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Being inside this hospital now isn't any less creepy than the many, many other times Grantaire has been here. Not having to enter through the ER for the very first time has done surprisingly little to make him feel better about coming. The chair is uncomfortable and he can't stop shifting around in it. Grantaire wishes he'd brought bubble wrap or silly putty, or best of all his sketchbook. His hands don't seem to know where to be. Grantaire thinks wildly of leaving, just getting up and walking out and not having to deal with this anymore.
And then he looks over at Jehan, who's sitting next to him, and he tells himself once again that he has to stay, that there won't be any wriggling out this time. Because Jehan is right there, and Jehan looks exactly as freaked out as Grantaire feels. They made this pact so that both of them could begin to sort out the twin shitstorms their lives had become, and if Grantaire chickens out now and leaves Jehan will leave too and neither of them will get the help they need. And Grantaire isn't very good at giving a damn about his own pathetic self but he absolutely will not sabotage Jehan.
The two of them make eye contact and Grantaire sees everything he's feeling reflected openly in Jehan's eyes. Jehan smiles shakily at him, and for some reason that actually does make Grantaire feel just a little bit calmer.
"I'm doing Miracle Modus," says Jehan quietly, and Grantaire can see the app loading on the phone in Jehan's white-knuckled grasp. "Do you want to knit?"
"Fuck yes," says Grantaire gratefully, and Jehan reaches into his satchel and pulls out a scarf-to-be. The scraggly rows that Grantaire has contributed are, regrettably, clearly differentiable from Jehan's neat stitches, but Jehan, angel that he is, has not made any remarks about it. Grantaire has been meaning to bring up the idea of giving the scarf to Combeferre when they're done with it, but he hasn't dared to yet.
This scarf is the crisis scarf, the one that Jehan keeps in his bag at all times for when either of them acutely need it anywhere they happen to be. They don't work on it at any less urgent time, even their more or less weekly hanging-out-and-knitting-together sessions. Knitting night has been a longstanding tradition for longer than either of them care to remember, and their friends and significant others know not to mess with it. They make concerted efforts to never ever pose a threat, and in return they receive more knitted clothing than they know what to do with. Enjolras will soon be getting a nice beanie, or as nice as can be spawned by Grantaire's clumsy fingers. Jehan has been hard at work on his first ever pair of fingerless gloves, and Grantaire suspects that they're for Courfeyrac although it hasn't yet been the right time to ask.
Grantaire fumbles with the crisis yarn, situating it between his knees, and picks up the needles. A while ago, after they'd first come up with this idea, Combeferre drove them all the way to the big craft store several towns over, steering the car with his left hand and holding Jehan's bony hand in his right, with Grantaire in the back seat untying and retying his ragged shoelaces over and over. In the store Combeferre hadn't let go of Jehan's hand, and his other arm was around Grantaire's shoulders as he gently guided them both past each shelf full of precise or permanent or sharp things and to the back of the store, where the knitting section was.
Combeferre had waited patiently as the two of them wordlessly decided on a set of thick purple plastic needles with blunt, nubby tips, and a little ball of lime-green acrylic yarn. (During knitting night both of them used normal wood or metal needles, but the crisis scarf was usually for times when wood or metal was too much.) In the car Jehan and Grantaire switched off knitting the first few rows. By the time they'd reached Combeferre's apartment building, Jehan was laughing as Combeferre came up with particularly inventive epithets for the drivers of cars in front of them at traffic lights, and Grantaire was asleep for the first time in three days.
Grantaire and Jehan take turns buying supplemental lime green acrylic yarn when they're about to run out. By now the scarf is starting to get pretty long, almost as long as what Grantaire would call the optimal length of a scarf. He drops a stitch and curses quietly, considering. Sooner or later this scarf will be finished, and although it's a small, insignificant thing Grantaire knows he needs to have another color yarn ready and waiting when that day comes. He decides to suggest to Jehan that they go to the craft store with Combeferre again, and get a supply of yarn all at once now that they know how much they need, instead of buying it a little at a time. Then on the way back one of them will cast the new crisis scarf on while the other casts the last stitches of the old crisis scarf off, and when they get to Combeferre's place and he invites them in for dinner as he always does, they will present him with the lime-green crisis scarf.
It seems only fair in Grantaire's opinion. The crisis scarf would not exist if not for Combeferre. Honestly, Grantaire and Jehan might not even still exist if not for Combeferre. Grantaire will knit hats and socks and wristbands for the love of his life until Enjolras has enough to fill a warehouse, and Jehan yarnbombs the park every two months or so and gives everyone astonishingly beautiful sweaters for their birthdays, and the two of them regularly text back and forth about which of their friends has the direst need for a surprise new pair of mittens. They love their friends, who have been unimaginably supportive in the darkest of times. Grantaire loves Enjolras, who sometimes is singlehandedly what keeps him going. But the crisis scarf wholly belongs to Combeferre. Grantaire is sure that Jehan agrees.
He sneaks a look. Jehan is absorbed in the Miracle Modus, rainbow spirals expanding and contracting on the phone's screen. The room is too noisy to hear bells and chimes, but Grantaire has used the app himself so often that he knows what sounds are playing based simply on the colors of the spirals striking the edge of the screen.
"Jean Prouvaire?" a voice calls from the front of the room, and Jehan looks up, tension rushing back into his body language. "You can come on back now."
Grantaire is trying not to freak out. Really, he is. But Jehan and the Miracle Modus and the crisis scarf are what are stopping him right now from running away and getting lost in the hospital parking lot, and without his best friend with him he doesn't know if he can survive sitting alone in the waiting room, hyperaware of the purpose he's there for, until someone calls his name. He sets the crisis scarf down on Jehan's lap and shuts his eyes, completely cognizant of his own desperation and how openly he's telegraphing it to anyone who bothers to look at him.
"Grantaire," says Jehan, and Grantaire forces his eyes open and looks at him. Jehan is scared but clear-headed, and his eyes are gigantic and the color of honey. Sometimes when Grantaire is stressed just extended eye contact with Jehan will help. They've been known to have whole conversations just by staring at each other. Courfeyrac calls it their "mind meld."
"Excuse me?" says Jehan, trying to get the attention of the person at the front who'd called him a moment ago. Shit shit shit, thinks Grantaire. How much longer can it be until his own name is called? What, five minutes? Can he make it that long? Grantaire sits on his hands and takes a deep breath.
"Excuse me," says Jehan again, and Grantaire knows what it costs Jehan to voluntarily talk to strangers and he is astonished and clueless at what could possibly merit the effort.
Jehan inhales and exhales, and then says, "Would it be OK if I stayed out here until my friend gets called in too? So we can go in at the same time?" His smile is strained. "He's my ride-- well, we're sharing a ride, and…"
"Sure, that's fine," says the person at the front, and Jehan sits next to Grantaire once more.
"You…" Grantaire trails off, unable to find words. "Thanks," he says finally. Jehan goes in for a tight hug and Grantaire returns it. They're both really intense huggers. Not crack-you-in-half violence and superstrength, more like just not afraid to hold a person for as long as it takes to be able to let go. "Not just for this," says Grantaire to Jehan's shoulder. "Thank you for teaching me how to knit."
"It was my pleasure," says Jehan, and eventually they mostly disentangle themselves and watch the Miracle Modus together, holding hands, until Grantaire's name is called.