it's a divine comedy! [open]

[permets_tu]

Who| Grantaire & OPEN.
What| Grantaire tries to adjust to not being dead, and probably more importantly, being alive in a place that certainly is not 1832 Paris.
Where| Tribute Center; Central Commons.
When| Some point shortly after his arrival.
Warnings/Notes| Will update as needed.

Initially Grantaire mistook it for a hallucination, elaborate and strange, yes, but surely a product of his own drink addled mind. He was asleep at that table still, drowning in the drunken miasma of his wild dreams, and soon he would wake and this would be forgotten, as dreams always are. However, the longer it persisted, the clearer his mind became, and the painful clarity in which this reality assaulted his senses eventually forced him to reconsider his earlier assumption and accept a new truth.

This was real.

If he accepted that then he must also accept that he had died, just as he remembered, standing beside Enjolras and showing himself capable of not only dying but dying as well as he knew how.
Yet apparently it hadn't took, which was troubling for a number of reasons he'd rather not dwell upon.

Instead set out to gain some bearing on his situation, which was how he had come to this point, standing in a great open lobby. He did not know precisely how he had done so; he had followed people, there had been a strange static journey within a box that closed on one place and opened at another, and now he stood here, feeling at once both awed and cruelly cheated. He reacted initially with unnatural silence, so struck was he by the outlandishness of his situation.

"A drink!" he cried abruptly, as suddenly as enlightenment strikes the puzzled intellectual, and he looked around wildly for any place that might provide him one.

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[permets_tu]

Grantaire was well-acquainted with the some of the worst Enjolras could say to a man. That she had somehow earned his censure was no easy thing to bear and he could not find it in himself to chastise her furious tone. It was enough to hear that Enjolras was here, somewhere. That many said he was dead was too terrible a thing to contemplate and he chose to cling to the rumors she shared instead. Forget Enjolras? Never.

Just so, belief, which he was thought himself free of, bloomed again within his chest, and he was filled with an unbearable lightness. He could kiss her, and do it well, for the happiness she had espoused.

Grantaire smiled at her and sought to do just that, pressing a kiss firmly to her mouth. "I am still looking at you, Lady, cast off that furious robe you wear, you are lovelier laughing."

[gardienne]

"Yeah?" That stopped her anger in it's tracks. "I thought you should be rushing for the woods to escape to find that dratted Enjolras of yours, not messing with some woman as me. It'd do you no good anyway. There is a track thing inside you so they can see where you go." She shook her head and grinned. "Then you'd be cuffed like me, or branded like a common criminal, or shot dead, which is almost so bad as the guillotine, I think, and beheading is almost the worst thing."

Eponine was so pleased with herself. She quite imagined that Grantaire had chosen her over Enjolras out of choice, and that made her feel as if she really was worth as much as the Amis. She could be just as good as anyone else. She couldn't help grinning properly at Grantaire.

"There is too much bad thought here. I am sorry. Let us talk of nice things."

[permets_tu]

"You say it well enough, he is hiding and I am a poor seeker." The truth of this claim was debatable. In Paris, as familiar as he was with so much of the city, he was adept in finding many a fine and fun thing. Should he set his ambition towards tracking down the man he so venerated and she so despised there was a chance he would be met with success. However, his ignorance of the setting did put him at a severe disadvantage, and it was better to stay, gather information in his own way, done so with wandering and reveling.

"You have made me light with the knowledge, that ephemeral, unreliable emotion strikes me, o delicate hope, and I have you to thank. Such a thing has no durability, but while I am struck I cannot even think of leaving she who bestowed the gift. How would you have me thank you? Name your price and I ensure fervent adherence."

He reached for her, thumb playfully gentle on the curve of her jaw.

"What nice things would you talk about? I would like to know what topics make your heart light."

[gardienne]

"You speak as if you read a book, or you are in one." Eponine wouldn't be smiling, but his thumb on her chin was far too distracting for her to frown. In truth, she found him a little difficult to follow. But he was more than a little distracting, especially whilst he was giving her so much positive attention.

"Nice things? I know of some nice things - food - oh, ice cream. You must have ice cream! And booze. Together, yes. Ice cream and booze. I like to eat. I will eat anything. I like sweet best. Chocolate and ice cream and cake. But I bet you know of better things than food. I bet you know of all of the nice things in the world. And you might repay me by being nice to me, telling me, showing me. Won't you?"

[permets_tu]

Grantaire laughs loudly, nearly brought to tears. A book, she says. Fine reading, he would make! Crack his cover and feast eyes on tawdry contents, his flimsy pages would be riddled with wasted words, an unimpressive tale of a man. Oh, he needs a drink to wash that joke down and finishes his in a gulp, coughing from the haste.

"Sweet things!" he cries. "Honey and milk, fountains of wine, I can speak of sweet things tirelessly, I am unflagging, if that is what you wish. I will orate for you speeches, compose lectures, preach sermons." At the last he loses composure, ducking his head at the thought of he in holy raiment. When he can speak again without tears in his eyes he continues.

"All for sweetness! Just as readily I can speak for hours for all that is ugly, the grim truth of men, of that great joke I call life. Ah, do you see? The joke is even better now, more cruelly crafted with the two of us here. Dead and living again, with the memories of all our sins to keep company, and our unchanged natures to endlessly supply us more. In that my ability truly shines but no, we can save it for when the mood suits. For now, revelry and kindness, that I can do. Take me where you will, Eponine, I said I would follow, and in exchange I will call you Lady, I will tell you stories and show you how kind my hands can be. My mouth too is talented at shaping more than words, you will be the judge."

[gardienne]

She loses the sense of what he's saying, barely understanding his joke, but laughing uproariously anyway, determined to show him that she's a fun girl. And the thought of this man in a church is odd... Then again, with what she's heard of clergymen, p 'raps no.

Her expression falls glum as Grantaire 's speech turns duller , browner. Truth ways heavy with Eponine, and what Grantsire says rings true.
"I am not a nice woman." She mutters.

But that seems to matter not to Grantaire, and if that is so, for now her worries dissapate. Look - already promising mouths and hands. Her chuckle grates. He is not so handsome, no. But it is a long time since she had acreal man who does not declare himself gay upon seeing her breasts, or getting scared when she parted her legs, or looked at her as if she was a goddess when she 'looked after' him. Grantaire would know and she would have fun.

She sits straight, legs crossed. Doing her best impression of a posh girl. "Kiss me . On the lips." She commands.

[permets_tu]

Grantaire looked upon her, lips quirked and leaned close to do as she bid. Her act was an entertaining one, just as her glum admission an obvious little truth that he did not care about. What did he care for niceness? Nothing at all, and he'd show it in the way he kissed.

A part of him wondered at how much of his talk she actually understood but he found himself not caring much about that either as he hand slid over her knee. Why not find a little pleasure in a terrible situation? Why not comfort himself with that which was offered?

(He pushed those other thoughts away, the ones that would have him dwell on sacrifice and belief, on martyrs and a life that he refused to view as any sort of second chance.)

"Would you have us stay here and give them a show?" he asked lowly, murmuring the words against her mouth with a smile, hand sliding slowly up her thigh. "I will not object to your preference but I would like it if we found some more private place, where I can lay you out and look at you. What say you to that, pretty little Eponine?"

[gardienne]

Eponine leaned into the kiss - oh how nice to kiss a man who knew what he was doing - and parted her legs just a little as Grantaire's hand moved up.

She glanced around at his words, and chuckled, before kissing him again, catching his lip between her lips.

"I ain't got a scrap of shame left. They've seen me naked." She laughed again, though it hadn't been at all funny at the time. "But for you - oh, come. My room is in District Three in that tower. Will you have me there, Mister Grantaire? You might look all you like then - but I shall want more than that, I swear."

Her own hand brushed over his leg, upwards still, and she grinned and leaned away. "Come."

[permets_tu]

So much of what she said he did not know what to make of. She spoke so easily of horrific things, painted a picture that was far worse than their Citizen King and he, with wits still unsettled by the suddenness of his his arrival, submitted to her cavalier treatment of these topics. What else could he do? Drink until darkness took him, yes, or wallow in self-pity and bemoan his state. He could explore the city, he could search for any other member of the Amis. He could throw himself into finding Enjolras, who was reported dead but rumored alive. (Alive, he must be.) Things he could do but chose not to, not when he could submit instead to self-indulgence, follow her to bed and pretend for a little while that he need not worry about this new world he had awoken into.

"My eyes are capable of great appreciation, they see much but love best to look upon pretty things. I seek to satisfy them but I will ease your mind; my hands will not be idle, I will have you make good use of me."

Grantaire rose, taking her hand and pulling her up, confident enough that he could take the lead in escorting them from the bar. He would let her lead them back to the tower, let her lead them to her residence and there he would put his hands to work, which were clever by nature, and his mouth, which was always happier when well utilized.