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Musichetta’s ABC Café had probably the most erratic opening and closing hours of any café in the city, but she had been sitting at the counter waiting to close since midnight, and Grantaire was still absorbed in the mural he was painting for her on the back wall. It was an impressive thing, she’d give him that, but it was nearing four o’clock in the morning now and she was done.
“All right, honey, you can feel free to keep painting straight through opening if you want, but I’m going upstairs to sleep. If you need more coffee just leave money on the counter or something.” Grantaire just grunted in what she assumed was assent, mainly because she wasn’t actually taking no for an answer. She looked over to Enjolras to give him a similar lecture, but he was dead asleep with his face in a pile of papers. Musichetta just shook her head, swatted Grantaire’s curls around as she passed, and went upstairs.
Grantaire had only barely registered any of Musichetta’s words at all, absorbed as he was in his painting. He’d been working on the sketches for months, and was really quite proud of it-- the mural covered the whole back wall of the cafe, which until now had just been exposed brick, and was a highly stylized map of the world in bright swirling colors. Across the top, it said permets les autres s’élever jusqu’à le monde est libre, and along the bottom, the same line in English. He was lucky that Musichetta didn’t care if he was in her café at all hours-- once he started painting something, it was hard for him to stop until he was finished.
Enjolras stirred from his booth in the corner. His legs were curled up underneath him and his hair was sticking out in every direction; as he sat up, a piece of paper clung to his cheek and he swatted it away in irritation.
“Rémi?” he murmured sleepily. Grantaire made another vague noise of assent, thumbing through the book of quotes at his side with paint-covered fingers. “What time is it?” It was clear, however, that he wasn’t getting any useful answers out of Grantaire, so Enjolras merely checked his watch, sighed at the time, and stepped behind the counter to see if Musichetta still had any of the spiced hot chocolate from the Christmas season.
A few moments later, he seated himself on the floor next to Grantaire, two steaming cups of hot chocolate in hand. He placed the cups on the floor and leaned over to set his lips to Grantaire’s neck.
“R,” he hummed, lips still pressed to the other man’s neck. “As admirable as your drive is, you’ve been painting for six hours straight. Put the brush down.”
Grantaire let out a little sigh at the touch of Enjolras’ lips, tilting his head to the side and setting down his brush.
“Have you been here this whole time?”
“I was working on something, but I must have fallen asleep,” Enjolras said with a wry smile across Grantaire’s skin.
“That’s probably because you don’t ever sleep when you’re supposed to,” Grantaire pointed out, but his voice was quiet and without sharpness as he turned to capture Enjolras’ lips with his own. Enjolras caught him halfway, lifting his head and folding his hands around Grantaire’s face to press their lips together hard.
Grantaire gave a little breathless laugh, shifting to face Enjolras entirely and lifting his hands to drag them through Enjolras’ hair, before remembering that they were covered in wet paint. They ended up hanging awkwardly in midair before Enjolras folded his fingers through Grantaire’s, regardless of paint, and moved both their hands out of the way to kiss him again.
“Are you done?” Grantaire laughed finally, now significantly out of breath. “What’s got you so affectionate?”
Enjolras merely shrugged and Grantaire immediately regretted asking: Enjolras was incredibly tactile by nature, but he didn’t like to have it pointed out. He moved to pull away, to play at being marble again, but Grantaire hung onto his hands, the paint slick between their palms.
“You don’t have to be done,” he said hopefully. The corner of Enjolras’ mouth quirked up, but he disentangled their hands and picked up his hot chocolate. After a moment, Grantaire followed suit, trying not to sulk too much. He knew he was forgiven when a shoulder touched his, hesitant at first before leaning in.
“Are we going to bother with going home?” Grantaire asked after a time. Enjolras wrinkled his nose at the idea.
“I don’t think so. Eponine will be in to open in a few hours anyway.”
“Mmm. Think I can finish this by then?”
“I would ask you if you ever sleep at all, but then you’d just give me a snide comment on how I sleep less than you do.”
“Oh, no, but the mighty Apollon needs no sleep, for he is carved from marble and imbued with the powers of Idunn’s golden apples...” Grantaire started, a grin growing across his face. Enjolras shook his head, curls falling over his eyes, but a similar grin was hidden below them.
“You’re mixing your mythologies.”
“It’s nearly five in the morning, give me a break.”
“Never. You’re a disgrace to the Classics departments that you’re always bothering for books.”
“I fear it is true,” Grantaire sighed dramatically. “I shall never live up to the spotless names of my idols--”
His speech was cut short as Enjolras unceremoniously stuck half a biscotti in his mouth, then nonchalantly sipped at his hot chocolate while Grantaire tried to figure out how to eat the biscotti without letting it fall out of his mouth.
“That was rude,” he said reproachfully after managing to salvage the majority of the biscotti.
“Just like you.”
“And that was a weak comeback. Clearly neither of us are at our witty best this morning.”
Enjolras was about to protest at defining this particular hour as morning before he realized that the sun really was coming up: a soft orange glow was already visible at the front windows. His attention was diverted when Grantaire took the mostly-empty mug from his hand, moved so that one leg was splayed to either side of him with Enjolras sitting in the middle, and pulled him forward for a kiss. It was slow and languid and sleepy and tasted vaguely like chocolate and almonds, and if paint ended up smeared across Enjolras’ face and into his hair, he didn’t much mind.