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"No," Enjolras said.
"You haven't even heard me out!" Courfeyrac complained.
"You are wearing a T-shirt saying 'Listen to Courfeyrac, he is always right'. The last time you made a shirt to convince me of doing something I married Feuilly. So, no, whatever it is, it's not happening!"
"I take offense at that!", his ex-husband announced from the other side of the dinner table. They had been discussing what could be done about unemployment over a game of cards in Combeferre's and Enjolras' apartment until Courfeyrac had stormed in, a wide grin on his face.
"You are both no fun," he now said with a pout, grin back on his face only seconds later. "Oh well, no matter! That's why I brought backup. Ferre! Marius!"
The door opened and Combeferre and Marius shuffled inside, both deliberately not meeting Enjolras' eyes. While his best friend pressed a laptop to his chest, nervously playing with the hem of his shirt, Marius downright hid behind Combeferre. Enjolras raised an unimpressed eyebrow, making Marius duck his head even further behind Combeferre's back and Combeferre's eyes dart towards Courfeyrac, a faint blush on his cheeks. Yeah, Enjolras knew precisely why he was doing this.
"Combeferre has prepared a power point presentation," Courfeyrac announced cheerfully.
"Did he now?" For that Enjolras got a glare from both his best friends, which he probably deserved.
When Combeferre set down the laptop in front of him, Enjolras could see that he was also wearing a 'Listen to Courfeyrac, he is always right!'-Shirt. He decided not to comment on it. Combeferre opened the laptop, while Feuilly came around the table, curious about what Courfeyrac had cooked up this time. The first slide on the presentation read 'A Well Deserved Bonding Experience Through Fun And Moderate Scares And Why It Is A Marvelous Idea' and Enjolras squinted at it for a bit.
"A haunted house?" he finally asked, remembering Jehan and Bahorel talking about it.
"Yes!" Courfeyrac exclaimed. "I've always wanted to go and now they opened one here in the neighborhood and it would be awesome for us as a group. Scary experiences are supposed to strengthen your bonds with people, Ferre has done all the science-", he babbled on. They were a codependent bunch as it was, with no need to strengthen anything, but Courfeyrac wasn't done yet. "and really we deserve a night out all together and that's why it's so important that you're with us. That hasn't happen in like forever as you might have noticed. Well, aside from the protest last month but that doesn't really count, does it? Come on, just say yes, Enjolras!"
Enjolras looked from Courfeyrac's hopeful smile to Combeferre's still slightly flushed face to Marius' wide eyes.
"Must we really?" he asked.
Combeferre gave him an understanding smile.
"Yes, we must," answered Courfeyrac.
"He kinda has his mind set on it," Marius chipped in. He was still in hiding and his head simply disappeared behind Combeferre's shoulders, when Enjolras fixed his eyes on him. It was kind of impressive for a lanky guy like him to fit behind Combeferre.
"Fine," he sighed.
"Yes!" Courfeyrac exclaimed and boxed the air. "I told you the t-shirts would work." He gave Marius an encouraging grin.
"They really, really didn't." Enjolras and Feuilly picked up their cards again, both trying to suppress a grin. Courfeyrac gasped dramatically.
"How dare you? My shirts are awesome!"
"You only make them when you have no real arguments to back up your plans, so no, they're not awesome."
"You know what? I am never taking you to Vegas ever again."
"Good."
And this is how he ended up in a haunted house maybe clinging a bit too tightly to Combeferre's sleeve.
The thing was, Enjolras was actually not easily scared. He could face a wall of cops, the intimidating security detail of a CEO he was about to have a strong word with or even an ill-meaning judge he was pleading his case to, without batting an eyelash. He had been in more fights than he could count and not even the odds of one to seven had made him even consider backing down. That one had almost ended badly if not for Jehan and Bahorel turning up to save the day, but that was beside the point. The point was that real life situations did not scare him, yet somehow he always ended up with his face pressed into a pillow whenever they watched a horror movie. The strategic use of foreshadowing, eery music and shock moments for some reason worked really well on him, much to the amusement of his friends and his own annoyance. Plus, his conviction usually overrode his fear, but here, in a haunted house, there was no freedom or equality to fight for. Only monsters that wanted to eat his face and that weren't even real , he told himself, while shuffling closer to Combeferre.
"Guys, look!" Jehan said excitedly, pointing at the ceiling. They were maybe in the third or forth room of the tour and Enjolras had already let out two very undignified squeaks, one when someone (he tried really hard not to think 'something' ) had sprayed a little bit of cold water on his neck and the other when he had stupidly opened the door to the second room and a skeleton had swung down to almost hit him in the face. He got close to letting out squeak number three when he looked up to be greeted with a gigantic spider, sitting in the corner above the door so none of them could see it upon entering, ready to jump down on them any second. A fake spider, he reminded himself.
"Wow," mumbled Combeferre after a few seconds of silence. "This is surprisingly well made. A very accurate model."
"Wait, are you saying you can actually tell what species this is?" asked Courfeyrac, suddenly appearing next to Combeferre, while Jehan was still beaming up at the spider.
"Well, I don't know if it's intended, but it does look a lot like a red widow, an endangered species mostly found in Florida. Closely related to the black widow, but if you look at the markings and the color of the upper body it differs greatly from the black widow spider."
Courfeyrac grinned. "And that's why you're my favorite nerd," he said, while playfully shoving Combeferre.
"It's really scary, isn't it?" Marius said, hand reaching for the back of Feuilly's shirt for emotional support.
"Don't worry, there is no record of a red widow ever biting a human, so no one really knows what its bite can do," Combeferre said and then frowned. "That sounded way more encouraging in my head…"
Courfeyrac snickered while patting his shoulder. "You tried."
In this moment the front legs of the red widow shot up and they all screamed. Courfeyrac almost jumped into Combeferre's arms, while Bahorel actually jumped into Feuilly's, making them both fall over, only closely avoiding Marius. Jehan was still smiling with glee at the spider.
"That. Was awesome," they said, then turned to their boyfriend on the floor. "I want one."
"We're not getting a spider!" Bahorel answered from the floor, voice a bit higher than usual. "Not a fake one for ceiling corners and not a real one for you to pet. No. Not happening!"
Two rooms later Jehan was still pouting, mostly for show Enjolras assumed, as they were holding Bahorel's hand and gently patting his arm whenever their boyfriend flinched at something. Enjolras had switched from Combeferre's sleeve to Feuilly's to give his best friends, who were still clinging to each other, some room. It was not the same, mostly because Feuilly was considerably shorter than him, not providing the same kind of shield that Combeferre's broad shoulders did. The only one who seemed to be doing worse than him was Marius, who was clinging to Jehan's other side, whimpering from time to time.
Despite all the scares and screams, he had to give it to Courfeyrac, this was kind of nice. All of them, out, together. He even caught himself smiling a little bit from time to time. When he wasn't busy irrationally fearing for his life that is.
They walked up a staircase only illuminated by a flickering lightbulb, reaching the next floor, a long dimly lit hall way with doors on both sides.
"Do you think we should even try the doors?" Feuilly asked, making them remember all the jump-scares that had hidden behind doors so far.
"Definitely!" Jehan exclaimed, letting go of Bahorel's hand in favor of walking to the nearest door on the right and grabbing the doorknob. "You ready?", they whispered a smile on their face.
"Someone do a drum roll." Courfeyrac whispered back, getting a few strained laughs. All eyes were trained at the door, a few of them even holding their breath, when a deep and horrifying growl came from behind them.
It is common knowledge that when faced with sudden danger humans react in two different ways, fight or flight. Enjolras, who happened to be the closest to the source of the terrifying sound and also not holding onto any sleeves at the moment, was the first kind. So before his brain had even realized what he was doing he had swirled around and punched the zombie in the face.
The man took a wobbly step back, then his knees gave in and he sunk onto the floor, both hands cradled around his nose, with worrying amounts of blood already covering his face and his shirt. Enjolras hoped that at least some of it was fake.
"Jesus, fuck! Are you fucking nuts ?" he yelled, snapping them all out of their stupor of oh my god Enjolras just punched that guy .
"Oh god, I'm so, so sorry!" Enjolras took a step towards him, then stopping himself when the guy he'd just punched looked up to glare at him. He had the brightest brown eye's Enjolras had ever seen, almost golden, and Enjolras really didn't know why he would even notice that right now. "I didn't mean- It was a reflex! I am so sorry. Are you okay?" he babbled on, while Combeferre rushed to the man's side to look at his nose. He was their med student after all.
The man on the floor was about to give a snappy comeback, but Combeferre demanded his attention. "I work at a hospital. I want to help. Can I have a look at it?" he said in the calming voice he always used on patients and sometimes Enjolras, when he was overworking himself. The man slowly lowered his hands. His nose was already swelling up and there was a small cut on its bridge. Or maybe that was the make up. God, Enjolras hoped that it was the make up. Combeferre carefully examined the stranger's face, then drew in a sharp breath and turned to Enjolras. "I think you broke his nose."
The stranger's gaze snapped back to him, eyes just as wide as Enjolras imagined his own to be. The man opened his mouth but no words came out. His eyes were so, so bright.
When Joly got Bossuet's text saying 'apparently some greek god punched R in the face they're on their way to you now' he wasn't sure whether to laugh or to be worried. Grantaire getting punched in the face wasn't such a strange occurrence since the guy could be a real bastard sometimes, but Joly knew that both Grantaire and Bossuet were working at the moment and normally they behaved on the job. On the other hand, they were working at a haunted house and Joly had read dreadful things about those. Besides the obvious dangers of curses, accidental ghost summonings and bad omens, that R and Bossuet really should be taking more seriously, there were also the stories Joly had read about people getting beaten up badly while working. He really hoped his friend was okay.
Grantaire arrived about fifteen minutes later, surrounded by a group of people who were idly standing by while he and the person, who quite possible inspired the description Greek god with his high cheekbones, his blonde hair and his piercing blue eyes, were having a heated discussion.
"You're completely ignoring basic human nature. Mankind is inherently bad. It's that simple!" Grantaire was saying. "Even if you could get rid of all the oppression and inequality you're fighting, which you can't by the way, because - again - people are pigs, even then people would just find new ways of oppressing or creating inequality in different places!"
"So you're saying why bother trying?" The guy looked like he was about to murder Grantaire and Joly had never seen his friend more delighted, with the mocking grin on his face, eyes filled with gleeful mischief. "That I'm wasting my time?"
"Exactly! The only thing you can truly change in this world is the position of your pillow." Grantaire seemed to have temporarily forgotten why he had come to the hospital Joly worked at, or, you know, that there were other people in the world in general. His zombie makeup was still mostly in place, earning him strange looks from the other patients, especially since there was a real bloody nose in the mix, under which Grantaire was pressing a piece of cloth.
One of the other people approached Joly. His hair looked like he put a lot of time into making it look like he didn't and a wide smile was spreading over his face. "Hi, I'm Courfeyrac. You must be Joly?"
"Yeah, that's me…" Joly mumbled not taking his eyes of the scene in front of him. "What exactly is going on here?"
"We're not really sure either," Courfeyrac said. "This has been going on since we got in the car and your friend made a comment about Enjolras' T-Shirt."
Joly looked closer. The guy was wearing a liberty-leading-the-people-t-shirt and he could almost hear Grantaire's voice in his head going: ' Is this guy for real? '
"They have been arguing beliefs ever since. It's really quite impressive," one of the others finished. He was tall, had dark skin and behind his glasses Joly could see soft brown eyes, when he finally looked away from whatever was going on in front of him. "I am Combeferre, by the way," he said, while watching the pair with obvious scientific interest.
"How can you be content like this?" the guy who was apparently named Enjolras said with force. "How can you look around you and see the oppression, the suffering, the inequality and not want to do something about it? How can you live with yourself like this?"
"You're a wordy bastard aren't you?" Grantaire had apparently made it his goal to be punched in the face twice today. By the same guy, if Joly had gotten that right. For a moment it looked like he was about to get his wish, but then then Enjolras just crossed his arms before his chest.
"That's not an answer," he said coldly, clearly demanding one. Grantaire had never been one to back down from a challenge.
"Once you accept the fact that in the end it's all for nothing it gets quite easy actually. A sun can burn as brightly as it wants, it wont change the way the galaxy looks," he said while making a grand gesture with his hands, momentarily removing the cloth from his face and Joly flinched at how swollen his nose already looked.
The Enjolras guy frowned at him. "This is just taking the easy way out. The one who tries might lose, the one who doesn't try however has already lost!"
"Very inspirational. Did you read that in a fortune cookie?"
"Okay!" Joly exclaimed loudly and clapped his hands together, when Enjolras, rage clear on his face, opened his mouth possibly to snarl back. He did not look like he could deal well with mockery and Joly would rather not have this argument get violent. They were in a hospital after all.
"R, you need to have your nose looked at! You guys can continue this another time!" Preferably without him present. Joly did not really care for conflict.
Enjolras eyes widened and Grantaire blinked, while they both seemed to realize that they were in fact not alone on the planet. Both looked at Joly for the first time since they arrived.
"He is right," Enjolras agreed, with a worried glance to R's face, his anger apparently forgotten. "I'm really sorry about your nose."
Grantaire made a dismissive gesture with the hand not holding the now blood drenched cloth. "It's fine, really."
Enjolras raised a perfect eyebrow at that.
"I had it broken before, damage already done," Grantaire elaborated, while walking towards Joly so he could finally have his nose looked at and cared for. When he reached his friend he turned one last time to the people who had brought him here. Both literally and metaphorically. "Well, this has been fun. See you the next time Apollo over here decides to break my face."
That earned him a few smiles and a laugh from a big guy with a mohawk. Enjolras just gave him an intense look over, his expression unreadable, and Joly could feel Grantaire hold very still until 'Apollo' had apparently made some form of decision.
"You should come to one of our meetings. The Cafe Musain, Wednesdays and Saturdays at seven." He gave Grantaire a flyer, because of course he had a flyer.
"Are you gonna punch me again if I do?" Grantaire asked, because he was a little shit and incapable for letting things go.
"We will see," Enjolras said the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Grantaire laughed and finally let Joly lead him away.
He refused to let go of the flyer all through the treatment.
Enjolras stared after Grantaire as he was being guided away by his nurse friend, feeling the ridiculous urge to run after him. Courfeyrac appeared beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders. "I must say, your technique for picking up guys has improved!"
He completely deserved the elbow to the rips he got for that.