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Snow was already piling on the sidewalks and the first snowmen decorated the front yards of the street where he had grown up. He could see silhouettes behind curtains, running from kitchens to living rooms in a hurried fashion. Courfeyrac smiled absentmindedly as the taxi rolled up to his old home.
Home.
Courfeyrac had missed it way too much.
He thanked the taxi driver, paid him and then hoisted his bags out of the bunk. Why again did he decide to come home with that much luggage? He grunted as he took his last bag and turned towards the front door.
Finally.
His family welcomed him with love and the usual chaos the season brought with it. Hugs and kisses made him realize how much he had missed all of this. His younger sisters were decorating their rooms, fighting for fairy lights and bright pink tinsel, asking him for his opinion and throwing fake mistletoes at him, when he suggested maybe another 5kg of glitter on the small tree each of them had in their room.
He had been away for two years and it still seemed like not much had changed. It was the same noise, people running down the hallway and faint 80s music from his father’s study, where he was not so discreetly ordering the last presents he had totally forgotten about. There was the same smell of his mother’s delicious cooking. The same photographs in his room, although not all of them, he had taken the most of them with him. There was dust on his old desk and his nightstand. Everything in the room from the old school photos to the selection of weird looking beer bottles was screaming “here lives an eighteen-year-old!”. It was like the time had stopped as he had been moving on, or at least had tried to.
The thought made his chest ache.
Courfeyrac wondered if he was still the same he had been two years ago.
His mother came up to his room, as he was unpacking looking for places to hide the presents. His sisters had been able to find theirs every year, sneaking into his room and rummaging through his dressers. His mother smiled at him broadly, but he could see the sadness behind it. He felt terrible for leaving, for not coming back and for coming back so late. Courfeyrac sighed and looked at her.
“You know I am sorry, but things had been so stressful and London is expensive and I have missed you so much.” In the end, he couldn’t hold back and fell into her arms. “
“It’s okay my love I know that, but now you are here and that counts. But why are you still here anyway?”, she asked handing him sheets for his bed and tutting at the confused look he shot her.
“Didn’t you want me here for Christmas?”, he retorted in mocked shock.
“Of course, we have missed you, my love! But we are not the only people, who haven’t seen you in two years. Enjolras has been calling daily for the last two weeks. I have never seen the poor boy so nervous. Even Combeferre has called yesterday, and we both know how much he hates talking on the phone. So, I know for a fact, that some of them are at the bar tonight. Not Enjolras and Combeferre, but some of the rest.”
She didn’t have to say a name, for Courfeyrac to know who she was referring to. He sighed. “Enjolras and Ferre have already invited themselves over for dinner tomorrow.”
They had been planning this break for forever. He couldn’t wait to finally see them again.
He felt his mother’s hand on his shoulder. “Go there, he has missed you, too and you know that.”
*
Courfeyrac had never thought of himself as a coward, but right now he was standing outside the Musain, not daring to enter and slowly freezing to death. A cold wind blew snowflakes in his face. Looking through the window he could make out his friends, all sat around the same table they had already occupied during their high school days. Back then it had been this bunch of wild school boys, talking out their asses about how they wanted to change the world. Each of them with big dreams and naïve ideas about the future. He wondered what was left of those kids.
Every surface of the table was cluttered with bottles of beer and wine, some shot glasses among them, showed that they had been here for some time.
But something was new in this whole scene. Courfeyrac's usual place, wedged between Jehan and Feuilly, had been taken over by somebody else. He couldn’t really make out much, just saw the tall dark-haired stranger with his arm around Jehan’s shoulders. The feeling in his stomach had been true. This was all he had dreaded coming back.
With slumped shoulders, Courfeyrac opened the door and stepped inside the bar. When the warm air hit him and he heard the familiar laughter of his friends, the butterflies in his stomach, he had believed to be dead, came alive.
In the middle of the winter, they brought the feeling of spring with them.
The feeling of hope and love.
*
He was welcomed back with a lot of shouting and kind remarks on how he should have come home earlier and not disappear for more than two years without much of a notice. Bahorel refused to let go of him for almost five minutes, declaring his undying love and promising him a lifelong supply of booze, if he never left the town again.
He felt loved, in a way he hadn’t in such a long time.
When Jehan hugged him it was warm and oh so soft.
It was everything he had missed in those two years. And it was way too short. Instead of lingering, Jehan turned around to the other man, who was now standing next to him, a possessive hand on his hip.
“Courf this is Phillipe, we met at uni.”, the man nodded at him his face neutral.
Nothing more.
No “we are dating”, “I love him”, no “look I am over you”.
And somehow that was worse than Courfeyrac had feared.
*
It wasn’t like they had been dating. No dating would have been way too conventional, but there had been something. Something that had expressed itself in soft touches, shared secrets and a closeness they had had with none of their other friends. They had just never given it a name.
It had been more about moments they had shared. While both of them were usually anything but taciturn, what had been between had made them speechless for once.
Instead, it had painted them those pictures, with no words needed.
Lazy Sundays spent on his sofa curled up against each other, watching a movie or Jehan reading him something he considered especially poetic. Sometimes they had ended up completely forgetting about the time until Courfeyrac’s had found them at 11 pm, both of them dead on their feet already.
Getting ridiculously drunk more than once and waking up together on somebody’s carpet, hurting so much, but way too comfortable cuddling to actually get up.
And the dancing.
They didn’t need to be drunk to do that. He didn’t even know when it had started, just that at some point they had been dancing at any opportunity. Sometimes they were twirling each other around, other times they were just swaying to a soft melody in their minds, holding onto each other. It hadn’t mattered who would watch, they just looked at each other and were at complete peace.
He had been in love and leaving had been the biggest mistake Courfeyrac had ever made.
*
The night had gone on, without much of a fuzz. It was mostly catching up, with what his friends had been up to. They had kept up with each other through social media and chaotic skype group calls. Still, Courfeyrac felt like he had missed so much.
He had been the only one, who had left France behind to go to a theatre school in England. The physical distance had taken its toll, he noticed just then.
The more he was happy to be around his friends that night. He had missed looking at them directly, being able to hug Bahorel, tugging on Grantaire’s curls or making Marius blush with as much as a simple look and a raised eyebrow. This was what he was good at, like a role he had been playing his whole life, his favorite one.
It was almost three am when they said their goodbyes, promising to meet again that night, with Enjolras and Combeferre completing their group for a proper meet-up.
The whole group together.
Courfeyrac hesitated to wait at the front door. Back then he had always brought Jehan home, but he wasn’t sure if that was still needed. After all, he had Phillipe, who right now was helping him put on his jacket.
But Jehan actually said his goodbye to the man with a kiss on his cheek and walked over to Courfeyrac smiling at him shyly.
“Let’s go?”, he asked shuffling with his feet. It felt nothing like in the past.
Jehan hummed as he walked next to him through the dimly lit streets of their hometown. The snow crunched under their shoes, only drowned out by cars passing by.
Courfeyrac didn’t really know what to say. He felt guilty, just looking at Jehan had made his heart race and hurt at the same time.
“What is wrong?” The other man’s voice ripped him out his thoughts. “You have been awfully quiet the whole night. That’s not you. That’s not the Courf I used to know.”
The last words had been almost a whisper, an almost panicking undertone in those words. The fear of not even recognizing each other, like they weren’t who they had been before.
“I… actually I don’t know. I’m a bit overwhelmed.”
“That’s not all.” Not it wasn’t and for a second Courfeyrac hated Jehan for knowing him so well.
“I feel out of place here. I shouldn’t have stayed away for so long. Or come back now.”
“Why didn’t you come back sooner?”, Jehan had stopped walking and was now staring at the small pond they had walked by so many nights. He didn't even look at him anymore, Courfeyrac thought. But there was no anger in his voice, just curiosity.
“It was stressful and London is expensive.”, Courfeyrac started, even in his own ears it sounded like a bullshit.
“You are a terrible liar and you know that. Did you hate this place so much? Did you hate us?”, Jehan retorted, a sad smile on his face.
“Now that’s just unfair.”
“Unfair? Leaving and not even trying to keep in touch is unfair. I at least tried.”, he was angry now, a state Jehan rarely reached. It didn’t suit him and Courfeyrac wanted to smooth the crease between his brows.
“I didn’t want to get my hopes up, every time I came back.”, that at least was the truth.
The pond was almost completely frozen, the moonlight reflecting on its surface. When they had been children they often went ice skating on it, chasing each other round and round. It felt like so long ago.
“Get your hopes up?”, Jehan asked tentatively.
Courfeyrac sighed, but at this point what did it even matter. Lying had gotten him nowhere, so what had he to lose? This night had felt surreal, so did this town. He could as well, ruin it all in one go.
“Yeah. Coming home would be fine, I guess. But I couldn’t leave again and again. I couldn't leave you behind, so far away.”, he took Jehan’s hand in his. It was cold, they probably should hurry home, but he didn’t want to move right now. He could sense that Jehan was at a loss for words and for a second he thought he had crossed a line.
But then Jehan dropped his hand just to hug him closely like he never wanted to let go. After a second of shock, Courfeyrac hugged him back. He was a drowning man holding onto a lifeline.
Both of them were.
“I can’t believe I have fallen love with such an idiot."