Chapter Text
There are exactly four things Grantaire was thinking in the first two minutes of sitting through a meeting at the Musain for the first time:
1. The blond in front is walking-out-of-magic-scrolls good-looking. It’s the only depiction in Grantaire’s brain right now to barely appreciate that much of intensity. He is so beautiful Grantaire could cry.
2. Courfeyrac deserves to be on a fucking pedestal for dragging him here.
3. On second thought, blondie should be on that pedestal. And a portrait. Definitely a portrait.
4. Whose idea is it to call this a ‘meeting’? And why the hell is the back of a coffee place so well-lit? Because if the lighting were dim, oh boy can he imagine how blondie would look. Contrasting colours, delicate and decisive strokes, man this portrait will be haaaaaard…
The last syllable stretches into six as Grantaire looks up and belatedly realises the most attractive person on earth is standing just in front of him.
And the room kind of quietens.
Before Grantaire starts panicking, blondie speaks, “We are Les Amis de l’ABC, I’m sure Courfeyrac has told you what we do here.” His wavy blond hair is even more vibrant up close, Grantaire swallows.
Blondie extends his hand, “I’m Enjolras.”
Of course that’s the way a bunch of 20-something-year-olds would greet one another. Grantaire contemplates just being his usual self and offer the name ‘R’, but instead he says “Grantaire” and shakes hands with Enjolras. And a very enthusiastic Courfeyrac takes care of the rest of the introduction quickly before their meeting starts.
To Grantaire’s astonishment, ‘meeting’ actually means meeting. There’s even one person who is sitting next to Enjolras noting down today’s agenda and key points of everyone’s arguments and feedbacks. They call him ‘Ferre’, Grantaire notes. To be completely honest, he didn’t remember everything from the introduction earlier, he’s not great with names. But he’s great with patching things up, which is what he’s doing right now.
As the meeting goes on, Grantaire slowly matches the faces and names together. And he is surprised to find that they are dead serious about the upcoming rally which is something concerning ‘rights’, and he is more surprised that they all take turn to talk, no one even tries to interrupt when someone else is speaking. Of course he spends most of the time looking at Enjolras (and finds that the intensity around him never wavers), but he can still notice things.
After a whole round of communication, Enjolras seems satisfied. He smiles, “Shall we go into the speech? I drafted the speech and 'Ferre tweaked it a bit here and there, but we need fresh eyes on this.” He pulls up a piece of paper, “Sorry, I don’t want to print more, this is still a draft. Do you mind taking turns to read this or do you want me to do the speech?”
“Do the speech! Do the speech!” Courfeyrac chants playfully, and everyone else sort of joins in. Waiting for the unison to die down, Jehan encourages, “It’d be good to practise.” Courfeyrac chimes in playfully, “Not that you need it though.” Bossuet quickly adds, “Enj, you know, you can’t really expect us to choose otherwise when you just print one copy every time, right?”
That earns a chuckle from almost everyone, that is, everyone but Enjolras himself. Grantaire watches with a tentative grin as Enjolras tries to fight off the smile.
Grantaire feels his heart beating more than ever.
He must have missed a few moments there, because the next thing happening is Enjolras standing in the middle of the room, his speech voice even more captivating than his everyday voice.
Grantaire watches intently, wills himself to not come off as creepy. The content of the speech apparently escapes him, but Grantaire notices something unusual, even in his emotionally drunken stage, that Enjolras's hands are very still. Enjolras speaks with fervour, making eye contact with every one of them, his hair bouncing with every stress of his words, but his hands are always at his sides.
Grantaire discreetly searches for everyone else's expression for some clues on this, but they all seem perfectly attentive to the speech.
"That tracks." Grantaire thinks to himself, "What even are these people?"