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“Alright class, settle down,” Valjean said from the front of the room, and the class slowly fell into silence, until Courfeyrac, who hadn’t been paying attention, was the only one left talking animatedly to Marius, who blushed when Valjean said pointedly, “That does mean you, Mr. Courfeyrac.”
The class tittered and Courfeyrac grinned while Valjean just rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. “As much as I know you’ve all been looking forward to being done with our unit on sexually transmitted infections, that does mean we have to move into our next unit on family planning. As a reminder, I do not set the health class curriculum, the Board of Education does, so Mr. Enjolras, before you even bother complaining, my answer will be as it has been this entire time that there is nothing I can do.”
Enjolras scowled and crossed his arms in front of his chest, and from the back of the room, Grantaire snorted. “That being said,” Valjean continued, reaching under his desk and pulling out a sack of flour and setting it down on his desk with perhaps more force than necessary, “as you know, our final class project is the dreaded ‘flour baby’ project, and this year, I’ve decided to be a bit creative with the partnership assignments, to recognize — even if the school board refuses to do so — the reality of couples and partnerships beyond heterosexual marriages.”
For the first time, the class’s interest seemed piqued, and Valjean smiled before telling them, “But as a reminder, these partnerships are assigned and are not going to be changed, so I want to hear no complaining.” He grabbed his clipboard and began reading through the assignments, most of which garnered no more than the typical giggling and groaning, until he got to one assignment — “Mr. Enjolras, you’ll be working with Mr. Grantaire.”
“What?” Enjolras said loudly, while Grantaire stirred in the back of the class, his eyes wide. The class was deathly silent, and Valjean simply raised his eyebrows at Enjolras before returning to the list, but Combeferre and Courfeyrac, Enjolras’s two best friends, both swiveled around to stare at Grantaire, who met their stares with a glare of his own, arms crossed in front of his chest.
He was glaring with such force at Combeferre and Courfeyrac that he didn’t even notice that Valjean had finished the list, or that Enjolras had stood from his desk and gone up to Valjean’s. He only noticed when Valjean asked loudly, “Mr. Enjolras, is there a problem?”
Enjolras’s voice was low, too low for Grantaire to hear, though his ears still burned red at the mere assumption of what he was saying, especially when Enjolras gestured vehemently in his direction. Tears pricked in his eyes at the thought that Enjolras didn’t want to be his partner so badly that he would demand someone new, and he hastily looked down at his desk. “Mr. Enjolras,” Valjean interrupted, gathering his papers together. “You have spent the entire semester complaining that the health class curriculum is geared entirely toward cis, heterosexual couples, and while I may personally agree, I am bound by what the school board wants me to teach. For this project I have taken the liberty of creating non-heterosexual partnerships, and I would think that would be enough for you. No one else has complained about their assignment. Now, I will have to ask you to take your seat and silently review your notes on STIs along with your classmates.”
Enjolras turned back to his desk, his jaw set, and Grantaire’s flush deepened. “Fuck this,” he mumbled to himself, grabbing his stuff and standing up, slouching towards the door, his shoulders set.
“Mr. Grantaire,” Valjean called after him, frowning. “Mr. Grantaire, you did not ask permission to leave!” Grantaire ignored him, practically slamming the door after him as he left, and Valjean sighed and turned to frown at Joly and Bossuet, both of whom looked startled by Grantaire’s abrupt departure from class. “Will one of you two boys go after him?”
“I’ll go.” Enjolras stood, his expression dark, and Valjean looked taken aback for a moment before shrugging and gesturing for Enjolras to do what he would. Enjolras grabbed his bag and followed Grantaire out the door, with Combeferre and Courfeyrac staring after him.
“Grantaire!” Enjolras called, half-jogging down the hallway after him. “Grantaire, wait!”
Grantaire neither stopped nor turned around, just scowled down at the ground. “What do you want, Enjolras?” he asked, a little tiredly. “I already realized that you don’t want to be my partner for this project, so you can just fuck off.”
Enjolras slowed to a walk as he reached Grantaire and shook his head. “You’re right, I don’t want to be your partner,” he said, and Grantaire flinched. “But Valjean told me we couldn’t change partners.”
A muscle worked in Grantaire’s jaw. “Then why did you come after me? You’re obviously not concerned about me, since it’s pretty damn clear you don’t like me.”
“Liking you has nothing to do with it,” Enjolras snapped. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, just a slacker who never does any work, and I don’t want to be the one lugging this stupid flour sack around the entire time! I need you to actually take some responsibility for once, and that’s why I came after you, to try to make this partnership work!”
“Fine!” Grantaire shot back. “Maybe that’s all you needed to say, instead of marching up to the teacher and demanding a different partner! Maybe if you would actually give me a chance, I could prove you wrong!”
Enjolras snorted. “I highly doubt it.”
“Then what have you got to lose, Apollo?” Grantaire asked, a mocking edge to his voice. “You can’t tell me that you’re worried about your GPA, because I already know that you’re going to be accepted into every Ivy League, bearing the Enjolras name as you do.”
Enjolras’s eyes flashed. “Whatever school I get into, I’ll get into on my own merit,” he spat. “And I work hard for the grades that I do get, so it’d be nice to get partnered for people who do the same instead of sliding by on natural intellect without ever doing work!”
Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Well at least you recognize my natural intellect.” He stopped and looked over at Enjolras. “Look, we have to do this project. And I can promise that for once, I will put the appropriate amount of effort in, ok? I can’t prove it, obviously, so you’ll have to have faith in me.”
For a moment, Enjolras just stared at him, then his lip curled. “Easy words for the guy who doesn’t believe in anything to throw around.” He paused, something shifting in his expression. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “That was…unnecessary.”
“And incorrect,” Grantaire added unhelpfully. “But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we get this stupid project done so that we can go back to ignoring each other.”
“It’d be a lot easier to ignore you if you didn’t antagonize me every chance you got,” Enjolras grumbled.
Grantaire ignored him, shifting his bag on his shoulder. “So why don’t you get back to class and pick up our assigned sack of flour from Valjean, and you can take care of it today, Wednesday, and Friday, and I’ll take Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and on Sunday we can get together and finish the project. ok?”
“Fine,” Enjolras said grudgingly, raising an eyebrow at Grantaire. “Where are you going if you’re not coming back to class?”
Grantaire grinned and started to walk away. “None of your business, Apollo. I’ll pick up our kid tomorrow morning at 7. Be there or you get to keep him, her, or whatever gender our bag of flour would prefer, for the rest of the day.”
Enjolras glared after him, then turned back to class, already dreading the rest of the week.
All things considered, the rest of the week went shockingly well for both Enjolras and for Grantaire. Enjolras had to deal with Courfeyrac pouting over being assigned with Combeferre as his partner instead of Marius (Marius got paired with Cosette, Valjean’s daughter, and was so nauseating about it that no one could stand to sit at the same lunch table as them), which was not helped by Combeferre pointing out that Courfeyrac and Marius weren’t actually dating, and Grantaire had to deal with Joly and Bossuet being assigned a third partner for a non-traditional child-rearing situation, a very pretty foreign exchange student named Musichetta who left both Joly and Bossuet questioning just about everything about themselves and their relationship.
And Enjolras and Grantaire spoke to each other every morning for a few moments as they passed the sack of flour to the person in charge of looking after it for the day. The sack — which had a different name depending on which one you asked (Enjolras called it Robespierre, while Grantaire loving nicknamed it Louis Philippe) — remained undecorated, unlike some of the class groups, who drew faces on theirs or dressed it up or what have you. Grantaire might have drawn a pretty good face on it were it not for the fact that he didn’t exactly want to seem like he was putting more effort into this than necessary. But the few minutes they spent together were some of the best they had ever spent, and even thought it was only a few minutes at a time, they developed a comfort level neither had expected, even going so far as to smile at each other.
Their plan might have worked out well except for one thing: Saturday night was a Les Amis meeting, and Grantaire lugged Louis Philippe to the only bar in town that would let a bunch of underage kids use their backroom for a meeting place (and would occasionally serve them if they weren’t being too rowdy, because most people avoided the place like a plague and they had to make money somehow). And while at the Musain for the meeting, Grantaire proceeded to sneak a bunch of beers and get more than a little drunk.
This wasn’t unusual behavior for Grantaire, and Enjolras had become very good at blocking him and his less savory actions out, but Grantaire’s drinking was proving to be potentially perilous for poor Robespierre/Louis Philippe, and more than once Joly and Bossuet had to rescue the flour from getting spilled on or knocked off the table.
Which meant that by the end of the night, Enjolras was seething, and he glared at Grantaire as he grabbed the flour sack off the table and left with it. “Does he have any idea what he’s doing?” Enjolras asked Combeferre, who, having not spent the evening obsessively watching Grantaire, had no idea what he was talking about. “Doesn’t he realize that any damage to the bag or any discrepancy in weight lowers our grade? Doesn’t he care about anything?”
“I’m sure he does,” Combeferre said, finally catching on to what Enjolras was talking about. “He cares enough to bring the flour sack out to a meeting for a group about a cause that he doesn’t believe in. He cares enough to try.”
“Try?” Enjolras repeated incredulously. “You call that effort?”
Combeferre sighed. “Well, if you don’t like it, follow him home and take your flour child back before irreparable harm comes to it.” Enjolras cocked his head, clearly considering the idea, and Combeferre sighed. “I was being sarcastic—”
Clearly Enjolras didn’t care, gather his things together and leaving without another word. Courfeyrac appeared at Combeferre’s shoulder. “Where is he off to so quickly?”
“He’s going to confront Grantaire over how he’s choosing to raise their child,” Combeferre told him dryly.
“Shit,” Courfeyrac said, something almost appreciative in his tone. “Man, what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall of that conversation.” He glanced over at Combeferre. “What do you think, they break up or get together?”
Combeferre raised an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t the two mutually exclusive? You can’t break up without already being together, which makes it difficult for them to get together?”
Courfeyrac gave him a look. “You know Enjolras and Grantaire,” he said grimly. “They’ve been exclusively not-dating for years now. If anyone can handle the mutual exclusivity, it’d be them.”
“Fair point,” Combeferre acknowledged, then shrugged. “Well, one way or another, I am very glad that Valjean didn’t decide to make their relationship polyamorous.”
“Preach,” Courfeyrac agreed. “Now, let’s work on our project, shall we?”
Grantaire snagged a beer from his parents’ fridge before heading to his bedroom, unceremoniously dumping the sack of flour onto his desk and flopping onto his bed. “Well, here’s to one last day of this,” he said, raising the beer to no one in particular. “Then he and I will probably never speak again. Good riddance.”
The slight quaver in his voice showed that he really didn’t think it would be good riddance for that to happen; in truth, Grantaire thought the exact opposite. Sighing, he took a sip of beer and promptly spluttered on it when Enjolras’s face appeared outside his bedroom window. “Enjolras?” he asked incredulously, crossing over to the window and opening it. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came to make sure our baby was ok,” Enjolras told him haughtily.
“The baby?” Grantaire repeated, almost dazedly, and gestured vagurely at his desk. “The flour is fine.”
Enjolras let out a disgruntled noise at the precarious position of the flour and pushed past Grantaire to the desk. “Could you be more irresponsible?” he huffed, picking up the sack of flour and holding it under one arm in what he clearly thought was a comfortable way to hold a baby.
Grantaire rolled his eyes and settled back on to his bed, draining his beer. “Calm down, would you? It’s not a real baby.”
“That’s hardly the point,” Enjolras hissed, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “This is a lesson in responsibility, one that you clearly have missed out on. Would you truly have acted any differently had it been a real baby? Do you ever think of the real world consequences of your actions? Do you—”
He was getting riled, but Grantaire was ignoring most of this, instead focusing on the way that Enjolras’s cheeks were just tinged with pink, the tips of his ears a darker shade of it. He wanted to draw it, to paint it in different mediums. He had a feeling that just the right amount of red watercolor paint could make that precise shade, and was half-dying to try it and see.
Even colors like these could not keep Grantaire’s interest indefinitely, and he shifted as Enjolras rambled on, his rant having turned from Grantaire’s lack of responsibility to the lack of responsibility from people in power across the world (or something of the sort; Grantaire had long stopped paying attention). Had Grantaire been more sober, or perhaps had less of a death wish, he might’ve kept his mouth shut. Instead, he leaned forward. “Don’t lecture me about being an irresponsible parent. Look at your own actions!”
This stopped Enjolras mid-rant, and the look he threw Grantaire was equal parts confused and withering. “What actions?” he asked coldly.
Grantaire grinned a little viciously. “Studies show that children grow up better in two-parent homes, right? So then why are you never around me and our baby? You’re acting like we’re basically a divorced couple, shuttling poor Louis Philippe back and forth, and that can’t be good for our child’s development.”
Enjolras’s mouth opened and closed a few times as if he was completely lost for words. After a long moment, he asked in a strangled voice, “What exactly are you suggesting?”
“Stay the night.” The words were out of Grantaire’s mouth before he could stop and think, before he could realize just how terrible of an idea this was.
Given the look Enjolras gave him, he clearly thought the same thing. “What?” he asked, incredulous.
Grantaire swallowed hard before repeating weakly, “You could spend the night. Just, you know, you, me, and the baby. Like a…like a family. That way when we write our report tomorrow, we wouldn’t necessarily be lying.”
Enjolras was still staring at Grantaire as if he’d grown a second head. “Why in the world would you want to spend the night with me?” he asked. “You hate me.”
Now Grantaire looked taken aback. “I don’t hate you,” he said. “You hate me.”
Enjolras seemed baffled by that. “Of course I don’t,” he snapped. “I told you at the beginning of this, liking you had nothing to do with this. You’re…I mean, yeah, you’re infuriating and you don’t take anything seriously and you coast by in classes that take me hours to study for and show up hungover for exams that I spent hours studying for—”
“I’m sensing a theme here,” Grantaire said dryly.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. I just…I want you to take what we do for Les Amis seriously. I want you to do something worthwhile with your life. I want you to realize how ridiculously smart you are and to apply yourself. I want—” He broke off, his face coloring at the way Grantaire was staring at him. “I just want you to want to do something with your life,” he mumbled.
Grantaire blinked and slowly shook his head. “But — why do you care? We’re barely even friends.”
Enjolras frowned. “We’ve known each other since the second grade when you told me that I was a stupidface. If that doesn’t constitute as friendship, I don’t know what does. Besides, you danced with me at that stupid eighth-grade formal we were all forced to go to, and you kissed me last year at Courfeyrac’s birthday party.”
Grantaire let out a noise like a deflating balloon. “And those are signs of friendship to you?” he asked hoarsely.
Now Enjolras looked confused. “Well, yeah,” he said, as if it was obvious. “You only did that because you felt sorry for me. No one would dance with me, so you did, and when the bottle landed on me in spin the bottle, you kissed me so that Combeferre wouldn’t have to.”
Grantaire laughed, almost falling off of the bed from how hard he was laughing. “You think that I did that out of pity?” he gasped in between bouts of laughter. “You idiot, I’ve been in love with you since second grade! None of those things were altruistic.”
Enjolras gaped at him. “Oh,” he said, slowly. “Then…this project…”
“Yeah,” Grantaire said, suddenly serious. “I agreed to put effort into this because of you. I don’t give a shit, obviously, but you do, so. And, yeah, I kind of fucked it up tonight, because that’s just what I do, I fuck everything up, but…” He bit his lip and looked nervously at Enjolras. “I mean, I know you don’t feel the same way about me, but…”
Enjolras still looked like he was trying to process everything, but he still asked slowly, “So if I had agreed to spend the night tonight…”
Grantaire looked stricken. “Absolutely nothing would have happened,” he assured Enjolras. “We would have slept and in the morning we would have worked on our project. I might even have slept on the couch or whatever depending on what would have made you comfortable, so.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Enjolras said slowly, and sat down on the edge of Grantaire’s bed. “What do you say we start over?” he asked. “Both in our friendship and in…whatever?”
Grantaire blinked. “Um, ok,” he said. “Whatever you want.”
Enjolras smiled slightly. “Well, does the offer to sleep over still stand? Because there’s no better way to start over, don’t you think?”
“I can think of about eighteen better ways to start over, but sure,” Grantaire said faintly. “If…if you want. If, uh, if you think it’ll be good for our project. Or whatever.”
Enjolras frowned. “What project?” he asked, scooting closer to Grantaire, something soft in his expression.
“Yeah,” Grantaire said, staring at Enjolras as if he’d never quite seen him before and scooting closer as well. “Exactly.”
“And so, in addition to learning about the responsibilities of caring for a child, and the comprehensive budget we’ve put together to support our family, we’ve learned several other lessons as well,” Enjolras said as the conclusion to their presentation, and he looked over at Grantaire and smiled.
Grantaire smiled and blushed as well, glancing down at their fingers, which had been laced together for the entirety of the presentation. “We’ve learned about the importance of friends and family,” Grantaire said quietly. “And in starting over and honest communication.” He glanced over at Valjean, who looked impressed. “It’s all very adult. I feel rather weird about it.”
“Well, gentlemen, that was an excellent presentation. If you’ll bring your flour sack over for a final weigh-in, we’ll call this a successful experiment,” Valjean said briskly, then glanced to the back of the classroom, where Principal Javert had been watching the presentations that day in an unplanned classroom observation. “Wouldn’t you agree, Principal Javert?”
Javert made a noncommittal noise and Enjolras and Grantaire brought the flour sack over to Valjean, who weighed it. “Well within the guidelines. Congratulations. I have to look over your report, but I think it’d be difficult for this to not earn you both an ‘A’. And don’t think I don’t know how hard it was for you.”
Enjolras and Grantaire glanced at each other and grinned. “It was easier than you’d expect,” Grantaire assured him, and Valjean smiled and shook his head.
“Of course,” he said smoothly. “I forgot how easy young love is.” Both Enjolras and Grantaire blushed, but neither of them denied it, and Valjean’s smile was smug as he said, “You can return to your seats now.”
They reluctantly parted as they returned to their desks, but Valjean couldn’t help but notice the way they kept looking at each other for the entire rest of the presentations, and Javert’s expression seemed to sour as the period went on. Finally, the bell rang and the students dispersed, and Javert slowly made his way to the front of the classroom. “Principal Javert,” Valjean said lightly. “I hope you enjoyed my students’ presentations.”
Javert crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Don’t think I don’t know what you did there,” he said warningly.
Valjean just looked calmly at him and said in the most innocent voice he could muster, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But while we’re on the subject — I believe you owe me twenty dollars.”
Javert scowled but dug in his pocket for his wallet. “This is the last time I bet against you on students getting together,” he grumbled, slipping out a twenty and handing it to Valjean, who grinned. “I should have done what Fauchelevent did and just taken the over/under on when they’d get together.”
“Well, you can remember that for the next time,” Valjean said smoothly. “After all, I’ve got my eye on a couple of others as well. Do you want in on when Pontmercy might actually work up the courage to talk to my daughter?
“Maybe,” Javert said, still looking disgruntled. “We can discuss it over dinner tonight.”
Valjean grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”
Grantaire leaned up against Enjolras’s locker and grinned. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Enjoying not having to look after a sack of flour for the first time in a week,” Enjolras said wryly, though he smiled at Grantaire. “What are you doing tonight?”
Grantaire’s smile widened. “Hopefully convincing my boyfriend to hang out with me so we can make out. A lot.”
Enjolras snorted and closed his locker. “Yeah, unfortunately, I have homework that needs to get done. As do you, if memory serves, since we have most of the same classes. And since as you know I have to actually domy homework in order to pass my classes…”
“Homework, shmomework,” Grantaire scoffed, leaning in to kiss Enjolras lightly. “Come on, play hooky for one night.”
“Or,” Enjolras said brightly after kissing Grantaire again, “you can come over to my place and we can do our homework together.”
Grantaire narrowed his eyes at him. “You realize that if I come over, I’m going to be doing everything in my power to distract you from actually doing your homework.”
Enjolras grinned. “You can try. But I think at the end of that day you’ll let me get my homework done.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah,” Enjolras said, kissing him once more. “I believe in you.”
Grantaire grinned and kissed Enjolras, pressing him back against the lockers as they deepened the kiss, only breaking apart when Principal Javert snapped, “Gentlemen, school is for learning, not for public displays of affection. Take it elsewhere or break it up.”
They reluctantly pulled apart, and Enjolras reached down to grab Grantaire’s hand. “What do you say?” he asked, grinning. “Take it elsewhere?”
“Oh, yeah,” Grantaire said, leaning in to kiss Enjolras again as they both flipped Javert off with their free hands, and when Javert shouted at them, they broke apart and ran together out of school, laughing and holding hands.