A/N: Wow I should be updating my other one but instead I find myself (who still isn't victor hugo, by the way) writing my first experimental AU! So enjoy I hope! I like reviews and stuff

The Most Noble Work a Man Can Do

Grantaire often thought of the first time he met Enjolras. It was winter, he remembered clearly….

New York was a brutal place in the middle of winter. Grantaire tightened his black leather jacket around his shoulders and shifted the hat perched on his head to shake the snow off the black curls that remained exposed. It was cold. Really cold. He blew a ring of breath and smiled because it reminded him of cigarette smoke. The stone library loomed ahead of him. Normally, he would stroll leisurely there; he wasn't exactly in a hurry to get studying, after all. He would stop and take in the architecture of the buildings and above all, people watch. He liked to absorb the sights and sounds of the city, filing the details away in his subconscious to be used at a later date in some sketch or painting. If it were a normal day, that's how it would be. But it wasn't a normal day. It was below zero and snowing and too fucking cold for any of that, and the prospect of warmth outweighed the knowledge of the unpleasant task awaiting him. For the moment, at least.

He shuffled past the man at first, thinking he appeared to be homeless or, more likely, scamming for money. He lived in New York, after all. It was hardly a novel sight. He did a double take after a second, however. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the man's peacoat and khakis probably suggested that he wasn't homeless. Hah he thought triumphantly. It is a scammer. Grantaire scoffed at the stupidity of people these days. The guy wasn't even clever enough to make himself look poor! No wonder he wasn't making much and had to resort to standing out here on one of the most brutally cold days of the year. He was prepared to walk away without a second thought, but something caught his eye about the sign. Perhaps it was his artist's eye, but he knew the shapes and lengths of all the usual slogans the homeless people put on signs. This one wasn't familiar. He looked closer. It was written in painstakingly neat handwriting. The words were easily discernible, despite the blowing snow threatening to turn into a full-out blizzard. The words simply said, "I may not be homeless, but think of those who are." Beneath it was a website. .com. Grantaire didn't know whether to laugh or be impressed. He chose the former. One full day outside in the cold like this and the idealist would surely lose his steam. Idealists didn't last very long in New York City, anyway.

He looked up from the sign at the man himself for the first time. The stranger was looking down at his sign, fiddling with something Grantiare couldn't see through the snow. He was about to make some snide comment as he headed off to his stack of textbooks, but as he caught sight of the stranger, the words died in his throat. The man was beautiful. Truly, certifiably gorgeous. Like, male model gorgeous. Even beneath the peacoat, it was obvious he had a muscled stature. He was tall, and his hair was the most golden mop of curls Grantaire had ever laid eyes on. Snowflakes were catching in the curls, and Grantaire found himself imagining running his fingers through those little tangles, dislodging each snowflake one by one, maybe catching a few on his tongue… Grantaire scolded himself. So the idealist is a hot guy. So what? There can be sexy communists, too, and that doesn't make them right. He was about to walk away when the man looked up. Any idea Grantaire's well-developed aesthetic imagination had come up with for what the man's face must look like was put to shame. He was glowingly radiant, each feature perfectly chiseled, perfectly balanced, perfectly…perfect.

When they made eye contact, Grantaire drew in a sharp breath. He was decently convinced he had a good chance of turning to stone right there. That's what always happened when people looked at things they weren't worthy of seeing, right? Well, maybe ice, considering the conditions. The eyes were the deepest shade of blue he had ever seen. Grantaire had never been one for clichés, and now he despised them all the more, for he was convinced that no sapphire or summery blue sky could compare with those eyes. They were intense, passionately pure, questioning…questioning? Yes, probably questioning why he was standing there in the middle of a downtown sidewalk in negative-ten-degree weather staring without so much as a word. Yes, that was probably suspicious, but Grantaire couldn't make himself care. The artist in him took over, trying desperately to memorize every line of the jaw, every curve of the soft, pink lips, every golden shining curl…all he wanted was to draw this specimen. Make him come alive, yet capture him forever. Draw him over and over in every position conceivable, innocent or not. Get to know his collarbone and his earlobes and the slope of his muscled shoulders, and the curves of the more intimate parts of the body he knew lay under that damned peacoat…

"Can I help you?"

Oh lord. The god was speaking. Grantaire couldn't help but look around to check that he was indeed addressing him. It didn't seem real…

"I'm sorry, you just look an awful lot like someone I know, that's all…" he mumbled, stunned that he was able to get any individual words out, much less string together a decently casual sentence based entirely on a lie.

The man cocked his head – God, he cocked his head and it was alluring – and looked at him quizzically. "Oh, I'm sorry…I don't seem to recognize you…"

Grantaire shook his head, madly fighting the urge to brush off the snowflake that just lodged in the delicate eyelashes…

"No, no. You aren't…I mean I thought you were someone else, that's all." Admittedly it sounded a little lame, but he was sure this man had heard more than his fair share of pick up lines. Besides, he seemed so…pure….that a mere pick up line seemed crude in comparison.

The man nodded. "All right. Well, while you're stopped, would you take a flier?"

Before Grantaire could answer, the glossy paper had been unceremoniously thrust into his hand. He smiled a little. "Thanks." The other man nodded again, but remained unsmiling, to Grantaire's chagrin. Grantaire stood there, not looking at the flier at all, and began fantasizing about what a smile would look like on those flawless features. Particularly a smile brought about by him…

"Aren't you cold?" the man asked, once again breaking Grantaire's reverie. Grantaire looked up.

"Hm? No, not so much as you might expect." he shrugged a little in his thin jacket. "I'm hot-blooded," he added smoothly. God, he needed another drink to deal with this. The Jack Daniels he had downed pre-studies was nowhere near enough to handle an encounter like this one. He had gone from nearly speechless to vaguely flirty in about 30 seconds flat.

The man didn't seem to get the joke. "Well, not everyone is like that," he said carefully. "If you would think of the homeless who would give anything for even your thin jacket and I daresay to be, as you put it, 'hot-blooded', put yourself in their shoes, perhaps you could help us out a little in our cause?" The blue eyes were suddenly a hundred times more intense and possessed a vibrance he had never seen before. Holy hell, the man was impassioned to boot. God, imagine how that passion would translate to…other areas…focus. He asked you a question.

Grantaire gave the man his most charming smile. "And what would I be able to accomplish? There are thousands of homeless. There have always been. There always will be. That's how society works. They're as much a part of the city as the subway or Times Square. There is nothing anyone can do to change that, and to try is simply naïve." He turned, not believing his own unique ability to speak without thinking. Why wouldn't his mouth fucking stop? Why did it have to work on its own? He hurried away before the obviously stronger man could beat him to a pulp, or he could manage to make an even bigger fool of himself. He got an admirable distance away before he heard the deep honeyed voice speak again.

"And isn't your one life changing another one life reason enough to try? If you can help just one person and make their existence a little more bearable, is that not the most noble work a man can do?"

Something in the man's tone made Grantaire stop in his tracks. He felt like he was going to cry. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. As he ducked into the library, he began to wonder if the encounter had even been real.

But it had been, and the stranger was Enjolras and he fulfilled his mission that day. He changed one little life, and that life was Grantaire's.