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i'll be working my hands to the bone
He remembers the first time he drinks wine, in this life.
The red hits the back of his throat, and he's transported to another time completely. It leaves him gasping, nauseous; leaves him unable to touch a bottle because every time he does he sees nothing but ghosts and death and a man he loved more than breathing.
Later, he realizes that as long as it's not red wine he's drinking, he usually remembers more about the Amis and Enjolras than those last horrible days. He already knows it's going to be a problem, but he drinks anyways because there's no one to tell him not to and it's the only way he can see Apollo.
(He's not surprised he's alone. He's the only one out of all of them that didn't deserve heaven; that had needed to be punished with a life alone.
It doesn't stop him from looking, just a little.)
He gives up, eventually. The looking, at least. It takes a few years, but he realizes that there was never any chance he deserved Enjolras, so why would he deserve to find him? It takes a little longer, but the drinking starts to peter off as well (though never entirely) as he figures he doesn't deserve to see the old him, either.
Learning the guitar is another way to keep his hands busy in a way that's not so messy as painting (and he doesn't do much of painting anymore, either, because that's from another life too and clearly if he's here and here alone, then he needed to not be that man as much as possible.) Singing is a logical step after that, and it proceeds from there until he's performing every so often in bars and cafes around the city.
So many of the songs he picks have that sense of melancholy loss to them. It's the only grief he allows himself to feel.
(It's the only time he allows himself to acknowledge how much he still loves the man he'll never be allowed to have.)
The red hits the back of his throat, and he's transported to another time completely. It leaves him gasping, nauseous; leaves him unable to touch a bottle because every time he does he sees nothing but ghosts and death and a man he loved more than breathing.
Later, he realizes that as long as it's not red wine he's drinking, he usually remembers more about the Amis and Enjolras than those last horrible days. He already knows it's going to be a problem, but he drinks anyways because there's no one to tell him not to and it's the only way he can see Apollo.
(He's not surprised he's alone. He's the only one out of all of them that didn't deserve heaven; that had needed to be punished with a life alone.
It doesn't stop him from looking, just a little.)
He gives up, eventually. The looking, at least. It takes a few years, but he realizes that there was never any chance he deserved Enjolras, so why would he deserve to find him? It takes a little longer, but the drinking starts to peter off as well (though never entirely) as he figures he doesn't deserve to see the old him, either.
Learning the guitar is another way to keep his hands busy in a way that's not so messy as painting (and he doesn't do much of painting anymore, either, because that's from another life too and clearly if he's here and here alone, then he needed to not be that man as much as possible.) Singing is a logical step after that, and it proceeds from there until he's performing every so often in bars and cafes around the city.
So many of the songs he picks have that sense of melancholy loss to them. It's the only grief he allows himself to feel.
(It's the only time he allows himself to acknowledge how much he still loves the man he'll never be allowed to have.)
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It isn't his place to tell this person who isn't actually Grantaire his own business. Then again, it's surely more his place to push in this direction than the last.
"/And I don't know if I really did./"
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"/...Don't make too much out of who you saw at-- the end of things./"
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Which, admittedly, had been most clear at the end.
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"/Still means you are. That wasn't-- me./"
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What's left of his coffee is cold, so he finishes it as quickly as he can.
"/I don't mean it was-- you dying for what I believe in. I know it wasn't that./"
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"/--You did?"
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"/It was still you. It was still a choice you made. Like you made the choice to fight with me every week./
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"/It's hardly like I made those choices to be noble./"
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This is a longer conversation. It's still hard to let it lie.
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Not then, at least.
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For what that's worth now.
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"/--Oh./"
Is he blushing? Oh, God, why is he blushing. He hates this.
"A--All right, then."
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Then again, Reese is agreeing. He doesn't look terribly happy about it, but he seems to be agreeing.
"--cool." It takes a second to sort through the mess he's made of his bag, but a fairly pristine flyer is tugged out a few moments later to pass to the dark-haired young man. "This weekend, then?"
They can't let go of this, surely.
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(Maybe they'll have time to.)
He takes the flyer a little uncertainly, but he does take it. He can't help but ask, regardless, "--You're sure?"
About inviting him. About knowing him.
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Alain had been, of course, for more than a few minutes now. It's just he's more certain now, seeing this man holding a flyer firmly in his hand.
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"Okay, then."
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He can remember Grantaire smiling. He can remember his own smile, in bits and flashes of reflections. Reese's is still new. Alain knows his own, still flitting as it ever had been, is new as well.
"I like it."
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"/--I like yours, too./"
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"Saturday, then."
It's a second chance.
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It's a thrill to confirm. He might not stop blushing for the next half hour.
"Sounds-- sounds good."
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'Goodbye' feels too painfully final for now.