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Grantaire loves his friends, more than he would have believed himself capable of loving anything - and he loves drinking games. But he hates playing drinking games with his friends, at least when the whole group is together. This is because Courfeyrac whines forever if they don’t play the kind of dumb, manipulative games where you get to force your friends into doing/divulging things they really don’t want to (like Truth or Dare or Spin the Bottle, god, are they twelve?) and you just can’t play those kinds of games with Enjolras. If the game tells him do to something and he doesn’t like it, he simply won’t. The last time they tried something like that, he’d gone into a rant about enthusiastic consent and how messed up it is that the point of these games is to use peer pressure to get young people to perform unwanted romantic/sexual acts and that our culture has completely normalized it (which, Grantaire hates to admit, point) and it had turned into a huge argument which devolved into a screaming match with both sides accusing each other of supporting rape culture (one side for approving of these games and the other for trivializing more serious issues by making the games part of it) which had ended with Bahorel and Enjolras actually coming to blows.
So now they are limited to exactly two party games involving alcohol that please all comers: Two Truths and a Lie and Never Have I Ever (which almost didn’t pass but was finally deemed barely acceptable because not drinking when you don’t want to reveal you’ve done something is passive enough resistance to meet Enjolras’s standards.) Of course, the problem with Two Truths and a Lie is that they all know each other well enough to spot the lie nine times out of ten, so they almost always (including tonight) end up playing Never Have I Ever.
Grantaire hates Never Have I Ever. Not because he’s embarrassed about the things he admits to – quite the opposite in fact. The problem with Never Have I Ever is that most people consider the object of the game is to discover things about your friends’ sexual peccadillos that, in the sober light of morning, you will wish you had gone on not knowing. But while Grantaire’s immersion in the college party scene has yielded him a surprising number of one night stands for such an ugly dude, his tastes are strictly vanilla. (Not that he has any problem with kinks or whatever, people should do what feels good to them, yay for sexual liberation and all that. Kinky stuff just does so little for him personally that all the games just get in the way and make sex less fun than it already was.) Which means that once they get past the basics (“done it with a guy,” “done it with a girl,” “been genuinely in love with a guy/girl”), he almost never gets to drink.
What the hell is even the point of a drinking game if you have to spend it sober?
Especially when you have to play with Marius and Cosette. Marius and Cosette are like the opposite of Grantaire. They get schmoopily sweet about being each other’s first time and how they’ve never slept with anyone else, but apparently when they did get started, they went at it with considerable diversity and gusto. Which, you know, good for them – both for finding out what they like with such enthusiasm and for refusing to feel any tension between what they get up to in the bedroom and their sweet, adorable Disney love – but that freckle-face and doe-eyes have experimented with strap-ons is not information that Grantaire, personally, needed to have. He is way too sober for this shit.
“You know, I’m actually kind of glad I didn’t sign myself up for that,” Eponine leans over and whispers about half an hour into the game, as an already plastered Cosette and Marius are being manhandled onto the couch under the direction of Joly who is really concerned that they shouldn’t be drinking anymore. They curl up together and fall asleep snuggling.
“Dodged a bullet,” Grantaire agrees in an undertone, before adding loudly for the whole group, “Look, if we change the name to ‘Duly Elected Representatives’ can we just play fucking ‘Kings?’”
As usual, Grantaire is ignored. And to pour salt on the wound, it’s his turn.
“Alright, alright. Never have I ever started my own petition.”
Enjolras never plays the game the right way, using his turn to guilt the others for shirking their responsibilities (“Never have I ever skipped a meeting for a date,” glaring at half the circle), and about three rounds in Grantaire decided that two could play at this game and his goal for the night is now “Make Enjolras Drink.” A strategy which he is now regretting, since Enjolras has such a low tolerance for alcohol, and his rounds catch so many of the other do-gooders who are somehow his friends, that Grantaire has now gone from one of the few to the only sober person in the room. That is, no one else is even close to Marius and Cosette levels, but everyone else is at least tipsy even if no one is slurring yet, and Grantaire is so jealous. Still, clinging to behavior patterns that are doing him more harm than good is basically Grantaire's thing, so he considers it too late to back out now.
Oh god, he is the only sober person in a room that contains Enjolras. Where did his life go so horribly wrong?
“Never have I ever,” says Enjolras, side-eying Grantaire darkly, “shown up to a protest two hours late and drunk.”
Great, now Enjolras has finally figured out that this is personal. Grantaire flashes him a sardonic grin in the uncomfortable silence as he lifts his bottle and drinks alone.
“Never have I ever,” Combeferre cuts into the sudden tension, “had a treehouse.”
Combeferre doesn’t play this game the way it was intended either, but he has a knack for picking statements that provoke interesting memories from at least one member of the group. Grantaire really wouldn’t hate this game so much if it was Combeferre’s turn every time, but not even Joly’s excited babbling about this one fire escape in the projects that had a tree growing into it which the city had never gotten around to trimming despite the obvious safety hazard and how the neighborhood kids had adopted it as their “tree house” can stop him from ruminating darkly on Enjolras, stupid party games, his friends’ sex lives, and everything else that is wrong with the world.
He’s still internally grumbling when they make their way around the circle and his turn comes up again.
“Never have I ever,” Grantaire says, “believed in a political cause.”
As expected, everyone else in the room drinks. Grantaire waits until they’ve all finished and then, very deliberately, his eyes on Enjolras, takes a drink.
“Really? You – but you – then why?” Enjolras stammers, bewildered.
“I would not say that I never believed in anything. I, too, had my wide-eyed days of naïve youth. But unlike you, pretty boy, I have learned to see the world as it really is. I take my philosophy now from the poets.”
“Which poet?” asks Jehan in alarm.
“The only one who ever spoke a true word: ‘Man hands on misery to man, It deepens like a coastal shelf, Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.’ That is the only thing truly worth believing in.”
Grantaire sits back and waits for the familiar lecture on the self-fulfilling bleakness of his worldview and why it’s absolutely useless to think that way, but instead:
“Is that what you’re trying to do with all this?” Enjolras asks, gesturing at the bottle in his hand, “’Get out as early as you can?’”
It seems kind of unfair that Enjolras is berating his drinking habits again when Grantaire is, to reiterate, somehow the only sober person in the room, but instead of pointing this out, he shrugs. “Might as well, while I won’t be missed.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god, Grantaire. You are literally surrounded by people who love you. Right now. In a circle of them. And you can say that you won’t be missed like you think it’s true? Will you please go and talk to someone about that, because this is not normal!”
Grantaire opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, Joly jumps in with, “I really like the therapist I’ve been seeing for my anxiety. I know it may not seem like it’s helping, but I used to be so much worse, you have no idea the difference it can make over time.”
“I saw a counselor weekly in high school to deal with all the bullshit,” Bahorel announces, “Nothing to be ashamed of. Might as well give it a chance; it couldn’t hurt.”
“Every time you have one of your bad days, I’m afraid to leave the apartment because I don’t know what I’ll come home to find,” says Jehan, “I know you think that what you’ve been doing is working for you but if you would just consider trying to find something that might work a little better … it hurts me to see you tear yourself apart this way.”
“It must feel like we’re all ganging up on you,” says Courfreyac, “But it will be your decision no matter what we say. We just all love you very much, and we’re worried.”
“I think you’ll be surprised how much you could accomplish,” Combeferre puts in, “You are so much stronger than you know.”
“All the smart people are ganging up against you, huh,” Eponine says, giving him a look like she’s daring him to come up with a good reason not to listen.
And Grantaire has never wanted to say something sarcastic and dismissive so badly in his life, but…
But Enjolras is glaring at him like he’s challenging Grantaire to prove every hurtful thing he’s ever said about him wrong, and Jehan’s giving him the puppydog eyes, and he’s always been helpless against Jehan’s puppydog eyes. Meanwhile Joly’s gazing at him in a kind of desperate hope while Bousset silently nods next to him like one of those drinking bird toys while Bahorel is raising his eyebrows at him as if to say “What’s the big deal, dude?” and Courfeyrac is looking at him with such warm affection and support he almost wants to cry and Combeferre is steadily gazing at him in quiet belief, and fuck, he didn’t even think he was that close to Combeferre. They are drowning him in hope and caring and he just really needs them all to stop.
“All right, fine! Fine! I will make one, one!, appointment with Joly’s psychologist at the Health Center and I will really try, you know, be honest as I can and try to implement the strategies and whatever the hell else you do in therapy, and see if it helps if-” here he points at Enjolras “-fearless leader starts playing the right way. No more guilt-tripping. Invasive sexual questions only for the rest of the game.”
He only says it to buy time to think of a good reason not to go. Enjolras has Opinions about invasive sexual questions and Grantaire fully expects him to balk, at which point this little intervention will turn into an argument, and Grantaire is way more comfortable with those. What he is not expecting is for Enjolras’s whole face to light up like Christmas morning.
“Done!” he cries excitedly, “Done. This is great. Even if you don’t like it you’ll at least know that you tried and you can go back if you ever feel the need and – oh, Grantaire, this is such a good decision, you won’t regret it I promise you.”
“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? Make with the invasive sexual questions, pretty boy.” Grantaire smiles.
“Oh, is it my turn? Of course it is. Right, right, invasive sexual questions. Uhm … Never have I ever … used a – no, wait, Courf already said that OK, Never have I ever been with – no Bahorel did that one, uh … OK, never have I ever done it in a public – shit that was Musichetta, you guys really have taken all the good ones.”
“If you can’t come up with anything, the deal’s off.”
“No, you are going to that appointment, just give me a minute! … Never have I ever … done anything sexual with Courfeyrac!” He turns to Grantaire, “That counts right?”
“Yeah, all right, I guess that’s invasive enough. Sure, why not. Pass.” There is no way Enjolras is keeping this up for the whole game.
Enjolras sinks back in relief. He came up with it in desperation, but he has to admit that he’s just tipsy enough to be curious, given the way Courfeyrac talks. Grantaire drinks, of course – they all know how he and Courf hooked up at a frat party the semester before Grantaire joined the ABC and they were properly introduced – and Joly and Bousset each briefly dated him before getting together with each other and eventually finding Musichetta, so no shock there, but Eponine’s a surprise, and also –
“Masturbating totally counts, drink up slut!” Grantaire crows, nudging Courfeyrac, and Enjolras is about to reprimand him for using gendered slurs when –
“Combeferre?!?”
Combeferre abashedly lowers his drink.
“It was high school, we were experimenting, afterwards we both agreed that it was weird and we’d rather be friends and we never did anything like that again,” he explains.
“Oh my god,” Enjolras says, “This is horrible. This is absolutely horrible. This is all your fault!”
He turns accusingly to Grantaire.
“That Combeferre and Courfeyrac were naughty boys in high school? How do you figure that one?”
“No, that I know about it! This is like finding out about your brother and your cousin!” He shudders viscerally.
“Yes, well, that’s why we agreed that it was weird.”
“My mother always told me not to bother with good men because all the decent ones were gay,” Eponine says, shaking her head
“Actually,” Combeferre says tentatively, looking sideways at Eponine, “I thought that I was gay for many years but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I’m really bi.”
Grantaire looks back and forth between them, a slow grin growing on his face. “Oh? What brought that revelation on?”
“Meeting you, actually.”
Grantaire laughs. “God, I know I’m ugly, but I actually turned you off guys!”
“Stop that,” Combeferre admonishes quietly. Then he continues, in that slightly inebriated Combeferre way (almost exactly as eloquent and sensible as sober Combeferre, but enunciating more precisely, like he’s working for every syllable), “No, I mean that my first serious crush was on a guy, so I assumed that I had to be gay, because those are the choices they give you. You’re gay, you’re straight, or you’re – well - Courfeyrac. So all through high school, any time I felt drawn towards a girl, I dismissed it as admiration or purely aesthetic appreciation, because obviously I wasn’t capable of anything else. But then I came here and met you, and Joly and Bousset, and Cossete, and I realized that polysexuality is a lot more common than society leads us to believe and that there are a lot more ways to express it than we’ve been told, and I started reevaluating all the things I’ve always felt.”
“OK, but are you sure there wasn’t a particular girl who made you start questioning your sexuality?” Grantaire asks, still darting looks between Combeferre and Eponine, “I don’t know, someone super-hot and wickedly smart and maybe sitting right in this room-”
“Bahorel’s straight and he drank!” Combeferre shouts suddenly. Enjolras is left with the vague feeling that something important just happened and he missed it, but he's still too grossed out to concentrate.
Bahorel shrugs. “We had a threesome with the same chick once, before I met my girl.” Bahorel’s girl has a real, grown-up job and only comes to their college parties on the weekends, but Bahorel’s always talking about her when she’s not there. “That counts, right? Anyway, I don’t see why that’s so weird. I mean, Feuilly drank too and he’s ace.”
Enjolras turns on Bahorel with a fierce glare. The only unwritten rule of Never Have I Ever is that they do not ask Feuilly about the surprising number of sexual things that he drinks for, and Enjolras is hardly the only one giving the stink-eye. But before he begins to tear him a new one –
“No, it’s OK,” says Feuilly, “Back when I first figured out that I was asexual, I asked Courfeyrac to help me find out what I was and was not comfortable doing so I could explain the situation better to any future romantic partners. It was very safe and comfortable, and I don’t mind it being brought up.”
“I’m glad I could help,” Courfeyrac says, smiling. It’s the first time he’s weighed in on this little farce.
Suddenly Jehan stands. “I need a refill, back in a sec,” he says with a brittle smile, taking his half-full cup and ignoring the open bottle of the same wine that he’s been drinking that sits in the middle of the circle.
At that moment Enjolras, realizes several things. That on this round, unlike all the others, Jehan had not joined in with a comment or a laugh or even a wry smile, simply watching everyone with wide, serious eyes. That he had shifted a little away from Courfeyrac where they had been sitting together on the floor, putting just enough distance between them that they were no longer touching. That he had not taken a drink. And that, given the soft gazes and warm smiles and casually intimate touches they occasionally exchanged when they thought no one was watching, Enjolras had certainly expected him too.
“Shit,” says Enjolras, “I’ll go. This is my fault.”
He stumbles a bit getting up, and follows Jehan into the kitchen. He should have seen this coming. This is why he doesn’t drink. No, this is why they shouldn’t play these stupid games that treat these intensely personal issues so cavalierly in public and …
“Are you OK?” Enjolras asks, coming up behind Jehan, who’s standing by the counter with his head bowed.
“I will be. I just need a minute.”
“I’m sorry,” says Enjolras, “I shouldn’t have-”
“No!” Jehan says, turning, “You did nothing wrong. No one did anything wrong. We’re not dating. He’s free to be with whoever he wants. I have absolutely no right to be jealous.”
“It just-” Jehan’s voice breaks a little, “It hurts a little more than I expected, you know, finding out that your crush has slept with literally every one of your friends except you.”
“It wasn’t everyone,” Enjolras offers weakly.
Jehan scoffs. “People who were in committed relationships already when they met Courfeyrac, and you. That’s it. Everyone else though. Everyone. Even people who are not generally attracted to men.”
“And Marius, if he had been conscious.”
“Oh, and Marius, right, that makes it all better.” Jehan laughs. “He’s never even flirted with me. Never. He hits on everyone. Not that I really want him to hit on me. I’m sure we want different things. But why everyone else but me? What’s so wrong with me that he doesn’t want me, Enjolras?”
Jehan buries his face in Enjolras’s shoulder as Enjolras awkwardly pats his back. Enjolras hates this game.
“I don’t want a one-night-stand with you,” says a voice from the doorway. They turn to find that Courfeyrac has followed after them, and he steps into the kitchen.
“I want to take you out to dinner and go to all your poetry readings and buy you something ridiculously cheesy for our three month anniversary.” He continues moving towards Jehan like he’s drawn by a magnet. “But I can’t do relationships, I’ve tried and I’ve tried and it never works!”
Enjolras can see Jehan’s hackles go up as he hears the words in disbelief – but Courf’s face looks broken and vulnerable in a way that Enjolras has never seen it, not in close to ten years of friendship, and he realizes that whatever Courfeyrac is feeling right now runs far deeper than the “something going on there” that Enjolras had noticed, and he wonders how long Courf has been hiding it.
“Oh, don’t they,” Jehan says coldly, as he never would have if Courfeyrac had simply said that he wasn’t interested. “Whyever not?”
“I don’t know,” Courfeyrac cries in despair, “I don’t! I can have fun with people and everything’s OK but the minute I try something serious it’s like everything I touch gets ruined and – and I can’t bear to hurt you too!”
“Then don’t hurt me,” Jehan says, without sympathy, “Although if no one else in your extensive dating history has managed to hold your attention long, I can certainly see where you’d find it difficult to make a special effort for me.”
“I don’t cheat!”
Jehans eyes narrow.
“I didn’t say that you did. But the fact that you feel the need to make that protest-”
“No, I don’t cheat, I never cheat.” Courfeyrac is near tears now. “But people always think that I do and I don’t know why and I can’t date because no one ever trusts me-”
Enjolras looks at Courfeyrac in surprise, wondering how long his friend has been feeling like this and hiding it, how many people he may have been drawn to that he never followed through with because he thinks he’s too broken to date. And Enjolras needs to explain to Courfeyrac that that’s not what’s going on, that there is a common denominator in most of his failed relationships (because Enjolras has been there through all of them) and it’s not that Courfeyrac is untrustworthy or incapable of relationships, and that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him. And he tries to put this into words, but all that comes out of his mouth is,
“That’s bullshit.”
Courfeyrac and Jehan both turn to stare at him, Jehan’s face glowered with increasing anger over what he seems to think are Courfeyrac’s excuses and refusal to be honest with him, and he realizes that he’s going to have to convince Jehan that Courfeyrac’s concerns are honest at the same time as convincing both of them that they’re invalid, to explain to Courf why he has such a history of crashing and burning at the same time that he persuades Jehan that Courfreyac is worth taking a chance on, to simultaneously inspire them both with the belief that a relationship between them has enough chance of success to be worth altering the dynamics of their already successful friendship. In terms of real and immediate consequences, this is possible the most important speech of Enjolras’s life and damn Grantaire for making him drink so much.
“You do tend to rush into things a little bit,” Enjolras begins, looking directly at Courfeyrac, “I don’t think that you project your own fantasies and expectations onto the people you date, even in the beginning, but you tend to get excited when you meet someone you like and are very enthusiastic about getting to know them through dating. I remember being in the room when you were with those people and it was always twenty questions about their favorite movies and their thoughts and dreams and their life stories, with you soaking it up like a sponge. Which is a good thing. A great thing! But that doesn’t give them much of a chance to get to know you. You’ve only dated two people who were your friends first."
Here Enjolras turns slightly so that, while still addressing Courfeyrac, he’s looking more at Jehan. Jehan wasn’t part of the group yet when all of this happened
“You broke up with Joly because when he found out about your cold sore he refused to kiss you without dental dams, which no one can blame you for not putting up with. And Bousset broke up with you because he realized that he was in love with Joly. Which he handled brilliantly, by the way,” Enjolras adds, as an aside to Jehan, “He shouted, ‘That’s beautiful, guys! Group hug!’ and bought them celebratory shots all night. But the point is,” turning slightly back to Courf, “Trust was not an issue either time you’ve dated someone who got to know you first. But when someone who doesn’t know you well yet and doesn’t understand how you show affection starts to feel like every time they walk into a room they find you playing with Musichetta’s hair or sitting on Bahorel’s lap, you can’t entirely blame them for getting the wrong idea.”
“So you think I should stop being physically affectionate with my friends when I have a partner so they don’t get confused?”
“No, I think you should give people a better chance to get to know you and how you express yourself before you expose them to the … weird intimacy of our friend group.”
“Still, you really think that the reason my relationships fail is because I cuddle with my friends? I mean, really, Enjolras-”
“Mirella.”
Courfeyrac’s mouth snaps shut.
“What happened with Mirella?” asks Jehan.
“It was the last reading day before finals and none of us had gotten any sleep or food and Courf looked up from his books and shouted that if he did not get to snuggle someone for stress-relief he was going to start sobbing, so when his girlfriend of three weeks dropped by to bring him surprise study-break cookies, she found the two of us spooning in my bed. And Courf’s immediate first line of defense was, ‘No, it’s OK; it’s just Enjolras.’”
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
“Yes, but you know both of us well enough to understand why ‘it’s just Enjolras’ makes sense. She didn’t. You can’t really blame Mirella. We like Mirella,” Enjolras explains, because suddenly it seems important to make this clear, “We hate Rachel.”
Enjolras winces as the words come out of his mouth and he realizes a) it was actually not important to explain that and b) he sounds like a Hollywood scriptwriter’s idea of a teenage girl. Jehan doesn’t seem to notice.
“Why do we hate Rachel?”
“‘It’s not cheating if it’s with another girl: it’s just experimenting.’” Courfeyrac quotes with a mixture of bitterness and embarrassment.
“Oh my god, we do hate Rachel,” Jehan says, his eyes lit with schadenfreude, “No wonder you only have one-night stands now. Your love life has been a beautiful disaster.”
“The guys were worse,” Enjolras says, “No, wait, that’s not the point, I had a point.”
“I will listen to your point,” Jehan says solemnly, “But the next time you get more than two drinks in you, we are going into a room and we are discussing Courfeyrac’s prior affairs of the heart at length.”
Courfreyac groans.
“I think I could write a poem about it,” Jehan says dreamily, “Something cynical and sad but with hope clinging under the surface…”
“Yes, well, the point, the point that I had is – Courfeyrac, nothing is wrong with you or the way you date except perhaps for the fact that you throw yourself in too wholly too quickly, opening yourself up to getting hurt. But you have the deepest, widest heart of anyone I’ve ever met – there’s a reason why, in a group of extremely loving people, we call you the heart of the group, because you are, Courf, you love everyone so much, and you shouldn’t be afraid to let someone else into, because everyone who you really let in – all your friends – we know how deeply, passionately loyal you are, how you’re always there for us, the way you anticipate and respond to our needs before we’re aware of them ourselves, all that you’ve given up to make us happy and all that you’ve done for us when we weren’t – there are no words for how deeply we love you and how worthy you are of that love. I can’t promise that your next relationship will last, or even that it will end well, but there’s no reason that the past problem will be repeated if you give the next person the chance to get to know you like I do. Or like Jehan does.”
Enjolras turns and Jehan smiles.
“You don’t have to make a speech for me, sweetie,” he says, “I trust your integrity and your decade-long friendship with Courfeyrac. I was willing to take you on faith at ‘That’s bullshit.’”
“Oh, thank god,” Enjolras says, “I hate discussing non-revolutionary feelings.”
“Wait, really?” Courfreyac asks in surprise.
“I never thought there was anything wrong with the way you treat the people you’ve been with,” Jehan explains, “I’ve seen you hook up at parties, and no matter how casual the encounter, you’re warm and kind, open about what you want, you listen to and are always careful with them. I thought that we wouldn’t want the same thing, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t believe you when you said that you did, but you were scared of being hurt again. I thought you were trying to spare my feelings, and it angered me. I’m sorry, love, I should know you better than that. But if Enjolras says the same, then I believe the both of you. And I promise to try my best not to hurt you if you try your best not to hurt me. So the question is, are you willing to take the chance?
“I guess we have a lot to talk about then,” Courfeyrac says.
“I guess so.”
Grantaire decided that since the game was apparently paused while Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Jehan dealt with whatever they were dealing with in the kitchen, it was OK for him to drink as he normally would instead of waiting to get caught-out during a round. The bottle of wine they had kept for refills is now empty and he is working his way towards a pleasant buzz when Enjolras walks back into the room and sits down. It’s not there yet, but he can feel it building.
“Everything OK?” Bousset asks, “We heard raised voices a while ago.”
“Everything’s fine,” Enjolras says, “There were issues, they’ve been dealt with, Jehan and Courfeyrac are now simultaneously declaring their eternal love and discussing which one of us gives the best platonic cuddles.”
This statement is met by noises of relieved celebration and an outcry of, “It’d better be me!” from Bahorel, who flexes his muscles as if to prove his cuddling prowess.
“Grantaire is the front-runner at the moment, but I suppose there’s always room for a dark-horse.”
Enjolras seems wholly unsurprised by Grantaire’s declared proficiency in the fine art of cuddling, and Grantaire is busy tormenting himself about whether or not that means Enjolras has given any thought to what it would be like to hold him (probably not, no definitely not, Grantaire reads too much into things, always, it’s one of the things that makes him an idiot) when the happy couple return to loud applause, interrupting Bahorel’s outraged protestations.
They walk in holding hands, and resume their seats snuggled up together, Courfeyrac’s arm around Jehan’s shoulders, Jehan against his chest.
“Gosh, look at you two, when’s the wedding?” Bousset says smiling.
“That’d be a disaster,” Grantaire mumbles.
“And why is that?” Enjolras cuts in sharply. The coldness in his voice could shatter glass, and the glare he levels at Grantaire might be the worst Grantaire’s ever received from him, including the time he played devil’s advocate on gun control in the wake of a school shooting. And shit, when he plays that back in his head, it did sound highly unsupportive.
“Not the relationship,” Grantaire clarifies quickly, not to placate Enjolras (because fuck Enjolras, he is so done doing things to win that damn hunk of marble’s approval), but because he loves Jehan and, to a lesser extent, Courfeyrac and does not want to make them sad, “Or even the hypothetical future marriage. I am sure the two of you would be disgustingly happy and sweet and adopt three foster kids and several scruffy shelter dogs whose adorableness make all your friends weep for jealousy. But the wedding, boys, the wedding – unmitigated disaster!”
“And why is that?” asks Jehan, but his tone is of amused curiosity, not cold anger.
“Well,” Grantaire explains, “You want to get married out in a field somewhere with handwritten vows and bare feet and white shirts with linen trousers, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I have no problem with that,” Courfreyac adds, “That sounds sweet and romantic and perfect.”
”No it doesn’t,” Grantaire says, wagging his finger, “You want a total GQ wedding all white tie and tuxes with tails and signature cocktails and a fricking laser show on the dance floor.”
“Crap, he’s right, I do want that,” Courfreyac says to Jehan with wide eyes.
“You see,” Grantaire concludes, “Doomed.”
But Enjolras is shaking his head, a little too widely, and Grantaire forgot that Enjolras actually gets cuter when he’s tipsy, lord, how is that even possible.
“Ah, Grantaire,” he says, with a knowing smile, “This is why cynicism is wholly inadequate as a worldview. So convinced that everything is hopeless that you fail to look for solutions to problems and therefore miss them even when they are completely obvious.”
Enjolras pauses for emphasis.
“Give Jehan control over the ceremony and let Courfeyrac plan the reception.”
“Perfect!” cries Jehan, smiling at Enjolras.
“Our wedding is saved!” says Courf.
“See, now, if only you two could compromise like that during meetings…” says Feuilly.
“All right, guys, this may be nuts, but hear me out here,” says Combeferre, “Maybe, and I know this is unorthodox, but maybe, you should go on your first date before you plan the wedding.”
There’s an outbreak of laughter from the group.
“…And that’s why we have Combeferre,” says Musichetta.
“Speaking of which, isn’t it your turn?” Eponine asks.
“Oh, right. Are we all limited to invasive sexual questions, or is that just Enjolras?”
Everyone turns to look at Grantaire. He’s not used to being the one in charge, but apparently no one wants to give him an excuse to invalidate the dare. They are all really invested in this whole “make Grantaire go to therapy” thing, and Grantaire wonders if, since everyone whose opinion he respects are united on it, it might be a good idea to really give it a genuine trial no matter what Enjolras does, not just for one appointment, but for the months of work it supposedly takes to start seeing a difference, just in case something actually gets better. He doesn’t think it will – but compared to this crowd, what does he know? But in the meantime, while he’s tempted to abuse his newfound power, he’s only really interested in tormenting Enjolras.
“No, just Fearless Leader,” Grantaire answers, “You can ask whatever you want.”
“OK, umm, never have I ever … experienced a connection to what seemed to be an afterlife.”
Grantaire, Bahorel, and Bousset drink, much to Feuilly’s disgust.
“Your old apartment was not haunted, Bahorel, it had noisy pipes!”
“Those freaky sounds were definitely not made by pipes! I’m telling you, it was ghosts!”
“That only made noise when your washing machine and furnace were on at the same time?”
“My Grandma came back to talk to me,” Bousset cuts in, before they can argue further, “In a dream, after she died. She told me she understood more now, and that she supported my sexuality and my choices. Which, much as she loved me, is not something that was true when she was alive. And that could have been my mind making up something that I wanted to hear from her, but in the dream she also sang me ‘Yellow Bird,’ like she used to when I was little and the next day I saw a goldfinch, and those are kind of rare, so I always thought that was my sign, you know? That it was really her.”
Joly and Musichetta reach across each other to hug him simultaneously, and now everyone else is looking at Grantaire.
“I, uh, I saw the white light,” Grantaire explains, “when I was a kid. I got bronchitis and I nearly died, apparently my heart stopped for a few minutes, and I saw that light that they always talk about in the movies and I heard this really weird music, like I wouldn’t be able to describe. It was probably just hallucinations caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, but I’ve never been sure enough to call myself an atheist instead of an agnostic.”
“Well, after that cheerful bit of light-hearted fun, it’s my turn,” says Eponine, “Never have I ever come in my pants from making out too heavy.”
She looks around the room.
“Really, it’s that common?”
“Thank heaven you were never a teenage boy,” says Grantaire.
“Because that’s so much harder than being a teenage girl?”
“No. No it is not. You win.”
“Damn straight.”
It’s Jehan’s turn now. He hasn’t stopped smiling at Enjolras, not since the jokes they were making about his and Courf’s future wedding, and now that Grantaire’s paying attention, the smile has an oddly knowing look to it, like he’s figured something out that no one else has. His smile gets even wider before he starts to speak.
“Never have I ever,” says Jehan, “Fallen in love with the infuriating cynic who drinks in the back of my social justice meetings.”
Grantaire winces, because he knows Jehan is a hopeless romantic, but fuck, that one hurts. The little moron is still grinning at Enjolras like he actually expects something to happen, and Grantaire goes into distraction mode.
“All right, drink up Bahorel, you know you love me. Joly, Bousset, Musichetta, you guys have been dying to add me to your little love-nest, haven’t you? And what about you, Combe-”
But he stops suddenly because, like Jehan, Combeferre is staring intently at Enjolras. Why the hell is Enjolras’s best friend looking at Enjolras? He turns quickly to Enjolras’s other best friend, but he’s looking at Enjolras too, and –
“Drinking games are sacred, Enj,” Courfeyrac says quietly, never taking his eyes off their leader, and Grantaire turns to look too. Enjolras seems to be engaged in a staring contest with Jehan.
“Fuck you,” he says quietly.
Then, deliberately, he drinks.
“What the fuck?” says Grantaire.
“I need some air,” Enjolras is saying, getting to his feet, “I gonna take a walk. But I’m not punking on the game!”
He turns and points his finger at Grantaire.
“I will be right back as soon as I clear my head! The bet is still on! You are making that appointment!”
Then he turns and strides out of the apartment, not even pausing to get his coat.
“What the fuck just happened?!” asks Grantaire.
“Maybe you should go after him and find out,” Jehan says quietly.
Go after him. Right. Right, shit, whatever that was just happened and Grantaire is letting him walk away what the fuck is he doing?
Grantaire scrambles to his feet and stumbles out the door.
Combeferre takes the pillow he’s been sitting on and throws it at Courfeyrac.
“Dammit Courf!”
“What are you yelling at me for, I didn’t do it!”
“‘Drinking games are sacred.’ We agreed that we were not going to interfere!”
“Yeah, well the ship had pretty much sailed, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Wait,” says Jehan, “You two knew about this?”
“It’s Enjolras, of course we knew,” says Combeferre.
“And you ‘agreed’ to just let Grantaire pine away. Who the hell are you to make that decision?” Eponine demands furiously.
“Grantaire has self-esteem issues, a drinking problem, and probably depression or some other mood disorder,” Combeferre explains with barely contained frustration, “Enjolras sees all of Grantaire’s self-destructive behaviors and gets frustrated and angry at the way he hurts himself. That is not a good combination!”
“He’s been a lot better about that lately,” Joly argues.
“Yes, because a couple of months ago I sat him down and explained that challenging someone with those kinds of issues by insulting him in the hopes that it would inspire him to prove you wrong does more harm than good. I had to say those words. Out loud. Because he had not figured that on his own. And he has been doing better since then but I cannot think that it’s a good thing for Grantaire to be dating someone who’s first instinct is to yell at him for having symptoms.”
“Yeah, well Jehan and I have been begging, pleading, and emotionally blackmailing Grantaire for years to get him to give therapy a chance and Enjolras’s frustrated scolding got him to agree to it in about five seconds so did it ever occur to Mr Super-genius that now that he’s stopped the personal attacks they might be good for each other after all? Or maybe that it’s not your fucking decision to make?” Eponine shouts.
“We agreed not to interfere, and that includes not saying anything to get in their way now that they’ve figured it out, but you can’t stop me from being worried.”
“Look, I wasn’t there when you talked to Enj,” Courfeyrac says, “In the lecture, did you also give him strategies that he could use when he gets frustrated with Grantaire’s self-destruction.”
“No,” Combeferre admits.
“Then we’ll talk to him again, together, and we’ll brainstorm some more productive things he can do when he wants to start yelling, and then we’ll trust them to follow through and be OK,” says Courfeyrac, “Enjolras is good at following through. And whether it works or not, it’s out of our hands.”
Combeferre grumbles something inaudible, but he seems resigned.
“What do you suppose they’re doing out there?” Bousset asks, looking at the door.
“Either Grantaire missed him and Enjolras will be back in a few minutes by himself, or Grantaire found him and neither of them will be back at all.”
But for once (or possibly twice) Combeferre is wrong. The two of them come back to the apartment about ten minutes later, nervously holding hands.
The game doesn’t seem important after that.