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Enjolras huffs a sigh when he comes back to his dorm room to find a bowl of what looks like beef casserole on his study table. The growl of his stomach reminds him that he hasn’t had any food since breakfast, when he’d hurriedly stuffed a croissant into his mouth and washed it down with more cups of coffee than was healthy.
He fishes his phone out of his pocket and types a quick text to Combeferre as he sits down to eat his dinner.
To: Combeferre
Thanks for the food.
From: Combeferre
Again, it’s not me.
Enjolras rolls his eyes. Combeferre is the only other person who has a key to his room, and he always keeps his door locked. And besides, there’s no-one who would care enough to keep sending him dinner. Maybe except Courfeyrac, but he would never be so quiet about it.
To: Combeferre
It’s been two weeks, you can admit it now.
From: Combeferre
When would I have had the time to do it? I’m just walking back from one of my tutorials.
Enjolras frowns. The casserole he’s eating is delicious, and more importantly, still hot. It also doesn’t taste like it comes from any of the cafés within the campus.
Feuilly, then. He’s staying in one of the self-catering halls, and cooks his own meals. Combeferre must have bribed him into cooking Enjolras’ share. He texts to ask Feuilly.
From: Feuilly
I haven’t been cooking since the start of the term? I’ve got this job at a diner that covers my dinners. Sorry I’m not more helpful!
Enjolras briefly considers if he’s maybe pushed a little too far with baiting Montparnasse during their first day of lectures this semester, maybe far enough that Montparnasse would want to poison him slowly, and then shrugs the idea off. Montparnasse may be an asshole, but he’s an asshole who has been in unrequited love with Eponine since first year, and Enjolras is relatively sure that Montparnasse won’t risk Eponine’s wrath just to get rid of him.
From: Combeferre
I can hear you mulling over this two rooms away, stop.
Enjolras sighs and pushes his half-eaten bowl of casserole away, appetite now waned.
From: Combeferre
And finish your food for God’s sake.
Enjolras isn’t even going to ask how he knows. By this stage of their friendship, he’s already accepted that Combeferre sees all and knows all.
He finishes his casserole.
It’s a very good casserole.
—
Here are some things Enjolras knows about this mystery person who’s been sending him food:
They are a very good cook, and have been sending him dinner, sometimes lunch, it really depends on his schedule (that the mystery person knows), for about two weeks now, since the semester started. It’s never something that Enjolras actively dislikes eating, or something that he’s deathly allergic to. In fact, the food choices have been mostly centred around his favourite foods, really, which means that they are probably also someone who knows him well.
They are very good at sneaking around. Enjolras’ asked just about every person on the floor, and no-one remembers seeing anyone sneak into and out of Enjolras’ room, which is ridiculous, because they have been sneaking Tupperware containers full of food into his room every day for two weeks. He cleans the containers after he’s eaten out of them, and leaves them on the table every day. It’s always gone the next day, replaced with another one with food in it.
They have a key to his room. This is a fact that Enjolras should have reported to the RA, but back when it started, Enjolras assumed it was Combeferre just trying to keep him alive. He thinks about reporting it now, but for some reason is reluctant to. He tells himself it’s because he still sort of suspects that Combeferre is behind all this, but it’s really because he enjoys having someone being concerned about him.
This is all he knows.
He really wants to know more.
—
“It’s obviously a secret admirer,” Courfeyrac tells Enjolras seriously. “Only instead of flowers and poetry, they serenade you with delicious food.”
Enjolras rolls his eyes. “They’ve got a key to my room,” he reminds Courfeyrac. “They could kill me in my sleep.”
Courfeyrac snorts. “That would be counterproductive to all the food they’ve been sending you to make sure you don’t keel over and die of malnourishment. What is the haute cuisine of the day? Do I have to guess? Ooh, can I guess?”
Enjolras gives him an unimpressed look, but it doesn’t stop Courfeyrac from rattling off all the dishes he knows in quick succession.
“Pie,” Enjolras ends up telling him, even if it’s just to shut him up. “Really good shepherd’s pie, and they didn’t use any peas.”
“Just the way you like it,” Courfeyrac murmurs. “Huh.”
Enjolras arches his eyebrow in a silent question.
“Did they go heavy on the butter? And thyme?” Courfeyrac asks.
Enjolras shrugs. “I guess? I don’t really—”
Courfeyrac doesn’t wait to hear his response, just turns away and sprints out of the library. Enjolras feels a sense of dread settle in him.
—
“I know something you don’t know,” Cosette chirps, beaming widely at him, as she comes into his room. She drops the books she borrowed from him on the floor and flops onto his bed. “It’s the loveliest thing.”
“Is it the name of the guy you fell in love with at the laundrette the other day?” Enjolras teases good-naturedly. “Because I’ve been waiting two weeks to tell you finally.”
Cosette scowls at him. “I was going to tell you I knew who your secret admirer was,” she tells him, “but you’re being mean now, so I shall hold this over your head.”
“I don’t have a secret admirer,” he sighs, before the actual sentence registers in his head. “You know who’s been sneaking into my room to send me food?”
Cosette smirks. “Indeed I do.”
Enjolras waits for her to continue, with a name preferably, but when she doesn’t, he prompts, “Would you like to tell me who they are?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Cosette says, and no, oh no, deals with Cosette are like the deals with the devil, no-one ever comes out on top. “You find me my mystery guy from the laundrette, and I’ll tell you the name of the person who has been seducing you with food.”
Enjolras scowls. “You can’t even tell me anything about him besides the fact that he has the cutest face and the cutest eyes and the cutest hair—”
“Why, Apollo, I never thought I would hear you wax poetry about anyone,” a voice cuts him off.
When he turns to his door, Grantaire is leaning against it, arms crossed and lips curved in a smirk.
“That was a private conversation,” he snaps, only because it’s easier to snap at Grantaire than to focus on unhelpful facts like how Grantaire’s paint-stained shirt is riding up at one corner, and how Enjolras can see skin, can see the ink on his skin, and how he really wants to lick Grantaire’s tattoos.
Right, like he said, unhelpful. And very distracting.
“Sorry,” Grantaire says, looking anything but. “Helpful tip, though. Close your door next time you have private conversations. I’ll see you later. Bye, Cosette!”
“You are the most emotionally stunted person in the world,” Cosette mutters. “You have a crush on Grantaire!”
Enjolras flushes deep red. “I don’t have a crush on him.”
Cosette laughs. “Are you blushing?” she asks. “Oh, God, you are blushing!”
Enjolras whacks her with a pillow.
—
This is the thing about Grantaire.
Grantaire is deliberately antagonistic when it comes to him. Grantaire likes to rile him up and make fun of him and mock his beliefs.
(He also likes to do those things when he’s wearing too-small t-shirts that stretch across his shoulders, and too-tight jeans that shows off his ass, but that’s not Enjolras’ point.)
It should be very annoying, Enjolras should really dislike him, but he doesn’t, he can’t, because when they argue, when Grantaire tears down his arguments, it’s obvious that he’s been doing his research on it, because his rebuttals are well-thought out and smart, and there’s really nothing more attractive than the smirk Grantaire shoots him when he’s done with his piece, and Enjolras is slightly speechless.
Enjolras never stood a chance.
—
“How much money would you pay me to tell you who your secret admirer is?” Courfeyrac asks Enjolras over dinner, from his place on Enjolras’ floor, annihilating a box of pizza.
Enjolras frowns, and picks at his own food, a chicken teriyaki stir fry with rice today. “Do you know who they are?”
Courfeyrac grins, mouth still full of pizza, and Enjolras scrunches his nose.
“I’m not paying you to be a good friend, Courf,” Enjolras tells him.
“That’s twenty dollars less than what your secret admirer has offered me to keep their identity a secret,” Courfeyrac tells him.
“Twenty dollars?” Enjolras says. “That’s all my friendship is worth to you?”
“That and they also know a lot of things about me that I never want anyone to find out about,” Courfeyrac offers. “But for fifty dollars—”
“No.”
Courfeyrac pouts, and it would be a little adorable if it weren’t for all the pizza sauce he has all over his mouth and chin. “Forty dollars?”
“Nope,” Enjolras says, popping his p.
“I will take twenty,” Courfeyrac says, “because your friendship is the most important—”
Enjolras whacks him with a pillow, then makes Courfeyrac promise to wash the stains off the cover.
—
Enjolras gets antsy whenever he has an upcoming test. This is a problem that he acknowledges he has. He knows he’s studied the materials, knows that he can probably quote the text verbatim if he wants to, but he just can’t get pass the feeling that he’s somehow missed something.
He deals with this problem by stocking up Red Bull and the most horrible, diabetes-causing types of canned coffee. He figures that if the caffeine can’t keep him up to go through every single note and every page of the textbook, the sugar will help too.
He’s carrying three shopping bags full of Red Bull and coffee back to his room when he bumps into Grantaire. He’s expecting Grantaire to make a snide remark about his energy drinks and his studying habits, but the other man just frowns and says, “Got a test coming up, then?”
Enjolras flushes, inexplicably embarrassed. “Shut up, it’s important.”
Grantaire holds both his hands up, palms facing Enjolras. “I’m not saying it isn’t,” he tells him, still frowning, and the thought of Grantaire being worried him is doing things to Enjolras, how fucking stupid. “This probably isn’t healthy, though.”
Enjolras shrugs.
Grantaire makes a noncommittal hum, and then starts to walk away, calling over his shoulder, “Good luck on the tests.”
Enjolras doesn’t have time to think about how odd the whole exchange was, he has a test to study for.
—
He doesn’t know how this happened.
Seriously.
He’d only left the room for ten minutes, tops, and only then it was because he had to take a walk to clear his head. He didn’t even leave the building, just walked upstairs, to Cosette’s room to return her the book he’d borrowed from her, stayed to listen to her rant about Cute Boy for awhile, and then came back.
He’d only been gone for ten minutes, but yep, the books on his table have been shoved into a neat pile to the side —all the pages he’d been reading before bookmarked, he checked— and replaced with food. A sandwich, what looks like borscht, and about a dozen large-sized chocolate chip cookies.
There is also a note, scribbled hastily on one of Enjolras’ notepads.
cookies > energy drinks, every time.
He doesn’t think much of it, and is halfway through his sandwich when he realises that all his Red Bull and coffee are gone.
It takes another twenty minutes of panicking slightly (no caffeine = no study = no way he’s passing the test) and grudgingly finishing his sandwich and his borscht when he realises that the person who left him the food left him another message on the back of the original one.
it’s for your own good. :)
He smiles in spite of himself.
To: Courfeyrac, Cosette
Need to know: now.
From: Cosette
Tell me the name of my soulmate.
From: Courfeyrac
for $100 you can buy my love, my devotion, and your secret admirer’s name
Enjolras rolls his eyes at both texts.
He doesn’t need them; he can find this mystery person on his own.
After this test, though.
—
He bumps into Eponine outside the Law Library on his way back to his dorm after his test, and on a whim asks her out to coffee so they can catch up. He hasn’t seen her for awhile.
She asks him if he’s still arguing with Montparnasse every lecture and driving him half mad —he isn’t; they debate, like adults—, and he asks if she’s still mooning after the guy she dumped PoliSci for. She groans at that and tells him that Marius fucking Pontmercy found and lost his true love in a laundrette.
“This is going to sound really stupid,” Enjolras starts, “but would Marius happen to have the ‘cutest face and the cutest eyes and the cutest hair’?”
Eponine groans. “Are you trying to tell me you know who Marius has been pining over?”
Enjolras grins sheepishly. “Maybe? Her name is Cosette, she’s an art major. We live in the same hall. She talks about him all the time.”
Eponine sighs. “I should really tell him, that would make Marius’ day. I never stood a chance with him, did I?”
“You still have Montparnasse,” Enjolras teases, because he’s never been good at trying to comfort anyone.
It turns out to be the right thing to say because Eponine’s frown turns into a sharp grin. “He’s still not over me?”
“Every time anyone mentions your name, he swivels around, like he’s expecting to see you sitting behind him and kicking his chair,” Enjolras tells her drily. He’s not even kidding. Eponine is Montparnasse’s greatest Achilles’ heel. “He’s an asshole in class, but I think he really likes you.”
Eponine smiles.
When she leaves, Enjolras texts Cosette to tell her he knows who her guy is, leaving out his name deliberately, because no-one has ever made a good deal with Cosette before because Enjolras has never tried.
He then makes the executive decision to skip his next lecture in favour of trying to catch his mystery person redhanded.
—
He thinks of hiding, but then decides that it would be stupid to hide, because all he has to do is to wait for the mystery person to show up and unlock his door, and he doesn’t need to be hiding under the bed for that. He settles for turning the lights off and trying to type out an essay for one of his classes.
At 4:37 p.m., half an hour before Enjolras is supposed to be back from his lecture, he hears the lock turn. He doesn’t fall off his chair in shock when he sees who it is at the door, but only barely.
“Apollo!” Grantaire says. He’s balancing two identical Tupperware containers on one hand, the other hand still on the key, where it’s fitted to the lock. “You’re…not supposed to be here.”
“It’s you,” Enjolras chokes out, blinking rapidly to make sure that he isn’t seeing things. There’s a fluttering in his stomach that he’s trying to ignore, because he knows what happens when he feeds to it, and it’s not pretty. “It was you all along? You were the one sneaking me food?”
Grantaire shrugs. “My uncle owns a diner outside campus,” he tells Enjolras, ducking his head slightly. “He lets me use the kitchen.”
Enjolras doesn’t know what to say. He ends up blurting out, “The key.”
Grantaire flushes, and it’s completely impossible for Enjolras to look away from him now.
“I picked it off Combeferre and had a duplicate made,” he tells Enjolras. “It sounds really fucking shady, but I swear only use it to leave you food,” he adds quickly. “I don’t come in and watch you sleep or use your stuff or anything.”
Enjolras blinks at him. “But…why didn’t you just tell me?”
Grantaire runs his fingers through his hair, nervous. “I—” he starts. “I was under the impression that you don’t really like me. I figured you’d be more likely to eat the things I left you if you didn’t know they were from me.”
Oh.
“That’s not true,” Enjolras says, slowly. “I do like you.”
Grantaire snorts. “You don’t have to say that just because I’ve been sending you food,” he tells him. “Look— I’m sorry for being a total creep. I won’t send you anymore food if you don’t want me to, but I enjoy cooking, and you seem to like my food, so—”
“No, wait,” Enjolras interrupts him. “Wait, backtrack. I’m not just saying I like you because you’ve been sending me food. I like you.” He takes a breath, and decides to take the chance. “I like like you. Even before you started sneaking into my room to leave me food.” He smiles at Grantaire. “I would really like to go on a date with you.”
Grantaire is staring at him, gaping. “Is this a thank you for the food?” he blurts out. “Because it’s good food, I know, but it doesn’t warrant you wanting to date me, what.”
Enjolras rolls his eyes, exasperated. “This has got nothing to do with the food,” he tells Grantaire. “This is me telling you that I like you and that I would like it if you took me out for dinner, okay?”
Grantaire nods dumbly at him.
“Good,” Enjolras says.
“Good,” Grantaire parrots, still looking a little shell-shocked and disbelieving.
Enjolras sighs and takes two steps closer to Grantaire, getting all up in his personal space, and then kisses him on the lips, chaste and quick, one second there and then gone before Grantaire has a chance to react.
“That's a thank you for the food,” he tells Grantaire. “The next kiss is just for us, okay?”
Grantaire lets his lips stretch into a proper grin, fits his hands over Enjolras’ hips, and says, “Then we better make it a good one.”
(It is.)
—
Grantaire and Enjolras are sitting on his bed, eating spaghetti out of the Tupperware containers that Grantaire brought along with him when Cosette bursts into his room, yelling, “It's Grantaire! Your mystery man is Grantaire!”
"Traitor." Grantaire grins wryly at her. “I think he already knows.”
Cosette scowls. “I don’t care,” she snaps, and then winces. “I mean, I am ridiculously happy that you’ve sorted your shit out, but Enjolras, if you don’t tell me who Laundrette Guy is right now, I swear to God—”
“Cosette?” someone calls from outside.
“What?” she demands, turning to the door, before gasping. “It’s you!”
“It’s you!” Marius, it must be Marius, cries back.
Enjolras turns to Grantaire. “Did you really pay Courfeyrac twenty dollars to keep your identity from me?” he asks.
Grantaire just laughs.