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"Why are you here, Grantaire?" The women smiles, professional and close-mouthed.
He hates her already.
"I got in a fight.” He tongues at the cut on his lip, lifts his hands and lets her see his bloody knuckles, bites back a chuckle at the look of disgust in her eyes. “A boy in my year, wasn’t very polite. Thought I’d teach him a lesson. Bad luck, I suppose, that he ended up being the son of a cop.” Lie. It was the cherry on top. “As for why I’m here, well. My parents are very prominent public figures. From time to time, they pretend to care. They have a reputation to uphold, after all.”
He doesn’t say a word for the rest of the hour.
Eighteen is the worst year. Eighteen leaves him learning how to smile just so, how to wound with nothing more than the curl of his tongue, how to destroy a man with a smile, how to build him up to inconceivable heights.
Eighteen leaves him learning how to build a wall around himself, how to keep people far enough away so they don't notice him flinch whenever his parents are brought up.
Eighteen leaves him learning how to use his skin as a canvas, how to use the bottle that sits in his hand as a weapon, how to scare off with bloodstained smiles, how to wear his flaws on his sleeve.
Eighteen leaves him learning to be cruel.
Just in case.
The man’s fist slams into his abdomen again and he jerks back, curling in on himself and biting back the laughter bubbling in his throat. Third fight of the night and he’s too drunk to win anything. His body is ready to collapse because two days without sleep will do that to you and the metallic taste at the back of his throat means nothing good. Lucky for the man standing opposite him, he’s always been a persistent fuck.
“Is that all you got?” He bites out, straightening himself up and spitting out a mouthful of blood, and the other man raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow, and Grantaire vaguely notes that the man is attractive, with pale skin and dark eyes and sharp angles, “Is that all you got?”
He smiles, blood staining his teeth, and drives his fist into the man’s jaw.
He’s still at the bar two hours later, pressing some random guy into the dirty bathroom wall as their hips rock together, and Grantaire won’t remember him tomorrow, but a fight always leaves his heart beating too fast in his chest and his dick straining against his jeans, and the man he fought is long gone, but that doesn’t stop Grantaire picturing his face as he sinks to his knees.
“He- Hey,” the guy stutters out, and Grantaire looks up from under his lashes, the ghost of a smile on his lips, his hand stilling on the guy’s zipper.
“You’re that Senator’s son, fuck.”
Grantaire grins, feels the cut on his lip split open again, the blood dripping slowly into his mouth, and leans forward to pull the zipper down with his teeth. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” He sing-songs as he tugs the guy’s jeans out of the way, and the moan he gets is answer enough.
Grantaire grows up in the shadow of the Capitol and learns three things he’ll never forget.
- Power is lying through your teeth with a smile on your face and still being able to meet your eyes in the mirror.
- A name is the most valuable thing you’ll ever own. Never tarnish it, hold it close, and keep watching.
- God is what you make Him.
Grantaire turns seventeen and forgets everything.
The headline reads My Night With A Senator’s Son and Grantaire chokes on the laughter building in his throat.
His father calls him into his office, home office, Grantaire hasn’t been on the Hill since he was ten and still thought his father was a hero, and sets the newspaper on the table with shaking hands. “What,” he spits out, his tone carefully blank and his spine ramrod straight, “is that?”
Grantaire bites down on the remark pressing against his teeth hard enough to taste cooper and doesn’t meet his father’s gaze. There’s something to be said about disappointment.
“You will look at me when I am speaking to you.”
Grantaire glances up and catches his father’s eye because his obedience is ingrained bone deep.
(Once upon a time he could paint a smile on like the best of them, don a suit and tie, make small talk and pretend he wasn’t tricking the bar out of their best scotch. Pretend, because Grantaire knew his history, knew how to play to win the upper hand, knew how to fool and trick and smile just right, and yes please, no thank you, what a beautiful dress.
Once upon a time Grantaire lied through his teeth about who he was and what he wanted until he learned playing the perfect son wasn’t going to earn his parents love or attention.)
“You think this is acceptable behaviour for the son of a Senator? You think this is acceptable behaviour for a man?” He flinches at that because he may have six years of armor but not against his father. Never against his father, he’ll learn later. “The fights and the alcohol were bad enough, but this- This is unacceptable. I will not allow my only son to behave this way. I will not allow you to disgrace this family with your-”
He cuts off and Grantaire forces a smile on his lips, “My what? You can’t say it, can you? Oh. Oh, that’s rich.” The laughter that falls from his mouth is honest and harsh. “My, hm. How would you politicians frame it? Oh, yes. ‘Explicit homosexual activities.’ Got a ring to it, don’t you think?”
Grantaire leaves with a bruise blossoming on his cheek and something that feels a lot like victory curling around his neck.
Here’s what happens at seventeen; he starts to ask questions, starts to read things and watch things and talk about things, he starts to learn that dad isn’t a hero, he starts to learn dad is a liar, he starts to learn that in Washington these are synonymous. He starts to learn what the bottom of a bottle of Jack tastes like, and how his mother’s cheeks flush when she cries, and how his father’s fist feels against his face, and what it feels like to have his mouth on a boy. He starts to learn that the truth is relative and a name is just a name and God is cruel.
Two days after the first story Grantaire is caught with his hand up some girl’s dress and a boy biting at his neck and the smirk on his lips says everything the article didn’t.
“Why are you here, Grantaire?” The women asks again, and there’s something a little sad to the set of her lips this time, something like pity shining in her eyes. He has to swallow around the bitter taste in his mouth, has to press the tips of his fingers against his thighs to keep the shaking from being too noticeable.
Four days, nine hours and twenty-seven minutes sober.
“I’m here,” he says, feels a shudder jostle his ribs, and presses his fingers in harder, “because I fucked up my parent’s picture perfect life. I’ve been drinking, fighting and- Fucking. I’ve been fucking the wrong people.” He pauses for a breath and meets the woman’s gaze and notices the lack of pity. “I’ve been in the papers and- and I’ve tarnished the family name, and I’ve gotten a bit too mouthy. And. You know what’s funny? I’m maintaining a 4.0 GPA. I’ve been accepted to Harvard and Stanford and Yale. I’m what he made me. I’m what he made me and he doesn’t want me anymore.”
Four days, nine hours and thirty-two minutes sober.
“Fag,” the boy says, and Grantaire hits him, seventeen and stupid, pulls back knuckles stained red, hits him again and again and again.
He meets that man again two months before graduation, the one that was sharp angles and pale skin, learns his name is Montparnasse, that he’s twenty, that he rolls his own cigarettes, that he fights because it’s what he’s always done, because it’s been pressed into his skin too deep for him to forget, because when he doesn’t fight he gets mean, and mean is dangerous, mean is the things he mouths against Grantaire’s skin but never says out loud.
“Why are you here, R?” Montparnasse asks one day, sitting naked at the end of his bed with a cigarette hanging from his lips, and Grantaire is still trying to get his heart to slow down, trying to get his father’s disappointed voice out of his head, trying to push his lips into a smirk, trying to put his mask back on.
He swallows and watches Montparnasse slink forward like something terrible, skin shifting over barely concealed bones, all sharp angles and flat planes and eyes that are much too dark and much too knowing. “Why,” he repeats and straddles Grantaire’s hips, “are you here?”
And Grantaire’s tongue is pressed to the roof of his mouth, heavy and useless, the only weapon he's ever really had, the reason he’ll win even if it kills him in the end, because he has his mouth and his teeth and his words and he’s his father’s son and on the Hill those are the only things that matter.
“Because I’m bored.”
Montparnasse smiles.
Once, and only once, Montparnasse shows up at his house with bloodstained hands and something wild in his eyes.
Grantaire breaks his nose and tells him to leave.
"R," he says, two weeks and forty-eight cigarettes later, and his shirt is torn and his smile is something sharp, the kind of smile Grantaire taught his own lips to form, "I want you to meet Jehan."
The boy who steps forward is-
Well.
Jehan wears flowers in his long hair and clothes that swallow him whole and a smile that’s too sweet to be anything but horrible. Jehan writes words across Grantaire’s skin and presses light kisses to his face and holds him together when the mask starts to slip. Jehan is kind and caring and angry. Jehan whispers I love you and is worse than Montparnasse will ever be.
Grantaire says I love you too once, sober and angry and quiet, because they’ve always been quiet where he and Montparnasse are loud. They’ve always lurked in the shadows and lied about it, and Jehan’s mask, it might just be better than Grantaire’s.
Grantaire says I love you too once, sober and angry and quiet, and then he leaves.
He goes to Harvard because it’s what he was always meant to do. He goes to Harvard and wears clothes that don’t quite fit right and a smile that’s got no bite in it and speaks in a voice that never raises. He makes friends with the right people and joins the right clubs and signs up for the right classes. He doesn’t drink alcohol and he doesn’t touch boys and he says yes sir, no sir, thank you sir. He presses his tongue to his teeth and keeps his scars hidden beneath perfectly pressed chinos and holds his GPA and pretends he isn’t losing it.
Then.
(And there’s a lot to be said for this moment. For this quick flash fuck up that leaves Grantaire at the bottom of a bottle again. But that’s later. That’s an interview with Time magazine. That’s a campaign whisper. That’s how he buries his father.)
Then he meets Enjolras.
“The truth?” He laughs, wonders if Enjolras will ever learn, will ever realize that the only way to win is to lie and be able to smile about it; and he knows the rules, taught them to himself all over again, thinks he could teach Enjolras too, except.
Except that’s not how you win.
“The truth is whatever I need it to be. The truth is what I make it. You think the truth will matter on the Hill? You think you’re going to make it? Don’t bother.”
But there’s something sharp in Enjolras’ smile, something dangerous, and this, this is different.
They fuck once when Grantaire is sober playing drunk and Enjolras bites hard enough to draw blood and holds on tight enough to leave bruises; and when they wake up the next morning, pressed together, Enjolras asks if they’ll end up in the paper, asks if they’ll be bribed out of print, asks if the Senator will say anything, asks why Grantaire is still here.
Grantaire presses their lips together, and, well.
He leaves Harvard with a class ring and a bottle at his lips and something like a broken heart. He leaves Harvard with a summa cum laude degree and a smile that’s nothing but bite and suits that fit like a second skin. He leaves Harvard and goes home and still isn’t good enough, but he’s better. He’s his father’s son and his name means everything and the truth is relative. He lies through smirks and grins and snarls.
He doesn’t smile at his reflection in the mirror, but, well, he’s working on it.
“Fag,” they say, and Grantaire smiles, twenty-three and dangerous, loosens his blood red tie, and ruins them.
Grantaire walks out of court, another victory under his belt, another rope around his neck, and presses speed dial four on his phone, says, “I need your help.”
“So I didn’t just watch you score another goal for capitalism on national television?” Bahorel asks, and Grantaire can hear his grin.
He pauses, looks both ways, crosses the street. “It’s my father.”
“I’m listening.”
Grantaire meets Bahorel, when he’s seventeen and Bahorel’s twenty-three, at a psychiatrist’s office. Bahorel serves two tours abroad and comes home hearing things that aren’t really there, waking up with his fingers reaching for the gun that isn’t strapped across his chest, with a personal death toll he isn’t supposed to keep and the itch of sand he can never quite wash off. Bahorel goes to therapy and grins at Grantaire whenever they cross paths, calls him kid and slides him smokes.
“Why’re you here?” he asks, one afternoon when they’re stuck in the waiting area together, and Grantaire glances up from the magazine in his lap, cocks an eyebrow, smiles.
“You can’t ask that.”
Bahorel shrugs. “Pretty sure I just did.”
“Officially, I beat a cop’s kid up.” Grantaire looks back down to the magazine in his lap but not before seeing the faint smile pulling at Bahorel’s lips.
“Unofficially?”
“I fuck guys.”
“Call your boyfriend, tell him I can give him a story that will turn the Republican party on its head. Tell him I’ll give him a story that will make every politician in the Capitol remember his name. Tell him it’s yes or no. I’m not fucking around on this.”
There’s a pause before Bahorel exhales heavily. “He’s not that kind of guy, R.”
“This is Washington,” he says, chuckles, kicks his feet up on his desk and flips the page of the case file, “everyone is that guy. You just have to give them what they want.”
He meets Bahorel’s reporter a week later, at a restaurant that’s too upscale to be comfortable, but he smiles politely and blends right in, like he belongs there as much as he does in a war zone or behind a desk. He has a shock of red hair and wears jeans and a t-shirt that have seen better days, he has his phone on the table, recording every word Grantaire says, and probably another in his bag too, because he’s smart like that, and he makes it to the main course before cracking, asking, “What do you want?”
“People like to watch destruction, you ever notice that? Surely, you must have, you report it, afterall. You must know that paper sales and news ratings spike after an accident, after we invade a country, after a national scandal. People like to watch destruction, but only a little bit. We start small. We kick over sand castles, we steal other kid’s toys, we knock over a house of cards, but the beauty of humanity is our capacity to escalate. We want more. Isn’t that the American Dream? Wanting more.”
The reporter blinks and Grantaire holds his stare, his press smile fixed firmly upon his lips; there’s a million ways this could go, and Grantaire has three plans for each possibility, for each answer.
“What do you want me to do?” He repeats.
Grantaire licks his lips, sits back in his chair and sprawls his legs. “I want you to build a house of cards and then I want you to knock it down.”
Two months and four court wins later, the front of the Washington Post reads US Senator Takes Oil Money, so Grantaire calls his father, tongue pressed against the back of his teeth, gets the voicemail and smiles. “500 an hour. I can take a meeting tomorrow.” He pauses. “You should be more careful about who you deal with. Everyone can be bought in Washington.”
He ends the call, sits back and watches the house of cards crumble under his heel.
“Eponine. Get me the Majority Whip on the phone.”
His father never calls back and the next time Grantaire see’s him it’s across a courtroom and he’s getting ready to rip him to shreds in front of the American public; because his father didn’t call him, but the Attorney-General did, and Grantaire has a ninety-six per cent conviction rate, and this is what his father wanted, what he made him, and Grantaire has taught himself all over again but God is still what Grantaire makes him, and his name is on the lips of everyone on the Hill, and now when he looks into the lens of a camera, the eyes of his father, he curls his tongue around a lie, smiles, feels the once upon a time pain of his lip splitting open, and this, this is power.
When Grantaire turns twenty-eight he presses the muzzle of a gun past his lips and waits for the bang.