Chapter Text
There’s something inherently romantic about public transportation in the morning, Grantaire thinks. There’s a comfort of knowing exactly where the bus is going and where it will stop, a nostalgia in blearily watching strangers pack themselves in like crushed flowers in a bouquet held too tightly while sipping hastily made coffee, staring out the window at a city just waking up to start its day.
It’s why, even if he doesn’t have to, he takes the 87 on its full route around the city and back to his apartment now that he’s back in school and Carnegie Mellon pays for his bus fare again. He watches the gilded age mansions of Bloomfield and Shadyside that landlords have terraformed into 8 and a half apartments turn into downtown skyscrapers and then back again. The sun is just coming back up, and he’s just downed the last sip of his coffee as he says thank you to the bus driver and hops off the bus, a full hour later.
It feels like waking up and going back to sleep all at once to be stepping back on his porch. He’s spent so long here, with these people - right now something in him itches to leave, to get on a bus and never come back. He wonders who he’d be, now, if he’d listened to that feeling when he'd had it the first time three years ago and moved out when he had the chance.
Instead, he unlocks the door and steps in, loudly announcing, “There better be more coffee in the pot if you stole mine, Marius!”
A tired groan from the kitchen says his hopes might not have been entirely in vain - Grantaire follows it to find a bedraggled Marius staring at his laptop while sipping from a cup of black coffee, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes as he tries futilely to fight sleep.
“ Pobrecito Marius, what’s wrong?” Grantaire says, laughing and making his way to him to pat him on the head. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
Marius shakes his head, hands quivering as he gulps down more of his coffee, staring at the cup for a second like he doesn’t remember what it is before jolting himself out of his stupor to answer Grantaire’s question. “No, I have a meeting with my advisor today I’m not ready for,” he rests his forehead on Grantaire’s shoulder. “It’s only a week into the semester and I’m already supposed to read so many papers, R, I’m going to die.”
“You were singing karaoke for four hours last night,” Grantaire can’t help but point out. Eponine had had a board meeting that went terribly and Cosette had gotten rejected for a part she’d wanted badly yesterday, so they’d all taken the night off and drank themselves stupid on their couch. Grantaire doesn’t remember much of the night, but can’t imagine it was flattering to him.
Marius blushes. “Cosette told me I’ve been - and I quote - ‘running myself into the ground’ and that I needed a break. Though honestly I definitely thought the meeting was tomorrow until about 4 in the morning, when everyone else finally went to sleep.”
Grantaire moves aside for a bleary-eyed Cosette who ignores him to sleepily fumble for coffee. Marius hands her his mug. She bends to kiss his temple. “Morning, love.” Marius hums happily, and smiles up at her as if she were single-handedly the cause of the Earth turning and the sun coming up every day. It’d be gross if Cosette wasn’t looking at him in the same way.
Grantaire groans. “Ugh, guys, it’s too early for this. I feel like that’s a rule - if it’s not it should be. No canoodling before noon.” He ignores the look Cosette gives him, her patented ‘Shut up, Grantaire ’ look as she deliberately gives Marius another quick kiss on his nose. (Truly, she and Eponine have mastered the art of Taking None of Grantaire’s Shit. It’s a little unsettling. He needs new friends.)
She puts a dollar into the jar at the center of the table while she walks over for more coffee, though, so Grantaire feels okay about it.
Grantaire looks over both of their shoulders at Marius’ screen and immediately knows he’s out of his depth when he sees the page count of the journal article he’s reading - in German, no less. “Jesus christ, dude - trust you classics kids to pull something like that out of your ass in like. 3 hours. Holy shit. How do you do that?”
This is a tired argument, but it’s 7:30 in the morning and Grantaire doesn’t have the energy to be innovative yet. Cosette rolls her eyes from behind Marius. “Jar - your turn. You’re being unnecessarily self-deprecating again.”
Grantaire rolls his eyes and chucks a dollar into the jar, moving toward the coffee machine as he does.
“Comes with the rich white dude privilege they hand out at orientation,” Eponine says sarcastically, making her way into the kitchen staring at Signal on her phone, still wrapped in her blanket. She yawns, a deep cracking one, as she spreads herself onto two seats across the dining table. She gestures feebly towards Grantaire and the coffee machine. “Are yinz going to that protest this afternoon at Schenley Park? Anyone able to marshall at all?”
“No working before work starts, Eponine! Jar, come on, this is like the third time this week,” Cosette says, slumping down with her coffee into the seat next to Marius so she can cuddle him at the same time as she sips.
Eponine frowns sleepily. “Come on, guys, the protest is today .”
They all point to the jar in response. Eponine rolls her eyes, throwing a dollar in it. “Okay, fine, fuck you guys. Now will you tell me if you’re free to marshall?”
Grantaire grimaces and turns back to the coffee machine to hide his expression. “Sure,” Cosette says. “I don’t think I’ve got anything else going on later, I was going to try to swing by anyway - do they need medics? I can ask my friend from that last show I did.”
“I can’t go, but I can venmo you for cases of water or snacks or something,” Marius says. He takes another sip of his coffee and gives it a grimace as if it’s personally betrayed him before saying, “Also - I remember a philosophy essay you whipped out 10 pages of in the 5 hours before it was due in undergrad, Grantaire.”
Grantaire shrugs. Philosophy had been an easy A - one of Grantaire’s only skills is bullshitting, and that’s different - and he tells Marius so as he fills a mug for Eponine before refilling his and sitting down at the head of the table. “I’m literally getting a whole ass Masters in shapes and colors, Marius, that’s nothing on - “ He waves a hand at Marius’ laptop. “ - whatever the fuck you’re working on.”
Marius doesn’t even bother gracing that with a response - the entire table just graces Grantaire with identical versions of the household’s patented ‘Grantaire, you’re so full of shit’ look and point at the jar again. Fair enough. Grantaire digs into his pockets again. “Jesus, four times in one morning - this must be a house record.”
“No that was the morning after you and Eponine’s disastrous threesome with Barista Boy,” Cosette says, snorting slightly. “I think both of you got up to four individually .”
“Oh yeah ,” Grantaire and Eponine say simultaneously, then look at each other, then shudder.
“The Time that Grantaire Was Somehow In Three Places At Once,” Marius says solemnly.
“Anyway,” Eponine redirects the conversation back on track, somewhat pointedly but without any real bite to it, “Yes to venmo - actually can you cashapp? It’s just easier to transfer for the organizers I think, and no to medics, I think we’re good. If you know anyone that’s trained to be a legal observer though, let me know, I think we still need a couple.” Eponine says, fumbling for her mug of coffee without looking before Grantaire nudges it into her reach. He gets up to refill his portable coffee mug and starts making his way to the couch to grab his backpack before she gets any ideas about asking him for anything.
“I might, actually,” Cosette says. “I’ll let you know. Also, R.”
“Yes,” Grantaire says warily, stuffing the papers that had fallen out last night back into his bag.
“Have you been wearing that outfit for three days straight or is my sense of time finally giving out on me?”
Grantaire laughs, unexpectedly grateful for the change in topic. “Don’t yuck my yum, Cosette, you’re lucky I even showered. It's literally the only perk of being an art student that people practically expect me to show up in the same clothes for a week.” He slaps his pockets to make sure he has his keys. “The uniform of a people who are too poor to afford to do laundry, I’m afraid.”
“That’s only because you keep forgetting to go to the bank to get quarters, Grantaire,” Marius calls out, still staring at his laptop.
“Can you at least put on a different shirt?” Cosette says. “There’s a stain on it that I'm pretty sure was from last week’s ice cream party.”
Grantaire rolls his eyes. It’s a testament to their long friendship that that comment hadn’t triggered any of Grantaire’s issues and instead has just made him annoyed. “Fine Moooom .”
“Thanks, I love you!” Cosette calls as Grantaire stomps somewhat pettily up the stairs to his room.
His room is a disaster, as always, and he has to fight to wrench his closet door open. As he does, something clatters out onto the bed. His heart skips a beat when he sees what it is - an old reaction to any potential damage that could have happened to his most prized possession.
“Fuck,” he mutters, almost caressing it with his fingers. Without any input from his brain, his fingers are suddenly turning the old DSLR camera on and searching through the old pictures on whichever memory card had been in it when he’d shoved it into the depths of his closet so long ago. It’s muscle memory, some kind of fucked up neural pathway that hadn’t had time to be rewritten yet.
The pictures are all from the last protest he’d tried dragging himself to after The Incident, an aborted attempt to work through his trauma by throwing himself back into the thick of it - he remembers thinking if he just shut off his brain his body would follow suit. He flips through pictures of the crowd, of the speakers making impassioned points with their fists in the air - he doesn’t remember what the rally had been for, probably some sort of intersectional solidarity thing Musichetta had organized, given the array of speakers - and remembers the haze of panic that had enveloped him, the way Eponine had found him curled in a ball behind a dumpster later that day.
“Jesus,” he says, exhaling loudly. He makes himself peel away from the camera and shove it back into his closet. He throws a sweatshirt on top of it for good measure, switches shirts quickly to make Cosette happy, and throws open his door to go back downstairs.
Eponine is waiting to ambush him in the hallway.
Grantaire sighs, shutting the door behind him. It feels like all the energy saps out of him and he deflates, sagging into the wall. “Ep, come on. You know I can’t.”
Her lips twist, sad. “I know what happened back then was fucked up, and I know you need space right now,” she sighs, “But honestly, R. For how much damn longer? It’s just - “ She tugs on the tassels of her blanket. “We miss you out there, R. I miss you out there.”
Grantaire feels a knot in his throat. All of his friends had been so good at letting him slowly fall off the face of the earth, at first. They understood, they said, they’d all been there. This shit is hard, take your space. You need to take care of you, you can’t pour from an empty cup! But the longer it took and the more meetings and coalitions and tables he’d ghosted, the more they’d stopped understanding. You’re working at Home Depot? You know they donate to anti-LGBTQ efforts, right? Wait, you’re not signing this petition? You don’t care about trans lives?
They’d all expected to come back eventually, was the problem. And Grantaire doesn’t think he ever can.
“That’s all I’ll say right now.” She holds out her arms, tentatively for a hug. “Love you?”
Grantaire sighs. “Love you too,” he says, letting her envelop him into her blanket burrito. By the time he makes it downstairs, it’s just him and Marius again.
Grantaire watches as Marius takes another sip of his coffee as if he’s being forced to do so at gunpoint. “Marius, why are you drinking black coffee when you know you hate black coffee? It’s not like the levels of caffeine change if you add creamer.”
It’s one of the many things they’d disagreed about when they’d first met – Grantaire only drinks black coffee, and Marius has to dump gallons of creamer in his to be able to drink it. Eponine and Cosette have dubbed that war, “The One Where Grantaire Gets an Espresso Machine Lobbed at his Head from the Fourth Story Window,” Tagline: “He Probably Deserved It.”
(He had. He had deserved it.)
He’d dodged the flying missile from where he’d been standing on the ground – Marius’s aim was Not Great to say the least, and four stories was a long fall – but it’d scared Grantaire (and Marius) half to death, long enough to make them stop being dicks to each other and to realize that they actually got along.
Marius shakes his head. “It’s got creamer. It just also has 3 espresso shots.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Grantaire says. “Unbelievable,” he adds, with feeling. He grabs his beanie from the kitchen table where he’d dropped it last night and pulls it over his ears. Beanies are great. Beanies make him look edgy and cool when he hasn’t washed his hair in a week. He grabs his thermos and backpack and heads for the door. He’s already late for his class, even if he’s lucky and the bus shows up when it’s supposed to.
Marius just grins sweetly. “Have fun at school, dear.”
Grantaire has a half formed ode to beanies in his head by the end of the day, as well as a growing pit of hunger in his stomach because he’d forgotten to eat lunch again, which is probably why he doesn’t notice he’s walked into a huge rally on campus until he’s in the thick of it.
Shit .
It’s not like this hasn’t happened before - Pittsburgh is a small city, and there’s always something to protest these days, but he never expected it to happen on Carnegie Mellon’s campus of all places, this place is full of rich fucks who only care about their grades and their tech internships or whatever the fuck. It’s been a long day of classes and studio time and studying, and he just wants to go home . And the only way to the bus stop is through the Cut, where the rally is gathered.
He’s trying to shove his way through the back of the protest when he hears it.
“Back when I was first elected as your graduate student president, I’ll admit I was scared,” a voice rings out across the cut, with the warbly quality of being spoken through a megaphone.
Grantaire - almost comically - stops in his tracks. The voice is hypnotizing.
“I was scared because I didn’t know what kind of power I would be allowed to have - I was scared for all of my marginalized siblings on this campus whose rights - and lives - are continuously at risk. I was scared for all of my Black, brown, disabled, queer siblings who are demeaned by professors for aiming too high, who don’t see themselves in their curriculum, and who can’t even go to the bathroom on campus without fear of retaliation.”
Grantaire’s been in a lot of activist spaces in his life. He’s - had - been organizing since he was in high school, and yet - he’s never heard someone who was as good at speaking as this guy on the megaphone is.
“But you know what I realized?” the voice starts again, palpably angrier now. Grantaire slowly turns to face the raised platform near the fence that all the speakers are speaking from.
The man speaking through the megaphone is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen in his life.
He’s yelling now, pitching his voice low and fast and with an energy that’s in his very bones, “I’m not the one who should be afraid - we are not the ones who should be afraid . It is those in power who should be afraid - of us .”
He’s almost spitting the words now, hands clenched around the microphone. The crowd screams in agreement. Someone in the crowd whoops.
Something in Grantaire awakens. The speaker is absolutely dripping in the sunlight of golden hour - the setting sun snags on the speaker’s short choppy dark curls, snags on the metal bracelet on his wrist, snags on his dark skin and bright red shirt and chiseled cheekbones, and before Grantaire knows it his phone is up and he’s snapping one of the best photographs he’s ever taken.
The speaker continues before Grantaire can even process what's just happened, “Because look at what happens when we the people stand up and fight. Look at what happens when we come together in intersectional solidarity - when we recognize that grad student justice is worker justice is queer justice is justice for Black and brown communities in Pittsburgh.”
Nothing he’s saying is new, or revolutionary compared to what he’s heard before from speakers like this. But the way he’s saying it, screaming it into the microphone with a cadence that matches the heartbeat of the crowd, that drives them forward, to action - ba bum ba bum ba bum -
“And I know we lost big last year, and I’m sorry that we couldn’t do more for grad students. But true liberation exists beyond these wins and losses - true liberation is when we recognize that intersectional justice only comes from intersectional solidarity, when we recognize that it’s about continuing to fight, endlessly, for the world we fucking deserve - a better world is possible and we can build it.” He pauses, makes sure everyone in the crowd is watching before slowly raising his fist in the air and saying, deliberately, “We will build it.”
The crowd explodes into cheers.
Grantaire feels buffeted by strong winds - something inside his chest is tight - so tight. He looks across the crowd, lost. He blinks, transported to a different protest, at a different time, people in riot gear rushing into the crowd -
“Grantaire!” a voice says, right in front of him, in the tones of someone annoyed by having to call his name multiple times to get his attention, which had become way too familiar after The Incident.
He blinks and he’s no longer drowning in an ocean, but standing on grass in the middle of campus on a cold day in October, and Musichetta is right in front of him. Tall, dressed in loud colors, and she’s apparently dyed her afro blue recently.
“Chetta!” he says, sort of breathless.
“Hi,” she says, with that lopsided grin he’s missed so much.
He launches into a hug, breathes in the scent of her shampoo - she hasn’t changed it since high school, and it’s one of the most comforting things he knows. “God, I’ve missed you so much.”
“And whose fault is that?” she says, laughing, but it sounds a little pointed. She gives him a squeeze though, so he knows he’s forgiven, at least for now.
“Definitely mine,” he laughs in agreement, stepping away. He’s been doing his best to avoid her for almost a year now - and honestly failing, because Pittsburgh is genuinely three people and a shoelace - but finally seeing her here…he’s hit with a lump in his throat that tells him how stupid he had been to even try to do that. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”
She points at her sign, “I’m doing freelance comms - organizers wanted Accessibility for Pittsburghers to show up, so they sent me.” She gestures to the podium.
He looks, without even really thinking about it, up at the dais again, where the guy who’d just finished speaking is handing the microphone to the next speaker and stepping down. Musichetta is grinning when he looks back at her, and he feels caught, somehow, like he’s in high school staring too intently at guys’ butts in gym class all over again or something.
“He’s good, isn’t he? Name’s Enjolras. Moved here from Chicago last year, immediately emailed me about wanting to work together on anti-racist and abolitionist trainings.”
Enjolras.
Grantaire can’t help but snort. “At this school? Like that’ll make a difference. We love our war crimes here.”
Musichetta shrugs, uncomfortable as she always is when Grantaire gets like this. “I mean, educate the masses, right?”
Grantaire rolls his eyes. “Sure, but the masses at CMU .”
“It’s not the students that are the problem though,” a now familiar voice says close to them. Grantaire and Musichetta turn to face him.
Enjolras .
Jesus. He’s even prettier up close.
He’s frowning, and the force of his displeasure almost physically rocks Grantaire backward. Around them, the rally is ending but all Grantaire can see is the fire in his eyes. It’s fucking exhilarating - addictive, and Grantaire wants another hit as soon as possible. “It’s the administration that’s the problem. That’s why we’re doing this,” Enjolras says.
Grantaire scoffs, because he can’t help himself. “What, and you think that they’re going to suddenly start caring about students just because a couple of people showed up to a rally?”
Enjolras shrugs. “Yes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Grantaire scoffs, halfway turning to Musichetta in disbelief, but he gets no help from her, she’s rolling her eyes at him. “That’s - that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Rallies don’t do a single fucking thing, except maybe hurt the people there - “
“Why are you here, then?” Enjolras says, scowling.
Grantaire grins, wide and mocking. “Because you’re hot and I got curious, dude, because I wanted to see what pointless kinda shit people were saying at CMU, because this was in the way of me getting to my bus stop and I need to get home - take your fucking pick I guess.” His grin only gets wider and more mocking as Enjolras’ scowl deepens with every word.
“Grantaire,” Musichetta says, gently, before Enjolras can respond to that. “You’re being a dick.”
Grantaire mock gasps, clutching at his chest as if she’s wounded him. “Ouch.” She’s not wrong, but he’d forgotten how blunt she can be, almost as bad as Eponine sometimes.
He remembers years of his life in the way she says that, late nights and art builds and google docs. Fuck, this is why he’d been avoiding her.
“Anyway,” Enjolras says, frowning at Grantaire and then subsequently writing him out of the conversation by looking at Musichetta. Enjolras smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out from the clouds. “Just came here to congratulate you on your TMC award - that’s a huge deal, and so well deserved.”
“Holy shit you got Person of the Year?” Grantaire blurts out. He hugs her again, so fiercely she rocks backward, laughing. “Holy shit ,” he says again. “Chetta that’s - that’s fucking amazing - “
“Yeah,” Chetta says, and it’s casual, but he knows her well enough that he can tell that she’s fucking proud of this. “Yeah, just found out last week.”
Grantaire pulls away. “I mean, of course you won, I honestly don’t know what the Coalition was doing, keeping this from you for so long anyway.”
“Seriously,” Enjolras is nodding, and if Grantaire had thought fighting with him had been like staring too hard into the sun without blinking, that’s nothing compared to Enjolras agreeing with him. This felt like trying to win a staring contest with Apollo himself.
“Also, sorry - Grantaire, this is Enjolras, graduate student president and all around queer desi badass. Enjolras, this is Grantaire, we used to - “
“Go to school together,” Grantaire says, quickly, before Musichetta can finish that sentence. “Now I pay this place a lot of money and in return sometimes they let me draw some shapes in different colors inside the building. Nice to meet you, Mr. President - naive idealism and all.”
Enjolras shakes his hand. The touch burns. “Well, if you’re a grad student here, would you want to come to our debrief meeting for the rally? We’re inviting everyone that came today.”
Grantaire raises an eyebrow. “You’re going to invite me even though I was just being a huge dick?”
“And clearly don’t think protests do anything, yes.”
“ Why? ”
Enjolras shrugs. They’re still holding hands and every cell in Grantaire’s body is on fire . “How else am I going to prove you wrong?”