Upon the highest peak of Mount Helicon, the nine Muses cavorted as they alternately gave and denied inspiration to their various worshippers. Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy, was the only one apart from the revelry. She had been lost in thought for quite some time. Making a decision, she transported herself to Apollo's sanctuary on Delphi.
"Lord Apollo," she said. "I have determined what my gift is to be. I humbly ask permission to deliver it."
Apollo nodded and in a blink of an eye, she had disappeared from the temple and rematerialized in 19th century France.
Louis Grantaire is asleep, hunched at a table in the very back of the Corinth, nearly detoxed from a rather nasty run with mind-altering substances.
Melpomene materializes outside the Corinth. Since she is in Muse mode and invisible, this did not cause the stir that you'd think. She smoothes her tunic and whispers a few words. She is now in mortal guise with the appearance of a young girl, not much older than 18. She enters the Corinth and looks around until she finds the one she is searching for.
After several minutes, she locates the table and makes her way through the maze of tables and waitresses. She reaches her destination and sits down opposite the slumbering cynic. "Louis Grantaire," she calls. "Wake from your induced slumber."
He blinks, and shakes his head slowly out of habit, wincing in anticipation of the hangover.
.....which doesn't come. He opens his eyes, and sits up, blinking in confusion at the young girl standing next to him.
"...Mamselle?"
Melpomene nodded. "You know me, pilgrim, though your eyes deceive you so. I am Melpomene. Do you remember the service you have done for me?"
"Melpomene...? You are the...." He grins and thinks he's gone down the rabbit hole. "A service, fair lady?"
She nods again, a slight smile crossing her face. "Yes. Through your elegant rhetoric, you have allowed me to enter this time and understand its ways. Without you, there would be no place for tragedy, only dull history." She grins wider. "No disrespect to Clio, of course."
He grins widely. "I am honored, mamselle, that my mad ranting have been of service to you."
"They have indeed. I wish to reward you." She looks at him, taking his measure. "Tell me what it is you that you desire most in this world and I shall grant it to you."
Louis looks startled, then remembers: it's a dream. He thinks on this: whatever he wants? Something comes to him, in a flash, and, for the second before he hides it, it flits across his face, a look of deep and immense longing and passion. This momentary look is replaced by a grin. "Whatever I most desire? Aren't questions like those usually tricks? I know men have a tendency to wish for the things that are the worst for them, so what'll it be for me? Gold? Power? Everlasting youth? I don't know what I want, muse."
Melpomene notes the look as it passes and blinks at him. "There is no trick, pilgrim, I assure you. I only wish to reward you for your service. There must be something that you desire above all others. A good bottle of wine." She grins. "Your calls for good wine reverberate all over Olympus. Bacchus is quite besides himself and keeps muttering about how he's doing the best he can with what he has."
She continues. "What will bring you the most happiness? Love? Companionship? Power?"
Louis plays along, not really believing it. "A good bottle of wine, then? But ah, muse there is wine enough for a thousand lifetimes in this world; enough to drown oneself in ten times over. Wine is a good and mighty thing; I have never been one to deny the godhood of Dionysus. But the most happiness? Tell me, muse, what do you think it is?"
She tilts her head, a half-smile playing on her face. "I think it is love. That is what the poets say, at any rate. For me, my greatest happiness is when I weave a story for a disciple and it brings him/her greatness."
Louis twitches slightly, but only very much so, at the word "love". He inclines his own head to match her angle, an unconscious play. "Ah, greatness, but you are the muse of tragedy, my lady. Greatness at what price?"
She laughs. "Usually at the price of the poor souls who are featured in the epic." She smiles knowingly. "You do not believe that I can grant you this gift. Allow me to open your eyes." With a murmured chant, she sheds her mortal guise and returns to her muse aspect.
Louis gasps and draws back, stunned against his greater will.
"I am truly Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy. You have been reluctant to tell me your greatest desire and I do understand . There are not many who understand that love is beyond gender. It is pure no matter the couple. You love your Enjolras, do you not?"
He looks up at her in awestruck horror, and exhales shakily. Nods.
She smiles gently. "Say the word and your wish is granted. Apollo's a stickler for this sort of thing." Off his look, she adds, "Not yours. Mine."
Louis is shocked beyond words. He stares at her, blankly, for nearly a full minute, then, in a whisper, "yes".
"As you wish." She gently takes his hand and lifts him from his chair.
He feels as though he should say something, anything, but decides to wait, and rises.
She murmurs a few words and the two vanish in a blaze of light. Louis appears in a room somewhere within Olympus. The muse is gone, but in her place is his heart's desire.
If he was shocked then, he is more so now; in front of him is......
"Louis? Oh God, you're here." Antoine Enjolras gasps. He leaps up from the chair he has been sprawled on and embraces Louis. "I thought'd you never come."
Louis' eyes widen to their ultimate capacity. He is, at this point, running on autopilot; he freezes numbly for a few moments before wrapping his arms around Enjolras, tremulously.
Antoine holds Louis as tight as he can. "Oh cher," he asks, his voice muffled, "Why didn't you come to me sooner?"
Louis drops his face to E!'s neck to rest on his shoulder and holds him tighter, eyes still huge. He manages, barely, to squeeze out an "I'm sorry".
Antoine kisses the top of Louis's head and leans his own head against it. "You're here. I'm here. That's all that matters."
This gets through to Louis, and, as the shock wears off, he shudders and buries his face in E!'s neck, wrapping his arms around him convulsively.
Antoine kisses Louis's head again. "It's alright. We're safe. Do what you will, ange. My heart is in your hands."
And this breaks him. More than sadness, more than drowning, this breaks him: these sweet words from--- Oh, God, from-- and he (HE) called you-- He-
Louis weeps, softly, his face pressed into the curve of E!'s shoulder, arms wrapped around him in a death grip.
"Oh cher, don't cry," Antoine exclaims. He sinks down on his knees, taking Louis with him. "I have been so cruel to you. I did not know, I swear to God. I did not know how much you cared for me or how much I cared for you. I have no right to ask you to forgive me."
"Forgive? There-- God, there is nothing to forgive, nothing you could possibly do--" he is sobbing still, shaking against E!, slinging to him for dear life.
Antoine hugs Louis even more tightly. He starts to shake, as if he is trying to stave off tears.
Louis feels the trembling body against him, and raises his head, tears still flowing, eyes red-rimmed. He lifts a hand, softly, to stroke Enjolras' hair.
If there was any space left between Louis and Antoine, it disappears as Antoine leans into the touch. He begins to kiss away the flowing tears, determined to get his dear one to stop crying.
Louis closes his eyes and arches into Antoine's kisses, and, nearly instinctively, meets Antoine's lips with his own, gently.
Antoine accepts this kiss and returns it in full measure. "Cher," he murmurs. And kisses him again.
Louis deepens the kiss, running his hands across E!'s back, pulling him tighter.
Antoine caresses Louis's cheek and bestows feather-light kisses up and down his jaw line. His hands entangle themselves around Louis's neck.
Louis gives the closest he can muster to a whimper, and nuzzles into Antoine, dropping kisses across his neck and whispering "I love you" over and over and over.
"I love you, too," Antoine says, his hands now toying with Louis's hair. "Always and forever. Let the stars burn out, let the sun fall down - it won't matter." He jumps as Louis finds a ticklish spot at the back of his neck.
Louis shivers at this, but it's a blissful shiver, and holds Antoine to him, tightly.
With some difficultly, Antoine stands. Of course, Louis stands with him. Antoine smiles at Louis then kisses him deeply. "I think," he murmurs in between kisses, "That bed over there might be more comfortable than the floor."
Louis murmurs an incomprehensible assent, staring into Antoine's eye, and loops an arm about Antoine's waist, leading him to the side of the bed. He kisses him, again, and they both fall.
Antoine rolls on his side to face Louis. He smiles and brushes a stray lock of hair from his face. "Beautiful boy," he whispers. "I love you so."
Louis laughs at this, and doesn't let himself wonder. He is transported with bliss, and leans in and kisses Antoine, tenderly, a hand playing about the back of his neck.
Antoine allows his hand to travel down to Louis's hips while he continues his kisses.
Louis moans and arches into Antoine's touch, running his own hands down Antoine's back to rest on his hips and pull him closer. He wraps a leg around Antoine's, and closes his eyes into the kiss.
"Ah God," Antoine sighs and thoroughly kisses him. "Why did I wait so long to hold you?"
Louis drops his forehead against Antoine's, and murmurs, softly, "I love you".
A bright light encircles the couple and fills the room. When it clears, Louis is back in the Corinthe with Melpomene in front of him.
Louis exhales in shock as though he's just been hit in the stomach. He gasps, unable to comprehend for a moment that Enjolras is not beneath his hands, then looks up at Melpomene in wide-eyes barely-realized despair.
Melpomene smiles, not realizing the blow she's dealt to Louis. She firmly believes she has given him a gift he'll treasure always.
Louis' breathing quickens, still frozen, with huge eyes fixed upon Melpomene. His face is a mask of horrified misery.
"Thank you again for your service, Louis." She kisses him lightly on the forehead. She looks puzzledly at him. "Was my gift not of your liking?"
He stares for a few minutes, like a miserable child, then his familiar look of dark, amused pain sweeps back across his features, and he looks away. The torrent of words that had been suppressed by shock and joy begins to flow again, and he almost-mutters to the tabletop, "I-- to my linking? Be careful what you wish for, they say, and --God-- a fool of a gargoyle I was to think it was real, for the angels do not come to earth and those that Apollo dallies with are not--" he looks up to Melpomene again, and the open, pained child-look comes back, for a fraction of a second, before he closes it off again. He grins darkly, and it comes out a grimace. "I thank you, O Muse." He is shaking.
Melpomene's face darkens. In the back of her mind, she hears her Apollo groan. "Ah muse," he sighs.
Louis is looking fixedly at an imaginary spot on the table, shudders involuntarily and is hunched, shivering.
With pity, she rests her hand on Louis's head. "I only meant to bring you happiness, not more pain." She bends down to kiss his forehead again, murmuring a few words as she does so. "Sleep, pilgrim. Find your happiness in your dreams."
Louis slumps to the table, unconscious.
Before she leaves to face Apollo, she removes a simple ring from her finger and sets it next to Louis's form. The ring is made of silver and etched with an unmistakable Greek design. She sighs and disappears from the Corinth.
He wakes several hours later, before the Corinth opens its doors, and remembers. He winces, then-- it was a dream. A horrible dream, but a dream nonetheless. He sits up, and as he does so notices a shine on the table-- a ring? He picks it up to inspect it more closely, then recoils in horror. He sits, transfixed, staring at it, for several moments. Louis Grantaire, as though in a trance, gets up, putting the ring in his pocket, and leaves the Corinth. He walks in a daze through Paris, into his building, into his flat, where he sits on the bed, staring into thin air. Then, almost hurriedly, rummaging through his drawers, he finds a bottle-- not of wine, but of far harder drink-- and drinks, shot-glass style, gasping when he's finished a sip, until it is empty. He then moves on to the other bottles on his table, in his bureau-drawers and the surrounding floor, until he slumps against a wall and slides to the floor, sitting in a ball with his back to the wall, arms wrapped around his knees, utterly dejected.
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