#lesmis

sweetanyways:

who am i

Two four six o ONEEEEEEE

Ok here’s the truth: IF WHEN YOU WATCHED/READ LES MISERABLES YOU DIDN’T SUPPORT THE MILITARY COMING TO KILL THE REVOLUTIONARIES, BUT YOU CURRENTLY SUPPORT THE NATIONAL GUARD COMING TO ATTACK PROTESTORS IN AMERICA, YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE. END. OF. STORY.

ITS BARRICADE DAY. IT IS TIME TO LOVE AND APPRECIATE LES AMIS DE L'ABC. AND IT IS DEFINITELY TIME TO CRY ABOUT “permets-tu?” AND GAVROCHE’S DEATH. THIS IS OUR TIME. LAMARQUE, HIS DEATH IS THE HOUR OF FATE, THE PEOPLE’S MAN, HIS DEATH… IS THE SIGN WE AWAIIIIIIT (TO CELEBRATE BARRICADE DAY)!!!! HAPPY BARRICADE DAY EVERYBODY! VIVE LA FRANCE!

maedhrys:

imagine HP!AU Feuilly walking into the library at Hogwarts for the first time and he hasn’t ever even imagined so many books and he just wants to live there, eat and drink the precious words, breathe the dust on the pages and soak the knowledge into his blood

when he first asks whether he can take a book back to his room with him, the librarian gives him a funny look. on hearing that he can, his eyes open almost as wide as they did when he first saw the library and he signs one out reverently, just one, and leaves clutching it to his chest.

he brings it back the next day and checks out a whole stack.

still, his favorite place to read is in the library, because he almost feels that the books are sinking into him simply by their closeness. it’s a magic library, after all, so maybe they can.

hawk-and-handsaw:

courfeyrac calls combeferre “four-eyes” until combeferre eventually starts signing all his texts and emails and letters to him as

yours truly, ::)

knightlypatroclus:

queerdemigod:

WHAT ABOUT grantaire being super duper into philosophy and coming up with a lot of weird anecdotes about various philosophers at the weirdest moments

“did you know diogenes masturbated in the street" 

"alcibiades had the biggest crush on socrates and tried to get in his pants more than once”

“leibniz taught himself latin”

“when rousseau was kicked out of both france and sweden for his ideas, hume helped him, but rousseau thought he was victim of a conspiracy with hume as the mastermind and gave him a sixty three paragraphs long paper detailing this conspiracy before going back to france”

i also like to imagine if Enjolras was getting too heavy on venerating a certain philosopher (cough that one moment w Rousseau) he’d be like “and here’s a shitty thing he did, and another, and another, also he contradicted himself here and here on that one point alone, so…”

Grantaire doesn’t think much of himself. Sometimes it gets to him, how banal he is compared to his friends, so he gets dramatic. At least he tries.

Word count: 5 346

I’m naked,
I’m numb,
I’m stupid,
I’m staying.
And if Cupid’s got a gun
Then he’s shootin’
~Until we Bleed -Lykke Li

There is this persistent belief that a tragedy must be infinitely dramatic and poignant, perfumed with the smell of death, tears and despair. If you asked someone to imagine a tragic event, the first thing that would come to their mind would probably be a house fire, imageries of war, perhaps even a version of an apocalypse yet to come. By immediately thinking about the extremes situations, most people forgot the smaller tragedies. The duller, more insignificant ones. Things that nobody really cared about except when there was a political question attached to it. For instance, the tragedy of being excessively bland.

Comparing banality to death and mayhem always seemed like a big stretch. Perhaps a pretentious, whiny, offensive one at that. That’s what Grantaire thought, anyway. Still, when he looked into a mirror, he couldn’t help but find a fragment of tragedy there, somewhere between a wrinkle and an acne scar. He wasn’t abject-looking, nor was he handsome or even peculiar. He was just… common. He did not have a memorable face. It reflected his personality perfectly. He was trapped in a constant state of being ordinary, almost nondescript, to the point of being replaceable. Whereas some of his friends were invaluable, he had maybe the worth of a one dollar plastic trinket. Some ugly dust collector one would forget was even there with time.

It wasn’t that Grantaire was completely useless. There were things he could do well, like drawing, painting, dancing or boxing. Nevertheless, he was nothing more than average at everything he ever undertook. There was nothing really impressive in being average, especially when you had to exhaust yourself to maintain that averageness. Nobody noticed that hard work. At least, when you were particularly bad, you could make a name for yourself. You’d also have reason to get all sad and depressed, or angry and stressed. People kept telling Grantaire that he shouldn’t complain; that others would kill to be in his place, that he was being greedy and greenly envious. They were right, and that was the worst. Part of his tiny tragedy came from the fact that he was condemned to be eternally unsatisfied, and condemned to feel guilty about it.

Perhaps one of the main problem was that Grantaire had a tendency to make friends with people who inevitably outshone him in every aspect imaginable. He was attracted to geniuses, real artists, engineers and extraordinary individuals. He buzzed around them like a fly among busy bees. He insisted on following around remarkable beings who always had something interesting to say, whether he agreed with their ideas or not. It couldn’t be healthy to soak himself in the glory of others while doing nothing of value by himself. It exacerbated his belief that his own existence was pointless. Yet, he couldn’t bear to leave.

The group he joined about four evening per weeks at a café on Côte-des-Neige street was constituted of some of the best people Grantaire had ever known. They fit bizarrely together, and did not always all get along, but they certainly completed one another. There was Joly, a future doctor with an incredible memory and a great sense of humour; Bossuet, the latter’s companion, an optimistic, jovial man with the unimaginable strength of character of ten men; Jehan, a splendid poet who had the knacks to find the right words to make you laugh or shed a tear; Bahorel, the iron giant, always ready to protect his friends either with his fists or a sharp wit; Feuilly, the hard worker who was a self-taught man in so many fields Grantaire often wondered at the size of his IQ; Combeferre, a shining intellect doubled with a mind full of common sense and sympathy; Courfeyrac, a centre, a man capable of cooling down any hot conflict with a joke or a hug; and finally… finally there was Enjolras.

Enjolras was the light of Grantaire’s day. At first glance, he was an androgynous marbled statue, magnificently sculpted with few distinguishable flaws. When one looked further, behind the vehement beauty of his blue eyes, there was passion. An astonishing amount of passion and convictions. His voice was like thunder when he spoke his mind, and to poor banal Grantaire, Enjolras looked like a more vigorous Atlas, ready and willing to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders if he had to. Enjolras was not a kind spirit, but his heart was in the right place. He naively spouted words like ‘freedom’, ‘social justice’, ‘integrity’ and ‘intersectionality’, thinking that he and his bunch of friends —all young students— could attempt to make some changes. And sometimes, they did, as small as those changes were. The solid determination of Enjolras was moving the group towards something. Perhaps that something was intangible and scrawny, but Grantaire could almost see it despite his usual pessimism. It was refreshing, to see someone that driven.

One day, Bossuet told Grantaire jokingly that he was like a satellite to their Enjolras. He gravitated around the blonde beauty like one of these moons did around the mighty Jupiter. Grantaire doubted that Enjolras would like to be compared to a planet, especially one that had the roman name of Zeus, but the image stuck in his mind. All of his friends were planets, orbiting around shiny ideals that were like their star. Meanwhile, Grantaire’s own star was his friends. He was barely warmed by the heat of their sun, but hanging around was better than wandering into the void. But even then, it was an exaggeration to call Grantaire a satellite. After all, didn’t these rocks have their own use? The moon reflected the light of the sun at light. It had an impact on the ocean. People wrote poems about the moon. Hell, walking on the moon was considered an amazing historical event.

Grantaire felt a pang of shame at having compared himself to a satellite, as though he had that much importance. Pulled out of his revery, he slumped on his seat and sighed, the weight of his own pretension heavy on his mind. He was alone in a pub, nursing his third whisky of the evening. He had to leave the café where his friends were having one of their silly little meetings. He had angered Enjolras and hadn’t felt strong enough to handle the hurt, disdainful gaze of the blonde. Angering Enjolras was one of the only good things he was especially good at, but then again Enjolras was partly made out of righteous anger. It was not that difficult to poke at it, and most of the time it only brought him a few harsh words and an exasperated gaze.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said the barman in front of him. Grantaire did not rise his head. He kept staring at the amber liquid, and at his pudgy fingers grasping the glass.

The guy was new, so he didn’t know better, but Grantaire hated when strangers addressed him in that hopeful, compassionate way. They thought that, since he was all silent and morose, surely he had some interesting background. A story. Something special to share. Obviously, it wasn’t the case. The only thing someone could gain by making Grantaire talk was a long ramble about nothing, that meant nothing, and that was worth nothing to the ear. He’d go off on irrelevant tangents. Grantaire dreaded seeing the boredom crawl upon people’s features as he went on and on, unable to stop. It reinforced the certitude that he was unimportant and Grantaire never needed more confirmation. These only hurt.

“My head’s completely empty,” Grantaire finally groaned. “There’s nothing here I’d sell you for a penny. After all, I’m not a con-man.”

He stopped himself in time, but in his head, the words-vomit kept pouring and a million other sentences passed his lips without a sound. He risked a glance at the dark-skinned man in front of him. He looked a little like Enjolras’s right arm Combeferre, surprisingly. His gaze was thoughtful behind black-rimmed glasses, and his lips were pursed in a nonplussed expression. Combeferre had never really liked Grantaire and had decided early on to make it apparent, although he always remained fair and polite. That barman looked like the same type of honest person. Grantaire grinned at him.

“I don’t want to whine about my life to you,” he said amicably. “Boring my friends with self-deprecation and cynical quips is one thing, bothering you on the job when you can’t flee is another.”

“I could always kick you out when I’d have enough,” the man suggested. There was the start of a smile on his thick lips, but it was not quite there yet. He turned his attention to the back of the pub, where two drunks were now arguing loudly.

“Would you? I’ve just been kicked out. Sort off. Of a meeting. Well, I wasn’t kicked out, but the looks that were thrown at me hurt like rocks —you know, like being stoned— so I figured I better show myself out and go to a place where—” Grantaire stopped himself. The barman was not listening: one of the old drunkard was threatening the other with a bottle of beer and the man had quickly jumped over the bar to intervene. The old man eventually calmed down and started muttering rude apologies, but when the barman came back, Grantaire was gone.

***

It had been months since Grantaire had touched a paintbrush or mixed colours. He had given up after his umpteenth attempt at capturing the essence of one of his friends. He had burnt the last painting he’d done in Joly and Bossuet’s yard, swearing and stomping around it while his duo of friends looked at each other helplessly. He couldn’t even sketch: he would only get aggravated and break the pencils in two. Surely, when a hobby became upsetting, it was the time to quit. Nothing was ever any good anyway. Grantaire’s stuff was bland, devoid of any spark. He knew it, his teachers knew it, his friends and family knew it… All that hard work to be a dime a dozen. It seemed like a waste, really. Someone else with real talent was probably dreaming of owning an easel and art material, and here he was, daubing like a child. So he stopped.

Unfortunately, just like Grantaire couldn’t do without his friends, without Enjolras’ scorn in the evening, he couldn’t live without art. Art was at the centre of his being. It allowed him to exorcise whatever miseries were lingering in his dummy brain. He couldn’t exactly communicate anything, as everything he did passed over the radar, but it was still an expression of himself to draw, to paint, to trace an idea into a concrete piece. If he couldn’t do art anymore, Grantaire was afraid he was eventually going to implode. His sheer mediocrity would get the better of him, and he wouldn’t be able to know what he lived for. The solution Bossuet gave him was to concentrate more on a new form of art, something that hadn’t frustrated him to the point of disgust yet.

Grantaire chose photography.

It seemed like an evidence. If he was to paint mediocre portraits that paled next to the original models, then why not simply take pictures? It was faster, less time-consuming. One click and there was a new image appearing in the numerical camera, an image that was a direct representation of his personal gaze. It had to be enough to evacuate the turbulent thoughts, to give some sense of control and purpose to his shaky hands, even if it was nothing excellent.

To avoid bothering his friends, Grantaire decided not to take any pictures of them. He especially did not want any of Enjolras: the last time he had tried to paint the man, he had almost started crying in shame, feeling like a pathetic stalker dripping with vulgarity. Humans were still the most interesting subject of art, so he finally resigned to take pictures of himself. He had some qualms about taking so many pictures of his ugly mug, but he did not have to show them to anyone, nor did he have to even mentioned what he was doing in his spare time to make himself feel better.

When he came back from the pub, feeling like he hadn’t had enough to drink, the first thing Grantaire did was to dig his camera from under the bed and take some clichés in front of the mirror. He immediately put them on his computer, printed them and deleted the files. The black and white copies, he hid them everywhere in his small apartment: under the carpet, under his bed, behind frames with actual pictures of his friends, in books, in the bathroom cabinet… It made him feel as though he was wallpapering the place with himself. The oddity of the gesture seemed to make him a little less common, a little less ordinary. He thought maybe he could deal with his tragic dullness that way.

***

Joly found one of the pictures while he was rummaging through Grantaire’s cabinet in search of ibuprofen because he felt a migraine coming. He got out of the bathroom with a perplexed expression decorating his cute features and eyed Grantaire with a comically inquisitive gaze.

“Um, I think you misplaced this?” he said awkwardly.

Grantaire laughed. It was a picture of him, shirtless, his eyes to the ceiling and his tongue stuck out. In his head, it was called the Naked Raspberry. He thought it was one of the funny ones. Bossuet, who was sitting besides him on the couch, got up to take a look at the picture. He sort of frowned and smiled at the same time, mimicking Joly’s perplexity in his own way. They were really a good duo of friends.

“It’s my latest project,” Grantaire offered.

“A project?” Joly repeated, lighting up. “What project? I didn’t even know you took pictures!”

“It’s recent,” Grantaire admitted. “I don’t really feel like talking about it, if you don’t mind. If you see any more of those, just let them where they are.”

Grantaire couldn’t simply tell his best friends that he was taking pictures of himself and hiding them each time he felt too banal. They would try to reassure him by telling him that he was not and he’d feel even worst about himself because he didn’t like being lied to. It was not that he thought his friends insincere, but he had the feeling they confused whatever fondness they held for him with what he really wanted to be: someone who mattered. At least, Enjolras and his friends saw right through him and did not search for qualities or potential that weren’t there. They just took him as he was, and they got annoyed —rightfully so— when that wasn’t enough.

When Joly and Bossuet left, thankfully without insisting to know everything about his sudden love of photography, he took his camera and tried to take a picture of one of his eyes. He wanted to reassure himself that what he’d find there, in his pupil and iris, wasn’t pure emptiness. He was glad when he noted that sorrow could, indeed, be photographed. Helplessness too. It was all there, in that one droopy eye, and Grantaire laughed gaily at it.

***

“Say, as an artist, do you ever—”

“Yeah, I do,” said Feuilly nonchalantly.

“You did not let me finish!” Grantaire protested.

He did not often talk to Feuilly. The man was one intimidating creature. He was always doing something. Always. While Grantaire sometimes lost entire hours of just staring at the walls, Feuilly couldn’t bear the thought of spending one minute not being useful. He had two jobs, was also a fan-maker, never missed a meeting to talk about social issues, read the newspapers and several books a month to keep his brain going, and still found the time to hang out with Bahorel. No wonder that the other members of the group all admired him. He was the opposite of Grantaire.

“No, but you were in need of some reassurance with something you do as an artist,” Feuilly said, ever the perceptive man, “And I can assure you that whatever weird ass thing you are about to say, I probably did it. Hey, maybe I still do it.”

“You are not that weird.”

Feuilly grinned at Grantaire. It dug little dimples in his cheeks. “Really? Who are you trying to fool, man? Isn’t weirdness what holds us all together?”

There was a pause during which Grantaire tried to hold back what was already erupting from his mouth. It came out hoarse and shaky: “All of you, maybe.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, R, finish your thoughts.”

“I was never a thinker anyway,” Grantaire answered, trying to brush it away. When Feuilly stared at him like he had just said something completely incoherent, Grantaire made a big show of pointing at the door and claiming he just remembered he was late for his hang out with Bossuet and Joly. He got out of Feuilly’s working place —a cybercafé— so fast he did not see where he was going. He walked straight into Enjolras.

The blonde almost immediately rolled his eyes when he noticed who had bumped into him. Grantaire was torn between the need to pick at the annoyance and the one to apologize endlessly. He ended up flattening Enjolras’ shirt awkwardly, making a quip about Enjolras’s burning eyes, and quickly escaping. He left behind him a confused Enjolras and an abashed Feuilly.

***

Over the course of the next days, Grantaire fell into a sort of gloomy haze, as this was often the case once or twice a month. He didn’t go to the group meetings that day, preferring to install himself in front of the mirror and to stare at himself, camera in hands. He was shirtless, his hairy body exposed, and he was trying to assess what he’d like to photograph. He already had many pictures of his dick, both erected and soft, a few of his flat nose, many of his tattoos, and one of his mouth. He particularly liked that one, because it showed sort of a mocking, toothy rictus. There was spit on his lips and beer stains on his teeth. His tongue was poking out of the corner of his mouth. Still, all of these joined the black and white copies carelessly thrown under the bed.

On a Friday night, someone knocked at his door. Since there was a rhythm in the knock, he knew that it was Jehan. Once, the poet had knocked the whole theme song of Jurassic Park when Grantaire hadn’t feel like opening the door. This time, it was the opening of a cartoon Grantaire watched when he was younger called Rémi Sans Famille. He smirked and decided to let his friend inside. He was surprise to see that Jehan was not alone. He was with Feuilly, who had his arms crossed and looked a little worried. Grantaire sighed.

“Is this some kind of intervention?” he said, “Because I swear I’m not even on a binder. I haven’t even started drinking yet, which is kind of an exploit, so—”

“That is a conversation for another time,” Jehan said, flipping his long curly hair, “We’re here because Joly told us about the photographs and Feuilly thinks it has a link with what you wanted to ask him, but did not.”

“Then, the fuck are you doing here?” Grantaire asked, confused. Jehan shrugged.

“Why am I here, why am I there… you know, I just follow my instincts!”

“Me think you followed Feuilly because you’re a curious kitten. Don’t you know that curiosity will kill the cat?”

“And satisfaction brought it back! No cat’s afraid of death when they’re young and still got their nine lives!”

Feuilly cleared his throat. “Right… Guys. So do you want to tell us what is going on?”

Grantaire would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit uneasy digging the black and white pictures from all the little hiding places. He did not know what his friends would think of him taking crappy clichés of himself only to stick them in odd places. Perhaps they would think him on the brim of a mental breakdown. A loony, so narcissistic he couldn’t handle his own commonness and had to do illogical stuff like this. Yet, Jehan just smiled at him and Feuilly seemed engrossed in the pictures spread onto the kitchen table. He passed his finger on them, looking at a detail or another. Grantaire felt suddenly shy.

“I know, it’s a big load of crazy, but it makes me feel better to do that,” he admitted, his cheeks reddening.

“I never knew you were into photography, man, but I don’t see why you should hide it away. There’s no shame in that. I mean, it’s your hobby, why would we—” started Feuilly.

“No, that’s not it,” Grantaire —and, to his surprise, Jehan— said at the same time. Grantaire stared at his friend, frowning. Jehan fluttered his eyelashes at him.

“Go on,” he said. “Explain to Feuilly what you are really doing.”

Grantaire nodded. Then he started rambling. “I… What I was going to ask last time is that… You know, often I feel so… ordinary!” he finally let out in a breath. Feuilly blinked at him, and then frowned. “Yes, ordinary. When I look at you who makes handmade fans, who does volunteer work and work your ass off all the while hanging out with us; when I look at Jehan who has the courage of walking in the streets dressed in the most eclectic manner while reciting poems out loud; when I look at-at Enjolras, who burns like the sun while orating like that’s the one thing he was born to do… I just feel a little meaningless. I feel like I don’t have a thing to especially appreciate in myself. I mean sure, I do a lot, but I’m not great at anything. So I figure I would make myself a clown. A sad clown. A funny clown. I just… taking stupid pictures of myself and amusing myself at putting them everywhere? I know it makes no sense, but somehow it helps a little. It helps with the expression of myself. It helps with developing original quirks. It helps with putting out there images of me through my own gaze. It helps with purging stupid thoughts. So yeah. There you have it.”

“R is burying the ridicule,” Jehan added.

“What?” Grantaire and Feuilly exclaimed.

“Burying the ridicule. I do that too. I write insane obscenities on pieces of paper, flat poetry, or absolute nonsense anyway, and I leave these pieces of paper in books at the library. In other words, I take what I can’t make sense of but keeps bubbling in my mind and I flaunt it in the real world. I know they’re there, but they don’t harass me anymore. I call that burying the ridicule.”

“Oh. Although it’s more… exorcising it?” Feuilly said like he had an epiphany. “Bahorel and I, we write stuff on sheets of paper, we stick them to our punching bag, and we let off some steam that way.”

“It’s burying for me because they never really leave you. You just… sweep it under the carpet of reality’s decorum,” Jehan answered. He had a dreamy look on his face. He smiled at Grantaire. Grantaire smiled back, but his heart was a little twisted. He thought he had developed something proper to himself, but apparently other people were already doing the same thing. And, of course, since it was Feuilly and Jehan, surely they did it better than he. Still, he felt warm when Jehan hugged him tightly and told him that he looked perfectly ridiculous on the pictures. He felt warm when Feuilly pointed at a cliché of his penis and said that he knew Grantaire was a big dick. He felt a little more understood.

***

Feuilly and Jehan had not said their last words. When Grantaire showed up at the Musain for the next meeting a few days later, as he felt a little better, he knew immediately that everyone was waiting for him. They were all sitting straight and silent and staring at him with nervous smiles on their faces. For a second, Grantaire wondered if he had forgotten his own birthday —again— or if they were preparing to mock him since Joly the blabber mouth probably told everyone about the pictures. He did not mind, but he wished they would hurry up and get it over with. He opened his mouth to throw a joke, so they would follow suit, but that’s when Bossuet appeared before him with a scrapbook.

“Um,” Grantaire started, “Okay? Did I really forget my birthday again?”

Bossuet rolled his eyes and Grantaire saw Enjolras scoffed and smile out of the corner of his eye. Bahorel slapped his forehead. “Your birthday is in freaking November, mate!” he exclaimed.

“Right, so what’s with the book?”

“Well, look inside, would you?” Bossuet said, winking at him.

They installed Grantaire at their table and placed the book in front of him. Grantaire opened it eagerly and was hit with Joly’s sloppy writing. It read: Grantaire once dropped his pizza on the floor, tried to wash it at the sink, and then shrugged and ate it anyway. It was disgusting, but it made me laugh. Fortunately, he didn’t get sick! He did try to lick me afterwards though, proving again that he likes to stick his tongue in strange places.

Grantaire blinked and stared hard at the words. He then looked at Joly, then at Bossuet who beckon him to turn the page. Shakily, Grantaire obeyed. The next page had something written by Bossuet: I’m the unlucky one, they say, but my friend R had the knack to lose his own shoes. Three months ago, he managed to get one stuck in a manhole. When he tried to get it back, it fell down the hole. Last month, R babysat his sister’s dog who ate one of his shoes. Tired of this shit, Grantaire taped his new shoes to his feet with duct tape for two whole days before deciding he didn’t like the shoes anyway and wanted combat boots!

With a trembling smile on his face, Grantaire kept going. Each page had a message about him, something he did that his friends remembered fondly or thought was worth mentioning. Bahorel wrote about the time Grantaire spontaneously climbed a tree and got stuck there because he had forgotten he was afraid of heights. His giant friend had to borrow Mme Houcheloup’s ladder, and the old widow lived a dozen streets up the hill. Feuilly wrote about the week Grantaire decided he wanted to try painting on himself, but was too lazy to wash himself, so he when to work with a hundred little doodles on his arms and face and was promptly sent back home. Courfeyrac talked about that stupid bet they made one day about who could get the more kisses in one party. Courfeyrac won, and Grantaire only got one kiss from a girl name Floreal, but he claimed that Floreal’s kiss was worth a thousand, making the girl blush and giggle. Combeferre talked about when they all went for a picnic in a park, and Grantaire chased a butterfly for him, catching it and happily showing it to him, despite his scratched arms and dirty knees. Jehan even wrote a poem about Grantaire’s absurd paintings, and another one about Grantaire’s silly dance moves at a club, and yet another about how Grantaire introduced him to the best restaurants in town.

Everyone wrote many things. It was like an ode to Grantaire’s quirks. Fortunately, no one in the book claimed that Grantaire was some sort of hidden genius. They only talked about real little things that happened that they liked, and made it seemed like it was very grand. When Grantaire stumbled upon Enjolras’s curvy writing, he had a lump in his throat.

My friend R is exceedingly talented at poking holes in my arguments and making me question myself. My other friends remarked that it brings out a nasty side of myself, because I can be rude when interrupted, or when people say that I’m wrong. Nevertheless, it is good to be challenged from time to time, and although R could use a little more optimism, his place could definitely be by our sides.
I know that you have problems of your own, and according to Jehan, you feel that you are not enough, but that is not our opinion. You do not go unnoticed, Grantaire.

On the last page, everyone wrote sappy stuff like ‘You are loved!’ and ‘I am the proud friend of Viateur Grantaire’. He closed the book and looked at his friends, dumbfounded.

“You did not need to do that,” he said after a moment of silence. It was a half-lie. They did not need to do it, indeed, but thanks to them he felt incredibly emotional. Bossuet passed an arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the head. Bahorel punched him lightly on the arm. Everyone radiated warmth and protectiveness. Grantaire had trouble believing that he wasn’t dreaming. Part of him sneered cynically at the scene, arguing in his head that they only did it to get free of guilt somehow, because they pitied him. However, another part of him was jumping up and down, loved and happy. He wasn’t used to that little positive part.

“We actually wanted to, and you needed to read it,” Courfeyrac said.

“It is very kind of y’all, but I’m still a dime a dozen,” Grantaire muttered.

“What?” Bahorel exclaimed. “Maybe to the rest of the world who doesn’t know you, man, but to us, you’re not just anyone.”

“You are unique and special,” Jehan agreed.

“It’s not because you aren’t an erudite or… I don’t know, some kind born-great artist that you are nobody, R,” Feuilly said.

“But next to you—”

“Next to me? Grantaire. I’m not worth more than you,” Feuilly protested. He sounded sad. “A person’s worth isn’t determined by their ability to impress the gallery. I could be the best fan maker in the world and also be the biggest asshole there is.”

“You’re not an asshole!” Grantaire and Enjolras said at the same time. They smiled at each other, but Grantaire ducked his head and wrinkled his hands.

“But all of that you wrote… I mean, anybody could do these things. It’s nothing special.”

“It’s special to us,” Bossuet argued.

“Grantaire,” Jehan said, “We’re all nobodies in the life of some strangers, no matter how talented we are. It doesn’t matter, because we have each other. You have us. We don’t think any less of you for not being perfect. No one is. Actually, and I’m not ashamed to say, I adore you. I love you, friend, I see the stars among the darkness of your—”

“What Jehan is saying,” Enjolras cut, “is that you are valuable. And that you should speak to us the next time we make us feel less than that.”

Grantaire did not look at Enjolras so the blonde wouldn’t see the disbelief in his eyes and the internal struggle Grantaire was going through. He wanted to protest, he wanted to debate, he wanted to demean himself as always. But the part of him that felt good, the part of him moved almost to tears, was gripping him stronger than his cynicism. He decided to give it a chance, even if he was going to regret letting himself believe his friends.

“Well, thanks I guess,” Grantaire finally said, as there didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

For a little while, even if it was just the euphoria of the moment, Grantaire did not feel like a tragically banal figure.

Les Misérables (2012) dir. Tom Hooper

Bonus: