Chapter Text
When Sebastien Grantaire was eighteen years old, he met the love of his life. She was slightly taller than him, blonde, green-eyed, the most wonderful human being ever to walk the earth. He fell in love within five minutes of looking at her, and they started dating four months into their freshman year of college. She was a legal studies and criminal justice double-major, and Grantaire was undeclared, but by the end of the year she had convinced him to double-major himself in art history and classical painting, even though Grantaire had never been the double-majoring type. You clearly have a passion, she’d said. Why not use it?
Then, three years and eight months later, the day of their college graduation, she disappeared into nowhere without leaving a note, a text, a voicemail…anything. He should’ve been angry. Why wasn’t he angry? His friends Bossuet and Joly were pissed on his behalf, but Grantaire was just…worried. Jackie wouldn’t disappear into nowhere, Grantaire was sure of that. This didn’t make sense. He was sure something terrible had happened, but he knew nothing would happen if he reported it to the police. People disappeared into nothingness all the time. Grantaire’s mother had when he was six, taking half his extended family with her. All his friends had halfway through high school, when he realized he didn’t really care whether he was dating a boy or a girl so long as they could match him in a rant. They were in the same building, but they found a way to never be around him.
So Grantaire never let it go. He knew better than that. Jackie had been perfectly normal in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, then she was just…gone. No, That didn’t make sense.
So, five years later, once he’d finally saved up enough money through means of mooching off of Bossuet and Joly, moving to New Haven with said friends and still living with them and their girlfriend Musichetta at twenty-seven, working sixty-to-eighty-hour weeks, and only buying food from the Market Basket sale catalogue unless it was a holiday, he finally managed to hire a mid-level private investigator by the name of Lucien Enjolras.
Investigator Enjolras worked out of a small building, two rooms- his office and the reception area. The walls were red, and the paint chips were still there so Grantaire knew the exact color was Burgundy Red, #800020. There were political magazines in a stack on a small folding table next to little boxed waters. The main desk had a secretary who looked exceptionally tired sitting at it. He had a YALE mug and a stack of sketchbooks piled up next to it. He told Grantaire that Enjolras would be with him “shortly” and to “please take a seat”.
Grantaire looked around for a chair, but there was none.
(This was definitely not a mid-level private investigator.)
Luckily the wait was quick, only three or so minutes, before Grantaire was ushered into Enjolras’ office, which was only slightly less humble than the reception area. The walls were the exact same shade of red, and there was a Philadelphia progress pride flag hanging on one wall, and a trans flag hanging on the other. The desk was not a desk but a folding table and the windows showed a beautiful view of the trash cans. The room was the size of one and a half king beds.
He could have bought himself, Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta all at least three computers each for how much this was probably going to cost.
As for the actual investigator himself, he was a little taller than Grantaire, with long blonde hair and blue eyes and a suit that matched his walls. He introduced himself as Lucien Enjolras (“but please just call me Enjolras”) and pronounced Grantaire’s name correctly on the first try. He looked mildly ill, which Grantaire hoped he didn’t catch. He was very professional with his rapid-fire questions. Within the time span of forty-five seconds, Grantaire had shared Jackie’s exact birth date (June 6, 1998), every piece of information about her family he knew (very, very little), and every time Grantaire had been in court (never, he’d managed to escape jury duty thus far and was luckily not a criminal). Enjolras told Grantaire to come back in a week and shooed him out within five minutes, already knowing pretty much everything Grantaire knew about Jackie (up to and including the age she’d realized she was asexual, although why a private investigator gave a fuck about that, Grantaire did not know).
Grantaire sat in his car, crossed his fingers, and hoped.
xxx
It was Courfeyrac’s fault, really, that this had happened at all. (Even though it was Enjolras’ decision to hire two of his friends as secretaries, the other one was totally capable of not accepting requests without first checking with Enjolras, even if he studied for the bar and sketched demeaning images of Republican congressmen during work.) Courfeyrac had seen a standard missing-person case and said yes without hesitation, something he had been explicitly told not to do.
Courfeyrac’s argument had been that Enjolras had said not to bother him unless there was a fire, but couldn’t he have waited?
So now Enjolras was stuck trying to locate himself for his ex-boyfriend, who had less than zero awareness of what was going on.
(Damn, it was really remarkable what a fuckton of makeup, colored contacts, testosterone and a nose job could do.)
It wasn’t like Enjolras had wanted to leave Grantaire behind. He liked Grantare, maybe could’ve loved him, even. And he knew that Grantaire would be nothing but supportive of his gender transition, and was bisexual besides so it wouldn’t matter at all. But if he was cutting off his rich-ass family, he had to completely disappear, because they absolutely had the money to hire the sort of private investigator that seemed practically magical in how quickly they could find people. But now, being a licensed PI himself, Enjolras knew what to do so he couldn’t be found. And that meant cutting off all previous associations, even if it broke his heart.
The issue was that now he’d have to tell Grantaire that he couldn’t find Jacqueline Harvey, and ninety percent of Enjolras’ business came from recommendations, so that would quite literally cost him.
And Courfeyrac seemed to think it was funny.
“For the last time, Courf,” Enjolras said, “this is not a laughing matter. This is my ex-boyfriend, and he doesn’t even know he’s my ex-boyfriend!”
Courfeyrac dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Combeferre looked up from his med sci textbook for the first time since they’d gotten together for their coffee and cake at this great new bakery, owned by a nice young woman called Musichetta.
“Your ex-boyfriend,” Combeferre stated, “whom you are still in love with.”
“I never loved him, Ferre,” Enjolras said. “But I sure as hell might have ended up doing so. He was- he is… a rare type of human.”
“A true specimen,” Courfeyrac said, nodding.
“Talk to Jehan about this,” Combeferre recommended. “They know about not being able to get over an ex.”
“...Their ex is an arms dealer, Ferre.”
“An arms dealer that you have bought from in the past, Enj.”
“Shh, we’re in public.”
“You’re missing the point, anyways,” Combeferre said. “You’re really, really upset about seeing your ex-boyfriend, considering you’ve had five years to get over him.”
Enjolras groaned. “Of course I’m upset! He hired me to find myself. I have to sabotage my own job, now!
“Sabotage a job in more ways than one,” Courfeyrac snickered.
“Will you cease making allosexual commentary?!”
Courfeyrac nearly spat out his coffee. “That sentence belongs in Shakespeare.”
Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Look, the point is, I feel bad because I’ll be taking the poor sap’s money while doing literally nothing.” He paused. “Wait a second,” he said.
“Oh dear,” Combeferre sighed.
“Grantaire always wanted to get his MFA in painting at an Ivy League, just to prove everyone who said it was a waste of time wrong,” Enjolras said. “I know he’s good enough for it, and I know he still hasn’t done it. When I’m supposed to be finding Jackie for him, I’m going to be talking to admissions officers. And I won’t give up until I get him in. It’ll be making up for disappearing, too. And you know what the best part is?”
Courfeyrac and Combeferre remained silent, both clearly thinking things Enjolras didn’t want to hear.
“He’ll never know it was me. Either of the me’s.”