Grantaire's POV

It is a universally accepted fact of life that edible products must be worn down at some point. Things run out. That's natural. No matter how hard you wish it didn't run out, you're still going to be staring at something empty with only a useless whim by your side, a whim that doesn't count for shit. If you consume things, they will run dry. Humans crave things endlessly, yes, but there is a consequence to those cravings. You can only have a limited supply of some things, and while it's your choice to eat your items at different points throughout your possession of them, it's not your choice to sustain them forever. Depletion is inevitable, and present wherever you go. Everything is limited.

But then there comes the question of how long it takes before that product runs out. Even if you only have two loaves of bread, per se, you can spread out your consumption of them for as long as you want, and after a while you could potentially surpass the person with seven loaves of bread who ate all of their provisions in a short amount of time (that's what decadence does for you — it makes you believe your supplies are infinitely abundant). It is dependent solely on choice.

However, when the product onto which you are so desperately grasping is something so tempting that you cannot postpone your consumption of it, then it will be devoured in a short amount of time, regardless of whether or not you have a small amount or a large amount. There is a whole world of delectable things, like cotton candy, apple juice, and especially painkillers.

When you're downing eight painkillers a day, you're not going to be able to maintain your supply for that long, especially when it's emotional pain that's driving you to take a few. I had been swallowing a painkiller each time the agony of my memories inundated me, and they worked, except they worked so well that I'm now out of them, and it's not like I have enough extra money in my pockets to waste on killing myself over a long awaited expression of the truth.

Joly had allotted me a small bottle of painkillers for my migraines, and those did the job, but then I was left with only half of the bottle left, which could only last for so long. I'm keeping the bottle in which the medicine was stored for some nostalgic reason perhaps, probably as a reminder of what I did and how I messed everything up as usual.

Anyone will tell you that drugs are a bad idea, even people who use drugs themselves. Sometimes pharmaceutical drugs are a bad idea, too, and those are meant to help physical problems. Lots of people who run into problems are people who use drugs for emotional problems, like me, but it's so damn difficult to pull away from their clutch when it's so inviting and so corrective. But maybe a lack of my first bottle of painkillers will put me back on the right track, will claim that I depleted my bottle for a reason pertinent to my already failing health, will save me from myself, and maybe a lack of painkillers will also present itself as something too blissful to lazy people such as me, painting the act of obtaining more medicine as something far beyond laborious, and I have never been one to go out of my way to achieve things, not like Enjolras, the man who started this all, the man from whom I'm endeavoring to escape through fucking drugs of all things.

Every place I've been is a reminder of Enjolras, because at some point I've probably thought favorably about him in that area, so now I'm out on the streets on the hunt for a coincidental bottle of painkillers that will likely never appear, and something new, something to keep my mind off of the person I shattered, the person who shattered me.

I haven't ever visited this part of town, which makes it perfect for my needs. I can see part of it from the window of my apartment, mostly just the Ferris wheel standing proudly above the city of Paris, but I haven't taken time out of my day to observe it closer. It's interesting, no doubt, and I guess I've always wanted to participate in the fair games of the surrounding carnival ground, but dreams fade, and dreams are forgotten, and I never got around to it, but now I'm here, with nothing planting me to the ground like the Ferris wheel is, with nothing directing me towards anything, with nothing in my head but a craving for painkillers when I am fully aware of how they'll fuck me up even more, but new places are meant for new adventures, I suppose.

I decide to examine the Ferris wheel up close, analyze every piece and part of it, how the color has partially flecked off from years of use and years of the weather beating down upon its metal body, how rust has made a home in the creaking corners, how the structure could reach Mount Olympus if it really desired to do so. It makes a human feel irrelevant, takes them out of their selfish world to show them that they are part of an ecosystem where they are not the only ones who exist. It's beautiful, both in the imagery and in the metaphor. Jehan would love it, were it not for the fact that Jehan thinks I'm just breathing in some fresh air to clear my mind, which isn't so much false, just that it's leaving out how I'll accomplish that goal, and that makes all the difference.

Jehan, nor any of my friends, has no idea that I'm out by the Ferris wheel, where I have never been before, and I hope it will remain that way, because although he despises shouting at people, he cares too much about my safety to let this one slide. He's an amazing friend for being invested in my security, but it's just not what I need for now. It's not a pleasant experience having your friend watch as you engage in the first step of killing yourself. I'd rather spare him the pain, and leave him out of it.

It's nice to be alone when most of the time my friends are breathing down my neck with lungs that don't reek of alcohol as mine do, and even if I'm sparking my demise, I'm enjoying my time here, however limited it is. Except...when I round the corner of the Ferris wheel mast to examine the other side, it appears that I am not alone.

Taking the place of nothingness, there is a man who looks about my age, but there's something about him that suggests he is as rebellious as both a teenager and a middle-aged political heretic, neither of which are comforting. To stumble upon a man such as this when you've never been here before, when you have no idea if this place is known as fishy among the Parisian residents, is nerve-wracking, to say the absolute least. I don't know who this guy is, and it would probably be a fool's move to try and figure that out, but he stops me before I can run.

The man doesn't even look at me, but he can sense me nonetheless. "Do you come here often?" he asks, finally removing himself from his reclining position on the post of the Ferris wheel, stalking over to me. His lips wring into a sort of snarl, yet another action to warn me against him, but his arresting nature keeps me here by force. "I smell new blood."

"No, I'm just wandering," I murmur, surprisingly not as timid as I thought I would be, judging from how fucking terrifying this guy looks.

I'm not saying he isn't handsome, because he really is (with eyes brighter than my future, hair healthy and vibrant with the hues of night, and features cut as if from marble), but the way he utilizes his beauty is to intimidate. If he isn't a criminal by governmental bounds, then he's a criminal for being so goddamn seductive. I can bet he's lured people into his trap with his appearance alone, though his appearance in this moment is leaning towards that of a vampire hell bent on revenge.

"Trying to get lost, huh?"

I nod. This guy knows me better than anyone else, but I can only assume that it's because he's experienced the same thing. No one likes to hang out with distant people, not even distant people themselves. This criminal of a person is bad news, and although I'm a hopeless case like him, I'll become even more hopeless if we become friends. I'm not risking it. I'm somewhat disposed towards ruining my life until everything is so threadbare that I won't have any more problems, but this man will surely find a way to ruin the bedrock if I follow up with him. Unless he has something to offer me, something that I desperately need, there's no chance in hell I'm talking to him outside of today.

"The name's Montparnasse," he introduces himself absently. He isn't focused on my face for once, having abandoned his successful intimidation tactic called eye contact, rather spying something near my abdomen. He approaches me, which I hesitantly back away from, but he snatches something out of my pocket just in time: my empty bottle of painkillers.

"Give that back!" I feebly attempt to reclaim my shell of a container, but Montparnasse is too tall and too familiar with his long limbs, so I'm only jumping and reaching like a schoolboy in the midst of being teased by bullies, which Montparnasse may be.

"I presume you're looking for more of these?"

I don't answer him, only presenting my best scowl, but he remains unfazed. He is powerful — I can see that; anyone can see that. It's a glow that he emanates. He has the power to help me attain more of those lovely painkillers. Were it not for Montparnasse, I would've grown out of my obsession with them, as acquiring them is too arduous for someone like me, but now that he's implying that he has some, I can't expect myself to have the will to refuse.

"I can hook you up with them, if you'd like."

I can feel two portions of my brain dichotomizing themselves so that they can nag at each other from separate lines of the battlefield, one of them proclaiming that Montparnasse should not be trusted under any circumstances, the other proclaiming that painkillers are what I've been craving ever since I ran out and Montparnasse has offered a worry-free deal. I don't know which to listen to, so I allow the devil called impulsivity to decide for me. Whatever makes it out of my mouth first is the winner.

"That would be great," I accept, and instantaneously I file a report of overwhelming amounts of regret, but the words are already out of my mouth, and Montparnasse doesn't seem like the kind of person to back down from a deal.

With a smile oddly reminiscent of a monster, Montparnasse disappears behind the Ferris wheel post again, only to procure a large leather bag of what I assume are drugs. He's a fucking drug dealer as a profession? I'm not just an opportunity upon which he pounced so lucratively? Interesting. This just shows why I shouldn't trust the man, but if he has enough drugs in that bag to sustain an addict for a pretty long time (or so it seems), then he must be a popular dealer with enough manipulation skills to snare me as he did.

Montparnasse roots through his bag for a moment, possessing so many bottles and bags of different drugs that it's difficult to differentiate among them, but eventually he produces a bottle of painkillers, equipped to quiet me for much longer than Joly's scanty bottle did. He extends it to me, and I reach to grab it, until he retracts it again to resolve the conditions of the trade.

"All right, what's your price?" I groan, clipping my hands to my waist and tapping my foot in anticipation, as if I'm a pantsuit-wearing suburban mom late for a PTA meeting.

"You know—" Montparnasse pauses, searching for the name with which I have not provided him yet.

"Grantaire," I supply, ordering another mistake by telling him my name. Who knows what he could do with something as simple as a few letters?

"—Grantaire, you look like you'd be the kind of person who could be useful in lots of situations," Montparnasse comments, completely irrelevant to what we were trying to discuss, and I would be more angry, were it not for the unsettling feeling his words dropped into my chest.

I don't want this criminal making assumptions about me, primarily because he's both dangerous and more sordid than even I am, so if he's judging me, then I must really be fucked up. I thought heretics banded together, but apparently there's still enough room in the equation for condemnation. And what he said irks me the most. What does he mean by saying that I'm useful? What does he want from me?

"You don't have to pay me any money, but with each pill bottle, you owe me a favor." Montparnasse holds up the miniature plastic stash of painkillers, angles his head, and wordlessly asks me if I'm willing to accept the offer. "Do we have a deal?"

Never in a million years would I have predicted that I would be in this situation, held solely at the mercy of a drug dealer because my body can't maintain itself without a little help from poison, from addiction,

But, really, what choice do I have?

"Fine."

Montparnasse looks pleased, but pleasure manifests peculiarly upon a face like his, a face warped by his nasty personality, a face I wouldn't ever trust. He tosses me the pill bottle, and I almost drop it in my disoriented state, but I barely have any time to recover before he's asking for my phone number, an item I don't want to give but an item I must give, or else he'll find my address as well, and will probably come to murder me and take back his drugs because I was a worthless customer.

So it's my only choice to hand my phone number over to a criminal whose intentions are still as vague as ever, and I'm nothing less than defeated. Montparnasse, however, is fucking glorious.

"Pleasure doing business with you." A sneer lurks in the corner of his apple lips, as his eyes drill into me like he wants more secrets than I've already given him, and after he's content with how much he's disconcerted me, he prepares to turn back to his post. "Sir."

~~~~~

A/N: when ur characters actually have two sides lmao montparnasse is gonna be interesting to write

why am I writing so much today omg

~Dakotanning-bed