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“’Ferry?”
Combeferre smiles at Grantaire, who is sitting on the floor with his crayons and paper. Courfeyrac and Combeferre are babysitting while Enjolras is out at a coffee shop, working on a speech. He needs a space to work, and although Grantaire is generally a good kid and wouldn’t interrupt, it’s still good for him to not spend all his time with the three-year-old. “Yeah?”
“C’n I ask a question?”
“Of course. Questions are always allowed,” he encourages gently.
“I’m sorry if it’s a bad question.”
“That’s okay,” Courfeyrac assures him. “If it’s not a question we want to answer, we won’t, but we won’t be angry because you asked.”
“Okay,” Grantaire mumbles. “Uh. The question is, why were you and Ferry doin’ kissing?”
“Oh,” Courfeyrac says. “Um.” He’s quiet for a second. The first thing that comes to mind is his littlest sister. Amelie had been just six when he and Combeferre started dating two years ago. He thinks about coming out to his parents, stammering and terrified, and how his mother had just said don’t tell your sisters, they’re too young. He knows, consciously, that he’s not going to turn little Grantaire gay by talking about a same sex relationship. Grantaire is probably going to grow up into the same bisexual adult he was before this all happened, if he doesn’t get re-aged, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but Courfeyrac still feels something like shame as he tries to figure out how to explain this.
“Courfeyrac and I love each other very much,” Combeferre says simply. “There are different kinds of love—we love you, and we love Enjolras and our other friends—but when you grow up there’s a particular kind of love that you feel for a special person, or a few people, and it might make you want to kiss them to show them that you love them in that way.”
“Oh,” Grantaire says.
“Sometimes we say that we’re dating these special people, and if you decide you want to be their special person forever, you can get married to them. So Courfeyrac and I are dating, and that makes him my boyfriend.”
“Are you gonna get married?”
Combeferre stammers a little at that, so Courfeyrac smiles. “Maybe one day,” he answers simply.
“I thought only girls could marry boys and boys hadta marry girls.”
“Some people think that, R,” Combeferre says. “But some girls want to marry girls, and some boys want to marry boys.”
Grantaire thinks about this for a little while, popping his round little fist in his mouth to suck on while he considers the subject. Combeferre detects Courfeyrac’s anxiety, in that way he has of seeing what’s most wrong with those who matter most to him, and laces his fingers with Courfeyrac’s. They watch as Grantaire considers this. It takes quite a while.
Eventually, Grantaire looks up at them. “Is that what fags is?” he says, his tone bright and curious as usual.
“Tadpole, where did you hear that word?” Courfeyrac asks, trying to hide the instinctive flinch.
“My papa used to say it. Usually at the T.V., when he was doing shouting. One time my mama let me do my hair up in ribbons so it looked pretty and then Papa came home and saw and yelled at Mama for turning me into a fag. I dunno what it means though.”
“It’s a very mean word,” Combeferre says.
“Sorry,” Grantaire says, lisping over the r sound and biting his lip. He' s a sensitive kid, and he can tell that he's upset Combeferre and Courfeyrac. Luckily his reaction is just apologizing- if he were truly scared, he might try and hide from them, as he often does when he panics, and then it might take half an hour to coax him out and convince him they won't hurt him. This time, though, Combeferre's able to reassure him right away.
“It’s okay, little frog. You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t mean to make you sad,” he says, his lip wobbling, and Combeferre leans down and picks him up, settling the child in on his lap.
“It’s all right. Just… that word is usually used to mean people who are boys who like to kiss and go on dates with and sometimes marry other boys, but it’s not a nice word.”
“Okay,” Grantaire says. “Then why did my papa call me that?”
“I don’t know, Grantaire. I’m sorry that I don’t have a better answer for you. But even grownups sometimes do things that aren’t very nice.”
Grantaire nods gravely at that. “It wasn’t nice to yell at Mama.”
“No, it wasn’t. Some people don’t think nice things about boys who like boys, but it’s okay to love whoever you love.”
“So I could marry a boy when I grow up?”
“You could,” Combeferre agrees. “Or a girl, or no one at all.”
Grantaire considers this for a moment. Then he smiles widely. “I’m gonna marry ‘Jolras when I’m grown up,” he pronounces.
Combeferre and Courfeyrac look at each other, silently panicking.
Then Grantaire jumps off Combeferre’s lap. “Come help me find stuff for dress-up. I want to do my hair pretty again, if that’s ‘kay.”
“Of course it is,” Combeferre says, and they spend the rest of the afternoon watching T.V. while Courfeyrac patiently braids Grantaire’s curly hair into tiny little braids.