when you grow up on the streets, you don’t matter to the world no matter what you do," Gavroche answered. He suddenly sounded too wise for his age. "And when the ones who were supposed to protect you from that cruel world, instead turn into the biggest monsters, it's better to just leave at all. I doubt my parents have even noticed I'm gone."

What a cruel way to live, Grantaire thought. Spit out even by your own parents.

"I'm sorry to hear," he said.

Gavroche shrugged (again. How many times could that boy shrug during one conversation?). "Don't be. By not existing anymore, I'm ruling the streets. There are many street rats like me, and that makes us invisible. But by not existing, I’ve become the master."

Grantaire had seen them, in Nassau and his hometown. The young boys living on the streets, trying to pickpocket those who didn't pay attention. Nobody even noticed their presence, especially that rich folk.

"And therefore you need to be a secret?"

Gavroche nodded. "My parents cannot learn about my existence, and neither can the law. They will use it against me, until I'm stuck in that same house again."

Grantaire had no idea how Gavroche had grown up, but judging by the way Gavroche looked when talking about his past home, it hadn’t been a pleasant way. Many children in poverty didn’t grow up in a good place and became the scoundrels trying to make a living on the streets. Sometimes the church acted like they cared, but usually it was just a trick to be able to get more funds. More funds that definitely didn’t end up with the kids in pain and hunger, but usually were used for some new fancy bookcase or crosses.

But even when Gavroche was revealing a bit more of his secrets (not all of them, Grantaire was sure. Gavroche had many more secrets. Perhaps in another time he would learn some more), Grantaire could barely focus on him. The news of Gavroche, the planned execution of Enjolras, kept him occupied.

He couldn’t focus on the game of cards they were playing, and was losing big time. Usually he wasn’t that bad, but this time he didn’t even have a chance to win the game.

“We need to do something,” he said. it was quite out of context, but he was sure Gavroche knew exactly what he was talking about.

Gavroche shrugged. Again. Really, when did that boy not shrug? “Why?"

“Because… because we can’t let him die!” Grantaire spoke desperately. “There must be something we can do.” He could barely hold the thought of Enjolras dying. Of seeing him hang, of hearing the officials speak the words. Criminal. Must pay for his crimes. Seeing a stranger die had been rough enough, especially when Grantaire had known that his friends could be found guilty of the same crimes. (Saving the world. Kicking against the government).

But Enjolras? A person he knew? (A person he idolized?). It would be the death of Grantaire to see that noose around his neck, to hear the verdict. To know he hadn’t done enough.

“He can handle it,” Gavroche said. If he hadn’t been a ten year old boy, then Grantaire had shook him so hard until he finally saw some sense. But he was a ten year old boy, so Grantaire just couldn’t. And knowing Gavroche, he had probably some hidden kung-fu skills, so Grantaire would probably lose that fight too.

“You’re a bad friend,” he said instead. “A friend wouldn’t let him die so easily.” (Was it really pedagogic responsible to tell a child that? Probably not, but Grantaire wasn’t the best in thinking under pressure.

“And you’re a bad friend for not trusting him to handle his own things.”

Grantaire had never trusted a person more than Enjolras.