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Anyone who calls Combeferre “boring” has clearly never been around him when he’s several beers into his cups.
Not that Grantaire thinks Sober Combeferre is boring, but Sober Combeferre is definitely more of an acquired taste. Drunk Combeferre is great for the whole family.
Possibly the greatest part of Drunk Combeferre, though, is the way Drunk Combeferre interacts with Mostly-Sober Enjolras.
If riling up Enjolras was an arcade game, Grantaire would have nine of the top ten scores. However, sitting between his initials right at second place would be Combeferre.
Somehow, Never Have I Ever never seems to get boring with the ABC crew. Between the constantly rotating combination of personalities and the varying levels of alcohol at play, it is very uncommon that the same story gets told twice. Tonight Grantaire’s attention has been alternating evenly between playing off of Eponine’s snark and watching in mute horror as Jehan seems to take a shot for every single question thus far, when Drunk Combeferre once again proves himself.
“Twice!” he calls from across the room. All it takes is one look at Enjolras to see that Drunk Combeferre is doing the good Lord’s work.
Enjolras has an armchair to himself and seems to have taken it as a personal challenge to occupy it in the least conventional way possible, laying across it on his back with his feet perched on the arm and his legs crossed, torso twisted so that his elbow rests on the chair’s other arm with his face resting against his hand. His other hand absentmindedly holds a beer that appears barely consumed. Judging by the redness of his cheeks and the furrow of his brow, Grantaire predicts that the glass may soon need replenished.
Grantaire scrambles to gain purchase on the conversation that is having such an effect on their fearless leader. “Ep,” he whispers furtively while the conversation is in a lull from laughter. “What’re we talking about?”
“Your Apollo over there has apparently not realized he was dating someone. Twice.”
Feuilly’s response mirrors his own: “Twice?? How does that even happen?”
“The first time, we were dating. Just some guy from a class. We went out a couple of times, it wasn’t that great, I told him I wasn’t interested in hanging out anymore.”
Sober Combeferre would have left that be, but Drunk Combeferre is a man of action.
“Oh no no no, that is not what you told me,” Drunk Combeferre, hero of all and accepter of no bullshit, corrects. “You told me, that you told him, that you would be really busy for a while. That he was really nice. That he could still text you and you could still hang out sometimes outside of class, but you probably wouldn’t prioritize it over your work.”
If anyone ever doubted the veracity of Drunk Combeferre—and what fool-mortal would?—the deepening red of Enjolras’s countenance would certainly set them on the right path once more.
Courfeyrac, kind soul that he is, puts both inattentive Grantaire and shockingly coherent Jehan out of their misery: “So Enjolras broke up with him so gently that he didn’t even realize that it was over!”
“Oh my God, Enjolras,” gasps Eponine between peals of laughter. “How have you even made it this far in life?”
“Great effort and determination,” intones Drunk Combeferre seriously.
They toast to it, Grantaire also quietly toasting to Drunk Combeferre’s bravery and sending a prayer up for the safety of Enjolras’s roommate. There is simply no way that Combeferre will make it through the next month without a catastrophic “accident” occurring after this night, and Grantaire is grateful for his sacrifice.
“And the girl?” Grantaire hears Jehan initiate.
“Oh my God, the girl. How was I to know that going to the library, a coffee shop, and a football game constituted as ‘dates’?”
Grantaire might be able to understand the confusion—Enjolras, being the gay male specimen that he is—except that Grantaire had been invited along for coffee for one of those “not-dates” and ended up begging off ten minutes in because the girl was treating it like a date enough for the both of them.
Grantaire had spent many hours since trying to fortune what had become of the doomed couple. “Oh man, can I guess this time?” He looks between Enjolras and Combeferre, unsure which will answer. “You only found out when she tried to kiss you?”
“Worse!” Drunk Combeferre, you beautiful bastard. Never change. Grantaire takes a sip of his beer in his honor and immediately regrets it. “He found out when she dumped him!” All things considered, as painful as shooting beer through your nose is, it still seems totally and completely worth it for how flustered Enjolras looks.
“What the shit, Enjolras. Didn’t even get a kiss in? After at least three dates?” Bahorel balks. Not for lack of trying, Grantaire silently assures him. The girl had been nothing if not determined.
“I didn’t even want to be dating her! I didn’t even know we were dating! Dating is kind of a mutual thing, a two-way street.” And Enjolras is a Parisian alleyway, barely enough space for a one-way moped. “One person can’t decide it alone, all involved parties need to be on the same page! Honestly, there should be a checking-in phase of every relationship, where you just make sure you’re on the same page.”
Eponine is able to initiate a single toast before Enjolras is outed as hypocritical as well as daft.
“Oh-ho, so Mr. Checking-In Phase is too good to check in on his own dates?”
“Hey now, that’s not fair Ep,” Grantaire declares. Enjolras doesn’t even bother to look hopeful, and it occurs to Grantaire that perhaps Enjolras does listen to him sometimes. “I think we all need to remember that this is someone who literally broke up with someone so subtly that they had no ideas for weeks and still probably hasn’t had the nerve to tell that poor girl that they were never really dating.”
Enjolras’s refused eye-contact is all the confirmation anyone in the room needs to continue ribbing him.
“So Enj, tell us about this not-date with this not-woman,” goads Eponine.
“S’not much to tell. We went out, he didn’t really seem to be having a good time. We ran into some friends, and he seemed to enjoy himself a lot more with them. No harm, no foul.”
Grantaire tries to fathom the kind of person who could be on an actual, honest-to-goodness date with Enjolras—a date that Enjolras himself had initiated, because Enjolras himself likes them—and not enjoy themselves. Having that kind of validation, even if they had lost the use of all five of their senses in some freak industrial accident and thus weren’t attracted to Enjolras, would surely make even the most insecure person feel like a veritable god.
Grantaire thinks back to the last time he and Enjolras were alone together and cringes: Enjolras had mentioned to him that he was going to a theme park and invited Grantaire along. Two new death-defying rides and the opportunity to ogle at Enjolras from a moderate distance? He did what anyone who hates themselves would do. When he had arrived, though, no one else was present. Enjolras barely looked at or spoke to him, and even the most innocent questions were responded to in short, irritated bursts. After a half hour of this, Grantaire decided that any favor he might eventually owe his roommates was worth getting out of this predicament, and thirty minutes later Joly and Bossuet were scampering across the park at full-speed toward them.
He realizes abruptly that it is his turn and takes the opportunity to turn the conversation away from relationships and hopefully to something that Jehan has never done:
“Never have I ever rollerbladed backwards down a hallway on my way to the kitchen.”
Other people are still fighting the good fight, but Jehan effortlessly takes another shot.
What have you done, Prouvaire? What have you seen?
---
Grantaire is eating a bowl of Cheerios with hazelnut coffee creamer. It would seem that no one bothered getting milk, and after his 10-hour shift at the bar he refuses to change his breakfast plans on principle. It is now on the shopping list, and that is as far out of his way as he plans to go to accommodate to anyone.
His cell phone vibrates. Who in the hell is texting him before 7AM on a Saturday? Don’t they know he’s supposed to be trying to sleep? Don’t they know that they should be asleep? It’s simple rudeness all around.
He picks up his phone to look at the text preview. Ah, Enjolras. That answers a lot of questions and their follow-ups.
Unfortunately, some answers beget bigger questions:
would u wanna meet @ musain 2day
Forget that it is literally easier on most phones to type “at” than @, what on earth does Enjolras want with him? Grantaire runs through all of their encounters from the past week, and aside from the time with the mugs—which, come on, even Sober Combeferre admitted it was hilarious—he can’t think of anything stupid, crude, or even overtly offensive that he has said or done to warrant this.
He puts his phone back down. A wise man would try to go to sleep right now, he reflects. He looks down at his bowl. A wise man also would have crossed the damned street and bought milk for himself rather than wasting coffee creamer on Cheerios.
Grantaire decides that he is not a wise man after all and decides to pick a show at random from his Netflix watch list to marathon.
---
But what if Enjolras isn’t angry?
Grantaire had fallen asleep three hours into his binge-watch session and wakes suddenly from a dead-sleep with the idea in the forefront of his mind.
Enjolras has been known not to be angry at Grantaire on occasion. Enjolras has also been known to spend time with people recreationally on occasion. Grantaire has pointedly avoided math since he knocked out his last college gen ed, but he seems to remember that a fraction times a fraction just makes a smaller fraction—not zero. So it is technically possible.
Grantaire rereads the text preview.
Grantaire falls back asleep on the sofa.
---
“Jehan. My sweet, my darling, light of my life.”
“R,” the smiling voice breathes over the phoneline, somehow summing up all of the sentiments Grantaire had just expressed and more in a single letter.
“This is going to sound really dumb—self-evident, sorry, self-evident—but can you possibly help me decode this text?”
“Is it from En—?”
“It’s from Enjolras.”
He swears he can hear Jehan’s smile. He doesn’t know how, but he can. “Come on over, I’ll see what I can do.”
When he arrives, the door is unlocked, and Jehan is clad in a sequin halter top and galaxy pajama shorts.
They bypass salutations: “Let me see it.” Jehan doesn’t even stand from where they are spread out on the sofa, simply holds up a hand. Grantaire suspects that they may be high, but honestly it’s equally likely that they are not.
Once Jehan has taken the text in, punctuationless-glory and all, they are silent.
“Sounds like coffee.”
“You don’t think he’s mad at me?”
“What are the odds of him always being mad?”
“At me?”
“Point made.” Jehan sits up and looks at Grantaire seriously. “Let’s walk through this, then. What’s the best that can happen?”
Grantaire doesn’t dare answer this question out loud, so Jehan does it for him: “He’ll declare undying love and take you on the table right there. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though—you’re not Bossuet, but you’re not nearly that lucky.” Grantaire laughs.
“And the worst?” Jehan continues. The worst. Grantaire thinks about it. “It can’t be that he yells at you—you taunt him into doing that every meeting.” Grantaire shrugs. “And anyway, I don’t think he’d ask you to a café just to yell at you. Enjolras can be…direct,” Jehan admits, “but not senselessly cruel. Not to you.”
Grantaire considers arguing the point, but between Jehan’s no-nonsense attitude about self-value and their surprising fierceness in the face of bullshit, Grantaire knows that the argument is senseless and lost before it is even begun.
“So…it’s just coffee?”
Jehan smiles. “Just coffee. He probably has something he wants help with.” Jehan wears a conspiratorial smile now. “And if it goes really, really terribly, we can plant seedlings for Redwood trees the front yard of that bastard that made me cut down my beautiful magnolia.”
“We can do that if it goes well, too. And all of the statuses in between.”
Jehan beams at Grantaire.
Sure. 4:00 ok?
4:00 sounds perfect
---
The whole thing is pretty horrible.
It starts with him running late from busking—he and Feuilly have a challenge running between the two of them to pay for all non-essentials with busk money, and Grantaire gets caught up in playing for a crowd before he realizes the time.
But Enjolras is oddly okay with this? Grantaire comes in totally out of breath and expecting a lecture, but instead Enjolras merely offers to get him a drink. Grantaire, being the idiot he is, forgets the efforts he has made to antagonize Enjolras’s reusable cup and straw campaign at every turn, handing his over without a thought, then having to scramble to make up the most bogus lie he has ever spoken into existence when Enjolras confronts him on it—though confronts isn’t quite the right word. Asks? Conversates? He’s never seen Enjolras, purposeful Enjolras, goal-oriented Enjolras, try to conduct small talk, but he does believe that may be what was happening.
And then he compliments the art on Grantaire’s cup! Grantaire could tell him how he picked the style before he knew what piece he’d recreate, how he’d waited until he saw just the right piece to start it, how the exercise had started a whole series in his art class and how thrilled his professor is that he has expanded past his blond muse. He could even talk about the first two travel mugs he’d had stolen, how many times he’d stopped thieves in the act already with his personalized mug this time around.
But he doesn’t.
He waits for Enjolras to say something, anything, and finally has his prayers answered when Marie stops by with their drinks.
“The regular for R, and an apple cider for the gentleman,” she smiles. Marie is familiar. He and Marie have rapport, know where they stand with one another. He instantly relaxes.
He grabs one of her hands dramatically and sees she’s already stifling a laugh. “Marie, what would I ever do without you?” He shifts his expression. “I may even ignore that you insinuated that I am ever anything less than a gentleman,” and she finally releases her laugh as he releases her hand.
Marie is a traitor.
Enjolras asking about his drink seems innocent enough, and to the casual observer it may even look like they’re flirting—which Enjolras does not do, so that casual observer would be wrong.
His drink is black coffee. That’s it. But it’s so much more fun to get Enjolras riled up.
Of course this would backfire. A nice conversation about nothing important can only go on for so long between the two of them. Truly, Marie’s departure was the beginning of the end.
It’s his own damned fault: he should have known that Enjolras wouldn’t have registered any difference between when they first met, when Grantaire was buzzed most of the day but well and truly smashed for meetings, and now, when he only allows himself one drink among friends. But also, maybe, Enjolras shouldn’t have made it his first guess.
After trying for a dismissive shrug that he is sure comes off as anything but, he finally decides to put an end to the charade.
“Anyway, you asked me here for something, right? Whaddya need?”
Enjolras looks unsure for a minute, and Grantaire finds himself too annoyed to care.
Finally, Enjolras lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, um. I was wondering if you might take a look at this speech for me? Tear it apart a little bit, tell me its weak spots.”
Grantaire sits up a little in his seat, interested. This is familiar territory. He can do this. By the time Enjolras’s turns the laptop around to reveal a document on immigration, Grantaire is already organizing his points.
“Oh man, how much time do I have?”
---
can u help me
i need 2 make a pie
Grantaire doesn’t need Jehan to explain this message: he needs Jehan for moral support.
Jehan answers the door in a handpainted silk bathrobe and giant cushiony toast slippers. Their hair is wrapped in a silk scarf that absolutely does not match the robe. They are stunning.
Jehan is expecting him. They kiss cheeks, and Grantaire enters.
“What brings you here today?” Their fake feather eyelashes brush their eyebrows as they look up at R through them.
Grantaire pulls out his phone to show Jehan the latest texts, kicking off his shoes and stepping over onto the sofa as he does. Jehan’s eyebrows shoot up before they frantically run to their own phone to check.
This is exactly what Grantaire expects: every year, Enjolras invites Jehan and Joly to help him bake a pie for his grandmother. The whole process is infamous; Enjolras, as great a leader as he is, cannot take instructions from any source, and that includes basic recipes. Having lived with Joly through the past four years of the whole ordeal, Grantaire has witnessed firsthand how even patient Joly who steadily returns from the ER most days unphased is reduced to shaking mess in need of a full recovery day of cuddles. Jehan, gentle and kind, is rarely seen outside of their apartment in the days that follow, and when they are their mood makes it clear that it is out of necessity alone.
Jehan has just put their phone down. “So it seems that no one else has gotten a text, just you.” Jehan walks up to Grantaire, wrapping him in a hug before looking up at him.
“Full disclosure, R: Joly and I are throwing you under the bus. I love you, and I am more than willing to support you before and after, but I also love myself.”
---
It is seven in the morning. Who goes to pick apples at seven in the morning? Who picks apples anymore? Who wakes up before seven in the morning?
The answer, as usual, would seem to be Enjolras.
Grantaire should be terrified, he knows: if Enjolras in the kitchen is enough to scar an ER nurse and a Romantic poet whose favorite date to date included a stop at a mortuary, he should be absolutely mortified.
Instead, he’s just tired. Grantaire knows his way around a kitchen and definitely knows his way around pies, but in his nervousness about the extremity of Enjolras’s cooking deficiency, he ended up spending most of the night on Wikipedia reading up on the history of pies and the internet’s opinions on best apple pie recipes (final verdict: they all looked pretty terrible). Grantaire is just in that sweet spot of exhaustion where he can probably give the scientific name of every apple species available in the state.
He brings his travel mug to his mouth, fighting to keep the drink down. Even the Musain doesn’t open until 10AM—probably to keep the culture of early-morning misery from tainting their atmosphere, he thinks grimly—so he’d had to purchase from the shop nearest to them, where the boy who had made it very definitely gave him the wrong order. He braces himself for another sip: unfortunately, he needs the caffeine more than he cares about his taste buds, and he can’t bear to toss the disgusting mixture out on the ground like he should.
“So, how long until the others get here?”
He knows there are no others. Joly and Jehan weren’t invited, and everyone else has enough self-preservation instincts to be out today. Even Combeferre sent him a very thoughtful, polite, and firm text informing him that he appreciates what Grantaire is doing and that he’ll be back in town the next day.
“No one else was able to make it. Shall we get started?”
Grantaire’s reaction time is still about ten seconds behind, and he runs to catch up with the blond who is already looking at exactly the wrong type of apple.
He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and make it seems significantly less like he’s quoting a cooking magazine. “You’re picking these for baking, right?” For all of Jehan’s reluctance to involve themself, they did spend a lot of time counseling Grantaire not to antagonize Enjolras for today. “You do not want these.” Caralho. That is the opposite of not antagonizing, Grantaire realizes when his mind finally catches up. Not only has he belittled Enjolras inside of five minutes into the excursion, but he finds his hand literally pulling Enjolras’s away from the Golden Delicious (Malus pumila).
“Well then, since you seem to be the expert, please lead the way.”
Grantaire tries not to make a face at Enjolras. Whether he succeeds or not is hard to determine, but Enjolras’s lack of reaction leads Grantaire to consider the interaction on the whole to be a success. He starts down the row of trees, Enjolras close by.
Say what you want about 7AM—and he does—but the foggy atmosphere combined with the reaching trees have a definite mood to them, and Grantaire forces Enjolras to a stop several times to take photos of particularly haunting or interesting ones for his inspiration board.
Finally, they come to it: Malus pumila x Malus sylvestris—Granny Smith, to the common man who has not logged the majority of the night obsessing over apple varieties. Grantaire is finally waking up, and he doesn’t want to tempt fate by looking at the time.
“Here’s what you want.” He risks a glance over at Enjolras, with whom he has been lucky enough to pass the time until now in peaceful and tentative silence. Enjolras does not look convinced in the slightest, and Grantaire already catches him eyeing other trees. He wonders briefly if this is where their troubles will begin. “These are baking apples. Those yellow ones you were looking at would be way too sweet for a pie.” He pats himself on the back for simplifying the sentence enough to make it sound nearly casual. Maybe Enjolras will even listen to logic if they can both remain calm. “These are much more tart, and when you start cooking them the sweetness will come out on its own and become more concentrated.”
Enjolras continues staring at Grantaire oddly, and because Grantaire is impulsive and an idiot he tosses one to him with no warning. To his surprise, Enjolras not only catches the apple effortlessly but takes a bite as if to confirm what Grantaire has said—and God, it is just so unfair that someone can look so good eating an apple.
“Great. So let’s get enough of these for two pies, then fill the rest with more conventionally edible apples.”
“Conventionally edible,” thinks Grantaire. I don’t know a single other person who talks the way you do. You’re like a sexy textbook.
“Combeferre talks like that,” Enjolras responds, and apparently Grantaire isn’t as awake as he thought he was given that he evidently voiced that entire thought out loud. But Enjolras is rolling with it, so maybe it isn’t so bad.
“I know a single other person who talks the way you do,” Grantaire amends before deciding to push his luck. “And he’s only a moderately sexy—albeit significantly more comprehensive—textbook.” Maybe the slight dig will take the edge off of the nature of the statement? Oh yes, insulting the person that I’m supposed to be appeasing is really the way to go about this.
“Says the only person I know who answer a source request by asking for a citation style. Since we’re on the topic of ‘sexy textbooks.’” Grantaire no longer has any blessed clue what is happening in this conversation. He opens his mouth to respond and finds that he has no words, a prodigious feat. Enjolras has definitely never called him “sexy” before. Has Enjolras ever called anyone “sexy” before? He makes a mental note to ask Jehan when this is all over—assuming he survives, which there seems to be no solid indication in either direction on.
However, Enjolras is smiling, which seems to be a good sign. Grantaire finally selects a decidedly safer direction to shift the conversation and begins once more: “Well shit, we’ve got a lot of backgrounds in the room, and everyone’s got a preference. Besides, the style someone chooses is very telling of who they are as a person.”
“Oh?” Enjolras stills wears a smile, and now that Grantaire knows he can make Enjolras do that he wants to keep doing it.
“Truly.”
“For example?”
“Well, if anyone ever asks for MLA, you don’t need them in your life. Plain and simple.”
Enjolras laughs, and Grantaire thinks that he might survive the ordeal after all.
---
Grantaire’s utter disbelief and frustration with Enjolras might just kill him if Enjolras doesn’t finish the job first.
How can a full-grown adult have made it so far in life without even owning a grater? Who uses apple juice in a pie recipe? Grantaire strongly suspects, even as he debates Enjolras, that the man has never seen a real cinnamon stick in his life.
In the end, Combeferre is the one who saves the day without even being there: his and Enjolras’s shared kitchen, of which Combeferre seems to be the sole benefactor and user, is organized in a way that makes sense, has most of the things that they had chanced not purchasing, and generally eases the fuck out of Grantaire’s entire mind.
Grantaire was able to navigate traffic more easily on his motorcycle than Enjolras could in his electric car, and along with literally any cooking knowledge at all Enjolras apparently also never learned to lock his damned door, so when Enjolras finally does enter with the rest of their groceries he finds Grantaire in the kitchen simply taking in the ambiance before the force that is Enjolras has a chance to upset the balance.
Grantaire looks over at him, struck once again by the odd contrast of his otherworldly beauty against the mundane mortal tasks of hanging up his keys and awkwardly handling two heavy grocery bags.
Great start, R, great start.
He rushes over to try to help with the bags, but Enjolras already has the fire in his eye of a task that he will not accept assistance with.
“Can I help with anything?” he offers instead.
“Yes, you can start by pulling up your recipe—since mine apparently is not up to your standards,” he retorts, rolling his eyes. Grantaire has managed to convince Enjolras to trust in his ways—he suspects that calling on his love and respect for his grandmother may have done the trick—but it’s clear that Enjolras is still bitter. Unfortunately, Grantaire isn’t about to improve the situation.
“Actually, I was thinking we could…not.”
Enjolras’s face turns a lovely shade of red as the fire in his eyes blazes even more brightly. “‘Not’?” he repeats. “And why in the hell wouldn’t we?”
Tact, tact, tact. Grantaire is fully awake now, he can do this. Probably.
Grantaire’s logic is that the less Enjolras knows, the fewer points he can fight. As well as the apple selection went, Grantaire knows he can’t rely on that for a whole recipe process—and Joly and Jehan have years of emotional scarring to attest to it.
“I was thinking that I could do the filling, and you could handle the crust. Crust is seriously just three ingredients, there wouldn’t be a point in writing it out.”
Enjolras’s hackles seem to lower a bit, but he still seems far from convinced. “I could help with the filling, too.”
No no no no no no no.
“You could,” Grantaire says carefully, “but pie crust is probably the most important part of the pie, and since we’re using cold butter it’s gonna be hard to work.”
Enjolras makes a face. “Cold butter? Why not just use coconut oil? It’s healthier, and they’re both fats.”
One thousand flippant comments immediately come to Grantaire’s mind, and every single one is rejected on grounds of survival. The grocery store and picking apples were just warm-up compared to this: now that they’re in Enjolras’s kitchen, he requires absolute surgical precision.
“Old wives’ secret,” he winks with a conspiratorial smile.
To his absolute amazement, Enjolras seems to swallow his pride—literally, he’s not sure he’s ever seen a more painful looking swallow—and nods his head. His cheeks remain pink.
“Okay.” Enjolras puts the groceries on the counter. “Tell me what to do.”
Once Grantaire gets past explaining to Enjolras why literally everything outweighs whatever supposed health benefits there might be to leaving the skin on the apples, peeling and slicing the apples nearly goes without a hitch. Where Grantaire elects to roll the sleeves of his flannel up, Enjolras seems to take personal offense to this and takes his sweater off altogether, revealing a fitted gray short-sleeved v-neck that Grantaire takes his own special form of offense to.
Grantaire catches Enjolras trying to cheat the crust recipe three different times, and Grantaire is almost disappointed when he stops: Enjolras wears bashfulness well, even if he tries to hide it each time with indignance. Nevertheless, the excuse to continue sneaking looks at Enjolras and his shoulders as they work the crust still stands, and the filling is coming along beautifully despite Enjolras’s continued offers of assistance.
Enjolras’s ministrations have largely stopped, which is enough to concern Grantaire. He walks up behind him and looks over Enjolras’s shoulders to see that he has already pressed two circles of pie crust into the pie dishes and has two more circles of dough at the ready.
“Okay, the crust thickness looks good, why don’t you cut those other two into strips for the lattice?”
Grantaire notices Enjolras’s body stiffen when he starts to speak and tries not to feel offended by it, but it is only when he turns around that Grantaire realizes how close they are. His mind blanks for a few seconds, and he almost misses what Enjolras asks.
“Cut the what?”
He takes a step back, clearing his head of Enjolras’s body heat and smell and the warmth of his breath. “Lattice,” Grantaire repeats. This is by far the most reasonable question Enjolras has had all day. “Y’know, the criss-crossy design that every apple pie ever has?” Enjolras seems to be thinking very hard about this, and Grantaire decides to give his pride a break for once. To be fair, Enjolras really has been doing significantly better than anyone had given Grantaire any reason to believe. “Here, how about I do one, just to show you how, and you do the other.”
Grantaire cuts all of the strips and begins weaving them together, slowly at first so Enjolras can keep up, then faster once Enjolras begins his own. Grantaire cuts off a wedge of butter and puts it in the microwave to heat while he watches Enjolras struggle.
His hands are slow and clumsy, and the pattern is far from perfect, but watching Enjolras’s furrowed brow and set jaw as he focuses on the task that Grantaire has set before him with serious determination nearly makes the entire day worth it.
When Enjolras is done, he looks back and forth between his own and Grantaire’s, and Grantaire sees the dismay settling in. “Great, it’s perfect!” Grantaire assesses loudly, and Enjolras’s beaming expression is what definitely makes the whole day worth it.
Grantaire turns back to the filling. The consistency is about right, the apples are tender, and the smell is heavenly. He checks the impulse to taste it, consciously reminding himself that hot pectin gel has a slight tendency to burn the absolute fuck out of anything it comes into contact with. “Okay, I think it’s about done. Can you move those pie dishes over here?”
It’s not that he doesn’t expect Enjolras to listen, but…well, yeah, he supposes that he doesn’t. He’s surprised to see that Enjolras not only has already positioned the dishes next to the stove but also that he has heat pads ready, a precaution that Grantaire frequently foregoes in favor of not buying them in the first place and the intimacy that comes with Joly frantically checking his hands for burns.
Grantaire focuses on spooning the mixture evenly between the two dishes, after which each claims a dish to transfer the lattices that they had prepared to.
Pressing the crust is the work of a minute—unless you are a blond-haired Adonis, in which case it takes a full three. Unlike the making of the lattice, Enjolras wears a small smile as he presses the edges with attentiveness and care that Grantaire has never witnessed in the man. He barely notices when Enjolras does look up until the expression transforms to surprise. “What are you looking at?” he asks, not unkindly.
He jumps up from where he’s been leaning against the counter and uncrosses his arms. “Nothing.” He grabs the butter from the microwave, brushing it over the crust and finishing them off with a sprinkling of sugar before putting both into the oven and setting a timer.
“Aaaaand timer is set,” he says finally, using his forearm to disturb the fine layer of sweat that has accumulated on his forehead.
“So what do you want to do for the next two hours?”
Get out while I still can, he thinks. It would be just like him to mess up a mostly-good day just as it ends, and he’d rather keep this memory untainted—surely even Enjolras can obey a timer. In any case, he’s sure that when he checks his phone in his jacket he’ll have multiple concerned texts from Jehan, and he should let them know he’s made it through the day.
“I’ve actually got to get going. Things to see, people to do, you know how it goes.” Does he??? Grantaire has no idea. He starts toward where his jacket lies on the couch.
Grantaire suspects that it’s his imagination that makes Enjolras’s expression fall. There’s no way that Enjolras isn’t thrilled to have him out of his house and kitchen. “I was hoping you might take one of the pies off of my hands.”
“Oh man, that’d be great! Can I send Joly or Bossuet over to get it?” No pie is worth two hours of trying to maneuver Enjolras alone. His mind suddenly draws up visions of the last time Bossuet was asked to run a food-related errand. “On second thought, definitely Joly.”
“Yeah, that’d be fine.” Enjolras’s voice just misses relaxed, and Grantaire decides that he must being overstaying his welcome already. He pulls on his jacket even faster as he steps into his shoes. “Um, my grandmother’s birthday is tomorrow.”
Well yeah, duh, we just baked a pie for her. “Oh sweet, be sure to pass on my well-wishes!” His hand is on the doorknob, he’s nearly free.
“Combeferre usually comes with me, but he has plans. Do you think you’d want to come?”
Grantaire knows Enjolras is just being polite, but he tries to imagine it for a moment: Enjolras, surrounded by thirty or more equally beautiful Enjolrai, all surrounding a glowing matriarch-Enjolras, probably somehow equally blonde and beautiful. And among them, Grantaire, awkward in his paint-spattered jeans and dark helmet-hair and with nothing to do but bother Enjolras with his sarcastic banter and perhaps give his parents an earful for evidently teaching their son nothing but a strong disregard for authority. The image makes him laugh but remains a firm “no thank you.”
“As much as I would love to meet the matriarch of the Enjolras clan and all of the other various Enjolrai, I’m pretty busy tomorrow. Plus,” he adds honestly as he opens the door, “I’m not sure I’m made of quite the right stuff to bump elbows with your family.”
Enjolras looks like he’s about to try to disagree with Grantaire—he has no idea on what grounds Enjolras might possibly try to debate this statement—when he seems to think better of it. “Ah. Well, maybe some other time.”
“Maybe,” Grantaire lies. “I’ll text you when Joly’s on his way!”
As he walks to his motorcycle, Grantaire pulls out his phone. Predictably, there’s a swarm of texts from the whole of the ABC crew who have texted him everything from reassurances to suggestions to threats (Eponine really needs to work on how she shows concern). He pulls up Joly, who has merely asked him to check up with him as a sign of life.
Hey, can you pick up a pie from Enj’s in about three hours?
He thinks for a moment.
*two hours, please make sure it’s out of the oven.
He’s already straddling his motorcycle when he sends the final text:
Make sure it’s the one with the lattice that looks like shit.
---
“I don’t understand.”
Jehan and Grantaire are lounging in Jehan’s bathtub, legs below the knee hanging out. They both have their hair wrapped—terry towel for Jehan, cotton shirt for Grantaire—and are wearing charcoal masks, which Jehan had insisted Grantaire needed to shave to fully enjoy. They have expended no fewer than three scented bath bombs in celebration and way more bubbles than necessary. Hitchcock plays across the bathroom wall, and both sip hard ciders.
“If you’re looking for someone to explain Enjolras, you’re asking the wrong person,” Grantaire answers.
Jehan looks away from the movie at Grantaire, and between the dimmed lights and the mask Grantaire can only barely make out the confusion written across their face. “Enjolras has never done any of that with us. He always has the ingredients, he never concedes on any points, and we’ve certainly never been invited to meet his grandma.”
Grantaire shrugs, and they continue watching the movie. Jehan’s phone buzzes, and Jehan actually checks the message immediately—something Grantaire has never personally witnessed Jehan do in their life unless there is an immediately pressing matter.
“Combeferre says seeing Enjolras’s grandma is actually delightful.” The phone buzzes once more. “He also asks if Enjolras happened to say why he would be too busy to go.”
“He didn’t.” Grantaire reflects a moment. “Though I suspect Drunk Combeferre may have an idea.”
Jehan smiles widely as they taps out a hasty response to Combeferre, ignoring the phone once more the next time it vibrates. They settle in once more.
“And the pie didn’t kill anyone?”
“Not even Bossuet.”
“Damn. You might actually be a wizard.”
The next time Grantaire sees Jehan, Jehan has written an eighteen-page epoch regarding a wizard named R-lin who saves a kingdom from a powerful and angry god who cooks people alive. There is a mandolin involved.
---
Enjolras continues inviting Grantaire out to things, and the purpose is not getting any more clear.
When he invites Grantaire to an art gallery, Jehan seems equally confused but reminds him that Grantaire was planning on going anyway. Enjolras knows nothing about art.
When he invites Grantaire to the movie theater, Grantaire invites Bahorel and Feuilly as well. Enjolras’s knee bumps against his and stays there the whole time. Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta have no idea what to make of it.
When Enjolras suddenly has an extra ticket to a classical music concert, he eschews Grantaire’s suggestion to invite Jehan, who loves classical music and plays the flute. Jehan sneaks in anyway and plays spy with binoculars and an earpiece. “This is all he said about it beforehand?” they ask Grantaire, holding up his phone once more afterward.
Grantaire nods, and Jehan shakes their head.
At the football game, Grantaire starts getting nervous. Enjolras has never been particularly interested in any sports—not that Grantaire ever has been either beyond obnoxious fanaticism for his native country in the World Cup—but he starts thinking back to that night of Never Have I Ever and is overtaken with concern. What if he looks like that clueless, hopeless girl who never had a chance in the first place? He feigns sick partway through, hoping to confer with Jehan, but instead an extremely concerned Enjolras escorts him home, hot and sour soup in tow, and sees him to bed before leaving, asking Joly to check up on him at regular intervals.
When you’re sick, has Enj ever tucked you into bed?
????????
Courfeyrac evidently doesn’t think characters captured Combeferre’s response well enough and also sends a picture of Combeferre’s face contorted in absolute disbelief and confusion. Grantaire doesn’t see a point in responding to either of them.
Enjolras invites himself along to Grantaire’s Open Mic Night.
“What does it even mean?” he asks Musichetta as he prepares to go up.
She exchanges a look with Bossuet, who is preparing drinks. “I mean, this is pretty unfamiliar territory for us, given that what we have works because of communication.”
“Because we communicate,” Bossuet adds. “We do that talky-thing. With our mouths. It's called communicating. You should try it. Please.”
Grantaire is invited to Enjolras’s for a movie night, which—surprise—he is the only one in attendance for. When Enjolras leans his head on Grantaire’s shoulder, Grantaire is too mentally exhausted to even know what to think.
He confers with Courfeyrac, self-professed relationship expert, on the matter. “It means he wants your dick.” He does not confer with Courfeyrac, self-professed relationship expert, a second time.
Enjolras asks Grantaire to help him study at the library, and Grantaire’s anxiety about the not-girlfriend resurfaces.
“What if you make it clear that you don't think you're in a relationship? That was the problem before, right? All these people that thought they were or were not in a relationship? Make it clear what you think this is,” Eponine advises over beers. “Just so we're clear, I still think he's an idiot. I don't want you to think I'm condoning this behavior, because I'm not. I just want to give you and your poor, delicate heart that you both keep trampling all over a chance,” she adds, taking another swig.
Grantaire corrects the librarian that mistakes them for a couple. Enjolras invites him to go stargazing in exactly the same way.
Enjolras knows stargazing, but Enjolras doesn’t know shit about camping. It doesn’t look like rain, so they don’t bother with the rain tarp and lay side-by-side in the tent as Enjolras points out constellations and Grantaire invents new ones. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, they’re cuddled for warmth and holding hands, and Grantaire feels Enjolras’s hand in his hair. When he wakes again in the morning, Enjolras is attempting a fire for coffee and doesn’t say anything about their sleeping position.
After they pack up camp, finally get coffee, and Grantaire is dropped off at his apartment, he goes over to Jehan’s.
When Grantaire arrives at Jehan’s apartment and tells him of the events of the not-date, they order Grantaire to shower, to use their expensive smelly soaps and shampoos, and to change into some fresh clothes that Grantaire had left there before.
When Grantaire emerges, he finds Jehan has changed into black clothing, complete with a funeral veil. Grantaire does not ask for an explanation, and Jehan does not volunteer one, merely motions for Grantaire to sit on the couch next to them.
“I'm not even dating him! I just get all of the confusion without the benefits!” he complains into his lavender ice cream over the sound of Fred and Ginger’s tap-dancing magic.
Jehan has been quiet since Grantaire sat down, but they finally edge to the stand next to the sofa, picking up a notepad and a pen with a massive fake flower on the end, scribbling viciously.
“Here,” they say, handing it to Grantaire.
Grantaire looks at the paper and sighs deeply. “It’s all been leading up to this, hasn’t it?”
Jehan purses their lips, seeming to try to contain whatever thoughts are crossing their mind. “It would seem so,” they say at last. Grantaire wants ask what it is that is going unsaid, but he trusts Jehan’s judgment and returns his attentions to the ministrations of the dancing duo.
---
Enjolras has invited him to the Musain again. He doesn’t need to—Mondays and Fridays at the Musain have become routine for them—but the gesture does make Grantaire feel more certain that there is no mistake.
When he arrives, travel-mug in-hand, Enjolras is already at their usual table—God, we have a usual table, can we be any more domestic without dating?—and standing to get Grantaire’s order. Enjolras still doesn’t know how he takes his coffee, and it somehow seems more odd that Enjolras has accepted this as an inside joke than that they have a usual table.
Grantaire takes out Jehan’s paper, looks at it, and crumples it back into his jeans pocket. Jehan gave their blessing for Grantaire’s variation right before he left, but he’s drawing a blank now and filled with nervous energy.
It must show. “Everything okay?” Enjolras asks when he returns.
No. “Yeah, just—just cold,” he says. Enjolras doesn’t look convinced, and Grantaire can’t bring himself to care.
“So I was just wondering—” Oh no, not again. Not another not-date. Grantaire feels the panic filling his chest already, and suddenly his words come back to him.
“Before you finish that thought, I actually have something to ask.”
“Oh.” Pause. “By all means.”
“We’ve been hanging out a lot lately, and our friends have been giving me a little hell over it.” Not strictly true, but easier than the truth—that he’s been giving them hell over it. “I don’t mind, and I know you don’t usually correct strangers when we hang out, but I mean…they’re your friends too. And I don’t want to be giving them the wrong impression or anything.” Not quite as elegant as it had been in the shower this morning, but still out there.
Enjolras takes a deep breath, and Grantaire braces himself.
“Grantaire. I would like to go ice skating with you this evening. As a date. With me taking you on this date. As my boyfriend. In a romantic and committed monogamous kind of way. Does this sound acceptable to you?”
Grantaire is sure that his mouth is open. His face is burning, his hair feels like it’s standing on end. Enjolras, who was red and stiff while speaking, now smiles gently at him, some color fading.
“Ah—yes. Yes. That would be. That would be nice. Yes please, to that.”
Grantaire’s and Enjolras’s mug are all but thrown down onto the table. “Oh my God, you two are idiots,” hisses Marie before storming away.
It dawns on Grantaire. “…we’ve been going on dates, haven’t we?”
“Yes. Yes, we have.”
“Which one did they start being dates on?”
“The theme park?”
“Caralho! Porra, filho da puta.” He pauses a moment to recover before looking back up at Enjolras’s amused expression. “I texted Joly and Bossuet to come that day!”
“You sabotaged your very own date?”
“I didn’t think it was supposed to be one!”
“Well you thought wrong now, didn’t you?”
“Coming from someone who took four months to get to the point? And let me tell you, if you take four more months to break up with me like poor whatshisface—”
Their fingers are already intertwined, and this doesn’t feel like the arguments they used to have, all barbs and hooks. Grantaire briefly catches Marie’s eye, who is already smiling at him, and looks back to Enjolras. This can work.