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Dec. 19, 2016
Enjolras doesn’t know Grantaire very well. He likes to think he understands general human nature quite well, though – how to lead, if one doesn’t? – and with what little knowledge he’s cobbled together, he’s not sure he would have thought Grantaire the type to be balancing Bossuet on his shoulders as the latter is ripping off mistletoe decorations around the faculty party.
And yet.
“You need any help?”
Grantaire sways a bit as he turns, as much from Bossuet’s counterweight as from what Enjolras can only assume is one in a long series of many mugs of cocoa with rum.
“Enjolras,” Bossuet places a thoughtful hand on top of Enjolras’s head from his superior position, “you’re a man of honour. Of justice, and the like. Do you believe it’s fair, then, that I, a heartbroken man, am forced to watch strangers, as they say, suck face at a party I was forced to attend?” The pressure on Enjolras’s head becomes stronger as Bossuet balances and uses his other hand to pull on the offending bouquet with force. “This is”, he wrenches his arm back; Grantaire stoically takes a firmer stance to remain upright, “not to be borne.”
Frowning, Enjolras seeks Grantaire’s eyes. What happened, he mouths, and Grantaire has every appearance of a man who would shrug, were his friend’s thighs not currently occupying his shoulders. It wouldn’t be the shrug indicating ignorance, though. It would be, as far as he can tell, what Enjolras has seen in Combeferre many times and since managed to pin down as the Best not to bring it up type of shrug.
“You’re right,” Enjolras says nonchalantly and accepts the bunch of weeds Bossuet passes down. Grantaire’s hands are full. He is, as Enjolras suspects, as reliant on clinging onto Bossuet’s shins for staying upright as Bossuet is on Grantaire’s shoulders. Enjolras turns it in his hand. “Odd choice of decor, anyway. What are we, English?”
Grantaire snorts.
The movement, the slight shaking of his frame in that one second, is enough to make the whole edifice topple.
The paramedic is an anxious, capable and disproportionately sunny med student. Grantaire knows him. (Grantaire, Enjolras is learning, knows everyone. He’s not even in the law faculty, and Enjolras, who’s had a strange knot of discomfort in his chest all evening, feels like more of an intruder at this party than him.) Bossuet, momentarily oblivious, as it seems, to his previous heartbreak, has every ambition to impress him.
“You’re not concussed,” determines Joly, pocketing his flashlight. “Drunk, but not hurt. How did this happen?”
“I just,” says Bossuet before either Enjolras or Grantaire can set out to explain, “took the music a little too seriously.”
Joly bites his lower lip. “Oh?”
Bossuet places a hand on Joly’s shoulder, grave and serious. Joly leans in. Bossuet whispers, every syllable crystal clear, “Let the bodies hit the floor,” and passes out.
“Oh boy,” says Joly.
It seems respectful – generous, really – to leave the two of them alone. Grantaire goes back and forth about staying; he was, after all, in his own words, only there as Bossuet’s emotional and literal support. Enjolras isn’t sure why he wants him to stay. Grantaire’s eyes are perpetually nervous when they find him, but he’s not bad company. Conversation comes easy to him. Enjolras doesn’t mind things coming easy, just this once.
“He’s really been through it this year,” murmurs Grantaire, nursing another rum hot chocolate that is erring decidedly on the rum side of things. “I don’t think he’s been in a relationship that didn’t end in him being cheated on. Fucked up. I’d be doing much worse than ripping down mistletoe if that were me.”
“Would you?” Grantaire seems like the excessive sort, but not the violent one. Enjolras has seen him drunk more often than he’s seen him sober. His definition of “worse” is a sort of violence directed inwards; Bossuet tears down mistletoe, and Grantaire drinks himself into a hospital.
“By some standards, I guess.” Grantaire shakes his head. “Wow, sorry, what a downer. How come you’re not, like, out there dazzling people, anyway? Surely you didn’t show up just to babysit us.”
“I felt obligated to show up,” says Enjolras. Just as he feels obligated to stay, really. He wants a drink, a little bit, just to occupy his hands. He wishes Courfeyrac were here, here and willing to act as his permanent social crutch. He grabbed on to Bossuet and Grantaire like a lifeboat, and it feels like an increasingly questionable choice now that only Grantaire is let. “If anything, you two have made my night.”
“Oh.”
Grantaire is looking at him. Enjolras is looking at the miniature fir tree on the table. He never knows what to make of Grantaire looking: it makes him feel like he has to watch his step, like his actions, with Grantaire, are carrying more weight than he has given consent to.
Christ, and they’ve never been alone with each other before tonight.
“Look,” says Grantaire, and the decisive sound of his mug on the desk shakes Enjolras awake. “All the cool kids have gone. Things’ll be winding down, soon, anyway. You’re not missing anything by not staying. Walk you home?”
He doesn’t know Grantaire very well; he’s not sure he has learned anything significant tonight that should make a difference. There is stolen mistletoe in the pocket of his coat and he thinks of Grantaire’s half-hearted friendships with other faculty members and of Bossuet, clinging to his shoulders like a lifeline.
He exhales. “You’re right,” he says. “Let’s go.”
They walk to the station, chat on the train, and it’s not before Enjolras closes his apartment door behind him that he realises how, slowly and steadily, the knot in his chest has unwound.
Dec. 23, 2017
They didn’t start out badly, Grantare thinks. Enjolras didn’t hate him this time last year. In fact, there was a brief moment at some party or other where Grantaire had the very brief hope that, given a healthy dose of discipline (and that’s a joke in and of itself, when’s he ever had discipline in his life) and realism on his part, they might actually get along.
Grantaire is sitting out this year’s holiday recital - health reasons, if it can be believed, because he’s not back on his feet yet and doubts he ever will be. Recovery, ironic as it is, will lose him a dance scholarship. Such a turn of events would be tragic in itself if it were indicative of any lost potential, which it is not. Can’t mourn what was never there, in his opinion, and as such, the burial of his bright future as a performer attracts no mourners.
What is slightly tragic is that his lack of participation in the recital lands him in the audience, and, by vicious coincidence rather than malicious intent (he hopes), next to Enjolras. The others are there, but Grantaire’s late, and there is only one seat left. Enjolras glances at him as Grantaire takes his seat; the look is sharp enough to take the top of Grantaire’s head clean off and burrow uncomfortably between self-doubt and deference. He of the golden bow, and of the golden lyre, thinks Grantaire. Enjolras has been talking very little to him, but then, Enjolras has been talking little to everyone. Something is on his mind. Whatever is weighing on him makes him taciturn around his friends, and acerbic towards Grantaire, who supposes that he hasn’t done much to deserve any better.
Enjolras’s devotion to his friends is unchanged. Here he is, probably dizzy with concern about his own end-of-term assignments, watching a two-hour ballet for no other reason than that Feuilly is in it. Not everyone was able to show up – Combeferre has an exam, Joly a cold – but Enjolras still did. He watches intently, claps perfectly on cue, and there’s even a spark of genuine wonder in his eyes.
Grantaire looks at him too much, he’s always been painfully aware of that. He directs his gaze forward and exchanges one miracle for another: art in motion, something he has known and lost. And of the golden hair, he thinks, and of the golden fire.
Feuilly receives roses later, roses and a night of free drinks. The Musain is packed with people getting together for the last time before the holidays draw them away from the city, and Grantaire hides behind his friends and the newly settled wall which sobriety places inevitably between him and everyone else. It’s strange, being out like this. He’s not yet used to the nervous and persistent thrum that underlies everything when he has nothing to drink it away with.
“To Feuilly,” says Courfeyrac, raising his voice above the chatter, “and the last day of term!”
Feuilly’s toast in response is mortified – he’s always hated the spotlight more than the average dancer (and, in consequence, narcissist) can comprehend – and he says, always quick to divert attention, “Enjolras, you had an announcement?”
He did? Grantaire sits up, slightly disturbing Joly, who was getting comfortable on his lap. “No,” whispers Joly, effectively blocking Grantaire’s view. “No pining on Christmas.”
If only it were that easy.
“Ah.” Enjolras sounds slightly uncomfortable, and maybe Joly isn’t wrong - it’s best not to look at him. “I’m going to Costa Rica.”
Grantaire’s cough, mercifully, is lost in a flurry of questions. When? For how long? Why? Joly, close enough for Grantaire to see, winces in misguided sympathy.
It’s an answer to what Grantaire was wondering, at least. Enjolras doesn’t leave things behind easily, and he loves Paris like he shares a heart with it. Grantaire, being mostly incapable of both, can’t imagine what it must be like to balance a constant tug-of-war between love and ambition. Enjolras wants the best for everyone, but he also wants himself in the best position to effect it. Altruistic arrogance, he called it once, when Grantaire caught him in an admittedly bitter mood. He looks slightly sour even now, Grantaire notices once Joly permits him to catch a glance: something about his acceptance in an exchange program must feel to him like a pyrrhic victory, like the cost of being away from his friends is almost too great.
Joly allows him, next to a clear view, a cigarette break. The outside air is a blessing, crisp and clear and cold enough to pull the anxiety straight out of his skin.
“You know,” he says when Enjolras leaves the Musain and stands, quiet with hands shoved deep into his coat, next to him, “I didn’t even realise there was such a thing as the University for Peace.”
To his surprise – and relief? – Enjolras laughs. The huff of breath shows in the air between them. “It’s not as quixotic as it sounds. They’re an academic IGO, accredited world-wide through UN patronage, they’re –” He exhales. “Anyway. It’s the fastest course of studies I’ve applied for, my Spanish is good, I can combine law and media, and it’ll get me a far more nuanced perspective than a local MA in journalism would. It – just made sense.”
Grantaire feels the need to alert Enjolras to the fact that no one, in fact, asked him to defend his decision. Simultaneously, this clearly isn’t all that’s going on here. He looks up. No snow, yet, but stars instead, rare as they are in the city. It’s a good night.
“You want?” He holds up his cigarette, just in case. Enjolras seems to genuinely be considering it for a moment.
“Actually came out for the fresh air,” he says then, and fixes Grantaire with a gaze. Less sharp than earlier, this time, and still just as dissecting. “You’re not drinking.”
“Ah, well.”
“Did you talk to the others about it?”
“Yeah.” Grantaire looks at the ground. There’s only so much endurance he has for those eyes on his. “Kind of a lot.”
“Okay.” There’s a trace of a smile in Enjolras’s voice, even though Grantaire doesn’t quite have it in him to look up. “I didn’t want to go. I believe I have to; I’m sure it’s right, but I hate the thought of being so far away from the others.”
“Costa Rican coffee, though,” says Grantaire, which earns him a gentle knock in the arm.
“I think I’ve let everyone else feel my frustration too much, you most of all.” Another exhale, and there’s really no looking down anymore, now. Enjolras looks thoughtful, his posture perfect as ever, and he says, “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck.” What a thing to say for a guy who must feel like he has the weight of the world on his back. It’s been a garbage year for Grantaire, but arguably a much worse year for the planet at large. Woe to those brave archangels trying to stop the avalanche of misery. “Don’t say that. You’ve had enough shit to deal with.”
“Maybe,” he says, “but it’s not okay to single you out for my bad moods.”
“Not like you haven’t felt mine, as well.”
“Nevertheless.”
“I have an idea as to why, you know,” says Grantaire, admirably cheerful, he thinks, for a man digging his own grave. Enjolras knows, doesn’t he? Enjolras can’t not know. And it makes sense: if you’re going to make a life-altering decision, your tolerance for a friend with a crush who wrongly hopes to figure in such a decision would be all the lower. “And I’m fine with it. I mean, I understand.”
Something, too quick for Grantaire to make any sense of, comes across Enjolras’s features and is quickly smoothed out. “You do?”
“Yeah. Um, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too.”
“No,” says Enjolras, because of course he does. “It’s hardly your fault.”
Isn’t it, though? Everyone else seems to get over unrequited feelings quicker. Grantaire isn’t sure he’s even really tried. “That’s generous of you,” he murmurs, and flicks ash onto the asphalt.
“I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable.” Enjolras is earnest, Grantaire can tell. “This – I’ve not been very considerate, lately, but it was never intended as punishment. We can’t help how we feel; I don’t blame you at all.”
“I know.” Grantaire attempts a smile. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’ll live. Plus, you know.” He gestures vaguely. “More important things. The world awaits.”
Enjolras clearly doesn’t need the reminder of how pretty much everything in his life is a more pressing matter than this, but by some miracle, it works. Enjolras’ smiles are rare and blinding, even the small ones.
God, especially the small ones.
“Oh,” Grantaire says, to fill the silence, and potentially to tide himself over from the tight feeling in his chest. (It’s not hollow, though. He always thought this would feel empty when it happens, and he thinks that perhaps the pain is good. He still feels, in any case.) He unlocks his phone, and grins at the display. Two minutes past twelve. Minuit, chrétiens. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry arbitrary Sunday in late December,” says Enjolras, who can be extremely funny when given the opportunity, and who keeps a list of which holidays his friends do and do not celebrate, and fuck, Grantaire will still love him from an ocean away, won’t he?
“And many happy returns,” he responds, suddenly exhausted by the realisation. “Best get warm.”
Joly and Bossuet insist that he spend the night at their place, and Grantaire doesn’t find it in him to protest. He falls asleep squished between the two of them, warm and safe, and thinks of how much worse he’s been, and how much lonelier.
Enjolras is going where he needs to go. Enjolras will be what he needs to be.
It’s a comfort, even if Grantaire can’t say the same thing about himself just yet.
Dec. 22, 2018
Snow is, in Enjolras’ entirely unbiased opinion, the most perfidious type of weather. It doesn’t betray itself by noise, so Enjolras is in no way prepared for the whiteout of which Grantaire’s bedroom window offers a perfect view. No, he thinks, no, no, no, because he’s fairly certain there are protocols in place for one-night-stands with friends who know you have feelings for them, and being snowed in might prove a hindrance to step one: the polite and early exit.
Grantaire sleeps deeply. Enjolras isn’t sure why he’d assumed he wouldn’t. They’ve all seen Grantaire maudlin or too unwell to do anything but sleep, but whenever he’s with the others, he has energy. Grantaire keeps people so naturally on their toes that Enjolras only now realises that he’s never actually seen him at rest before.
Enjolras is fully aware that this is stupid. He was aware of it last night, too, when Grantaire, eyes wide with disbelief, asked him “You’re really sure?” and then “You – with me?” under his breath. It was almost a reminder – You’re sure you remember that I don’t actually like you back? – and Enjolras registered it as such, and went ahead anyway. It’s the exact opposite of what he is, what he does, this headfirst leap into certain disaster, but he was happy last night, and he felt at home, and he’s missed Grantaire more than the city itself.
That’s it, he realises, the reason he doesn’t fully regret his own recklessness. He wanted Grantaire; Grantaire wanted him. It’s not a mistake yet, and Enjolras is determined not to let it become one.
Curls splayed across the pillow and his lips parted, Grantaire looks achingly peaceful. Enjolras tries not to stare too much as he dresses; he’s not sure what is and isn’t intrusive, as they are. Even remembering last night feels presumptuous without permission, which is good, because dwelling on it, he knows, would force him to stay.
(How he wants to remember, though. Freely, if he’s allowed. Grantaire understands touch well, and he kissed Enjolras with a helpless kind of need, and as much as it feels like an intrusion to remember, it feels like a disservice to forget.)
Snow is still falling as Enjolras leaves the bedroom; Musichetta isn’t in, the hallway is quiet as he feels his way out of the apartment. Downstairs, he pulls the building’s front door open with not much hope, and is greeted by a gust of wind cold enough to drive the air out of his lungs.
The snow goes up to his knees.
It’s the apocalypse. Has to be. They’re in Paris, for fuck’s sake.
He shuts the door and stumbles back onto the tile steps, reaching into is coat for his phone. His phone, which, as he realises now, was low on batteries last night, so Grantaire offered to plug it in to charge, and then –
Enjolras buries his face in the folded sleeves of his coat and hisses a string of curses.
Grantaire opens the door, upstairs, before Enjolras even knocks. He stares at Enjolras, eyes wide like those of a spooked animal, and says, “Trains aren’t running” at the same time that Enjolras says, “My phone.” Then, in a delayed and slightly horrified response, “No trains?”
Grantaire winces. “Sorry.”
“No, God. I’m sorry. Is the café next door open, do you think?”
“Please don’t go out?” Less of wince, this time, and more of a cringe, and Enjolras couldn’t sympathise more. “I mean. You can. Obviously. Sorry – I know it’s weird and I promise I don’t mean anything by it, just, the weather’s so fucked up and I can stay out of your way in here until it dies down. I won’t read into it if you stay just to keep warm, again, promise.”
Something’s wrong. Enjolras is on the cusp to understanding it, he knows this feeling, when he’s just about to figure out the right thing to do –
“You don’t have to.” Grantaire has deflated, and it’s gone, the thing from last night, the joy and the oddness and the… everything. “Sorry. I’ll get you your phone.”
Enjolras does the last thing reason tells him he should and steps into the apartment after Grantaire, closing the door behind himself.
In the bedroom, Grantaire is pulling on a sweater and facing the window. He turns when Enjolras steps inside, still so jumpy, and the picture of calm that was him asleep is already fading in Enjolras’ mind. “It’s here,” he says, and picks Enjolras’ phone from the windowsill. When he offers it to Enjolras, Enjolras takes the hand along with the phone and draws him to sit on the bed.
“I’m sorry this is strange,” he says, ignoring rather forcefully the way Grantaire is buzzing with anxiety next to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t go about it with less ambiguity. For some reason, words come easy to me any time except in moments like this, or like –” He clears his throat. There it is, the thing with the words. “If there’s anything you want me to clarify, I hope you’ll feel comfortable asking.”
Shade by shade, Grantaire has relaxed next to him. He still doesn’t look calm, when Enjolras looks over, but significantly less like he’s expecting to be led off a metaphorical plank. He leans forward, his shoulders curled in, and worries at his bottom lip with his teeth.
Permission, again. So many things to do if he had it. He’d brush the hair away from Grantaire’s forehead now; he’d kiss his temple.
Their hands, between them, haven’t moved to break the point of touch.
“Are you upset about yesterday?” Grantaire’s eyes flick to his, still nervous.
“Not at all,” says Enjolras.
Grantaire exhales. “And the – when did you find out? I thought last year, that you’d told me, but – I can’t – for how long have you actually known that I liked you?”
Part of Enjolras’ mind is steps and steps ahead of him. Perhaps he’s been lagging behind for longer than this, and is only now catching up, and it’s late, but it’s just right, too. “Two seconds,” he says, and holds Grantaire tight when those turn out to be the words that unravel him.
“Well, fuck,” murmurs Grantaire a while later. He brings a hand across his face, and Enjolras, carefully (reluctantly), lets go of him. “Now, that wasn’t the reaction you signed up for.”
“I like you.” Enjolras can’t think of it as a confession anymore. A reiteration, maybe, of what he’s not said in so many words before. “I wanted to ask you last year, and then –”
“Ah, I was there.” Grantaire shakes his head. “God, I was so bad at getting over you. Not sure if I really tried, you know? Nothing got easier after you left, and there’s absence, fondness, and so on, except it didn’t stop when you came back, either. Even though you made so little sense.”
“It’s not nonsensical to want you.”
Grantaire makes a high-pitched sort of keening noise. Then, after a moment, he says, “You’re really happy there, aren’t you?”
“I am.” It even explains his recently discovered recklessness, Enjolras thinks. That’s what it is, at its core: the sudden unwillingness to go back to half-truths and unspoken words, the acknowledgement that they’re not enough to settle for anymore. “I’ll be happier once I’m back home again. For good, I mean.”
It’s another seven months abroad, with plans as they are now, although Enjolras is more inclined to think in seconds at this particular moment. Grantaire, too shyly for what he’s supposed to have understood by now, takes his hand.
“Well,” he says, and his smile, when Enjolras looks at him, shines. “Thank fuck for the snow.”
Dec. 24, 2019
“You know, you could stand not to waltz in the living room.”
Grantaire is spun past the admonishing party in a rush and manages to say, on his way, “How do you know?”
“Because no one’s ever dropped dead from not waltzing.” Courfeyrac, who has put work into tonight’s decorations, is rarely so disapproving, so Grantaire takes it to heart.
“Not actually funny,” Courfeyrac points out several seconds later.
“You didn’t say anything about foxtrotting, though.”
“Enjolras, back me up here.”
“Well, it is called the Christmas Waltz.”
“Backstabber.” Courfeyrac separates them violently with a fir branch; Grantaire yelps. “No less than you deserve.”
His boyfriend dances. By some odd stroke of fate, Grantaire had no idea until tonight. It turns out that Enjolras took ballroom classes as a teenager, which is one of those precious, precious items of Enjolras-related knowledge that Grantaire wants to shout from the rooftops and tuck away forever in a safe place all at once.
Enjolras runs a hand through his hair in a hopeless attempt to restore it to pre-fir-status. “In our defence, Courf, you also refused to let us help you set anything up.”
Courfeyrac’s indignant noise is followed by an equally offended “You are my guests, I would never–” and then, once the doorbell rings, “Could you just buzz them up, please, and take everyone’s coats; no shoes past the staircase, there’s a dear.”
“I’ve got it,” Grantaire says and gently touches Enjolras’ shoulder as he walks past him. Their friends, even at their best behaviour, can require a bit of herding Enjolras occasionally enjoys having a break from.
Joly puts a paper crown on his head the moment he walks through the door and ignores Grantaire’s forced “No shoes”.
“What’s this? Enjolras’ll have my head.”
“Bossuet practised his galette des rois. Didn’t turn out well. Crown won’t be needed. Where’s food?”
“Sorry about that,” says Bossuet, while Musichetta, behind him, looks decidedly gleeful while taking her shoes off. “Suits you, though.”
“Have my head,” Grantaire repeats, and adjusts the crown with no small amount of satisfaction. “He’ll kill me.”
“Been nice knowing you, though, love.” Musichetta kisses his cheeks, then makes room for Jehan, who is indiscriminately handing out paper chain necklaces.
“There.” Jehan’s content smile is, in its own way, a reward. “Now you look like a downsized imitation of an 18th century gangster.”
“Exactly pinpointed my fashion goals there, Prouvaire.”
“You’re welcome.”
The living room, large enough to waltz in earlier, feels decidedly smaller with seven of them inside, and becomes hopelessly crowded when Combeferre, Bahorel, and Feuilly file in with more food and, thankfully, no more accessories. The closeness feels safe, a decisive lock to keep the cold out, and there’s no buzz beneath Grantaire’s skin, no thrum he feels the need to shake out.
It’s an unusual feeling. Enjolras spots it somewhere in his expression, and presses his hand under the table.
He follows Enjolras to the balcony later – Enjolras and his fresh air breaks, his adamant refusal to acknowledge out loud the fact that crowded places can grate at him sometimes, that space is a need as much as proximity is. Once Grantaire understood this, one more thing about Enjolras slotted into place. He is not a creature of simple answers.
Enjolras takes his arm the moment Grantaire steps outside, which is another small answer. No alone time, then. “You’re unkissable with the crown on,” he notes, and is remarkably blasé about it.
“I’ve never felt more handsome.”
“And yet.”
“You okay?”
Enjolras softens. “Of course.” He presses Grantaire’s arm. Before them, the street is quiet, and their breath makes clouds in the air.
Understanding Enjolras is a continuous and breathtaking puzzle. He makes ballroom dance and peace studies and bone-dry humour and infuriatingly justified confidence and an always unexpected sort of shyness fit together without effort, and Grantaire can only marvel at it as he’s pulled along towards Better Things at the speed of light. Some days, he still feels undeserving of the privilege.
“I propose a deal,” says Enjolras, ever the diplomat. “Take the crown off, and I’ll dance with you again.”
With careful hands, Grantaire plucks the paper crown off his head, and places it, gently, on Enjolras’ hair instead.
“Deal’s a deal,” he murmurs, and is shut up with a kiss.