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Grantaire noticed many things about Enjolras, like how he cracked his knuckles while focusing on grading papers, or how he scrunched up his nose to push up his glasses, and when that failed (as it usually did), he’d use his finger, or how he immediately latched onto Grantaire in bed, even when asleep. They could even spot when Enjolras was particularly frustrated, because then he’d start throwing things.
Well, not in a tantrum sort of way. Really, it was just a way to express his feelings at students not reaching for their fullest potential and submitting lazy work. And really, Grantaire pitied the poor soul who found themselves on the receiving end of Enjolras’ wrath. The thought of being faced down with a controlled calmness and repeated whys was utterly terrifying, and they never wished to experience that. Not ever.
Then again, it only came out when Teacher Enjolras did, and thankfully Grantaire had never witnessed that at its greatest. It was much, much more subdued at home, where Grantaire was perfectly content to help Enjolras grade homework and refill his coffee cup and provide helpful commentary on the students’ work. Besides, they didn’t have the energy to deal with Teacher Enjolras all the time. They taught piano at their house, and that was battle enough for them, thank you very much.
And then there were their kids, which, while they both loved them very much, they were also quite a lot of work to take care of.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Grantaire had complained to Marius and Cosette as he pulled the fifth all-nighter in a row. “God, if I had known--”
Cosette only laughed. “Well, I don’t wanna say it’s worth it, because that’s too cliche, but if I’m being completely honest, sometimes it is worth it.”
“Yeah, but God, I’m gonna be so fucking sleep deprived. I can’t wait for Max to grow up. Actually, no, that’s too far away. I can’t wait for Enj’s turn to stay up with her. I’m so fucking tired, you won’t believe it.”
“R, we’ve already had two kids. I think we can believe it,” Cosette responded with another laugh. From their end, Grantaire swore they could hear Marius muttering something about how he’d kill for a minute of sleep, and if he was being honest, he was about to do the same thing.
Grantaire was incredibly grateful when Maxine (or Max as they called her) grew up and no longer needed constant supervision throughout the night. However, her brother Jacques was even worse, and doubly made Grantaire sure that he never wanted to adopt babies ever again. (How did Marius and Cosette raise four children? Four? ) Perhaps a toddler, definitely someone who got past the potty training stage. (That was hell too. Both of them had to deal with so many accidents . . .)
Even so, they loved Max and Jacques very much, and wouldn't trade the time spent with them for anything in the world. They loved lazy Sunday mornings where Max would climb into bed and Jacques would follow, his tiny legs kicking as he struggled to reach the mattress, much less climb up. And so Enjolras would pick him up and hold him close to his body, and they'd all stay there for another hour and so, and then they would all head downstairs to watch Grantaire cook as Enjolras tried to help them. No, he wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.
There were moments they cherished and moments they didn't. They cried when they took Max to her first day of school and when Jacques took his first steps, but they were glad to be rid of Max’s habit of wetting the bed (mostly) and Jacques throwing food all over the walls (again, mostly).
Hopefully, the worst of it was over. Jacques had just turned two, and Grantaire found that he had more peaceful sleeps, though they were still few and far between. However, with the restful nights came restless days; Jacques was prone to tantrums and still had the habit of putting everything he saw in his mouth (Enjolras caught Jacques chewing on a pot brownie the babysitter brought over and fired the babysitter on the spot, which Grantaire found both amusing and highly concerning.)
Thankfully, the house was baby proofed and Jacques was not currently crying his lungs out for one reason or another and he was in fact sitting peacefully at the tiny kids table they bought specifically for the kids, taking after his father (or “R!”, as he called Grantaire) as he drew something that Grantaire couldn’t make out from where he was sitting on the couch.
The sudden signature knock on the door (tapping out “Ange” in Morse Code) made Grantaire startle, and then laugh, for that was how they knew that Enjolras had accidentally forgotten to take the keys to enter their house, and now had to enter via the entrance where Grantaire’s music students had to enter to get to their piano lessons. They picked up Jacques (because he was too unpredictable to leave behind and Grantaire did not want to risk another Pot Brownie Incident) and headed towards the door in the piano room.
“Forgot your keys again?” he asked as Enjolras entered with a scowl.
“I was in a hurry,” they muttered as they took off their coat and their daughter came in as well. “They wanted me to come in because some teacher hadn’t shown up yet and I have first period off.”
“Ah. That explains why you were out so early.”
Enjolras nodded, rubbing his eyes, but his mood was greatly improved by Jacques squealing “Dada!” as he held out his hands to signal that he wanted to be picked up by him. “Up! Up!”
“Yes, yes, up you go,” he said, rolling his eyes before hoisting him up and lifting him above his head. “There you go, my little astronaut.” Jacques giggled as he waved his arms pretending to be in space.
When Jacques had finally come back down to Earth, Grantaire kissed their husband on the cheek and whispered, “Dork.”
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same,” Enjolras retorted, before they kissed again.
Max’s huffing interrupted their kissing, for she was growing impatient waiting for her afternoon snack. After Enjolras scolded her gently and reminded her of the virtue of patience and whatnot, they all enjoyed a little snack (a basket of oranges Grantaire had somehow acquired at the farmer’s market) and listened to Max and Enjolras talk about their day. While Max’s day had gone quite pleasantly (they learned about sentence structures and Max was praised by her teacher), Enjolras’ day was rather more sour. He’d had to grade a series of tests with essays, and the class average was lower than it would normally be.
“I don’t get it,” he muttered. “They’re all so bright--I don’t get why they can’t quite grasp this concept. Maybe I should spend more time on this part of the chapter, because it’s actually quite important. But, have you seen the essays? They’re honestly just--” He threw his hands up. “It’s frustrating to see your class fail to put in the effort you know they’re capable of. It’s like they just looked at the bare minimum required to pass and then used that to just get by. There’s no passion, no effort, nothing!”
Grantaire merely nodded along, feeling the frustration emanating off Enjolras. While he did not have to grade any tests, he had a couple students that he could tell were not putting their all into it, whether it be due to lack of proper enrichment or due to circumstances Grantaire had no control over or did not know about. All the same, he sympathized with them, as he did slack off multiple times during his school years, due to depression, lack of motivation, and other factors. He understood why someone might not have given their all, and while he thought maybe they should put some effort in, he didn’t fault them for it, not at all. Still, he did think it was a bit of a burden on his poor husband.
“Well, let’s hope their homework is slightly better,” they said, reaching over to place their hand on their husband’s. Enjolras nodded silently, before finishing his bowl of cereal and walking over to the table where he usually graded assignments, tests, and the like.
Jacques tugged on Grantaire’s sleeve and pointed towards the kids table (next to where Enjolras was sitting), before saying “Dwaw!” They laughed and picked him up, carrying him to the table and placing him on one of the chairs. Looking down, they saw that Jacques had been drawing . . . well, they weren’t sure what that was. He looked inquisitively at Jacques, who simply said “Monstaw!” As they inspected the drawing more, and took in the jumble of colors, gaping maw, and tangle of limbs, they decided that they probably didn’t want to inquire more. (At least they knew what new horror was going to haunt them in their sleep.)
Minutes, probably hours passed, where Grantaire and Max were simply sitting on the couch, and Max had probably fallen asleep during the art documentary Grantaire had put on, and Jacques had moved on from drawing monsters to trying to see what the color green tasted like, so Grantaire had to intervene. (“Sorry buddy, you can’t eat crayons. Not nutritious.”) It was the kind of easygoing day that he loved, where Grantaire could take a break from classes and could spend time with his kids and husband.
His relaxation time was interrupted by Enjolras growling frustratedly and having to dodge a red pen that had flown out of their grasp. “Enj, my love, could you watch the aim a bit?”
“Oh--sorry,” Enjolras said, a bit distracted.
Grantaire smiled. “No problems.” They made a mental note to make Enjolras a cup of hot chocolate.
Another couple of minutes must have passed before Enjolras let out another frustrated sigh. “Patrick?” they asked, having been the receiving end of many frustrated rants about said student in Enjolras’ AP Government class.
“No--the earlier one was Patrick. This one is Denise.”
“Ah.”
“Good guess, though.”
“Do you want hot chocolate?”
Enjolras pouted. “What, no coffee?”
“Not to be a stickler for rules, but remember what Combeferre said?” Grantaire asked, a smirk on their face.
A sigh escaped Enjolras’ lips. “No caffeine after school. Fine.” His “fine” was drawn out in the way a child would draw it out, which made Grantaire smirk more.
“Alright, I’ll get started.”
If Grantaire had looked back, he would’ve seen Enjolras’ sweet smile. And he would have smiled too, for despite Enjolras’ woes, this was a perfect day.
~*~
When they adopted Max, Grantaire had wondered whether she would take after themselves or Enjolras, or a little bit of both. It had turned out that indeed, she had picked up on Enjolras’ stubbornness and Grantaire’s snarkiness, but also Courfeyrac’s wit, Joly’s humor, and Bossuet’s clumsiness. It intrigued them as to how children were shaped by the people around them, and they wondered how their friends would go on to influence young Jacques.
It remained to be seen if Jacques would think out what he was going to say, like Enjolras, who was always thinking, thinking so fast his mouth couldn’t keep up, or if he would blurt out whatever came to mind, with a sharp wit and tongue, like Grantaire. Nevertheless, whatever happened, Grantaire was sure he would go on to do great things. (Christ, he sounded like some motivational speaker. He hated that. He hated it when he had to listen to some adult drone on about how they were all destined for greatness. He hated that. That was bullshit. Yeah, he did pretty well for himself but it was a hard time getting there.)
However, although Jacques was still hiding some things, it seemed that he was turning out to be quite the artist, as evident from his many drawings of monsters, random things around the house, and them. It turned out that Jacques was especially fond of drawing Grantaire, Enjolras, Max, and their friends as aliens. Grantaire happened to be a green alien, which secretly pleased them. Yet they couldn’t shake the feeling that there was an Enjolras-like quality to him. Jacques did look a bit like Enjolras--blond hair, blue, round eyes that held powerful emotions, but other than that, Jacques didn’t look a thing like Enjolras. Enjolras didn’t have Jacques cute little button nose and Jacques didn’t have Enjolras’ curly hair that he often kept short and out of his way. If they were the same age, no one would have mistaken them for the same person.
But there was something of Enjolras in him--they were sure of it. After all, Enjolras was a highly influential person; Grantaire once caught themselves thinking through things in a Enjolras-like fashion, and also they became accustomed to Enjolras’ daily routine, to the point where they could both wake up and get ready in sync.
His suspicions were proved correct one day, when Enjolras again suffered the Duties of Grading Terrible Essays, in which he watched his husband struggle through grading essays of varying effort and grades. Sometimes Enjolras would be sighing with relief whenever they got to the end of the essay and could mark 100%, other times they’d put their head in their hands and let out a sharp huff that signaled they needed a break, in which Grantaire took over. (They’d been trained on how to grade essays, and although they still needed practice, they were now trusted with assisting Enjolras in grading duties)
Today, Grantaire was sitting next to Enjolras, looking over half of the essays, when they heard a frustrated grunt, and caught him throwing his pen across the table.
“Bad essay?”
“Very.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Patrick.”
“Ah.” Grantaire knew of the infamy of Patrick, but never quite grasped why he always caught Enjolras’ ire. They decided not to dwell on it, for if they asked, Enjolras would be explaining until next week.
“It’s just--he can be a brilliant student, really, even if he likes playing devil’s advocate too much, and I just don’t get why he won’t try ! I’m--argh!”
Grantaire rubbed their back and was about to offer some comforting words when across the room, Jacques squealed in a way that seemed to imitate Enjolras’ growls of frustration, before throwing his crayon across the table, surprising them both.
“Huh,” Enjolras said, as Grantaire let out a little laugh.
“I think he finds you funny.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. “Okay, maybe it is a little funny, but surely . . .”
They laughed. “Enj, he finds it hilarious.”
“It doesn’t make sense!”
“May I remind you that toddlers rarely make any sense? How much sense did you make when you were two?”
Enjolras seemed to ponder the question for a bit, until he shrugged. “Dunno, I can’t remember that far back.”
“I bet it wasn’t a lot.”
“You’re probably right.” They chuckled and looked over at Jacques, who had since retrieved his crayon and had begun his doodling anew. “Although I think we should be careful; I don’t really want to encourage that kind of behavior in him. Imagine if he starts throwing larger or fragile items when he’s upset.”
Grantaire raised his eyebrow at them once again, and they held their hands up. “Yeah, yeah, I know, monkey see, monkey do. I’ll try to do it less.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
~*~
While Enjolras did stick to his promise of cutting back on throwing things when frustrated, it proved a bit more difficult to train the behavior out of Jacques, who kept questioning why he shouldn’t be throwing crayons in order to imitate his Dada.
“It’s not nice, Jacques.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re showing a disregard for property, and you’re dealing with negative emotions in an unhealthy way.”
“Wha?”
“Um . . .” Enjolras racked his brain for a way to explain it in a way toddlers could understand. He didn’t believe in talking down to them, but he supposed that even the brightest kids had their limit. “That is to say . . . uh, you’re not treating the crayons with respect. And you can’t just throw things when you’re upset.”
Jacques frowned. “But . . .”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Dada does it too. But just because Dada does it doesn’t mean you should too. Not everything I do is a good thing.”
“But you’re . . .” Jacques struggled to articulate his thoughts, and Enjolras sighed, before picking him up.
“Jacques, you must understand: I am not perfect. Neither is R. No adult is. Not everything we do is good.” He paused, before continuing. “We’re gonna try to set a good example for you, R and I, but you must understand that we’re not always going to be perfect.” Enjolras sighed. He wondered if that was good enough for Jacques. Sometimes it felt like whenever he interacted with kids he was doing it all wrong. Always. Whether it was interacting with his friends’ kids, or with strangers’ kids, or even the students he was teaching. (Yeah, they were older, they were almost adults, but he felt incredibly removed from them. Sometimes it felt like they were speaking a whole different language.) How was one even supposed to talk to a toddler? He didn’t even remember how he interacted with Max. Somehow all her toddler years passed by in a blur.
He took a deep breath, before smiling wearily at Jacques. “We’re gonna have to figure this out, you and I.”
Enjolras had a daily routine that he liked to stick to. It calmed him to know that there wasn’t going to be anything unexpected. He would get up, wash his face, get dressed, tidy up a bit, eat breakfast, review the lesson plan, and then grab his lunch and drive to school. Although he wasn’t perfect, he tried to be punctual. Do everything in the same amount of time. It would have been nice to do everything earlier than expected, but then he never knew what to do with the extra time, and it ended up costing him anyways. No, doing everything on time was better.
Yet, he wasn’t always perfect. Sometimes he woke up late, meaning he only had time to get dressed and then grab a banana and his lunch before rushing to school. Sometimes he forgot about breakfast because he was too busy revising his lesson plan (which he always pushed until the last minute, because he was too busy planning future lessons), and sometimes he forgot his lunch because he was in a hurry.
Today, his lunch wasn’t in the same place as it always was, on the kitchen counter right by the door. He looked around, but his lunch bag was nowhere to be seen. He checked his watch, before grunting in frustration and heading out towards the garage. Inquiries about lunch were going to have to wait; he was running a bit later than expected. Yes, he wasn’t always perfect.
By the time he reached the classroom, he had too many other thoughts on his mind to even care about the lunch bag. He was running behind with fourth period, and he knew he had to stress the importance of the Bill of Rights, but they were still working on the Constitution, and he didn’t want to move ahead with third period, who had already finished the Bill of Rights, but he didn’t know what else to do. He needed to write this all down.
Turning around, they started to write down all their grievances on the board. Second period wouldn’t be for a while; they could be working at this for a while. So they continued to write down how they should go about things. Luckily, it was a Wednesday, so perhaps they could use it as an extra review day for third period, and then try to hurry up fourth period on the Constitution, so they’d all be ready for the quiz on Friday. Yes . . . perhaps . . .
At last, they seemed to get their lesson plan down, and began erasing the board in time for second period.
Second and third period passed by without a hitch, but then in fourth period, he had an unexpected visitor.
“Grantaire?” Their husband was standing at the door, with Jacques in his arms and Enjolras’ lunch bag in the other. “Wha--”
“Oh my God, it’s my piano teacher!” screamed a student at the same time Grantaire said, “Woke up late, didn’t make lunch, sorry. Here ya go.”
Enjolras smiled, took it, and leaned in for a kiss. When they pulled away, their class all had a dumbfounded expression, and then started asking questions.
“Who is that?”
“Is that your boyfriend ?”
“Don’t be stupid, Katie, that’s probably his husband!”
“Oh my God, Mr. Enjolras actually has a husband?”
“I can’t believe my piano teacher and AP Gov teacher are married --”
Enjolras sighed and banged the gavel he had, to try and get his class to calm down. “Yes, this is my husband, Grantaire. And my son. Say hello to my fourth period AP Government class.”
Grantaire waved with a devilish smirk. “Hey. And hello to you too, Winston,” they said, making the student who had blurted out about his piano teacher blush and turn away.
“Well, again, thank you, Grantaire. Um, anyways, back to class. Now, since we really need to learn about the Bill of Rights . . . who can tell me about them?” The class stared at him with blank looks. “Alright then . . . Patrick?”
Patrick froze, before looking around, as if searching for an escape. “Me? Um, uh, I--I don’t know.”
Enjolras nodded, trying to resist the urge to groan loudly. Before he could call on someone else, he was interrupted by something he thought he wouldn’t see again: Jacques squealing and throwing something. (Which he thought he’d trained out, but alas.) In Patrick’s case, he was hit in the chest with a toy dinosaur.
Mortified, Enjolras began to apologize, but it seemed no one could hear him over all the laughter coming from everyone but him and Patrick.
Eventually they were able to get everyone to calm down by banging the gavel several times, but they were pretty sure their authority had been undermined with the presence of their husband, not to mention their toy-dinosaur-throwing toddler. (Not that they were mad. It wasn’t their fault that Enjolras simply had to fight to keep it together whenever he saw Grantaire. It really was hard to not just run out with them, but they had a job to do.)
“Say goodbye, Jacques,” Grantaire said, and Jacques waved his tiny hands.
“Buh bye!” he cried, making the students laugh.
When they were both out the door, the students all gave Enjolras the same look . God, he was never going to hear the end of this.
“Your son is very cute,” one student piped up.
“Er, thank you. Now, if we could please get back to the Bill of Rights . . . we don’t have much time and your quiz is on Friday . . . Right, who can tell me about them? Anyone?” He stifled another groan when only one student raised their hand.
“Alright then, Brandon?”
“The Bill of Rights were a set of amendments made to the Constitution of the United States of America, written by James Madison in order to ensure basic rights for the people of the United States. There are ten amendments. The first one is--”
Enjolras held their hands up to signal for Brandon to stop. Brandon was a great student, but sometimes he could ramble on too much. Like Grantaire , they thought, before shaking that aside. They were at work now. Their husband could wait. “Thank you-- yes, Patrick? ” they grumbled, for now Patrick had his hand up.
“Why does your kid hate me?”
They were going to have a talk with Jacques when they got home (read: sigh and smile and try once more to tell him that throwing things wasn’t nice but ultimately laugh because Jacques was just too damn cute), but for now, they had to answer this question that was getting in the way of their lesson plan. “Well, Patrick, I suppose it’s because . . .” They waved their hands in order to come up with an explanation. “I suppose it’s because my son has accidentally picked up on some of my habits.”
“Like throwing things?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“But why me?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That is for you to figure out. I think you should know.”
Patrick seemed to shrink down in his seat, and Enjolras was about to breathe a sigh of relief at being able to return to his teaching, but then it seemed that his students were more interested in their son than the US government. He sighed. Maybe the Bill of Rights quiz would have to wait until next Monday.
“How old is your son?”
“What’s his name?”
“He looks just like you!”
Enjolras sat down on the stool, like he did whenever he was lecturing or tired. “Not telling, not telling, and yes, I’m well aware of his similarities with me.”
In truth, Enjolras was well aware of Jacques’ differences with him. Jacques never really struck him as a kid similar to him; he thought he took more after Grantaire if anything. (Or Bossuet, if he had to choose a member of their friend group.) Yet Jacques had clearly also imitated his father’s actions, to the point where he also got “irate” (for lack of a better word) whenever he heard Patrick’s name. Not that Enjolras did, but he supposed it was interesting that Jacques had picked up on his annoyance.
Indeed, maybe the saying “like father, like son” did hold some weight. He supposed he would have to wait a little longer to see what other traits cropped up, but for now the thought made him happy.
Like father, like son. Indeed, they were.