Work Text:
He couldn’t remember if letting the blood rush to his head was a good or a bad thing, but since Joly and Combeferre were both asleep and therefore unavailable to answer his questions (because they locked their doors, the heathens), Courfeyrac was forced to go with his instinct.
And his instinct said to hang off the edge of the couch with his hair brushing the floor, even though it was two o’clock in the morning.
He giggled quietly as stars swam in front of his eyes.
Somewhere along the line he’d also decided that trying to simultaneously balance a book on each foot was a good idea, but he wasn’t having much luck with that -- not that it was stopping him.
The only thing that did actually stop him from potentially giving himself an aneurysm was the sound of someone struggling (and failing) to get through the front door.
Courfeyrac dropped his books and sat up, clinging to the back of the sofa at the dizziness and slight nausea that resulted. His stomach (and head) settled after a moment, and he was able to press his face against the window, peering at the entrance to the house.
Whoever was out there was hidden from view by the way the door was set in slightly. But he could hear a kind of scraping, like someone was trying to fit a key into a lock, which could only mean one thing -- or one person, rather.
Courfeyrac rolled off the couch and stumbled into the hallway.
Grantaire had given up trying to get in, and pressed his face against the glass panes with a miserable expression. He didn’t blink when Courfeyrac came into view, only stared with a melancholic kind of longing -- like a dog that just wanted to be inside where the people were.
Courfeyrac scrambled over and opened the door -- slowly, just in case Grantaire wasn’t planning on standing up as he pulled the door back.
Grantaire did stand up -- but only just. He was obviously intoxicated (although, when wasn’t he?), but coherent enough to thank Courfeyrac as he slid past him -- and then veered to the left, into the coat rack.
Courfeyrac covered his mouth to stifle a laugh as he shut and locked the door again.
“Are you alright?” He asked quietly, even though it was a bit of a stupid question.
Grantaire stroked the coat that he’d unintentionally buried his face in. “Yep.”
“Are you sure?”
Grantaire’s eyes fluttered closed, and he sighed quietly. “Yep,” was the only answer he could give.
Courfeyrac inhaled deeply, and pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “Come on,” he told the drunk gently. “To bed with you.” He pulled Grantaire away from the coats, and into his arms.
Grantaire wobbled dangerously for a bit, and then tipped towards Courfeyrac.
Somehow Courf managed to get Grantaire’s arm over his shoulder (he was always surprised by how heavy Grantaire was -- as a boxer, there was a lot of muscle mass there that went unnoticed), and one of his own arms around Grantaire’s waist. With a little patience, they hobbled across the house to the stairs, and down into the basement.
How they made it down those stairs was anyone’s guess -- it wasn’t one of the details that either of them would remember when they recalled that night months, and even years down the road.
But Courfeyrac dragged Grantaire into his room, and dumped him onto the mattress on the floor that served as his bed.
Grantaire huffed.
“Are you going to be alright?”
Maybe he wasn’t, maybe he wasn’t. He couldn’t rightly say. He couldn’t say what day it was either -- but thankfully, Courfeyrac wasn’t asking.
Courfeyrac frowned slightly. “R?” He nudged the drunk man with his foot.
Grantaire rolled onto his back and waved his hand dismissively.
“I’ll get you some water,” Courfeyrac said quietly. Grantaire tried to protest, but Courfeyrac was up the stairs and rooting around in the kitchen before Grantaire even realised he’d left.
He struggled to sit up, but he managed.
He was shit-faced. He wasn’t tired -- but he was shit-faced, and sometimes that amounted to the same thing.
Courfeyrac skipped back down the stairs with all the grace of a newborn kitten, all but tumbling back into Grantaire’s room. He handed over a cup of cold water, and two caffeine pills. (With one medical school student in the house, and one formerly pre-med, turned trying-for-a-PhD-in-education, but still essentially a big brother to them all in the house, they were always heavily stocked on every kind of over-the-counter imaginable.)
Grantaire downed them without asking, and pushed the empty cup across the floor.
Courfeyrac sat down across from him.
Grantaire blinked.
Courfeyrac watched him silently.
Grantaire blinked again. “Can I help you?”
Courfeyrac pulled his knees up to his chest, loosely wrapping his arms around his legs. “What happened?”
“What?”
“You’re drunk-- more drunk than usual,” he amended, seeing the utter lack of understanding in Grantaire’s red-rimmed eyes. “It takes a lot for you to get this wasted. So what happened?”
Grantaire patted the front of his shirt absently, looking for his cigarettes. “I got drunk. Don’t you have class or something?”
“It’s two thirty in the morning.”
“Tomorrow, you twat.”
“Not until the afternoon.”
Grantaire found a loose smoke in the pocket of his jeans and pulled it out. Courfeyrac promptly pulled it out of his hands.
“Combeferre will skin if you if you smoke inside.”
“I’m not afraid of Combeferre.”
They both knew that was a complete lie. Everyone was afraid of Combeferre when he was angry -- not that it had happened more than once in the last three years. (With good reason.) Even Jehan was afraid of Combeferre, and Jehan wasn’t afraid of anything.
Grantaire didn’t try to take his cigarette back.
Courfeyrac put it down behind him. “So?”
“So what?” Grantaire asked, rubbing his eyes with both hands. At least the caffeine was starting to kick in.
Courfeyrac watched him. There was no pity in his expression -- no sadness, no concern. Just an uncontained level of curiosity that only Courfeyrac could manage.
In ways he couldn’t explain, Grantaire was grateful for that.
He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows. “Don’t you have homework to do? I’m fine.”
Courfeyrac smiled. “You’re going to have to try harder than that.”
“I’ll start reciting poetry about Enjolras’s ass.”
Courf rolled his eyes. “God, it’s like you don’t know me at all.”
“Really graphic poetry. Think Catullus, with less death.”
Courfeyrac didn’t move. If anything, he seemed intrigued. Grantaire sighed.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it,” Grantaire admitted quietly.
“But something did happen.”
Grantaire looked up at the ceiling. “Something always happens.”
“Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah.”
Courfeyrac stretched out his legs. “Promise?”
“Oh my fuck, are you twelve?”
“Almost six and a half,” Courfeyrac answered. “You’re lucky I’m not making you pinky swear.”
“Get out of my room.”
Courf grinned as he hopped to his feet. “Sleep well, R.”
“Fuck off,” Grantaire replied.
Courfeyrac picked up both the cigarette and the cup as he skipped out of Grantaire’s room. If he noticed the way Grantaire’s eyes lingered on him, he didn’t say anything.
If it was his imagination, he wasn’t surprised. If it was real, he wasn’t complaining.
Grantaire didn’t really expect Courfeyrac to be awake three hours later, but he knocked on Courf’s bedroom door anyway.
And Courfeyrac, who was still very much awake, answered. “Yeah?”
For a very brief moment, Grantaire considered turning around and stumbling back downstairs into his basement lair. But he was a cynic, not a coward -- and he pushed the door open.
Courfeyrac was sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, braiding Jehan’s hair.
“Shit, sorry,” Grantaire muttered. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.” He hastily pulled back.
“You’re not interrupting!”
Jehan shook his head quickly and leaned away from Courfeyrac, finish the end of the plait himself. “I’m on my way out.”
Grantaire hovered in the doorway, but didn’t come in. Courfeyrac rolled off his bed and padded over -- he hadn’t changed out of his oversized sweater, and if Grantaire didn’t know any better, it looked like he had every intention of sleeping in it.
“What’s up?” He asked.
Grantaire shook his head. “Don’t worry about it-- I’ll ask tomorrow.” He turned to leave, but Courfeyrac reached out, grabbing the sleeve of his shirt.
“Come in.” Courf tugged gently.
Grantaire let himself be pulled.
Jehan smiled at them both, picking up some of his textbooks from the floor of Courfeyrac’s room as he slipped out, shutting the door behind him. Courfeyrac hadn’t let go of Grantaire, and he didn’t intend to. Courf pulled him all the way across his room to his bed, slipping back into the spot he’d vacated only moments ago.
“Sit,” he insisted.
Grantaire sat. Well, perched really -- and didn’t slide back into Courfeyrac’s bed until Courf pulled on his sleeve again.
After a long silence, Courfeyrac quietly spoke up. “I can lock the door, if you want.” He had noticed the way Grantaire kept furtively glancing at it -- like he was afraid Jehan would come back in at any moment.
“Do you usually keep it open?” Grantaire asked as Courf slid off the bed again.
“I have to. Enjolras and Combeferre lock theirs -- somebody has to be available if there’s an emergency.”
“It takes like... five seconds to unlock them from the outside. And don’t you sleep--” Grantaire stopped.
"Naked?" Courfeyrac asked. "Yeah."
Grantaire shook his head, smiling faintly. Courfeyrac bounded back across the room. He’d have jumped the last few feet and bounced back into his bed, but there were people sleeping in the room just underneath his, and -- despite his late night antics -- he did care.
“So, what’s up?” He repeated with a confident kind of casualness. He hauled his duvet out of the gap between his bed and the wall and spread it across both of them.
Grantaire kept smiling -- but it was that forced expression his friends knew far too well.
Courfeyrac frowned.
“R...”
“Sorry, this is--” He shook his head. “I’m just being stupid. I’m probably still drunk,” he added with a short laugh.
“You’re not.”
Grantaire glanced at him.
“I know what you’re like when you’re drunk, and I know when you’re pretending.”
“Only tools pretend to be drunk.”
Courfeyrac reached out and took his hand. Grantaire’s expression faltered.
It took him a minute or two to cave. Courfeyrac didn’t say anything -- he didn’t have to. He had one of those uniquely warm personalities that put people at ease, even in their most vulnerable moments.
Grantaire kept his eyes on their hands as he quietly explained. “I just... I want to know if it’s guys, or just-- ... Enjolras.”
“It’s Enjolras,” Courfeyrac told him bluntly.
Grantaire looked up abruptly.
Courfeyrac held his gaze. “It’s Enjolras,” he repeated. “I don’t know how he does it, but it’s not just you. I think he’s part succubus.”
“Incubus.”
“What?”
“Succubus is a female demon. The male is an incubus.”
“Shouldn’t it be succuba, then?”
“Don’t know, but there’s one on the side of the courthouse on Rue Girondette-- huge knockers.”
Courfeyrac laughed. Grantaire smiled -- a genuine, not-drunk, not-faking, happy-for-the-moment smile.
“So what’s the remedy for an incubus?” Grantaire asked.
“I don’t know. Ask Joly. Or Google-- Google is surprisingly clever.”
“Google is not a person.”
Courfeyrac gave him a wary look.
And Grantaire -- caught off guard by the seriousness in Courfeyrac’s expression -- briefly considered the possibility that Google might have been more than he originally believed.
“Look, have you ever wanted to kiss me?” Courfeyrac asked, interrupting his slightly dystopic, sci-fi train of thought.
“No.”
“I’m offended, and I think you’re lying.”
“Alright, like-- ... maybe three times. Four at most, but I was shit-faced.”
“What about Jehan?”
Grantaire pulled back slightly. “What?”
“Have you ever thought about kissing Jehan?”
“No.” Grantaire shook his head.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“I just figured maybe it was a blond thing--”
Grantaire pulled his hand away and held them both up. “Stop-- please, God. Just stop.”
Courfeyrac chuckled. “Just checking.”
Grantaire slid both of his hands through his hair. “Fuck me, so it is just... him.”
Courf nodded. “Although you’re welcome to kiss me, if you’re curious.”
“Are you serious?” Grantaire asked, side-eying him.
“Yeah,” Courfeyrac answered, smiling.
Grantaire very unintentionally licked his lips.
Courfeyrac -- unashamed, unhindered, and utterly unfazed -- scooched closer. Grantaire didn’t move. “Push me off or something, if you want me to stop,” Courfeyrac murmured. “Just... don’t punch me or anything.”
Grantaire rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to punch you.”
Courfeyrac caught the last word on his lips. Grantaire automatically cupped his jaw with one hand, and leaned into the kiss.
It was sweet. It was sweet, and it was soft, and it was entirely Courfeyrac from start to finish. Grantaire could feel himself melting -- just falling across Courf as he leaned back, and not wanting to stop. But he did. He pushed himself up on his elbows, taking a deep breath.
Courf looked up at him with beautiful, hazel eyes, and Grantaire wondered if maybe Enjolras wasn’t the only god damn incubus in the house.
“Do you want to stop?” Courfeyrac asked, in a voice that could have made a junkless angel cry.
Grantaire groaned quietly. He didn’t. His heart wasn’t in it-- but it didn’t need to be. He was starting to accept that his heart just wasn’t going to be in it, no matter who was under him. Or on top of him, because he strongly suspected Courfeyrac wouldn’t mind that.
“Is that a no?” Courf was grinning again.
Grantaire settled back down against him slowly. Courfeyrac shivered.
“Just help me forget him for one night,” Grantaire murmured against Courfeyrac’s mouth.
Courfeyrac’s grin softened, but didn’t fade. It was warm, and sympathetic, and just as comforting as the way he slipped his arms around Grantaire’s waist.
“I’ll do my best,” he answered -- and kissed him again.