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Enjolras groaned heavily as Grantaire mouthed at the pulse point on his neck. Good God, why had he put everything he could have with the older boy off for so long? They had only been dating a few weeks at this point, and Enjolras was starting to get a bit impatient, but after literal months of not pining, Courfeyrac , thank you very much, he felt like he was a bit entitled to feel that way. Unless Grantaire wasn’t into that, in which case he would be very happy to just kiss and hold hands for the rest of his life, he really would.
But Enjolras didn’t think that was a very big possibility as he felt Grantaire’s very keen interest press into his hip.
Enjolras sighed and tightened his grip on Grantaire’s hips as the latter moved his lips down to Enjolras’s exposed collarbone and began sucking a mark right above.
“God, R, don’t stop.” Enjolras breathed out. His hips bucked up when Grantaire applied his tongue to the stop just so and Enjolras pulled Grantaire’s hips to meet his.
Fuck it, Enjolras thought, the time for going slow is over.
Forgetting everything- the fact that they’re literally in a supply closet at the Musain and that they haven’t been dating for too long and so many other things that if Enjolras pulled himself together and just thought about this they would be stopping right now- Enjolras spun them around and pushed the shorter man into the shelves with a burst of energy.
Grantaire leaned his head back, and with his chest heaving and a bulge pressing against the front of his jeans he looked positively enticing. More than that, he could fuel Enjolras’s fantasies for the rest of his life with just this single image.
God he was so hard, he needed Grantaire now.
Enjolras brought their lips together in a bruising kiss that caused Grantaire to groan loudly into his mouth, giving Enjolras the perfect opportunity to take full control and plunder Grantaire’s mouth with his own.
The kiss turned demanding, both of them shaking with need of the other. Enjolras began to feel weak in the knees, like a damn romance novel heroine or something, and Grantaire seems to notice as he wraps his arms around his middle and holds him close.
Which should not have turned him on even more, he honestly was already more horny than he had ever been before, and yet here he was with Grantaire’s strong boxing and fencing and God knows what else toned arms around his middle and he felt his dick become harder in its confines of his pants.
He rubbed himself against Grantaire’s front, the kiss broken from the need to breathe, and Enjolras knew that this wasn’t going to last very long, and holy Christ, they had only been kissing.
Enjolras opened his eyes- when had he even closed them?- and met Grantaire’s light green-nearly grey ones, and he didn’t know whether he loved this look- pupils blown so wide there was only a small light ring around them- or when they weren’t in the throes of passion better.
“Throes of passion,” good lord, he was a roman novel heroine.
But then his train of thought was severely brought to a halt as Grantaire nudged his leg between Enjolras’s, his knee lightly brushing against Enjolras’s dick and fuck-
Blinking through the light spots obscuring his vision Enjolras blanched.
He had just come in his pants like a fucking teenager, which one could argue he still was one, but really.
That had been nothing, no reason to come that fast and Grantaire-
Grantaire was looking at him with a mix of surprise and lust, like he also couldn’t believe what just happened.
Shame and anger at himself flooded Enjolras’s system and he detached himself from Grantaire. He schooled his face into what he hoped was a neutral look and opened the door to bolt from the closet, hoping that none of their friends were in the café.
Enjolras froze at the top of the stairs to spare a glance back at Grantaire who wasn’t looking at him, but saw the anger on the older man’s face plain as day.
Attempting to swallow past the tightness in his throat, Enjolras rearranged his jacket with the hope that nobody would see the wet spot on his jeans and ran down the stairs and out the door, and didn’t stop running, even after he had lost all his breath, until he was locked inside his apartment.
It wasn’t until he had sunk down onto the floor against the door that he noticed the hot tears that had escaped from his eyes.
Grantaire stared at the tabletop, a scowl pulling at his face. His drink sat in front of him but remained untouched. He hadn’t drank as much since he and Enjolras started dating, if that’s what you wanted to call it.
And, Christ, Grantaire wanted to call it that. He wanted to say he was dating Enjolras, that Enjolras was his boyfriend and he was his. He wanted so many things, so little did he actually get those things. Why did he assume that this would be any different?
He had always successfully driven away every other partner, why did he think he would be able to keep Enjolras.
Golden fury and self-righteousness made up the boy and Grantaire was dark and nothing like the near inhuman eighteen-year-old.
He took a small tug of wine from the bottle and grimaced as the thought of their ages crossed his mind. It wasn’t much of a difference, but it was still something. Grantaire was nearly twenty-three, still working on his bachelor’s, hanging out with kids all at least three years younger than him. Including Enjolras.
Eighteen-not quite nineteen- Enjolras, who is studying fucking law, while Grantaire is almost a year behind on his art degree because he couldn’t be bothered to do his fucking pre-recs when he was eighteen.
Which had been almost five fucking years before.
He took another drink and grimaced further. He didn’t feel like really drinking tonight.
Throwing a few bills on the tables Grantaire grabbed his jacket and walked out of the Corinth, where he had gone directly for after his session with Enjolras at the Musain, where Enjolras had all but run out on him.
No, scratch that, he had also run out on him, right after he made Enjolras come.
In his pants.
Grantaire would feel proud of himself if it weren’t for the fact that something about the making out and impromptu grinding had made Enjolras look at him with such anger and shame.
He had obviously gone too fast too soon, or-
Or, Enjolras finally realized who he was really dating, that he had just had somewhat sex with Grantaire, a guy much older than him (but he said it didn’t matter) who opposed everything he said (he said that he liked having someone to argue with), and not to mention ugly (he said was that he was attracted to Grantaire).
Yeah, Grantaire thought, he’s just finally come to his senses. At least it only took a couple weeks instead of a few months, or, God forbid, years.
That’s all this was, and Grantaire just hoped that Enjolras would be able to find it in himself to forgive Grantaire for being so selfish as to let him make that mistake.
Grantaire looked up at his surroundings and realized he had walked the entire length back to the apartment he rented with Feuilly, the second oldest of the group behind him.
Sighing and looking forward to a night by himself, Grantaire unlocked the door and walked straight to his room, not bothering to greet Feuilly where he sat on the couch with Bahorel, slamming the door behind him.
The next morning brought an early start for Enjolras, who had spent the whole night tossing and turning. It seemed quite ridiculous to still be upset about the day before, but he couldn’t help it, he had embarrassed himself in front of Grantaire, and Grantaire had been obviously disgusted at him.
Enjolras needed to explain himself, that he had been caught unprepared, he just needed a bit more practice, he would be able to last longer if he could just work at it, really.
He sighed, the problem would be trying to sound sexy, not as desperate as he felt. He had never done this before.
And that there was the problem, wasn’t it. Stamina was part of it, but the whole of it was that he was inexperienced where Grantaire was most certainly not.
Grantaire, before they had gotten together, would talk about his previous lovers, how much fun he could have with them, how great they had told him he was.
Enjolras had none of that, he hardly had any stories about kissing, for God’s sake. Before Grantaire he had only kissed one other person at the age of sixteen, hadn’t even made out with them.
Grantaire had been doing more with his mouth than kissing at sixteen than Enjolras could ever dream about at eighteen.
Enjolras curled slightly into himself, pulling the covers up to his chin and burrowing deep into his pillow. God, Grantaire could be with anyone, why would he want someone as inexperienced as him.
But Enjolras wasn’t sure he would be able to end things with Grantaire, no, he was too selfish for that, too selfish to let Grantaire be rid of him.
But he had to.
Grantaire had said on more than one occasion that Enjolras could be with anyone he chose, perhaps he had assumed that Enjolras had been with others, and when he found out that he hadn’t…
Enjolras was embarrassed by the fact that he hadn’t been able to pick up on the fact that Grantaire had obviously been looking for someone experienced when he started dating Enjolras, maybe he didn’t want some kid mucking up his sex life.
And that’s what Enjolras had done.
He had mucked it all up.
He laid curled up in bed for about thirty more minutes until Combeferre knocked on his door announcing that coffee was ready and wondering if he was okay.
“You seemed kinda out of it last night.” Combeferre said, handing Enjolras a mug when he emerged from his room with about nine different kinds of terrible bedhead and a scowl that didn’t quite match his usual morning grumpiness. Instead he looked just down right sad.
“’M fine,” Enjolras muttered over the top of his mug. “R ‘n’ I just kinda got in a fight yesterday. We’ll be fine.”
He wasn’t sure who he was trying to assure with that.
They had a meeting that night where Enjolras told himself he was going to do one of two things: either a) he was going to mend things and keep Grantaire, or b) he was going to pretend nothing happened and keep Grantaire.
Except Grantaire had to go and screw up either plan by showing up early to the Musain.
Enjolras was going over key points for that night with Combeferre and Courfeyrac when he heard heavy boots step up behind him. Enjolras waited a beat before he realized that Grantaire wasn’t going to wrap his arms around him like he usually did- could it even be considered “usually” if he had only done it a handful of times since they started dating only a few weeks prior?- and turned around to meet the other man.
Combeferre and Courfeyrac seemed to realize that they were about to have a conversation that would probably go better without other ears and left the two to themselves. Enjolras felt a childish urge rise up to call them back over for guidance.
“So,” Enjolras started after a moment of silence with Grantaire staring- no, burning a hole with his eyes- at the floor.
“I think we should stop seeing each other.” Grantaire said in a rush, his eyes snapping up to meet Enjolras’s, effective cutting him off, and for once, his face didn’t show any emotion. Not even sadness.
Grantaire was probably happy with the idea of getting rid of Enjolras.
And he wanted nothing but happiness for Grantaire, even if it wasn’t with him.
Enjolras lowered his gaze, his eyes burning and a tightness crawling up his chest and into his throat. All he could do was nod.
Grantaire said something, but Enjolras couldn’t understand him over the rush of blood in his ears, and he had to close his eyes when he saw Grantaire’s boots turn to walk away.
A tear still escaped them.
Grantaire wasn’t there the next week.
“He took over a shift for a sick coworker,” Feuilly explained with a shrug when Enjolras asked about the artist.
“Said to give you his best though, and that he’ll be here disagreeing with you in spirit.” Bahorel added with a smirk.
It didn’t make Enjolras feel any better though, especially when Grantaire also missed the group’s monthly movie night, and the meeting the following week.
But whenever he tried to get in contact with him, he always heard the same excuse: he was covering for a sick coworker.
Yeah, and screening his phone calls because this coworker obviously worked twenty-four-seven and wasn’t allowed breaks to answer a fucking message.
Worst of all he could tell his friends were starting to become agitated with him because of his mood, which he was only in a mood because Grantaire wouldn’t talk to him.
Did he really hate Enjolras that much for not being experienced enough? It’s not like Grantaire had loved him or anything, his sexual knowledge shouldn’t have been the cause of anything if he had, but he didn’t realize that Grantaire had been so emotionally involved if he couldn’t make it to the Musain to be with their friends.
That was the kind of stuff he was pondering the morning after Grantaire had missed a third meeting in a row when he received a text from Courfeyrac.
>>Courfeyrac: breakfast party at the musain!!!! :DDDD
>>Courfeyrac: this means u 2 enjy!!
Sighing from his position propped against his pillows in bed Enjolras knew he should get up and go see his friends. He hadn’t seen very much of them in a bit, meetings didn’t count, not really, and Combeferre would be knocking on his door soon with coffee and asking if he was going. He would then probably spit out straight up wisdom about how Enjolras needed interaction with other people if he was going to get over Grantaire before he could even turn down the offer.
Not that Enjolras wanted to get over Grantaire, nor that it would be easy, but his assumption Combeferre was right, he did need to get out and see people.
Slipping out of his room Enjolras managed to shower and was just toweling his hair dry when the knock came, along with the promise of coffee.
It was a staple to how Enjolras had been feeling that when they showed up eight minutes late and Courfeyrac made a comment about it, he felt relieved about it. They weren’t walking on eggshells around him anymore, and he felt like he could breathe easy.
And then Feuilly and Bahorel walked through the door with Grantaire.
He froze, and breathing became hard again.
But that was nothing compared to how he felt when Grantaire spotted him, spun to face Feuilly and hissed, “You said he wasn’t going to be here!”
Enjolras felt his heart shatter.
Grantaire legitimately hated him.
Maybe the whole thing had been about sex, at this point Enjolras couldn’t see how it could have been about feelings, at least for Grantaire.
But when Grantaire made to leave, Bahorel stopped him, and Courfeyrac stood up and grabbed Enjolras by the arm, hoisting him up as well.
“You two need to talk,” Courfeyrac said, leading a struggling Enjolras to a supply closet- the same closet- as Bahorel dragged an equally unwilling Grantaire behind them.
Grantaire’s eyes widened in horror as he realized what they were planning on doing, and why hadn’t he just said something if he was so uncomfortable with being together? Christ, they had been holding hands and kissing lightly for three weeks before anything remotely sexual happened, why had Grantaire put up with it?
Why couldn’t he have just held himself together for a couple more minutes?
“Let him go,” Enjolras mumbled, feeling defeated. Why bother when them getting back together was something that was clearly never going to happen? He clearly loved Grantaire when all the other man had ever felt was some amount of lust, but certainly not enough to continue a relationship if their first time getting into anything even remotely sexual going horribly had proved anything.
But Courfeyrac and Bahorel didn’t listen and instead used a moment of break in Grantaire’s struggling to vault them both into the closet and slam the door shut.
And knowing that this had obviously been a plan, somebody had probably obtained keys from somewhere to ensure that they didn’t leave until they had talked, or killed each other.
Whichever happened first.
Enjolras picked himself up and moved as far away from Grantaire as he could in the small space and sighed. He sat down against one of the shelving units and pulled his knees up to rest his chin on them.
He looked across at Grantaire who had moved similarly to the opposite side to sit against the wall.
“So,” Enjolras began and faltered.
What was he supposed to say anyways? He knew that they had broken up and he understood why. He just didn’t understand why everyone insisted on dragging it out.
“You haven’t come to any meetings recently.” He finished lamely, avoiding looking at Grantaire. Looking at Grantaire would cause all those emotions of the previous weeks to come bubbling up, and he couldn’t risk that, not with him this close.
Grantaire snorted and crossed his arms. “I didn’t think you would want me there, after, well, you know…” He shrugged.
Enjolras nodded, his voice thick, “Yeah, I do. After you broke up with me because…” he took a deep breath, “because I’m inexperienced, y’know, sexually.”
God this was embarrassing. Of course Grantaire knew, he had been the one to break them up.
“What?!” Grantaire’s exclamation was nowhere near what Enjolras had been expecting and he looked up and met an alarmed and slightly incredulous gaze.
Enjolras felt his neck warm up and the heat spread as he said, “Yeah, well, yeah. Why else would you have looked so upset and disgusted after I, um,” he could tell his whole face was red at this point. “I’m nowhere near as experienced as you thought I was and you were mad because I had led you to believe something that wasn’t true. I wasn’t the lay you thought I was going to be and I disappointed you.”
Grantaire’s expression didn’t change much as Enjolras spoke, save for becoming more unbelieving.
Enjolras thought that he hadn’t pleased him? Had he not realized that making Enjolras come as fast as he had had made Grantaire come in his pants just after? He must not because the boy was still talking on about how sorry he was and-
“You really have no idea, do you?” Grantaire asked, sounding out of breath.
Enjolras stopped talking and looked at him, “No idea about what?”
Not having the words to answer, Grantaire crawled forward and cupped the back of Enjolras’s head. He made sure to give the boy plenty of time to move away before he brought their lips together.
It was nothing like how they had been kissing, what seemed like so long ago now, it was slow, one might even say sweet. Grantaire kept it at a languid pace, his other hand moving to Enjolras’s jaw, his thumb rubbing softly against the pale, smooth skin.
And when Enjolras made to pull away, Grantaire let him.
Enjolras’s brows furrowed together and met Grantaire in the eyes before speaking, “But, I thought that…”
He trailed off, looking at Grantaire expectantly, obviously wanting to know what he was missing.
Grantaire moved his hand in Enjolras’s hair down to cup the other side of his jaw, “For a smart kid, you sure are stupid.”
Enjolras huffed and rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything, allowing Grantaire to continue.
“When we were together in here I was beyond blissed out, I’m sure you remember.” Enjolras nodded, but didn’t speak, the image of Grantaire wrecked from simply kissing would be one Enjolras wouldn’t be forgetting too soon.
“Then you came in your fucking pants-Christ on a fucking stick.” Enjolras felt his cheeks flare up with color again and tried to pull away from Grantaire.
“Let me finish,” Grantaire ordered, and Enjolras obeyed, and God, he should not be thinking about how Grantaire ordering him around is really hot.
“You came in your pants, like a fucking teenager, and I have never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.
“And here I thought, this whole time, that you had been upset at me, because I had pushed you too far too fast, or that you had, quite literally, sorry, come to the realization that being with me was a terrible mistake.”
Enjolras laughed slightly, but it was obscured behind the thickness of his voice, “Only a mistake if you ever use that pun again.”
Grantaire laughed, but it faded just as quickly. He pulled Enjolras’s face to level with his and met his eyes.
“I love you Enjolras, how you didn’t realize that I don’t know, but what I do know is that I don’t care how much or little experience you have, okay? Because being with you is all I need.”
Enjolras nodded, a small smile on his face, “I’d still like to be able to last a little longer than I did before.”
Grantaire’s lips pulled into a full-blown grin as he said, “We’d better start practicing then.”