Chapter Text
There would be moments, in between the rush of life and the almost painfully slow beats, when Grantaire would miss dancing.
He’d been no legend at it, sure, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t given him something wonderful. Dancing was a breath of life, the perfect balance of his artistic side who would come out of a daze in front of a canvas with paint smearing his cheeks, and his athletic side who would meet up with Bahorel every Tuesday and Thursday to box and strike up frankly ridiculous challenges for each other.
It should have been easier to remember, easier to think about, easier to consider getting back into. It wasn’t.
The same ache he felt in his chest that missed dancing also hurt enough that made him convince himself that, at most, he just missed it with the sort of nostalgia you missed things you hadn’t done for a while. The hurt in his mind told a different story, but Grantaire was nothing if not good at ignoring pressing matters.
He had caught himself pausing on his walk back to his flat from his job at a tattoo parlour – magic, because painting wasn’t going to pay his rent or buy him food, and the city wasn’t exactly full to bursting with art students who also happened to be sorcerers – to stare through the front window of a dance studio he’d never seen before.
It was only as someone brushed past him in their hurry to get wherever it was they were going that Grantaire pulled himself out of his reverie. He blinked, realising a soft mist had begun to descend while he had lost himself in his mind. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.
He tried not to think about that studio – it was new, it must be, he’d never seen it before – too hard. Instead, he tried to capture the moment in his mind’s eye when the mist turned gold as the sun sank into the west and splashed the sky with a mirage of colours. Pastels, today, and mostly pink and gold.
That, he could busy himself with. It would look good too, a canvas of the sunset in a gentle rain, the streets glistening from the condensation and streetlamps just beginning to turn on. He could enchant it, so the mist shifted and pattered across the concrete below.
A slow day at work and a nice sunset was certainly not a bad way to start out a week. Grantaire wouldn’t say he was optimistic – he was more stable than he had been a few years ago, but he was pretty sure he’d stay a cynic to his grave – about where it would end up, and he didn’t like to speculate. But still. He could appreciate life’s softer, kinder moments.
It was when the sun was about to be swallowed by the horizon that it turned bright red, a harsh contrast to the pale gold and baby pinks, and then Grantaire tried not to think about real optimists.
* * *
Tuesdays meant evenings of meeting up with Bahorel to box but, more importantly, the first Les Amis meeting of the week.
Honestly, it seemed like Tuesday was the biggest hit or miss day of the week. If a Monday was shitty, then you could just pretend that, being the first day of the week, it didn’t exist. If a Monday was great, it still meant there were six more days in a week to get all wrong.
But Tuesdays felt like the week, the real week, was truly beginning, and that’s where you had to get it right or the rest of it would drag on.
Whether this was a result of attending the meetings or not, Grantaire couldn’t say for sure. It didn’t matter, it was still hit or miss. Hit or miss being severely – completely, his treacherous heart whispered – dependant on Enjolras’ mood.
He ducked into the Musain, escaping the bland grey sky that gave no tell to rain or sunshine, and found he was among the first several of the Les Amis to arrive. This itself wasn’t particularly surprising or unsurprising, Grantaire showed up with little regards to time and predictability and varied according to the day.
It was, however, surprising that the quick and habitual scan of the back-corner table left him glancing only between Combeferre and Courfeyrac. There was a distinctly empty chair at the table, although neither of them seemed concerned with how close they had brought their chairs together and were scanning over something.
There was a pang in his chest which caused his stomach to roll with guilt when he took in how comfortable they were with each other. It wasn’t fair to them to be envious of something he didn’t have – which was his fault, or maybe the little defector of his heart’s. It didn’t matter in the end.
And then, of course, he had to wonder where Enjolras was, and that was a whole new pang in his chest for several reasons. He decided to focus on the one that seemed more pressing and less familiar- Enjolras was never late.
He didn’t have time to imagine everything that could have gone wrong, because Jehan was calling his name in their soft voice from one of the tables. Grantaire cast a glance towards Courfeyrac and Combeferre – the former of the two angling his spiralling horns strategically so he could press against the latter without impaling him – and then the door, before he made his way over and settled next to Jehan, who was smiling up at him.
Their pale, dusty ginger hair was pulled back in a braid and flowers dappled through the strands like stars, one loose strand curling behind their slightly pointed ear.
Jehan’s gentle kind of grace made them one of Grantaire’s favourite member of Les Amis to sketch. It may or may not have had to do with the fact that he knew Jehan wouldn’t mind, and he didn’t feel weird asking the nymph like he would some of the others.
That wasn’t the truth entirely. He sketched them all and felt okay to pry for most of them. He may or may not want to sketch their golden leader more often than he already did – he did a lot but only from memory, never never from subject.
Most of all, he wanted to paint Enjolras, but even that felt too intimate. Which, of all the creepy lines he’d already crossed, using paints instead of just a pencil shouldn’t have been such a big deal.
(“He’s unfairly beautiful. It’s really like- nobody should be allowed to be that golden and intense and that fucking beautiful? He should know he’s not allowed,” he’d said to Éponine one night, after a few glasses of wine. She didn’t often allow him those any more- that night had been a treat.
“I’d pay to witness you telling that to him,” she’d replied and downed the last of the wine in her glass, fangs clinking against it, “right to his ‘golden, intense, beautiful fucking face’.”
He’d frowned. “You mock me like you don’t rhapsodise Cosette like she’s the moon all the fucking time.”
She’d tipped the wine bottle over his head and his curls smelled funny for a while, but her cheeks had also darkened and at least Grantaire wasn’t the only damn fool for someone else. But he was still the only damn fool for someone unattainable)
He pulled out his sketchpad and flipped to the draft he’d started last night, so as to do something with his hands lest he start trying to pull threads on his paint-stained jeans or tap on the table – Enjolras hated when he did that, and Grantaire made an effort not to. Even, apparently, when he wasn’t here.
“What muse has caught you this time?” Jehan asked. Grantaire could feel their gaze on him where they leaned back in their chair, politely not leaning forward to look at his sketchpad until he’d given the okay. And even though by now, Grantaire was pretty sure there was nothing he wouldn’t let Jehan or Éponine see, he appreciated the gesture. So many people just assumed his art was theirs to look at and judge as they would. Jehan gave him a chance to decide for himself.
“Hopefully? A new painting,” he told them, and tilted the pad to show them. “Last night’s sunset. I’ve been aspiring to practise my illusion charms.”
Jehan hummed, eyes glittering. “I love your enchanted pieces,” they said wistfully.
If they meant to add more, it was cut off by the chime of the bell and the door swinging open wildly.
Where Jehan was that gentle kind of grace, Enjolras was a sharp, severe beautiful. He demanded an audience, a large presence, and you couldn’t just not notice him. He was the pinnacle of famed fae looks, intense and alluring, and the very perfect kind of disaster for Grantaire.
He couldn’t claim to have met so many fae before Enjolras because fae were reclusive – they kept to themselves because they couldn’t be bothered with people they viewed as “mortals”, even though they certainly weren’t immortal themselves. He didn’t have many comparisons and honestly, he didn’t need them (Not good ones, anyway. He’d met only a few fae, and the diversity hadn’t been inspired amongst them).
It was pathetic, the way he gravitated towards Enjolras. The certainty that, regardless of how lovely someone else might be to him in the future, he’d always come back to Enjolras.
Right now, his jaw was tense, and his eyes burned. Anger and Enjolras were certainly well acquainted with each other, but it was more often than not an anger stoked by the flames of passion. The way he stormed over to Combeferre and Courfeyrac, who were watching him with varying expressions of concern, had nothing to do with passion or his usual righteousness.
“What’s up with blondie? Did you criticise his sense of justice again?”
Grantaire jumped as Éponine slid into the chair to his left. “Jesus, Ep. A hint of warning next time?”
She rolled her eyes, folding one leg over the other and tapping her knee with burgundy coloured nails that were sharper and longer than any human’s were. “The bell chimed when I arrived, I’m not a ghost. It is no fault of mine that you’re too busy pining to notice,” she said pointedly.
He glanced towards Jehan as if expecting help, but they were only smiling privately and knowingly. There were times when Grantaire thought he might want to trade his friends when his miserable infatuation with Enjolras seemed more like a joke than the crushing weight it was.
And he also knew he would drive himself to exhaustion or further if someone tried to take them away.
“He was only in here a moment before you were,” Jehan chimed in helpfully.
Across the café, Enjolras had his back turned on Grantaire – which was the only chair left at their table but disappointing all the same – but was visibly fidgeting in his seat. Combeferre was watching him with pursed lips. Courfeyrac was scooting his chair across the floor – and Grantaire couldn’t be accused of being the only one staring with that awful screech filling the room – to wrap his arm around Enjolras’ shoulders.
Trying hard to ignore the worm wriggling in his stomach at the familiarity of the three, something unattainable and untouchable like Enjolras himself, Grantaire turned back to his sketchpad and let the scratch of his pencil drown out the noise of the café.
It became clear, after nearly an hour, that Enjolras’ anger was not what it normally was. He had the fiery passion back in his eyes, and he looked like the kind of man straight out of legends or myths as he paced the room, smooth voice softening Grantaire’s senses to the point of relaxation. But he was still agitated, still too worked up.
And then, while Grantaire was adding the outline of a streetlamp, he suddenly realised the room had gone quiet. He glanced up cautiously, to find Enjolras’ eyes alight with a special kind of fury – but oddly, not the kind Grantaire usually provoked – burning holes right into his head.
When Grantaire raised an eyebrow without responding, Enjolras’ jaw tightened. “Is this an art studio?” he asked, tone dangerously low.
Grantaire, unable to stop himself because he was doing better but it was a reflex at this point to drive Enjolras mad if it meant feeling the rays of his sunshine for a few moments longer, glanced around at everyone else. “Last time I checked it was a café, but I could be mistaken. It wouldn’t be a first, perhaps only one that I was doing all the work.”
He… wasn’t sure what he had done to provoke Enjolras, or why he set his lips into a fine line the longer he watched Grantaire. This wasn’t the first time he had been drawing in the café, and he was quite sure Enjolras would trade his left arm if it meant getting Grantaire to shut up long enough to hold a full meeting with an argument.
“Yes,” Enjolras agreed stonily, “it would be.” He ran one hand along his face and up through his flaxen curls. “Are you incapable of taking anything seriously?”
Grantaire stilled, the side of his hand resting against the grainy paper of his sketchpad. He stared at Enjolras for several long moments of silence. Everyone else had frozen too, like for a moment, the world had stopped, and it was just him and Enjolras. It was something Grantaire had imagined, perhaps one too many times, but this was quite possibly the worst way for it to do so.
Perhaps it would have been all right, had Enjolras’ tone not been so utterly convicted, so irate.
His stomach churned and he finally let out a breath, before hiding the shock of the moment with a lazy grin. “Conquests for justice, for equality, to even the scales, are predetermined to fail. It’s hard to take such endeavours seriously, as you say, but you speak such pretty fallacies, there should be few who would not wish to find themselves martyrs because of it.”
With the way Enjolras had stormed in, he should have reeled back. He was sure he’d hear that from Combeferre later – in the nicest way possible, of course – but he didn’t. He’d already run his mouth, and Enjolras was already flushing, cheeks the colour of autumn leaves, which would have been lovely if the heat, the intensity, the passion, was coming from a different place.
“If you’re so engraved with such a belief that we will go up in smoke, why should you linger where you will only challenge, as you say, pretty fallacies? What merit do you possibly gain from these endeavours?” Enjolras demanded. The afternoon sunlight poured in through the windows, highlighting every sharp angle, his radiance, and made his hair glitter like molten gold. It made him look striking, in a beautiful and terrible way.
And he was a wordsmith, constructing arguments and dialogs to make the unjust and corrupt weep, or to make their blood boil with self-righteousness or at the very least, instinct to survive. He was, as well, frightfully exceptional at pulling the threads along the seams of Grantaire’s self and making them, him, come undone.
In the end, he wasn’t sure if he was influenced by Enjolras’ already thunderous mood or by a newly stabilised self-preservation against taking things Enjolras said too personally – which he did, always, but maybe he could at least make himself scarce before it escalated.
“Why should I indeed?” Grantaire asked, because he could not help himself, “if it so displeases the dazzling Apollo? Perhaps not, then.”
He wasn’t sure whether it was a sickening delight or disappointment that Enjolras froze as he stood up, his chair clattering backwards and echoing through the room. He didn’t stay to see the inevitable relief that broke those idyllic features, as he shouldered his bag without even stopping to put his sketchpad in.
“Grantaire,” Jehan protested as he drew away, his voice soft and apologetic for something he had no part in. “R, hold, don’t-”
The bell chimed above the door as he opened it, but was cut off as the glass door slammed shut behind him. He didn’t wait to make a decision on where he was going, he turned left and let his boots thud against the concrete as cars whooshed by, birds sang in the distance, overhead, and sensations of dead leaves crunching filled the pit of his stomach.
* * *
It had been immature of him, Grantaire would realise as he collapsed on his sofa Wednesday evening. They hadn’t even gone at each other’s throats, it certainly hadn’t been the first time Enjolras had wondered why he was there – For you, but the sky would fall the day he admitted that, and not because of pride in a way he sort of wished it was, but Grantaire had always been a coward – and God, it hadn’t been the worst fight they’d ever had. Not even the harshest they’d been to each other.
But Grantaire was nothing if not dramatic. Bahorel had told him as much, when Grantaire called to skip their boxing night claiming that he had to take an extra shift at work that he couldn’t get out of. They both knew he was lying.
It had been a chaotic day at work, a flurry of activity all day without giving Grantaire a second to think about any of it. Now, laying back on his sofa, he had all the time in the world to think about it.
Tomorrow was another meeting and Grantaire couldn’t honestly say for sure whether he would go or not. His mind felt hazy, too much trying to process at once. He was tempted to pull one of his bottles of whisky from the cabinet he hadn’t told Éponine about but forced himself to sit up instead. He put his face in his hands and scrubbed, like that would clear his mind somehow, and then tousled his curls.
He pulled out his sketchpad instead, and dragged himself over to his worn, but well-loved easel in the corner of the room. He rolled back his sleeves, the tattoos on his arms shifting with his magic, and settled himself in with the intent to paint until everything else dissolved around him.
The plan was a fair one, until someone knocked on his door while he was trying to find the exact gold for the sunset.
Grantaire considered not answering. Éponine – and maybe Courfeyrac, but why would he be at Grantaire’s door? – was the only one who might not text him before unceremoniously dropping in on him. But he knew it wasn’t, Éponine knocked like she was trying to break his door down.
Plus, his own magic was prickling from the vicinity of somebody else’s – somebody powerful. Not a bad kind of sensation, actually the kind Grantaire revelled in when he was around Enjolras, Combeferre, or Feuilly. Éponine didn’t have magic.
Then the knocking came again, more insistently this time, and Grantaire sighed as he put his paint brush and palette down. He smothered the magic that made his tattoos dance on his arms and pulled himself over to the door.
He opened it and found Enjolras raising his fist to knock again, and Grantaire instinctively leaned back.
Colour rushed to Enjolras’ cheeks, a picture Grantaire never wanted to forget, and he hastened to put his hand down. Grantaire blinked dumbly at him, and they stayed in a frozen, discomforting silence until Enjolras raised the brown paper bag he was holding with the name Corinth printed on the side. There was a thermos tucked under his other arm. “Jehan spoke of your favourite place to get pumpkin bread. The coffee is decaf, I presumed you may be in wanting of sleep.”
Grantaire blinked at him again, not quite sure he wasn’t still in some kind of daze, but managed to kick himself into moving away from the door so Enjolras could come in. “I didn’t think you knew where I lived,” he replied, mind swimming again.
Enjolras ducked his head, looking surprisingly sheepish for all his charm and wit. “I didn’t. I… asked Jehan for that too.” He held out the paper bag and the thermos to Grantaire, as though bestowing a gift to him. It was moderately – moderately – endearing.
“Is it poisoned?” Grantaire asked before he could stop himself, though he still took the bag. Enjolras scowled, cheeks shockingly – but oh, it was delightful, a delight Grantaire’s hands itched to paint – ruddy in the poor lighting of Grantaire’s flat. Before he could respond, Grantaire waved his hand and the door shut itself. That made Enjolras stop, though Grantaire was busy opening the bag to notice, whiffs of pumpkin curling up to his nose to make him sigh. “What brings the mighty Apollo by today?”
“I didn’t know you practised magic.”
He didn’t know why, but the statement made Grantaire pause. He glanced up to Enjolras, watching him with furrowed brows and- and something more but of course, it was Enjolras so there was any number of things that more could have been.
And he- well, he might have stared a little longer than necessary. Blinked, glanced around at his living room and Enjolras, standing, existing, in his living room. There was something dreadfully domestic about it, which was odd because Enjolras wasn’t the first person Grantaire had ever invited over – or not, he definitely would have remembered inviting Enjolras over even if his memory was shit.
It took a moment, to orient himself and Enjolras, standing in his badly lit living room. His hair, soft and just a little frizzled, falling in golden ringlets around his head and tickling the sides of his neck. If Grantaire didn’t already know Enjolras was a fae- well, in such lighting, he might have had trouble guessing, and wasn’t that something? Enjolras always looked the pure-blooded fae, hauntingly entrancing. Now, he was no less handsome, but it was changed. Warmer, softer.
The strings of his heart pulled and Grantaire sometimes worried that they were starting to fray. One day, as the constant and familiar tick of his clock droned on in the background of his living room, his heart would come unravelled like a ball of yarn. Over him, over Enjolras, because how could it not when he was standing there, here, in Grantaire’s flat, looking so small for once and-
“It’s not as though I advertise it,” Grantaire replied, after too long of a pause. He quirked his lip to hide the conflict storming in his mind. In his chest, his heart, that was beating a little too hard and fast to be comfortable. Sometimes, he wished he had a heart that ticked like his clock, so it didn’t hurt so much to- to- “Except when I’m at work,” he added, when Enjolras didn’t respond right away.
He was still watching Grantaire, still with a sort-of frown, and Grantaire had to fight the impulse to reach out, to smooth it away with his hands. Or his lips. Because it hurt to see him frown like that and to force himself not to touch. He was a child in a museum, and Enjolras was the most beautiful statue. He was for looking at, for revering, for following even. Not for touching – not by Grantaire, anyway.
“You work in a-” Enjolras’ eyes flit down to Grantaire’s arms, where his sleeves were still rolled up. The tattoos were still dormant. “A tattoo parlour.” He said it like a fact but there was no denying the question in his tone.
Sometimes, Enjolras was direct enough to hit a bullseye. Sometimes, now, he didn’t say everything that he meant. It was frustrating and it drove Grantaire mad and he loved it. Loved Enjolras for all those complications, for all those snags that were the trampled roses in an otherwise perfect garden.
It wasn’t healthy to put Enjolras on a pedestal, nor for Grantaire to see his flaws and believe that in another world, maybe, maybe, he would have a chance because they were ever so slightly touching on an imbalanced scale. He knew that. But he’d been making progress and could only do so much at once.
He motioned Enjolras to follow as he walked towards the kitchen. Moving felt strange, like someone had cast him into another plane, an ethereal plane where reality doesn’t quite exist. And maybe it was Enjolras’ magic, because fae magic can be tricky like that, but maybe it was just Enjolras.
He set the bag and the thermos on the counter. Turned to find Enjolras, hovering at entrance to his kitchen. He looked painfully unsure of himself. He never looked unsure.
Grantaire’s heart unravelled a little more.
“We both know you didn’t drag yourself here to ask me about my magic, Apollo,” Grantaire said, and tried very hard to ignore the way his voice cracked. If Enjolras noticed, he didn’t react. “You have more important things to do than confer with people like me.”
Enjolras’ mouth tightened and now he stepped into the kitchen, stepped closer to Grantaire and if the lights flickered and turned a little rosy, he didn’t notice – it was only a goddamned blessing that Grantaire sometimes had semblance of control over his magic, because it was intertwined in everything (his flat, mostly. He didn’t have to worry about it in public, in unfamiliar places) except maybe not because Enjolras had decided to show up. He would hate for everyone to know how he felt all the time with lights flickering and changing colours as if a poltergeist was near.
“That’s not true,” Enjolras said, standing far closer than he should be. A half an arm’s length, which wasn’t touching but enough to spin Grantaire’s mind like a record for a moment. Because they were alone. In his flat. Christ.
Before Enjolras can get any more out, Grantaire crossed his arms over his chest. Because this was unfamiliar and unfamiliar meant dangerous and unpredictable and- “Well, shit, Apollo, if you wanted to know about my magic you could have asked Jehan or Ep. Or like, waited until tomorrow. You didn’t have to come over and- and-” He couldn’t bring himself to say with food, or a gift, or anything else, because Enjolras was the bane of his vocabulary. He settled on waving his hand, vaguely.
But Enjolras’ expression softened, softened, and he looked both hopeful and vulnerable and Grantaire had to shove his hands in his pockets.
“You were going to come to the meeting tomorrow?” he asked, small and Not-Enjolras-y at all. His chin was ducked, and he was taller than Grantaire but somehow, he was still looking up at Grantaire. He-
Oh. Oh.
“Oh,” Grantaire said. “You-” he shrugged. No, he hadn’t planned on coming to the meeting. Or well, hadn’t planned because he hadn’t decided. He’d hoped he could put that off. He ran a hand through his curls. “That’s why you’re- never mind. Forget about it. I mean, unless you don’t want me there-”
“No!” Enjolras snapped the way a thunderstorm felt. Grantaire raised an eyebrow and pretended like he hadn’t nearly swallowed his own tongue. “No, I- I came to apologise.” Enjolras closed his eyes and let out a breath. He looked more like he was about to confess to a crime to trade his freedom for a life sentence than apologise. “What I said- I shouldn’t-” He opened his eyes and stared – pierced, his eyes pierced into Grantaire was really the way it should’ve be described – right at Grantaire. “I didn’t mean to imply you had no place, nor that you couldn’t work on your art at the meetings. I encourage you to do so, actually, very much. I was… angry, but I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you.”
And because Grantaire is a fucking fool and his chest grew a little too warm at the fact Enjolras was apologising – to him, and Enjolras never apologised it seemed - he said, “Why would you apologise for that now? I’m your favourite proverbial punching bag. If you apologised for every time you got mad at me-”
“I’m sorry,” Enjolras spat. He was bristling and the air seemed to grow thick around him, eyes growing sharper and there was an undeniable aura around him that was cold and dispassionate – which was the least Enjolras thing about Enjolras – and Grantaire could feel his magic shy away from Enjolras’. “Are you incapable of accepting an apology? I am sorry.” The way he said it made it sound more like he was trying to convince himself than Grantaire.
When Grantaire didn’t immediately respond, only watched Enjolras with a careful kind of apprehension and a shiver convulsing his spine, Enjolras seemed to realise he was holding his chin up with his jaw set, staring down at Grantaire with eyes that cut like daggers, and that he’d provoked his aura. He relaxed and the haze around him that had started growing tinged with grey and maroon evaporated.
An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them until Grantaire sighed and rubbed at his face. “Forget it. I mean- look, apology accepted or so forth. You didn’t have to go through the effort, I understand this is an inconvenience for you, so- yeah. It’s fine.” He waved his hand dismissively and then, before Enjolras could say anything because he was opening his mouth, he added, “Thanks. For the food, and the coffee.”
Enjolras shut his mouth and watched Grantaire, long enough that he felt heat start to sprinkle across his cheeks like rain in the dead of summer and had to glance away from Enjolras before he did something else stupid.
He expected some kind or protest, an argument, because hell, Grantaire couldn’t even do apologies right, wasn’t even good enough for that. He wasn’t expecting Enjolras to hum and say, “Okay. You’re- you’re welcome.” A beat. “You’ve got pink in your hair.”
Grantaire blinked, and then looked up. Of course, he could see the tips of his curls, but none of the pink that Enjolras was mentioning. “Do I?” he asked, like they hadn’t almost been at each other’s throat’s moments before. He ran a hand through his curls, felt the gritty dry paint against his fingers and further back, two buds that were the only thing that could have, once upon a time, spoken of something more than human but now only filled him with a hot, shamed dread.
Enjolras nodded and gestured with one hand. The other was in his coat – red, because what else would he wear? – pocket. “Yeah. And your neck.”
If that didn’t make him a little dizzy, Grantaire wasn’t sure what would. Never mind he’d smeared paint on his neck, Enjolras had seen it. On his neck. Enjolras had looked at his neck long enough to notice. And fuck, if that didn’t send his mind down a spiral…
“Accessories of being an artist,” he forced out through a perfected and perfectly fake grin. “That’s why we’re cooler than murderers. They can only paint themselves red – although you’d appreciate that, I’d wager.”
And he could already hear all the rants about murdering and morality and how he shouldn’t joke about things like that and- Enjolras smiled. His lips twitched, upwards, and maybe there were no teeth and it wasn’t more than a hidden, repressed sort of amusement but holy shit, Grantaire had caused that.
Scowls, glowers, frowns, cold or heated glares, those Grantaire could handle directed at him. He wasn’t sure if this was his secret, buried masochism or self-deprecation he’d been getting a handle on for several years now but couldn’t perfect, or it was just because Enjolras’ anger at him was familiar. But it was attention from someone so alive, and full of fire and passion and goodness, and that made it okay.
But smiling? He wasn’t sure that could be an acceptable regular occurrence between them. Not, of course, that it would be.