Work Text:
The Amis’ living room was Grantaire’s favourite place. It was a perfect illustration of all his friends, the walls bearing sketches by Feuilly, Eponine, Grantaire and Jehan as well as a copy of Liberty Leading the People belonging to Enjolras. There was a poster how-to guide on proper hand-washing practice (that Joly had “liberated” from the hospital) that perfectly covered the huge red hand-print from where Bossuet had decided to help them with painting the room. They’d all got together to do that, on one of Feuilly’s rare days off, and Enjolras had been in a good mood and he’d even joined in in the paint fight that followed. That had been a really good day…
Jehan had a collection of pot plants on the window sill, and a huge empty coffee jar covered in stick-on gems filled with sunflowers on the side table. Courfeyrac had his pretty gold incense holders and sticks, Combeferre had his text books and tiny digital radio for when his brain got too buzzy and he had to clean it out with bubble-gum pop. Grantaire had his little collection of Murano glass blobs from his family in Italy. Bahorel had a photo of his family on the mantelpiece, his aunt standing next to him and looking tiny next to the awkward hipster hulk of a man.
The room was well furnished too, for a student house. It had a huge three seater sofa that looked like it could legitimately devour a person and spit out their bones. There was a huge bean-bag too, and a puffy, straight backed arm chair that was the only comfortable piece of furniture in the whole house.
“Hey, how’re you doing with the popcorn, Taire?”
“Almost done, gimme a sec!”
The microwave pinged and he pulled out the slightly-too-hot bowl overflowing with white cloudy goodies. Carrying it through to the living room, he let himself pause in the doorway to gaze around the room.
Courf had instantly snagged the comfy chair and was currently sat on it with a sleepy-looking Jehan draped across his lap. Jehan’s spider-like long legs dangled over the side and his face was happily buried in Courf’s neck. Courf looked equally blissed out, his hands slowly braiding Jehan’s hair and giggling every time his boyfriend made a “super cute omg” noise in his sleep.
The middle sofa had originally been claimed by Cosette and Marius but he’d felt so guilty about stealing a seat that other people could sit in that he had moved onto the floor instead. He was the only one of the group who didn’t actually live with them, instead staying with his grandfather on the outskirts of the city about an hour’s tube journey away. Cosette, Enjolras’ adopted sister, lived with them though she was two years younger and was still in collage. Genuinely, after Marius had awkwardly broken off his friends-with-benefits arrangement with Courf and told Enjolras that he was dating his baby sister in one breath, Grantaire had expected to be scrubbing blood off the walls. But so far it had actually been ok. They’d dated for more than a year now, and both were rarely around in the Amis house anymore.
Now Marius was sitting at Cosette’s feet and sighing occasionally while gazing at her face. Enjolras sat next to her, pointedly ignoring Marius, and talking animatedly with Bahorel on the other side.
Feuilly and Combeferre were both lying on the floor- Ferre had his glasses balanced on top of his head and was sharing his patchwork blanket with Feuilly. They’d only got home recently, Feuilly from the coffee shop where he worked part time and Combeferre from the hospital where he was doing his degree. Ferre was almost falling asleep on his friend’s arm but kept on waking himself up.
Joly and Bossuet were wrestling for prime position on the beanbag, until Chetta chucked a pillow at them and told them to play nicely. She had built a mound of cushions stolen from all the Amis’ bedrooms to share with Eponine, and both were fighting fiercely for their territory as her boys tried to surreptitiously steal their pillows.
Grantaire smiled, standing still in the doorway with a goofy smile. These are the idiots I have chosen as my friends, he thought, and sighed.
“Hey, hurry up and sit down!” Courf grinned at him over his shoulder and grabbed a handful of popcorn as he passed.
Sliding the popcorn onto the coffee table in the middle of the room, he flopped down onto the floor beside Eponine’s pillow mound. “God, the floor’s uncomfortable.”
“You’re not having a pillow, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
“What? I would never!” Grantaire smirked. “Although… You know you love me?” He leant his head on her shoulder, batting his eyelashes and smiling hopefully until she snorted at him and shoved him off. “Pleeeeeease give me a cushion?”
Tuning in to their conversation, Enjolras turned round. “You can have my seat if you like, I’ll sit on the floor.”
He sounded kind of nervous, like Grantaire was going to throw the sofa at him or something. Well. Enjolras was frankly the one part of this little family that Taire wasn’t too happy about. Not that he didn’t like him, because obviously he did. Just a little too much. “Uhh. No thanks, I’d rather take the floor than deprive you of your throne, Apollo.”
The blond man frowned. “Are you sure? It doesn’t seem very fair. You’ve been standing up all day in your studio and I’ve been sat on my arse in lectures.”
“It’s fine, Enjolras.” Grantaire said shortly. He couldn’t stand it when E tried to be nice to him. It made him feel pitied, pathetic. Eponine noticed him looking down and squeezed his arm a bit, shuffling up so that he could fit on the cushion pile too. He gave her a little smile in thanks, and scrubbed a hand through his messy dark curls.
God. He had barely spoken to Enjolras after that awkward morning after… that night. He blushed. All he had meant to do was apologise and somehow it had gotten too tense and then all of a sudden… things had happened. Sexy things. Suddenly. But no, it wasn’t right to describe it like that. It wasn’t sudden at all, he knew. But when he described it like that it was a lot easier to just pretend that he wasn’t to blame for the situation. He should have known that E wouldn’t be interested in him after all, so getting all hurt and walking out after was probably a dumb idea.
Although frankly they had never properly been friends in the first place so he shouldn’t really be upset at all at the way things had turned out. God, he couldn’t even look at the other man without seeing flashes of that night going through his head.
It was insanely uncomfortable. He would be sat at a meeting, in the back with Joly and Bossuet, trying to ignore all the planning and just get happily drunk, but then he’d turn and see Enjolras tipping his head back to laugh and his mind would instantly start supplying him with images of E repeating that gesture in totally different circumstances, bruises blooming all along his neck and hot sweat beading along the flush of colour on his pale skin.
Or he’d be in the kitchen on a Sunday morning (or afternoon, Enjolras was not an early riser on weekends) and E would come in, yawning and searching for caffeine and with his hair damp from the shower and pulled up onto a bun on his head, wearing slouchy blue-grey sweatpants and a red long-sleeved tee shirt that showed off his collar bones. And almost instantly, Grantaire would forget how hands worked and spill his tea all over himself and have to leave in a bit of a panic. It was frustrating to say the least.
Grantaire glanced across the seats at Enjolras, who was watching the movie and sketching out a draft for a speech at the same time. Cosette was leaning her head in his shoulder, and he kept giving her little smiles, like he was proud that his baby sister wanted to be near him. Whenever he turned back to the speech he stuck his tongue out in concentration. Adorable.
Suddenly, his gaze flickered towards R and Taire instantly looked at the screen. He therefore missed the tiny smile that flickered across Enjolras’ face for an instant. But he shifted uncomfortably on his seat and didn’t look back for the rest of the movie.
Finally, when the credits began to roll, Cosette stood up with a smile. “Marius needs to get back to his Grandpa’s, and I’m going to go with him. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Enjolras scowled but she serenely ignored him and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Behave, you.” Cosette lowered her voice. “I’m going to see Papa tomorrow evening. You should come, he misses you.”
Her brother shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll see how I’m doing with this essay… Text me.”
“You never have your phone on.”
“Tell him I miss him, anyway.” He paused. “And the cats, too.”
Cosette swatted his arm and bent down for a hug. “Don’t be a twat. I love you.” Enjolras made a non-committal noise that could have been agreement into her shoulder and she laughed and took Marius’ hand. “Bye!” She said to the room in general.
The rest of them started to move, getting up and stretching and generally bitching about how crappy the movie was, heading up towards their bedrooms but just as Grantaire was about to leave, Enjolras caught hold of his sleeve.
“Can I, uh, talk to you?”
Grantaire frowned. “Um. Sure?”
The blond seemed uncomfortable, his shoulders raised high with tension. He was wearing that shirt again, the red one with the wide neck that constantly slipped off and nearly showed his shoulders. One hand was tapping out a rhythm nervously on his thigh, over and over again. “I don’t know. Look. Grantaire, I… I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t feeling…” he looked down at the floor and glanced up awkwardly and fuck, Grantaire wanted to punch him because he was doing that on fucking purpose. “That you weren’t feeling uncomfortable around me or anything. Because I can’t think of a reason, we’ve hardly spoken for ages but if I’ve said or done anything I really am sorry.”
“No?” R took a step back and turned towards the door. “We’re fine, it’s all fine. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
He heard Enjolras grit his teeth from a few steps away and winced. “I thought I told you to stop saying shit like that.”
“Sorry. I forgot…” He turned to leave but Enjolras grabbed his sleeve again and he turned round, suddenly frustrated. “Look. We never see eye to eye, and whenever we talk I somehow put my foot in it or you find some way to tell me that I’m useless. This is fucking pointless, Enj.”
“No, it’s not! And I don’t think you’re useless, I’ve never said anything like that!”
“It’s pretty obvious, Apollo.” His mouth twisted, mimicking Enjolras. “’Grantaire, put that bottle down’, ‘Grantaire, you’ll never amount to anything,’ ‘Grantaire, get out of here you good for nothing-”
“But I didn’t mean it!!” Enjolras almost shouted. “You know me. I get frustrated when people disagree with me but I would never think that about you. You’re…” And he was doing that thing again, looking down at the floor and then peeping up through his lashes. “You’re a good friend, Grantaire.”
“Ha,” the shorter man snorted bitterly. He wasn’t drunk, yet, his ever-present bottle still sloshing slightly in his grip and Enjolras gently prised it out of his hand. “Enjolras, stop-”
“Just listen to me-”
“No, you listen to me. God, you’re so fucking sanctimonious!! Christ. Ok so maybe there is a reason that I’ve been so uncomfortable around you recently. We…” He could feel himself blushing. “We slept together, god, and then the next day we went straight back to normal, pretending it never happened and I don’t know, we need to talk about it Enj because I want to go back to the way it was before but I can’t because we can’t fucking talk about this!”
Enjolras took a breath, and stepped back. R was shaking slightly, his hands clutching desperately to each other to try and make them stop. He caught Enjolras looking and made a grab for the bottle hanging loosely in his hand. “Anxiety,” he explained. “Just… Give me the bottle, I just need a drink and it will go away.”
“I’m not talking to you when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not talking to you while you’re being a fucking prick.”
Enjolras looked at him for a moment, his eyes widening. Then he started to smile, and in a moment he was laughing, hard.
Grantaire shuffled awkwardly. “What? What did I do?”
“Oh god, I’m not laughing at you. Just… this situation. We’re both grown-ups, and we’re bickering like toddlers in a sandpit.”
R smiled slightly and rubbed a hand over his stubble. “I guess you’re kind of right. But I don’t know how to do this.”
“Well. I’ll start. I’m going to be completely honest, because frankly we need to talk about this.” He took a deep breath. “So, from my point of view. What happened was very good and I would quite like it to happen again although possibly not in your bedroom because Courf gave me such an earful the next morning. I also very much like you and would like to see you outside of meetings and group evenings. However, I know that you are not particularly keen on me and were most likely acting out of pity for the poor lonely virgin (not that I cared particularly anyway so that sort of defeats that point) and also we have the most spectacular arguments so probably you don’t share the same view as me.”
Grantaire looked confused. “Ok. Are you joking?”
“Look, there’s no need to be obnoxious about it. I know that I’m hardly the person you’d be interested in, but I thought at least-”
“I’ve been in love with you since you moved in.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So.” He twiddled a lock of blond hair around his finger and smiled. “Where does this leave us?”
Grantaire looked at his hands. The shaking had slowed a little, and he smiled back at Enjolras. “I don’t know. But I think we stumbled in to this too fast last time, and we didn’t talk to each other clearly enough… So we’ll take it slow. If that’s ok with you.”
“I agree,” He nodded, and paused awkwardly.
There was a moment of silence where they both just stared at each other.
“Ok, now what?”
“I’m going to bed, I’m sleepy,” Enj sighed, smiling, and stretched. "But if you mean between us, I think we should probably go on a date. That's what people do, right?"
“Ok,” Grantaire repeated.
“Can I kiss you, or is that going too fast?”
“No, no. That’s fine,” Taire breathed, eyes going wide. “Everything is fine. All fine. Absolutely- oh my god, the floor's moving.”
Then he fainted.