Chapter Text
Waking up in a different body to the one you fell asleep in is a disorienting experience, however many times you go through it. Waking up on the floor is similarly unpleasant. Enjolras has apparently been using his arm as a pillow since shifting back, because he's numb from the elbow down and hesitant to move it because then there'll be pins and needles and it's too early for that kind of torture.
Also the sun is blazing in his face so he can't even put his head back down on his numb limb and sleep until the world stops conspiring to be awful. He's just going to have to lie here and relive with agonising clarity the moment last night where he rolled over and let Grantaire rub his belly.
He's got good hands. Artists' hands as Enjolras has explained to Combeferre probably too many times and it turns out he uses them for solid stroking work and really top notch belly rubs that should not feel as good as they do.
Wrong floor, numb arm and thinking about Grantaire’s hands running across his body in this form is getting him hard. Oh, and also he's naked. God, if every human saw a werewolf during a Morning After the whole 'superior species' concept would die a quiet, embarrassed death in a corner.
Enjolras cracks an eyelid open against the bright light of the sun and gets his first glimpse of good news all morning: Grantaire is still asleep, ignorant of the shambles that Enjolras's life has become. He's on the pallet in the corner, a formerly-white towel pressed to his side and Combeferre's shirt acting as a somewhat sparse blanket.
Enjolras closes his eyes and takes a long breath through his nose. Smells are always weaker in human form, but he can't pick up any injuries outside of the obvious one. Which is a relief, yes. It's one thing to know objectively that a wolf will recognise and not attack a claimed human, it's a whole other thing to lock said human in with the wolf on a full moon with no prior experimentation.
Not that the hotel staff had hesitated.
He rolls onto his stomach and pushes himself upright, moving as silently as he can he opens the bathroom door.
It looks exactly like every other Lunar Hotel bathroom. A few small bottles stamped with the hotel logo, an opened bar of soap. There's a small table with a sign over it reading 'Bedding materials for post-transformation sleep (please remember to check-out prior to 1pm)'. The table underneath has no bedding on it - curse of not booking ahead, he supposes - but Enjolras's clothes are folded on top of it.
He showers, letting hot water pound away the last few urges to howl, to run through the forest. If he thinks about running his fingers through dark curls and pressing his knuckles against a scar in the shape of his own teeth while he jerks off - well - there's no one to know. He can compartmentalise, he can deal with this and it's not going to be weird. They don't even have to see each other, not outside meetings. This one night will pass and then it'll be just like before, Enjolras watching Grantaire more than he should, only now he'll have the perfect excuse for not doing anything about it.
He's tugged his jeans up to his thighs before he remembers that his shirt is currently performing duties as a makeshift blanket. Grantaire's T-shirt is hanging over the towel rail, the stain largely soaked out, so he tugs that over his head instead. He's taller, but Grantaire has broader shoulders and it seems to even out.
His phone buzzes in his pocket as he's stepping out of the bathroom and he pulls it out. In the - he checks the time - three hours since sunrise, he has managed to miss three calls from his mother, one from Combeferre and receive a text from Bahorel that just says 'lol.'
Apparently he doesn't have to worry about how to explain this situation to the rest of the ABC. He wonders if Courfeyrac saw Bahorel this morning, or decided to save time and just send a group text.
Grantaire is sitting up, reaching up one handed to push his hair back off his face and yawning. "More disasters?"
Enjolras glances up at him, getting a solid view of Grantaire's chest which - hello - he probably didn't need but has nevertheless been imprinted on his mind forever. "Not unless you count having to explain all this to my mother."
There's a flash of something in Grantaire's eyes, then it's gone. "Don't tell her?"
What does he know about Grantaire's family? Nothing, which is roughly the amount he knows about Grantaire’s entire life outside meetings. "Doesn't really work like that in a wolf pack." He looks at his clock again, they've got another few hours before check-out. "I guess we should talk?"
Grantaire's mouth twists. "I've got to get home, dude. And shower, those cells were not full of roses."
"No," Enjolras agrees, realising a moment later than maybe that was weird, since he was never actually in them - "I could smell it on you. Last night." That's worse, that's definitely worse. Enjolras is a public speaker, son of a politician, he is supposed to be good at words.
Grantaire just gives him a slightly strange sideways look, that turns into a familiar half-grin. "Well now I feel bad for not showering sooner. You call mama Enjolras, I'll wash off prison and then you can drive me home."
Which conveniently leaves no time for them to actually talk. Enjolras should be annoyed by that, but given that he still has no idea what he's going to say, possibly it's for the best.
He waits for the bathroom door to shut and then calls his first missed call back. There's a moment of dial tone and then his mother picks up. "Really, dear?"
*
He'd promised his mother that he'd have a proper talk with Grantaire as soon as they were alone, but he manages to drive all the way back into town without thinking of any way to break the awkward silence that came over them when they realised they would have to both strip or go home in each other's shirts.
Grantaire's T-shirt is still a little bit damp, it's soaking into the waistband of Enjolras's jeans. "Are you sure I can't take you to a hospital?" It's not a long discussion on consent and equality in a partnership and all the benefits Grantaire can expect from his new position, but at least it's words.
Grantaire pulls up Courf's shirt and pokes at his side. "It's scabbed over, should be fine. Anyway, They might get a bit suspicious of your 'we've been bound for months' plan if I show up in hospital the morning after with fresh bite marks."
Enjolras has never heard of a werewolf bite becoming infected but that doesn't mean it's impossible. He tries not to imagine what his father would say if he found out that Enjolras had just let a bite victim go without any kind of aftercare. "Bites close up fast, it's an evolutionary thing, I think. Can't have a new were bleeding out before they get to their first full moon."
Grantaire traces his finger across the shape of Enjolras's jaw on his skin. "Do people ever turn into werewolves during a claiming ritual?"
"You're not susceptible -"
"Immune to lycanthropy, I know." Combeferre insisted on checking every member of the ABC, so as to draw up a comprehensive list of possible solutions to any troubles. "I just meant generally."
Enjolras tries to think through all of the weird 'I bit this one guy who...' stories he's heard in his life. "It's different. Biting to claim and biting to turn. Intent matters, I think."
"You don't seem sure." He lets the shirt drop back over the bite.
"This is the first time I've ever done either." He looks down at his hands on the wheel and steels himself. "We should talk about what this means."
"Left up ahead," Grantaire says. "Is the traffic in Paris always this bad? When we have equal rights and all, can you start a campaign against slow cyclists?"
“Grantaire-”
“I know what a claim is, dude. I am a person who exists in the world.” He drums his fingers against the car door. “And you basically saved my life so yeah, I’m cool with whatever. Anything you want. Take a right.”
Enjolras swings the car around the corner. He’s never been this way before, the buildings have shutters that look one solid gust of wind away from dropping down into the street. Painted facades are peeling, entire buildings listing carelessly to one side or another. Combeferre’s shiny silver car - a gift from Enjolras’s father - stands out a mile on the narrow street. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Pull in down here, on the left.” Grantaire points at an alleyway that’s dark enough it seems to exist in a sunless universe with no similarities to Enjolras’s own. Enjolras resists the urge to put on his headlights as he pulls in. The alley turns out to be a road, there’s a short line of cars pulled over vaguely into the gutters, leaving a hairsbreadth of space for others to squeeze through.
The buildings on each side look halfway to leaning against each other, more like a house of cards than functional architecture. “You live here?”
“What?” Grantaire glances around at him. “Oh, this is the back. Uh - they’re not super happy about me missing work last night, so ‘Ponine said she’d sneak me in.” He taps his fingers on the armrest, looking around as though just realising he’s sitting in a six month old Mercedes, parked next to three rust buckets and a skip that looks as though it’s just been abandoned here. “Right... if anyone comes by, try to look like you stole the car?”
Enjolras wonders if he’s supposed to walk Grantaire to the door - it seems like the kind of thing Combeferre would tell him to do - but he can’t see an entrance anywhere. “I can talk to your… employer? Landlord? I can explain the situation.”
Grantaire laughs weakly. “Yeah, that would - let’s not.” He glances out the car, looking up at the open window over the skip and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, do you want to come in? Not to talk to anyone, but there’ll be breakfast and everyone likes pancakes, right?”
Enjolras should definitely say no. He’s spent too much time with Grantaire already. He needs to hold at least three emergency meetings and only one of them is allowed to involve him shaking Combeferre’s shoulders while saying ‘what have I done’ repeatedly.
Unfortunately, his stomach is much quicker on the uptake than his brain, letting out a rumble that there’s no way Grantaire misses. He blames the full moon. For this specifically, but also for everything else. “You don’t have to give me anything,” he says, somehow finding the exact phrase he should’ve been using the whole drive over.
“Pancakes are literally the least I can do, and if you ever figure out what the most I can do is you should let me know and I will get right on it.” He punches Enjolras lightly in the shoulder and Enjolras tries to pretend that he doesn’t know this is the first time Grantaire has voluntarily touched him in human form since Enjolras sank his teeth into Grantaire’s skin.
Enjolras focuses on the simple things, cutting the engine, getting out of the car where something sticky he’s trying not to look at too closely immediately coats his shoes. He locks the car, wincing as it lets out a loud ‘bleep bleep’ casually alerting every would-be-car-thief in the area to it’s existence. Then he takes another look around. The skip is still there - full of damp plaster, the paste of cardboard soaked one too many times and a level of slime that he’s not even going to think about. Somehow outside of the car, the buildings seem even closer. “You live here?” he says, again.
Grantaire stretches out and walks over next to him. “Up there.” He points to the open window, looking out over the skip. Not the most pleasant view, definitely not the best smell. “You might need a boost up, if it’s your first time.”
“A boost -?” Enjolras starts, then he looks again and sees the skip edge, positioned neatly just beneath the one open window. Right. Back entrance. “Is it safe?”
Grantaire comes up beside him and shrugs. “For you? Safer than the front door. If you don’t fall in, the pancakes are worth it.” He laces his fingers together, crouching down.
“And if I do fall in?” but he’s already putting his less-sticky shoe into Grantaire’s hands and a moment later he’s hoisted up. The edge of the skip is bigger than it looked from the ground, it’s easy enough to walk around to the window. Grantaire just grabs onto it and pulls himself up, somehow contriving to keep Combeferre’s shirt clean.
The open window is wide enough that he only has to duck a little. The smell inside is overwhelming, stuffy and warm, wine and smoke. Éponine and Grantaire are threaded through every inch of it, or more likely it’s the other way around. This is home, then.
He opens his eyes. The room has six beds, two down the far end are occupied but the rest are left sloppy and unmade with sheets and blankets piled haphazardly and unevenly between them. There’s no other furniture, no decoration, walls painted some shade of beige that probably didn’t come out of a can labelled ‘ancient and nicotine-stained’ but could have done.
Grantaire ducks through the window after him, nudges him in the ribs. “Home sweet home, am I right?”
Enjolras opens his mouth to reply, but all that comes to mind is ‘you live here?’ and he doesn’t really think third time would be the charm. Grantaire shuts the window behind them, touches his finger to his lips like he thinks Enjolras might start yelling with two people sleeping three meters away.
“Did you want a shower or something?” Grantaire walks over to one of the beds at the far end, climbing up until he’s balanced on one foot on the headboard, fingertips scrambling in the rafters. After a moment his hand catches a strap and he tugs, bringing a rucksack that probably used to be khaki but is now mostly duct tape and sharpie tumbling down on top of him. “A clean shirt?”
Enjolras looks down and - oh yeah - he’s still wearing Grantaire’s faded grey T-shirt. Grantaire is digging through the bag, pulling out a couple of black tops and a hoodie. "Sorry, do you need it back?”
Grantaire shrugs, starting on the buttons of Combeferre’s shirt. “I’ll cope. Hey Ep.” He nods to someone over Enjolras’s shoulder.
Enjolras turns. Her death glare hasn’t changed much. “Hello Éponine.”
She looks right through him. “Why did you bring him?”
“He saved my life, he earned pancakes.” Grantaire strips off the white shirt, replacing it with a black one not quite quickly enough to hide the bite on his side judging by the sharp sucked in breath from Éponine.
“What was that? Let me see that,” she says, already crossing the room and tugging the fabric clear of the bite. “What the fuck, R?” She spins on her heel to face Enjolras. “You fucking asshole, what the fuck?”
Grantaire tugs the shirt back down, reaching out to grab her arm. “It’s not like that, I said he could. Éponine, Éponine, I’m okay.” He turns her back to face him, both hands on her shoulders and Enjolras pretends he isn’t a werewolf and can’t hear every word of the murmured conversation. “It was this or prison.”
She’s still tense, hands balled into fists but she’s not pulling out of his grip. “Should’ve picked prison. He’s just another dog, R. I can’t believe you even brought him up here.”
“There’ve been wolves up here before.”
She snorts. “None that looked at me like I was a Cause.”
Grantaire lets his hands drop, but apparently she’s off the warpath because she doesn’t instantly turn back on Enjolras. “You don’t have to like him -”
“Lucky.”
Enjolras clears his throat because he can hear. “I can leave, it’s no problem.”
Grantaire glances over his shoulder to meet Enjolras’s eyes, and it’s like he forgets to look away again. Enjolras can hear his own heart thud, feel the red rushing to his cheeks because he can hold his cool in front of half of parliament but a boy looks at him and he’s good as gone.
“I trust him,” Grantaire says.
“God,” Éponine punches Grantaire hard on the hip where he doesn’t have a werewolf bite and the look breaks as he turns back around to rub it with an exaggerated frown. “He can stay for pancakes, but only because you’re not in fucking prison.” She turns away from him, walking back towards the door, only pausing as she gets level with Enjolras. “Breakfast is five euros.”
“Three,” Grantaire says.
Éponine’s eyes narrow as though daring Enjolras to contradict her. “Five for wolves and assholes. Which I guess means for you it’s ten, but I’m feeling generous.”
Contrary to Courfeyrac's widely shared belief, Enjolras is entirely capable of knowing when it is best to stay quiet. Éponine gives him a long moment to consider and discard any number of unsuitable responses, then calls Grantaire an idiot one more time and storms out.
Does it say something about him, that he's doing all this to try and make life better for humans and the first one he meets outside of the ABC instantly hates him?
Grantaire doesn't seem at all surprised, just swings the door shut and hovers beside it, messing his hair up with one hand like it needs some kind of outside assistance. It doesn't. It looks like three birds have made nests in it and then he's been electrocuted for good measure. Enjolras definitely should not find anything about it endearing, but what he should feel never matches up with what actually happens when Grantaire is around.
"Sorry about -" Grantaire waves a hand at the door Éponine left through. "She's a bit protective."
"She doesn't like me, I get that. I’m guessing to change it I’d have to start by changing species." That gets him a wry half smile. "I got off lightly, though. I'll take 'asshole' any day over what she called Marius."
Grantaire is across the room in a heartbeat, his hand pressed against Enjolras's mouth like that's a thing they do. His fingertips are calloused, rough against Enjolras's cheek and Enjolras bites down on his bottom lip before he can think anything stupid like what does his skin taste like?
It smells like hotel soap, car doors, acrylic and it's gone too soon, tugged away like Enjolras's skin suddenly grew hot enough to burn.
"Sorry - I shouldn't have. We don't say the 'M' word in this house."
It actually takes Enjolras a moment to remember back past Grantaire's hand on his skin and remember what he'd been talking about. "You mean Mar-?" he starts, which earns him a snarl, a pointed look and a moment when he thinks Grantaire's going to grab him again.
"Don't say it again." Grantaire turns away, dragging a hand back through his hair. Enjolras was wrong, it turns out it is possible to mess it up further. "You can't judge 'Ponine for M - for him, okay. It's more complicated than you know."
"She called him a traitor and a mongrel."
"And a lot of people around here would agree with her." Grantaire pulls away and slumps down onto his bed. "Did you never wonder why Marius doesn't have any human friends?"
He's never actually thought about it. He knows Feuilly has human friends, sometimes they come to meetings but none of them have ever committed. Courfeyrac doesn't, but he fell in with the ABC as soon as he arrived in the city and has been living with Combeferre ever since the claim. Grantaire obviously does, although before Éponine stormed into the Musain Enjolras might have believed Grantaire only existed for the two hours every week they spent in the same room.
But Marius hangs out with them on weekends, he comes to movie nights in Joly's flat and is in the Musain almost as often as Enjolras. Has he ever mentioned friends outside the group? Friends from before he met Cosette?
Grantaire sighs, like the silence is answer enough. He kicks the bed opposite him in invitation and Enjolras sits. It creaks and sways alarmingly, feeling like at least half the bedsprings aren't pulling their weight. "He used to live around here."
"Here?" Enjolras tries to imagine Marius going home by skip. No luck.
Grantaire grins, like he can read Enjolras's mind. "Not here specifically. This area. His family was rich, lots of sucking up to local packs. His dad was trying to arrange for him to be bitten - it would be a real feather in the family cap - so he ran away. Stayed here a few nights, but some washerwoman down the road took him in, you know Marius."
Combeferre had mentioned the Pontmercys being an influential family, for humans, when they were coming up with contingency plans. A week later, he'd struck them off the list of allies. Enjolras had just assumed they wouldn't approve of Cosette, but apparently he'd got that backwards too.
"He and 'Ponine go way back. She used to - Christ, don't you dare tell her I told you - she liked him. Don't laugh."
The girl with the wolf eyes and the wolf who once admitted that he wouldn't kill deer because it made him think of Bambi. Enjolras can’t even picture it enough to find amusing.
"Everyone knew, except him. I don't know how bad it was, most of it happened before I came to Paris. Everyone just assumed that at some point someone would tell him and they'd finally get around to making it work. Like it was a done deal, despite them not even being together." He smiles as though remembering something. "When I first came I asked a lady down the road if 'Ponine was single. She said 'she's spoken for, if that boy ever takes his head out of the clouds and looks at what's in front of him.'"
Enjolras doesn't need to be psychic to know how this story ends. "And then Cosette."
Grantaire's mouth twists. "And then Cosette. And suddenly he's gone, living in a mansion on the west side and turning into a wolf once a month. He can be a bit dense sometimes, but even he knows better than to come back here."
"And now Éponine hates wolves."
"Oh, no, she always hated wolves. She just has an extra special level of hate for that one, so we don't say his name if we don't want something unpleasant in our pancakes."
"Seemed like I might not have much choice in that. I don't know what she wanted when she came to us for help, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't what I did."
Grantaire shrugs. "If you gave her the choice, she might have taken prison. Hell, she might have chosen death over tying herself into a wolf pack but you didn't go to save her." He looks up suddenly, intense like he needs to convince Enjolras of something. "You gave me the choice, I chose. You can't -"
He's interrupted by the door opening, a skinning boy dangling off the handle. There's something of Éponine in the tilt of his chin and stronger in his scent. He fits in with her, with Grantaire, with the room itself. His eyes are sharp like hers, examining Enjolras for a brief moment, before stepping into the room and ignoring him entirely for Grantaire. "Ep's pissed at you," he says. "So she sent me to get pancake orders. Can I see the bite?"
The boy can't be more than thirteen. Grantaire said he'd stopped bleeding, but it's not exactly going to be a small mark. "I don't think that's -" he starts, but Grantaire is already standing up and tugging on his shirt.
Enjolras looks away. The kid has no such hesitation, crossing the room quickly to poke a curious finger at Grantaire's hip. Avoiding looking at the bite leaves Enjolras staring at Grantaire's face. Grantaire raises one eyebrow with a half grin that makes Enjolras's hands itch to touch, to press fingers against the bite.
"You've got big teeth," the kid says, glancing behind. Enjolras tears his gaze away from Grantaire's smile. What does he say to that? The kid sounds more thrilled than scared, which Éponine would probably hate. "My mate Pierre has a wolf tooth on a necklace that his brother gave him. It's smaller than this though, you must be massive."
"Enjolras, meet Gavroche." Grantaire says over both their heads. "Gav, this is Enjolras. A werewolf."
Gavroche pokes the bite again, apparently unfazed. "Yeah, 'Ponine said you brought him home with you. Better make sure mum and dad don't see him, they'll be up here -"
"Pancakes," Grantaire cuts over him, tugging his shirt down over the bite. "Enjolras, there's nutella, cream, bananas, lemon, we might be able to rustle up some syrup."
"Got some of that sickly sweet fake maple shit you like." With the bite hidden, Gavroche suddenly has more interest in Enjolras, squinting at his face like he might be able to make out the fangs. "Pierre's brother says if you knock out a tooth in human form, it'll still change on the full moon."
Éponine clears her throat loudly from the doorway. "I bet Pierre's brother never said that to a werewolf. Back in the kitchen, now. Dad wants you."
"It's not true," Enjolras says. "Once it's no longer connected, it loses whatever it is that makes us change in the first place. Otherwise werewolves would still be shifting in the grave."
Gavroche considers this for a moment. "Could be cool." He holds out a fist behind him and Grantaire bumps it. "Shitty syrup pancakes for two coming right up."
Éponine holds the door open for him to dart down it, then crosses over to the two occupied beds. For a moment Enjolras thinks she's going to tug the blankets up over the two men sleeping, then she reaches into her apron and pulls out a metal ladle, slamming it hard into both bedframes with a clang that makes Enjolras’s ears ache from the other end of the room. "Come on, fuckheads. Wakey wakey, check out was at nine."
One of the bodies rolls over with a groan, sending a distinct cloud of alcohol fumes wafting out into the room. "Ah, Éponine. How I love waking to your dulcet tones."
She hit him firmly on the head with the ladle. "Damn right you do."
The second lump is sitting up, blankets falling down to reveal a shirt covered in wine stains of various ages and the scratchy beginnings of a beard. "Éponine! When will you let me steal you away from this life?"
"Ask me again when you wake up in your own bed more often than mine." She turns back to man number one. "Are you going to get up and out, or should I tell Gav to come up with the ice bucket?"
"R!" says the second man, spotting Grantaire across the room. "We missed you in the bar last night." He looks beside him at the sleeping man. "Did you get a bed? You should've woken me up, told me to shove over and make room." His eyes fall on Enjolras. “Or did you get lucky, hey ‘Parnasse looks like R is finally going up in the world.”
Nevermind that the bar owners would apparently kill him, Enjolras would quite like the floor to open up and drop him through to the kitchen and - more importantly - a possible escape right now.
Éponine is one step ahead of him, giving the man another resounding whack with her ladle “Nose out, asshole, or I’ll tell your alpha exactly where you’ve been sticking it.”
She chases them both out, in nothing but the shirts on their backs and their boxer shorts. Neither man seems surprised or particularly disappointed by this arrangement. “They live here?” Enjolras says, when the door’s swung shut.
Grantaire is already climbing up onto the headboard to shove his bag back into the roof and he glances over, balanced so precariously Enjolras could have believed he was a wolf. “What? No, not even - no.” He waves a hand at the beds. “They keep these up here in case anyone’s too drunk to get home, charge an arm and a leg for the service but if folk are pissed enough they’ll take them up on it.”
Enjolras looks up at Grantaire’s bag. “They asked if you got a bed - do you stay here often?”
Grantaire drops down onto the bed with a thud, then the floor. “I live here, Ep and Gav and I.”
“How often do you get a bed?”
“I don’t know,” he glances around at the beds. “Mostly. At least, like, half the time. I mean sometimes I give it up for Ep and Gav because he’s a kid and they share, but it’s decent.”
Enjolras has a bedroom this size with a king sized bed. His spare room is three quarters of this and the queen bed in that has been gathering dust since Combeferre moved out, he only uses the room to keep track of the news.
How does he phrase that in a way that doesn’t sound horribly privileged? A stupid question because he is but he’s never felt it cut so far to the core as right now.
He’s saved by Gavroche (who is - what - thirteen? and lives above a bar in a room with drunkards where he regularly lacks a bed) who swings in on the doorway and announces with a grin that the pancakes are ready.
*
“So," Courfeyrac says. "Most important question: were the pancakes worth it?”
Enjolras slumps down on the sofa and regrets not waiting for a time when Combeferre was alone to have this conversation. Courfeyrac ruins the motion by following and perching on the arm, peering down at him. “He doesn’t have a house,” Enjolras says. “He literally lives above a bar.”
“You know, that actually doesn’t surprise me.”
Enjolras lifts his head long enough to send an imploring look into the kitchen where Combeferre is chopping something that looks far too green to be unhealthy at the same time as scanning over all the documents Enjolras signed at the police station. This is why stealing Combeferre was worth a pack war. “This was a mistake, I should have kept my distance.”
“Buried your head in the sand?” Combeferre says, with a single raised eyebrow. “You know a lot of humans live in awful conditions, you’ve given more speeches on the subject than I could count.”
There is a big difference between knowing that one in five unclaimed humans will spend at least five weeks homeless and actually seeing your own mate keep his belongings on a rafter because he doesn’t know night to night if he’s going to have a bed.
God, Grantaire probably wouldn’t even list himself as homeless. Enjolras’s skin is itching like sunset on a blue moon, he wants to burst onto all fours and go hunting and he has to keep reminding himself that wereism and the concept of injustice are not enemies that can be defeated tooth and claw. “I can’t leave him there.”
“Such a pity you can’t just ask him to move in with you,” Courf says, cracking open one eye. “I mean, I’m sure he’d hate to live in your swanky apartment that has a whole spare bedroom and is paid off by your fantastically wealthy parents.”
He says it like a joke, but Enjolras can’t stop seeing Éponine’s face whenever he tries to picture raising the issue with Grantaire. ‘You’re a million miles and over a million euros away from his side.’
“He probably gets those pancakes every day,” Courf pokes Enjolras’s shoulder. “There’s a brightside to every hovel.”
Courfeyrac moved in with Combeferre, but before that he had a flat share over a boulangerie. Sometimes he claims to still pine for the croissants. He wasn’t homeless, they never called it charity. It made sense, someone makes a space for you inside their head, room in their apartment is small fry after that.
“The law might actually be on your side.” Combeferre clearly has some kind of Courfeyrac immunity built up from years of living with and mating him and is therefore able to ignore everything he says and does. Enjolras considers this option for all of half a second and concludes that it is not worth it and Combeferre is a saint.
“I thought the law hates him.”
Combeferre lifts up one of the many sheets of paper. “When you took him from prison, you didn’t release him from custody, he’s still technically arrested and the government is required to provide a minimum standard of care. When you took responsibility for him, you agreed to uphold that standard.”
Enjolras lifts his head up a little from the sofa cushions. “Does minimum standard include a bed?”
“Bed, food, water, basic human rights.” Combeferre glances down, eyes skimming across the page again. “It’s unlikely to happen, but technically you could be charged with neglect if the conditions he was living in were found to be unsatisfactory.”
“Because ‘live with me or go back to prison’ is definitely a better way to deal with this,” Courf says.
Enjolras is not good at ignoring him. He snarls lightly which might have some effect on any human that doesn’t spend half their lives with a pack of werewolves. Courf rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out. “Dad could buy him an apartment,” Enjolras says. “Something small, private. He’s pack now.”
Combeferre fixes him with a Look. “If you think he’ll be opposed to moving into your entirely unused spare room, why would he ever be okay with you just up and buying him an apartment? Start small and work up.”
Enjolras groans and buries his face back in the cushions. “It's more complicated than that, I can’t just ask him to move in. There’s… things. Difficult things. They make it awkward.”
“Right,” Courfeyrac says as though he could possibly have any idea exactly how fucked Enjolras has managed to get. “Because you liiiiiike him.”
Enjolras’s head jerks up, eyes narrowing because he has been carefully not telling anyone that so it doesn’t disrupt the group and so Grantaire doesn’t feel pressured and so Courfeyrac doesn’t grin pointedly at him exactly the way he is doing right now. “What - I don’t - how -”
“I told him,” Combeferre says.
That is exactly what Enjolras doesn’t want to hear. He should have gone to Cosette for advice, at least he would have got chocolate out of it. Except he’d have had to sit through Cosette and Marius being Cosette and Marius at each other, so maybe not. “I never told you,” he says, a moment too quickly to realise he could have denied everything.
Combeferre gives a vaguely apologetic shrug, tipping something from his chopping board into a pot. “I lived with you in freshman year, Enjolras. Hipster artist who’s entirely unimpressed by you? He couldn’t be more your type if they’d bred him in a lab.”
Enjolras opens his mouth to protest that he doesn’t have a type, then thinks back to the guys he took home in college. Lucas used to paint murals on the freeway, Ethan had an emo fringe and played acoustic guitar songs about the shadows in his soul. The less said about Sébastien, the better. “Grantaire is - it’s nothing, really. He’s hot.”
Courf laughs hyena like behind him. “You’ve got it bad.”
Enjolras meets Combeferre’s eyes and gets an apologetic shrug for his trouble and an, “Objectively, he’s kind of not.”
“He’s got terrible hair,” Courf says, lying on the back of the sofa to watch Enjolras upside down and tick things off on his fingers. “His nose looks like he’s broken it in three places, he dresses like a drug addict.”
Could Grantaire be on drugs? No, Enjolras would have tasted it when he bit him. “He’s got nice eyes! And he’s fit, he’s got -” Enjolras waves vaguely at his stomach to indicate abs and realises a moment too late what this implies.
Courfeyrac, who can always be trusted to notice everything you’d rather he missed, crows loudly and rolls onto his stomach. “You’ve seen him naked! You’ve been staring deeply into his eyes!”
Enjolras hits him in the shoulder. “It’s not like that.” Then he hesitates. “I mean, he’s my mate. That means something, doesn’t it? We have some kind of connection.”
He gets a cool glare from Combeferre in response. “Before you continue down this stereotypical, entirely erroneous line of thought that equates a bond to some kind of romantic or sexual relationship,” Combeferre says. “Might I remind you that I am claimed by your father.”
Not only that, he’s ace/aro and in a bonded pair with a guy dating somebody else. Combeferre, busting stereotypes wide open since ‘92. Enjolras claimed Grantaire to save his life and he needs to focus on that, Grantaire doesn’t owe him anything and if he thinks he does, Enjolras needs to dispel that notion not encourage it. “He feels indebted to me, I saved his life and he knows it and I think he’s had some experience with unequal werewolf-human bonds. What if he thinks I want it to be… stereotypical?”
“Did you do the ritual to equalise? I know I had some equipment in the back of my car.”
“No time.” Enjolras reaches up to push his hair back, realising too late that it’s a mirror of the gesture Grantaire kept making. “I don’t want him to feel pressured into anything. But I can’t leave him living where he is now I know, for starters dad would kill me, then mum would resurrect me so she could give me a three hour lecture then kill me again.”
Courfeyrac taps him on the shoulder. “I have been considering your moral dilemma, and I believe there is actually one simple solution to your myriad of hilarious problems.”
Definitely risky, but he has to ask. “What?”
Courf pokes a finger sharply into his chest and grins. “Tell the boy you like him.”
Enjolras bats him away. “I don’t like him. I mean, it’s not serious.” He glances over at the kitchen. “‘Ferre’s right I have a type, if he moves in with me I’ll get over it.” He always has before. They smell wrong or their wolves don’t like him or they drink milk from the carton. Grantaire is constantly drunk and everything he’s done for the ABC has been done late so there’s no way this will last more than the time it takes to convince Grantaire to let Enjolras buy him a flat.
“I’ll tell him he has to stay with me or we both go to prison,” he says, looking over Courf’s arm to talk to Combeferre without distraction. “He’ll agree, I’ll hang out here more until I can be impartial and we can revisit the situation in a month or so.”
Combeferre rolls his eyes and mutters something that might be ‘sexuals’. Courfeyrac falls down onto the cushions of the sofa and resumes his poke-war against Enjolras’s arm. Enjolras lets himself be distracted at least until after dinner when Courfeyrac has gone and he can force Combeferre to help him draft a suitably legal-sounding speech.
*
“You really don’t have to do this.” Grantaire says, for approximately the hundredth time since Enjolras pulled him aside after the meeting to talk. “I work at Thénardier’s most nights, really it makes more sense for me to stay there.” A smile thrown out at him casually like they’re the type who can share a joke. “These days I can fall asleep literally anywhere.”
“I told you I’ll drive you.” Enjolras pushes open the door to his apartment and drops Grantaire’s backpack on the sofa. “It’s no trouble.”
“You don’t even own a car,” Grantaire says, following him inside and turning slowly on the spot to take it in. “It’s not so far, I can steal a bike.”
Enjolras - owner of a bike in a big city - can’t help flinching at the thought. “You can borrow mine, or I could buy you one.”
Grantaire glances back at him, surprise on his face for a moment before it clears. “I didn’t mean it like - Éponine has one.” He takes a few more steps into the apartment and lets out a low whistle. “I guess I shouldn’t worry about you not being able to afford it.”
Enjolras tries not to feel self-conscious, looking at the apartment and trying to see it the way Grantaire must. It’s a reasonable size, he supposes, fairly large by Parisian standards. The main room has a kitchen area set off to one side, a breakfast bar with stools where Enjolras always eats since Combeferre took the big dining table when he moved out.
There’s still a big empty space by the doorway where it used to be, as well as the TV chest opposite the big sofas that is bare except for a wifi router and a few magazines. Enjolras always intended to buy a new one, but he can get the TEDx youtube channel and DVDs on his laptop so he kept putting it off.
When they first moved in, Enjolras left all the furniture buying to Combeferre which is why his sofas are the big soft kind that four people can melt into. When Combeferre moved out and took half his furniture with him, Enjolras still couldn’t be bothered to go shopping so he just liberated things from home. His bookshelves have claw and tooth marks from years of puppies teething on them and his lamps all have cages rather than shades even though he rarely changes in the apartment, preferring to go home where there are forests or to Combeferre’s where there’ll be breakfast after.
Enjolras’s wolf is savage when locked inside and left to itself. His pack can take him hunting, Combeferre can fight him down and out on the streets he can run, but shut in alone he will destroy a whole building given half the chance. If he changes at home, he takes strong sleeping pills.
Still, the sofas are a little clawed at the bottom and the wallpaper in his bedroom is unsalvageable but mostly he’s kept it in good shape. He should probably replace some of the things Combeferre took now he has a housemate again. There might be a TV or something at home that he could steal for Grantaire, there must be an old wolf-proof one from when they were puppies somewhere.
“The rent must be crazy,” Grantaire says, running the fingers of one hand across the wood of the breakfast bar and Enjolras remembers all of a sudden that Grantaire has been living in a single bed over a skip. He’s probably not so concerned about the absence of a TV.
“It’s - alright,” Enjolras says, chickening out at the last minute from saying that he doesn’t pay rent because when he announced he wanted to move to Paris, his father insisted on buying him a place so ‘at least he won’t be living in squalor, dear.’ The apartment is soundproofed with solid walls and locks in a were-owned building, Enjolras never asked how much it costs.
He heads into the kitchen to distract them both. He’s never been much good at planning and stocking food in advance, so it’s not hard to empty a handful of sugar packets and instant coffee sachets out of a cupboard for Grantaire to store his food.
Grantaire follows him in, opening a couple of other cupboards to poke around. Enjolras bites down firmly on the territorial snarl that wants to come out, reminds his wolf firmly that Grantaire is not a stranger invading his privacy, he’s a pack. It’s hard as Grantaire finds the set of non-stick pans still in their plastic wrap, the rusty grater that Enjolras uses to make nachos then forgets about in the sink for weeks after, the single plate, mug and bowl (“because if I leave you with more than one, Enj, you will stack dirty plates until there are new civilisations trapped between them.”) and Enjolras can see him judging. What’s going through his head? Spoilt rich boy, never has to cook? Lazy son of a bitch can’t be bothered to stock a kitchen?
Enjolras makes a mental note to buy another plate, and then realises he has no idea where you go to buy such things. Do they sell plates in Intermarché? Is there a special plate shop?
“Wow,” Grantaire says, twisting the taps on and off again and turning to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “How do you live like this? It’s like an ikea catalogue kitchen.” He opens the cutlery drawer to take in Enjolras’s spoon, knife, fork and his extensive take-out chopstick collection. “No, scrap that, ikea at least try to make their kitchens look like a place a human might live. Where’s your spice rack?”
Enjolras shoves his hands in his pockets and tries to keep it casual. “I’m not good at fancy food, I mostly eat microwave meals and take out.” He has salt and pepper somewhere because Combeferre insisted and there’s a jar of mustard in the fridge, although it might have been in there since Combeferre moved out.
“Right,” Grantaire kicks his cupboard closed with one foot. “At work tomorrow I’m going to steal you some mixed herbs and a potato peeler.” He paused, looking around the kitchen, eyes narrowing. “Do you even own a kettle?”
Combeferre had taken the kettle when he left with strict instructions to Enjolras to purchase a new one. But Enjolras warmed his milk in the microwave and cooked his pasta on the stove and coffee and tea were disgusting lies of drinks that people should stop trying to force him to drink so he’d never actually bothered. When Combeferre came over, Enjolras ran next door and borrowed a kettle and tea bags from his neighbour.
She always looked at him with an expression a lot like the one Grantaire is giving him now.
“I’ll show your your room.” He leads the way out of the kitchen, away from the judgement. “Bathroom,” he says pointing. “My bedroom. And this one’s you.” He pushes open the door to the spare bedroom, reaching around for the light switch.
“I can sleep on the sofa,” Grantaire says, following him in. “Or the floor or something, I don’t need -” he trails off.
Enjolras glances around from checking the sheets on the bed - still made up by the cleaner his mum sent when Combeferre left. Grantaire is standing in the centre of the room, staring at the far wall. “Oh yeah, that’s - this is my planning room.”
The newspaper clippings cover the entire left wall, and have recently started expanding across the two adjacent walls and the ceiling. Enjolras cleared the desk when Grantaire agreed to stay, sweeping the next load of clippings into a box on the floor, but he hadn’t got around to taking any of it down.
“I guess you’re a big fan of collage,” Grantaire says, taking a slow step towards it, lifting his hand to touch the clipping in the centre about a pack in Iowa who picked up a group of homeless kids and locked them in the pack forest during the full moon.
His fingers followed a line of red thread to the pack in Bordeaux who wouldn’t let new members join unless they’d claimed three humans. Grantaire flinched a little reading the headline, so maybe he knew that a wolf could only maintain a claim on one human at a time. Breaking a bond was supposed to be the worst pain a human could be forced to endure, normally it wasn't done for sport although in the next article along a pack from Lyon were doing just that.
Put together, it’s possibly a bit much. He’d used coloured thread to connect articles linked to the same pack - originally they'd all been together, but then there kept being more and he couldn't reorganise every time. Threads had been based on something he saw on CSI and now it looks like a crime scene, everything tracked out in webs on the wall.
Grantaire pauses at an article about a pack just outside the city who filled their local forest with humans on a full moon night and promised to turn any that survived, going so far as to have them sign waivers absolving the pack of all responsibility. None made it through. “Are you planning a war?”
He's got another stack of papers in the kitchen, with articles highlighted to cut out and add but he's running out of wall. He never seems to be running out of stories. "It reminds me of how much further we have to go to fix it."
"Right," Grantaire says, leaning in to read a fragment of an article about a girl in Bordeaux who bound herself to a wolf pack to protect her little brother. Once she was claimed, the pack killed him anyway. "Because you can totally fix this."