Work Text:
Grantaire glanced around his room. It looked so empty now. There used to be blank canvases, big and small, just waiting to be used. Paints of all colours and types, from watercolour to acrylic, scattered around in tubes and pots and containers. Brushes of all shapes and sizes, some still in their packets, unused, others littered over desks and beside tables. Pencils, some still new and some blunted completely, resting atop sketchbooks that had yet to be opened. An easel that had once been so beloved, sitting in a corner. Now, there was just his old sketchbook and camera, sitting unused, untouched.
Grantaire was an artist. Or, he used to be. He could sketch from life, paint from imagination, he knew just how to apply his tools to his trade. He’d once dreamed he could make something of himself with it. His mind burst with ideas and bright colours painted themselves onto the back of his eyelids, and everything was beautiful and needed to be captured.
But that dream had been torn apart, long ago. That dream was dead, as dead as the world around him and the people in it. Now, every street was bleak and grey. He missed every sunrise, and felt no desire to stare at the sunset. The flowers in the gardens and the parks would be wilting soon, and orange was the dull colour of decay in autumn.
Art required some sort of spark, some hint of passion, for it to be truly meaningful. A fire cannot be lit without warmth. The warmth that once resided in Grantaire cooled, the spark dimmed, until at last it petered out and died. Loss of faith falls into hatred of it, and finally stretches out into apathy. Cynicism and pessimism start to take hold, and passion becomes unreachable. This was the path on which he had started. Perhaps it was ironic that it had all been started by a fire, one that burned away everything that he had ever loved, everything that had ever been meaningful to him, and turned it to ash.
Grantaire slowly crossed the room, thinking about how it was too bare, too empty, but then so was everything else, and opened a certain drawer, which he rummaged in until he pulled out a liquor bottle. He’d stolen it from his father’s supply. The liquid was bitter and made him grimace, but after a few swigs and a couple of minutes everything became soft and hazed, and the taste in his mouth didn’t matter. He stashed the bottle away again and crawled onto his bed, curled up and closed his eyes. His head was heavy and his mind in a fog of sorts, and the boy sighed gently and smiled just slightly as he let all thought slip away.