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“Are you Enjolras?”
Enjolras looks up at a faint sound and half jumps out of his skin to see the dark-haired boy standing in the doorway of the sunny studio, bracing one hand against the doorframe and watching him with one corner of his mouth quirking up in amusement.
Enjolras straightens up and pulls out his earbuds, and violins are faintly audible in the quiet room. He’s sat on the hardwood floor in front of the floor-length mirrors, in the white t-shirt and black drawstring pants he wears for practice.
He’s got one foot taped up and is in the process of wrapping the other, and he’s somewhat irritated by the interruption because he’s supposed to have the studio to himself for a whole hour. “I’m sorry?”
The newcomer is wearing ripped jeans, a green knit cap, and a white undershirt stained with paint. There’s color on his fingertips too, where he grips the strap of his bag—blue and red and green not quite disappeared from his skin.
“Are you Enjolras?” the boy asks again. “Eponine told me to look for someone who resembled an Abercrombie model in pointe shoes. The kid in the studio next door is painfully pale and he’s wrapped in a tuba, so unless Eponine’s sense of humor’s gotten a lot meaner, my money’s on you.”
Enjolras makes a mental note to kill Eponine next time he sees her. “I’m Enjolras,” he confirms, finishing with the left foot and tucking the white medical tape back into the messenger bag open on the floor beside him. He frowns. “Why exactly did Eponine enlist you to find me?”
“She’s out sick,” is the answer, and to Enjolras’ utter consternation the dark-haired boy moves into the studio without asking, striding across the room to the grand piano by the window. His flip-flops make a faint slapping sound on the polished wooden floor.
“Eponine and I have art history together,” he explains over one shoulder. “She said you needed an accompanist, and I was free.”
Enjolras is completely nonplussed. He tries to think of something politer to say than “No” while the other boy drops his bag onto the floor beside the piano bench and sits down, tugging at the edge of his hat.
“I’m actually fine,” Enjolras says. “I can practice without it.” It’s a lie. He has the choreography of the piece down, of course, but he needs to hear it to music and his iPod isn’t the same. Eponine’s been coming in between classes to play for him on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“I don’t mind,” says the boy, shrugging as he leans forward and rests his elbows on the fallboard. There’s a swipe of blue on his bicep, which he doesn’t seem to have noticed. “I got out of class early, and my roommate’s not picking me up for another forty-five minutes.”
Enjolras gets to his feet, putting one hand on the bar running the length of the wall and going into first position to test the tape. “So you’re a student?” he asks, eying the room’s other occupant.
The dark-haired boy raises one eyebrow at him and says with amusement clearly audible in his rough voice (Enjolras would bet money that he’s a smoker), “No, I’m madly in love with you and decided the best way to approach you would be to impersonate a pianist.”
Enjolras can feel his cheeks grow warm, though he keeps his expression impassive. “No, I meant…” he gestures vaguely to the other’s paint-covered shirt. “I assumed art, not music.”
The boy puts a hand to his heart. “Am I so easily read?”
He grins crookedly at Enjolras’ clear consternation and clarifies, “Let’s say the music is more of a hobby now than an active pursuit. Nothing ruins a good thing like thirty hours’ practice a week and then being stuffed into a tux and forced to do recitals.”
Then he seems to remember that he’s talking to a dance student in the elite class, and instead of looking embarrassed his smile only deepens as he glances away, pushing the fall up out of the way and pressing down on one of the keys experimentally, the F. It sounds dully, and he doesn’t release it at once. “Wrong crowd, huh?”
“I suppose.” Enjolras is trying not to be rude, really he is, but he has his routine down and he doesn’t appreciate when things do not go according to it. “Look, I—what’s your name?” he asks, startled by the realization that the other boy hasn’t offered it.
That wins him another smile, and Enjolras feels slightly set off balance by the way he smiles, like it’s only for Enjolras. “Grantaire.”
“Grantaire. I appreciate the offer, really, but I can just get together with Eponine another time. You don’t have to do this.” This is really fucking awkward, how do you not see that? Or maybe it’s just that Enjolras is convinced it should be awkward, when for some reason it isn’t.
Because he doesn’t seem feel uncomfortable at all, the curly-haired boy—Grantaire—he’s sitting at the piano easy as anything, watching Enjolras with that same amused expression and letting the fingers of one hand tap idly on the waiting keys.
“Do you have sheet music for me?” Grantaire asks instead of answering, and Enjolras supposes that’s sort of an answer anyway. He’s caught between trying again to get out of this and just letting Grantaire play for him. He really does need to practice for his recital, and missing even one day will set him behind.
To be shy about his dancing doesn’t even occur to him. Enjolras is good, and he knows it.
After a few moments he shakes his head, rubbing his thumb over the burnished metal of the barre. “Eponine has it.”
Grantaire huffs a laugh. “Course she does. Okay, what’re you working with?”
“Tchaikovsky. The 1812 Overture.”
“I know that one,” Grantaire says, and shatters Enjolras’ last hope of escaping.
He takes a moment to make sure the piano is in tune—bowing his head over the keyboard and pressing on this key or that, shifting his weight ever so slightly, and Enjolras can see his lips moving silently.
Enjolras sits back down so that he can pull his black ballet flats on, and then goes back to the bar to run through the five positions twice as a warm-up.
The boy at the piano straightens up, hands poised dramatically over the keyboard and expression determined. He clears his throat in a way that Enjolras suspects is deliberately dramatic. Enjolras eases into his starting position, and Grantaire…
…immediately launches into a rousing rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Enjolras whips his head around to glare at the pianist, and Grantaire has to leave off because he’s laughing too hard. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, putting a hand up as if in surrender. “I do know the overture, I promise.”
Enjolras’ expression makes it plan how unamusing he finds the joke. He’s even less convinced now that this isn’t a fucking terrible idea, because Grantaire’s just said he doesn’t play regularly and the 1812 is long, there’s no way he’ll know the whole thing without sheet music, even if he was at all planning to take this seriously, and Enjolras is torn between relief and a strange sort of disappointment that this isn’t going to work after all.
And then Grantaire begins to play in earnest, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture this time, and Enjolras forgets to be disappointed or relieved.
Grantaire is hitting every note and every minute rise and fall from memory. He’s ten times better than Eponine, and Enjolras bets that Eponine knew that full well when she’d asked him to play. The music is fluid and complex and absolutely captivating, and Enjolras has listened to the Overture a hundred times by now but he has never heard it sound like this.
But it’s not just the music which has so struck him, either.
His eyes are inexplicably fixed on the boy at the piano, on the elegant fingers stained with paint as they move over the keys, on the way Grantaire’s face looks in profile, brow furrowed in concentration and lashes dark against his skin and lips slightly parted.
He was good-looking before, slouching on the bench and smirking at Enjolras in a ridiculous hat. At the piano he’s breathtaking, and Enjolras hasn’t the slightest idea what to do with this realization.
Then “Got it,” Grantaire says, sounding pleased with himself, and looks up, still holding down the most recent note. Enjolras tears his eyes away and tries to pretend that he hasn’t been staring like an idiot. “Ready when you are, prima donna.”
Enjolras gives him a withering look, but Grantaire only grins in response.
The blonde man takes a deep breath, and the other flexes his fingers, and then they plunge back into the music.
It’s a full twelve minutes later before Enjolras goes through the last pirouette à la seconde and ends up in fifth position, coming back from the sort of trance he goes into when he dances, the world that is just him and the music.
His t-shirt is sticking to him in places and his golden hair is damp with sweat. He wipes the back of his hand over his forehead and looks up, refocusing on the studio and the window and the boy at the piano, and realizes that Grantaire has stopped playing and is watching him.
No, watching is too mild a word. Grantaire is looking at him like he wants to get up from the piano bench and pin Enjolras back against any available surface.
His eyes are impossibly dark, and they linger on Enjolras’ mouth for far too long for Enjolras’ sanity before lifting at last to meet the blonde’s gaze.
This boy he’s never met is looking at him like he wants to consume him whole, and God help him, in this moment Enjolras wants to let him.
He wants to find out where else Grantaire might have left paint on that tempting sun-bronzed skin without realizing. He wants to pull the stupid hat off and drag him down onto the studio floor and mess his hair up properly.
Grantaire swallows, and Enjolras finds himself caught by the movement of his Adam’s apple as he does. “Should we run through it again?” the dark-haired boy asks, looking away as if nothing at all is wrong. The new rasp in his voice sends a shiver down Enjolras’ spine.
Enjolras says yes, because he finds himself desperate for something to focus on other than the way Grantaire’s undershirt clings to his body.
Grantaire isn’t staring when Enjolras finishes the second time. It’s like he’s realized his mistake and is determined not to repeat it. His eyes don’t stray from the keyboard.
Enjolras tries to tell himself he’s not disappointed.
Then Grantaire’s phone buzzes in his back pocket, and he throws Enjolras an apologetic expression and flips it open.
“Courf? Yeah, I’m in the music building. Because Eponine asked me to, asshole.” Grantaire glances up at Enjolras, who is going through the positions again (mainly as an attempt to focus on anything else besides the curls escaping the knit hat at the nape of Grantaire’s neck). “No, it was fine. I’ll be right down.”
He unfolds himself from the piano bench and grabs his bag from the floor, hitching it up on one shoulder. “My roommate,” he explains unnecessarily, jabbing his thumb towards the door. “I have to…”
“Thank you for your help,” Enjolras says, not looking over at him. He pauses, and then adds, “You should reconsider, you know. Giving up the music.”
Grantaire laughs, a warm sound that draws Enjolras’ eyes irresistibly back to him. “Do I detect a compliment?”
Enjolras shrugs one shoulder as if it doesn’t matter much either way, when really all he can think is that Grantaire is looking at him with his blue eyes crinkling and that crooked smile.
“I may have to practice more often, anyway,” Grantaire says easily. Enjolras has turned back to the bar and is resting one leg up on it, facing away from the other boy as he crosses the studio to the door.
Then Enjolras feels warm breath on his skin, the brush of a silky curl against the back of his neck, and he goes absolutely still. He’s not even sure if he’s breathing.
Grantaire has leaned in impossibly close, smelling of soap and oil paint, to murmur in Enjolras’ ear: “Wouldn’t want to let down my ballerina.”
***
thanks, ep. owe you one. xx r