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[To: Grantaire] How are you feeling this morning?
Whenever Joly texted Grantaire in the mornings, it was a toss-up for whether Grantaire was going to reply within minutes or hours, and it had a lot to do with how drunk Grantaire had gotten the night before. Today, though, he only had to wait five minutes before his phone pinged. [To: Joly] 10% human, 90% poor drunken life choices.
Joly smirked and texted Grantaire back to ask about the source of the 90% poor life choices, and continued smiling as Grantaire regaled him via text of his exploits the night before, finishing with, [To: Joly] I can’t wait to transfer.
Bossuet rolled over in bed and rested his chin against Joly’s shoulder. “Texting Grantaire?”
“Yeah,” Joly told him, leaning down to kiss him. “He’s really excited about transferring schools and coming to university with us next semester.”
“As he should be,” Bossuet told him excitedly. “It’s going to be so awesome. Sure, my productivity levels will undoubtedly go down since I’m going to end up spending half of my time in a bar with Grantaire, who by his second week here is going to know more about the whole town than the rest of us combined, but’s it’s going to be so worth it.”
Joly laughed and shook his head at Bossuet’s enthusiasm, leaning over to kiss him. “Am I going to have to start keeping an eye on your bank account to make sure you’re not spending all of your money at the bar?”
Bossuet stuck his tongue at him. “Ok, firstly, you’ve been keeping an eye on my bank account since the first time the IRS mixed up my social security number with a wanted criminal, never mind the two subsequent times. And secondly, you’re going to be right there with me, drinking more than any med student probably should and still rolling in to your rounds at the hospital like a boss.”
“You’re so cute when you’re supportive,” Joly told him with a laugh, kissing him once more before sitting up in bed. “But for the moment, we need to be concerned about drinking at Courfeyrac’s party tonight.”
“Oh, yeah,” Bossuet said, stretching and yawning. “It’s going to be a party to remember.”
And it certainly was.
No one could quite remember what the party was for — it wasn’t anyone’s birthday, and it was too long after midterms for it to be celebrating their end, and too far from finals to be mourning their inevitable arrival — but no one really cared. No one threw a party like Courfeyrac, and it was one of those rare evening where everyone seemed to be in the mood to celebrate, even Feuilly, who miraculously wasn’t working a double shift the next day, and, even more miraculously, Enjolras.
Maybe it was because it was a Friday night before a weekend when Les Amis, the student activism group that Enjolras had founded and was de facto leader of, had nothing on the docket, or maybe it was because Courfeyrac had given Enjolras his absolute best puppy-dog face and pleaded with him to just let go for one night, but Enjolras had been drinking whatever lurid mixed drink Courfeyrac had made for him fairly steadily since the party began, explaining his flushed face and his even louder than normal volume.
Bossuet grabbed Joly’s waist as he walked past the couch and pulled him onto his lap, kissing him soundly. “Jesus fuck,” Bossuet said when they resurfaced, grabbing Joly’s drink to try to wash the taste out of his mouth. “Were you and Jehan smoking again?”
Joly grinned. “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he said slowly. “But I probably wouldn’t go into the upstairs bathroom anytime soon.”
Laughing, Bossuet kissed Joly’s cheek. “Hotboxing the bathroom, huh? Thought you’d have outgrown that after undergrad.”
“It’s medicinal,” Joly informed Bossuet, though he was grinning. “Just because you managed to almost set yourself on fire while smoking one day…”
Bossuet made a growling noise and was about to respond when Joly’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Hang on,” Joly said, fishing his phone out, his face lighting up when he saw who was calling. “R! How are you?”
“I’m good,” Grantaire said, a little cautiously. “You’re totally stoned, aren’t you?”
Bossuet grabbed the phone from Grantaire and told him, “He totally is. And what about you? Drunk, getting drunk, semi-drunk…Don’t tell me you’re sober.”
Grantaire snorted. “Hell no. I’d say getting drunk, definitely on the cusp of drunk.”
“Well, you can still say the word cusp, so I can’t say I’m too concerned,” Bossuet said cheerfully, before Joly grabbed the phone back from him.
Grantaire was saying, “So it sounds like you guys are at quite the party…” and Joly nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeah, we are, but it’s not nearly as good a party as it would be if you were here,” Joly told him seriously. “I can’t fucking wait until January.”
Laughing, Grantaire told him, “You and me both.”
Before either of them could continue, Bahorel all but collapsed on the arm of the couch, leaning heavily against Bossuet, who struggled to hold up both Joly on his lap and Bahorel on his arm, and plucked the phone from Joly’s hand. “Who’s this?” he asked loudly. “Are you the mysterious Musichetta we’ve heard so much about but not yet met?”
Bossuet and Joly couldn’t hear Grantaire’s response, but judging by the way Bahorel laughed loudly, he had a few choice words to say about that. Bahorel snorted and told Joly, “He says he’s not Musichetta but you can get on your knees for him at any time. Does that mean you took my advice?”
Joly made a half-hearted attempt to grab his phone back, but Bahorel stood, taking the phone with him, talking animatedly to Grantaire. Joly and Bossuet both watching him go before Joly shrugged and leaned against Bossuet. “Guess we don’t have to worry about Grantaire being friends with everyone.”
Bossuet snorted. “Yeah, this is Grantaire we’re talking about. Like that was going to be a valid concern anyway.”
From Bahorel, the phone was passed around the party to anyone who wanted to talk to Joly and Bossuet’s really cool friend (Bahorel’s words, not Grantaire’s), until finally, somehow, the phone wound up in the hands of Enjolras. Joly had been watching this entire affair curled in Bossuet’s lap like an overgrown cat, but when he saw the phone pass to Enjolras, he let out a squeak and tried to stand up. “What?” Bossuet asked, irritated at losing Joly’s warmth.
“Enjolras is going to talk to Grantaire on the phone,” Joly said, a little desperately.
“So?” Bossuet asked, shrugging.
Joly turned to glare at him. “Enjolras. On the phone. With Grantaire. The actual only way that this can end is in disaster.”
Bossuet considered it for a few moments before nodding gravely. “You’re absolutely right.” He pulled Joly back into his lap and wrapped his arms around Joly’s waist, keeping him firmly there. “And I cannot wait to see this.”
Across the room, Enjolras’s expression was moving from mild amusement to irritation quite quickly, and his brow furrowed at whatever Grantaire was saying. “But you don’t understand—” he started, though he was apparently cut off by Grantaire.
Joly pinched Bossuet. “Enjolras is going to hate Grantaire before he even gets here,” he hissed.
“I thought pot was supposed to mellow you,” Bossuet said, pinching Joly back. “Grantaire would be good for Enjolras. You’re worried about Enjolras yelling at Grantaire — imagine what Grantaire is going to say to him.”
Joly paused, mid-pinch, his face lighting up. “You…may have a point.”
As one they turned to watch Enjolras, whose face was getting progressively redder as he stumbled through his arguments with Grantaire. “Look,” Enjolras said finally, “I don’t know who you are — hell, I don’t even think I know your name—”
“It’s Grantaire,” Grantaire interrupted smoothly, the hint of a smile in his voice.
“Right. Anyway. Why don’t you just come by a Les Amis meeting so we can have this discussion in person, rather than trying to yell at each other over the phone?”
Grantaire laughed. “You’re the one trying to yell, Apollo. I’m just trying to have a civil conversation with opposing viewpoints.”
Enjolras made a face. “Apollo?” he said first, disgustedly, before following it up with an even more disgusted, “Civil conversation?”
“Yeah, civil conversation,” Grantaire said, still laughing. “It’s what it’s called when two adults have a disagreement. Not that I’d expect you to know much about that, since I can’t imagine too many people disagree with you. And speaking of, yeah, Apollo. You sound like an avenging god, and judging by the pictures of you I’ve seen on Joly’s Facebook…”
Enjolras shook his head, trying to get the conversation back on track. “That’s not the point,” he said stubbornly. “Come to one of our meetings. It’ll be easier to have a civil conversation there.”
Grantaire snorted. “Sadly, I can’t. At least, not right now. I don’t go to your school. In fact, I live, like, three hours away. But I am going to be transferring for next semester. So what do you say we put the civil conversation on hold until we can actually have it in person.”
After a long moment of consideration, Enjolras said, “Fine. But when you meet me in real life, I will be a lot angrier.”
Laughing, Grantaire told Enjolras, “And when I meet you in real life, I will be less drunk, hopefully. Deal?”
Enjolras smiled almost in spite of himself. “Deal.” He hung up the phone and frowned down at it before asking the room loudly, “Who the hell’s phone is this?”
The next morning, Joly woke up to several lengthy texts from Grantaire, all of which followed the same theme: complaining about how misguided and delusional and idealistic Enjolras was, as well as talking about how nice it was to ‘meet’ all their friends, and ending with Grantaire rhapsodizing on Enjolrs’s voice and finishing on an apt text: [To: Joly] I’m fucked, aren’t I?
Joly tried to smother his laughter into his pillow, not wanting to wake Bossuet, but it didn’t matter: Bossuet was woken by his own phone, which pinged with an email alert and woke him from a dead sleep. “The fuck,” Bossuet muttered, fumbling for his phone. When he saw what it was, he groaned. “Jesus fuck, it is too early for this shit.”
Joly laughed and draped himself against Bossuet. “What’d you get? Because I got a bunch of fairly poetic texts from Grantaire.”
“A five paragraph essay from Enjolras, complete with citations, on why Grantaire was wrong last night, with a request that I forward it to Grantaire.” Bossuet groaned and leaned his head back against his pillow. “Why are our friends the way that they are?”
Joly just laughed again and texted Grantaire back. [To: Grantaire] I take it you’re not looking forward to moving here next semester?
In less than a minute, he had a response. [To: Joly] Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t wait.
The next several weeks passed in a blur, culminating in the end of the semester and Grantaire’s subsequent transfer. From what Bossuet and Joly could gather, however, Grantaire and Enjolras still talked, via text and email. Both men alluded to the fact, Enjolras in tight-lipped discussions of Les Amis’s ‘detractors’, where he echoed the same arguments that Grantaire made in his more rambling texts to Joly. And for his part, Grantaire would occasionally just text Joly things like ‘he’s so stubborn’ and ‘how the hell do you put up with him??’.
“What’s the over-under on when they give it up and just fuck?” Bossuet asked wearily one morning.
Joly snorted. “Fucking? Are you kidding me? This is the stuff of great romance right here. They’re going to start dating before they even meet each other.”
Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait to see who was correct: sooner rather than later, Grantaire transferred, and the first Wednesday after he moved to town, he went to a Les Amis meeting at the Musain.
When he walked in, the first person he saw was the blond at the front of the room, the one in Joly and Bossuet’s facebook pictures, the one who he had just spent several weeks emailing and texting, and stopped in his tracks. Enjolras, upon seeing him, froze as well, staring at Grantaire. “Oh,” he said, a little dazed. “It’s you.”
Grantaire’s lips quirked into a smile. “Yeah, it’s me. And like I promised, I’m less drunk. Are you more angry?”
Enjolras managed a small smile before telling him, sincerely, “Honestly? I’m just really, really glad to meet you in person.”
And hour later found them outside the Musain, Enjolras pressing Grantaire against the wall, kissing him in between saying, “You’re so wrong”, and, “You frustrate me”, and “I want to see your fucking sources”.
Grantaire, on the other hand, punctuated his kisses with, “Shut up”, “You know you like it”, and “I’d be glad to show you, why don’t you come back to mine?”
Finally, Grantaire pushed Enjolras away enough to say, sincerely, “Look, why don’t you actually just come back to my place? We can finish our argument, complete with fucking sources, if that’s what you want, or…”
Instead of finishing his sentence, he kissed Enjolras, who took his meaning pretty clearly. “Ok,” Enjolras said, grabbing Grantaire’s hand. “Let’s go back to your place.”
The next morning, Grantaire’s phone pinged and woke him up, which was an absolute shame, because Enjolras’s arm was still slung around his waist, and Enjolras’s head was nestled between Grantaire’s shoulder blades. Still, just because his phone had gone off didn’t mean that he had to move, and he probably wouldn’t have, except for Enjolras nuzzling him and muttering, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Grantaire returned, wriggling just slightly in Enjolras’s grip to grab his phone off of the nightstand.
Enjolras adjusted his grip and kissed Grantaire’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice scratchy from sleep.
Grantaire smiled at him. “Texting Joly. He wanted to know how I was doing this morning.”
“And how are you doing this morning?” Enjolras asked, running his fingers up Grantaire’s side and smiling when he shivered.
After a moment pretending to think about it, Grantaire said, a little wryly, “I’d say about 90% human, 10% poor drunken life choices”
Enjolras let out a low hum and rolled Grantaire over so that he was straddling him. “I don’t think I appreciate being called a poor drunken life choice,” he said, though he was clearly teasing.
Grantaire grinned and leaned up to kiss him. “Very true. I can think of several much better things to call you.” He quickly typed something out to Joly and tossed his phone aside before pulling Enjolras down to him.
[To: Joly] 100% happy.