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Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
And hold your breath between?
In all the ages this can never be
As if it had not been.
// from 'A Moment' by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
It's Joly's birthday, so naturally they are at the worst club of all time.
Now, Grantaire isn't too fussy when it comes to drinking establishments - as long as the glasses are clean, the liquid cool and there's no puke on the bathroom floor - but this is just awful: half-arsed disco retro with all the shit parts of a space-age theme, rounded off with atrocious electronica. So much synth. (It's a lot like he imagines the inside of Joly's brain to look like, really.) He seems to be pretty into this particular branch of cheese, though, and it's the only day of the year that no one's allowed to crush his metallic, neon-flashing dreams and refuse him, so Grantaire's resigned himself to sticking it out and getting as wasted as possible so he doesn't have to live with any memories of the place after tonight.
A weight plops itself on his shoulder, long hair tickling his jaw. "Cheer up," Eponine deadpans.
"Never," he spits out defiantly.
She bumps her head into his in reprimand and steals the mostly empty bottle from his hand. "You might get laid," she suggests, slinking off him and into the booth beside him. She swigs the dregs of his beer and raises her eyebrows suggestively.
"Yeah, likely," Grantaire retorts. "So might you."
She narrows her eyes at him. He's reminded momentarily of Storm from X-Men right before she blows the Earth off the face of the Earth with a tornado.
They're both very aware of their situations when it comes to this, which is relieving and humiliating in fairly equal measures. Grantaire realises suddenly that she's probably hiding right now; being the super friendly and just plain great person he is, Joly had accidentally committed a Dick Move when he said it was fine for Marius to bring along his new girlfriend tonight. Last time Grantaire saw, they were grinding each other rather hilariously in the middle of the floor while most of the country ogled at their combined, sweaty beauty.
He thinks Eponine probably has it worse than him, but he doesn't tell her that. It'd go to her head.
"How long d'you think we're obligated to stay here?" she asks. To some it would've sounded like a quip, but the way she's rolling the bottle restlessly in her palm tells Grantaire she wants calculations, probabilities, statistical likelihoods of social exile.
"We could probably persuade him to go somewhere else after midnight," he replies. "Maybe."
She stares at him with hard, bright eyes for a moment, and then she's up and off again with an unmistakable mutter of, Goddamn it. Grantaire vaguely thinks of following her, finding some of the others and actually trying to enjoy himself, but he's apparently been dubbed a lost cause and been left all the jackets and purses to guard like an underachieving dragon.
He looks out across the floor from the his superior raised seating area and thinks he catches sight of Bossuet's horrible pineapple sunglasses, but then that particularly tropical island of familiarity is lost in the swirling masses of bodies and he is alone again. Aloner.
Goddamn it indeed.
x
After pouring the remnants of everyone else's forgotten drinks into one glass like he's seventeen again and spending roughly ten minutes berating himself for not bringing his phone with him to fiddle about with (he tends to send regrettable texts and leave whiney piney voicemails when he reaches a certain level of drunk, so he's started leaving it at home on these nights), he's pretty ecstatic when Enjolras slides into the seat opposite him. Okay, well, he would've been anyway, but it was getting borderline unbearable with nothing to do but watch out for guys spiking drinks.
Since when did Grantaire become so DD? That's probably the most ironic thing he's ever heard.
"'Lo," he greets Apollo, playing down his enthusiasm about a hundred and thirty percent to seem cool and aloof.
"You alright," Enjolras replies, more as a salutation than a genuine question, as he rummages through the heap of jackets next to him. He produces his phone and clicks it on, making a face at the time, and then writing out a text or something else that involves the keyboard.
Grantaire realises he's being creepy and looks away. "Bored outta my skull, actually."
"I thought this was your scene." Enjolras glances up, fingers not ceasing to type at an mph that should not be legal, let alone possible.
Grantaire snorts. "You obviously don't know me very well. This is my idea of hell. The things I do for Joly."
Enjolras finishes up and finally looks at him properly. Evidently he takes in the lack of alcohol in the scattered bottles and glasses on the table too. "Yeah," he agrees. "To tell you the truth, mine too."
"Figures."
"How does it figure?"
"Music, crowds, grime, sexually charged atmosphere, fun - not your thing."
It has the desired effect and Enjolras pouts like an angry toddler. "I like fun."
"Ima hold you to that," Grantaire grins, resiting the urge to wink. Enjolras rolls his eyes but lets it go and leans back into the booth's leather. A minute or so passes in as close as can pass for silence when you can't hear yourself think. It's not uncomfortable - just like they've both accepted their fate of being stuck in this eternal frenetic evening.
"Look," Enjolras says eventually. "If, if you want to go dance or something, or get a drink, I can watch the coats for a bit."
It's a surprisingly insightful offer. "Aw, babe." Grantaire coos, hand to heart, ignoring the way it had twinged a little at his earnest expression. "So sweet of you."
"I count it as a public service," Enjolras says wryly. "You look as if you're about to go on a killing spree."
Ah. "Fair observation. But I'll decline, thank you. You should be the one going and having fun, if you're so capable of it."
Enjolras sticks out his tongue because he is, as previously mentioned, a toddler, and it's so mindblowingly adorable Grantaire has to cough. He must be at least a little tipsy to be acting like a normal immature person; that's the thing though, until he did something like that you could never tell.
"You're capable of fun too - I saw it once," he shoots back.
"Not in a club, probably," Grantaire assures him. "Clubs are only good for hooking up with people or to spend quality time with the person or people you've already hooked up with."
Enjolras appears to consider this. "And why can't you do the former?"
It's a valid question, and Grantaire feels he should've prepared for it, preferably with prompt cards. "Uh," he says instead. "I. I don't... feel like it?"
"You'd prefer to sit here by yourself moping?" Enjolras asks incredulously, which is also a valid question considering he's been complaining. Grantaire really isn't on top of his thinking-ahead game, or arguably his thinking game at all.
"Uh, no, you're right, that was a filthy lie," he concedes.
Enjolras waits patiently for expansion.
"I'm, well, the thing is." The thing is I can't tell you. "Thing is." And then in a startling moment of genius, the thing becomes apparent to him. "I'm actually only interested in this one person."
Enjolras' eyes flicker with something like glee, and something much scarier like inspiration. "Hmm. And you're just pining from afar?"
"Yup. It's in my nature."
"He's here, then?"
Again with the insight. What if he didn't want the guy to suddenly be perceptive and tactful about things to do with feelings? He needed Eponine. He needed a cold-hearted bitch.
"Yeah, um. He is, actually."
"What is it, you need a wingman?"
Grantaire can't help the bark of laughter that escapes him at the idea. "Jesus, no, you'd be the worst. Everyone'd go nuts over you instead."
Enjolras grins at him, another sign that he's got lowered inhibitions or whatever because he's past modesty and straight into the joke. A strobe light passes over them, illuminating the shape of the soft curls behind his ears, and Grantaire feels sick.
"I have an idea," Enjolras says.
"Oh shit." Grantaire replies.
x
It's not a completely terrible plan except for the fact that it is because it's aimed at a fucking nobody, an NPC in Grantaire's life rather than the true object of his affections.
Part A involves dancing. Already off to a horrifying start.
The idea was that Grantaire would seduce this fictional guy with his sweet moves, and then once he'd been whipped up into a sexual frenzy bordering on romantic interest, Enjolras would sweep in and take Grantaire to the bar, and after approximately forty five seconds the guy would intervene and steal Grantaire back, having had the revelation that he was invested in their blossoming relationship as more than a dry hump. It was pretty watertight, he has to admit. Jealously is the mother of persuasive techniques: a classic, you could say.
Grantaire's secret Subsection A of Part A was to find a fictional dude to grope in the name of misdirection.
"It's him," he says, nodding at an admittedly hot tank-top that had been checking out the arses of every other guy in a ten metre radius. He'd do.
Enjolras tries to hide his surprise. "I didn't think he was your type."
Grantaire looks at him. "Each to their own."
"'Course."
He casts his eye back to the dance-floor. He catches a brief glimpse of Chetta's hair above the other heads, glittering inexplicably but somehow unsurprisingly. He sighs. "You're buying me a drink."
"That's the whole idea of Part B," Enjolras reminds him. "C'mon. Off you go. I've messaged Courf; he should be over soon for coat duty, so that'll free me up to fulfil my end."
So Grantaire goes, if just to distract himself from the echo of Apollo saying Fulfil my end.
Thankfully, the guy doesn't immediately brush off his advances as he weaves through the crowd toward him. Grantaire decides to call him John Doe, because it feels weird rhythmically thrusting against a nameless brick wall of muscle, even if it is a popular Pornhub category.
Grantaire turns and sees Enjolras watching them. Damn it, he should probably put in some effort then, lest he be caught out in his pathetic web of lies. He turns back to John (he'd miscalculated: it's weirder now he knows anything about him, even though he technically doesn't) and bites his lip to draw attention to them, scooching closer and making his movements slower, more deliberate. It's awkward, but Johnny doesn't notice; he grinds back, tank rucking up and revealing a tanned hipbone.
Honestly, if Apollo hadn't been watching he could probably get into this after a while. Meaningless sex is therapeutic, after all, at least for the amoral youth of today: represent.
He closes his eyes and just focuses on the heat, the slick of sweat, the booming refrain of the "song" playing in slightly nauseating surround sound, the feel of someone else's hands running lightly over his ribs-
And then the hands aren't there and he opens them again - because really, just when he was starting to go along with the idea? - and he immediately wishes he hadn't because oh, there he is, and it comes flooding back.
Enjolras is crowding against him, standing at a right-angle to John Doe, not so pointed as to seem outright aggressive but indisputably possessive. It's quite a smart assessment of the dynamic, really, which is a shame because it's completely wasted on Grantaire, too distracted as he is.
Because, oh God, Enjolras is pressing up against him, fingers ghosting over his shoulders, tugging at the hem of his shirt, and he isn't even a bad dancer, how fucking dare he not be a shitty dancer. The worst thing by far is his expression, though. He knows that Johnny's right there, less than two feet away, so for their stupid fucking plan to work they had to be 10/10 realistic, but Enjolras is really going for it.
His eyes are wide and dark as they look at him through long lashes; his cheeks are flushed deliciously, pink spots that look downright lickable; his lips are wet and parted, unacceptable, and then he bites his lip in a mirror of what Grantaire had done himself not five minutes ago.
He looks for all the world like he's begging for Grantaire to fuck him.
Grantaire can't stand it. It's a punch to the stomach in the form of the realisation that no, he couldn't have got into that guy, he couldn't have got into anyone, no one else stands a fucking chance.
A tiny voice in his head says, Oh Christ, before his dick (or quite possibly his heart) takes over and be pulls Enjolras closer, ducking his head to his level and tracing his fingers down his spine. Enjolras makes a turned-on noise, loud enough for John Doe to hear although at this point Grantaire had basically forgotten he existed.
Enjolras leans in, a ghost of hot breath in his ear. "Let me buy you a drink."
Luckily Grantaire's answer had already been agreed upon, since he isn't entirely sure he'd be able to answer with anything other than an embarrassing moan. Enjolras leans away again, and winks rather lecherously at JD over Grantaire's shoulder.
"C'mon," he says, grabbing his hand and starting to lead him out of the throng towards the bar.
They find stools about ten metres away, and Grantaire near-on collapses, light-headed.
"He's watching," Enjolras laughs, panting a little. "Part A was a resounding success."
"Yep," Grantaire says weakly.
x
Part B is distressingly similar to Grantaire's late night fantasies (no, no, not those kinds - much worse than that), and three and a half seconds in he's pretty sure he's going to die.
"Look me in the eyes," Enjolras is saying, which no, that's the opposite of what Grantaire wants to do; if he looked him in the eyes the world might just explode from the pressure.
"'M'being coy," he mumbles unconvincingly, tapping his nails erratically on the glass of whatever Enjolras had placed in front of him.
He's quiet for a moment. "Well. At least try and look like you don't want to throw up."
Ugh, fucking trust him to-
"It's not that," Grantaire assures him quickly, and then sighs because boner be damned, he was gonna have to look at the guy.
"There! Not so hard, right?" Enjolras says brightly. His fringey curls are damp and excruciatingly endearing. Grantaire meets his eyes with a pathetic attempt at a smile, and ignores them to the best of his ability. "Now, I reckon we have about five minutes before he gives in. He's already looking slightly murderous, so if we're lucky it'll be less."
If we're lucky.
"What, um, what now?" Grantaire asks, and instantly regrets it.
Enjolras leans into his space, an arm curling on the bar top between them; it traps them in a little pocket of intimacy. Grantaire swallows and concentrates on not fleeing the scene. "Now I have to touch you," he says conversationally. "If that's okay."
Grantaire nods and chugs back half his drink for liquid courage. He really didn't think this through. "Are we gonna do that thing where I pretend you said something hilarious?"
Enjolras grins. "Or I could make out you did."
Abort - abort mission - now there's a sound bite he'll never be able to scrape out of his brain. God, he's so far gone it's embarrassing.
He shakes his head vigorously and decides to steer events onto different waters. "This is ridiculous, you do realise," he points out. "Sweet, but ridiculous."
Enjolras makes a face. "Not that ridiculous. He's still looking." He steals Grantaire's glass and takes a sip; exaggerated movements.
"No, just, this whole thing. How bad of a week have you had to make this seem like a fun activity?"
"This is fun," Enjolras informs him as he replaces the glass and lets his fingers trail up Grantaire's arm on retreat. Grantaire endures. Somehow. "You get to go home with someone, I get to strategise - it's a win-win."
"Sure. Okay."
Enjolras finally seems to catch onto the badly-hidden grimace across from him. His own face falls a little, as does his playful hand. "...You don't seem enthused."
Oh, fucking hell. "I, uh. I don't... I don't know what I'm doing." A truth masquerading: better than nothing.
"Oh! Well, just mirror me. You remember that Pysch unit about body language? That."
Brilliant. "So I...?" Grantaire tapers off, lifting a hand uselessly. Commit, man!
"Upper arm," Enjolras orders, and calculates a cute little duck of the head to coincide with the contact. Grantaire realises with significant horror that he's quite good at this. Grantaire, however, is not. "Don't just clutch me, R," he chastises, rolling his eyes and jerking said arm to dislodge said clutch.
Grantaire chooses to not focus on the 'R' and the contingent fact that it's only the second time Enjolras has ever called him that. "What else am I supposed to do? Caress your bicep?"
"Thumb circles," Enjolras suggests. "Have you never touched another person before?"
NOT IN THIS SCENARIO, his mind desperately supplies. "Will he even see the precise movements of my thumb from that far away?"
Enjolras just shrugs. "He'll be over soon." He does a subtle sweep of the floor. "Yep, still murderous. I'm going to brush some hair out of your eye."
"What," Grantaire sputters. "There. There isn't any hair in my eye."
Enjolras gives him a Look. "Ever heard of cooperation?"
"You want me to. Oh, Jesus."
Obligingly, Grantaire bobs his head in a way he hopes looks more shy than demonic, until that one lock of fringe that hates him falls across his face. He'd only just tamed it, for fuck's sake. When he looks up again Enjolras is very clearly trying to laugh. "Oh, fuck you, dude."
"Later," Enjolras breathes, and right, okay, already in character: he's leaning forward and reaching out, even adding in a few falters to add to the effect of new love. Grantaire sits absolutely stone still as Enjolras catches the lock of hair and pushes it behind his ear. He lingers for a few moments, and then murmurs, "This is me murmuring something. Hot or romantic, your choice to react accordingly."
Grantaire feels himself going red, which he figures would cover either. Enjolras grins in approval.
x
Grantaire has several questions.
(1) How did he manage to get himself into this situation? Was it literally just his pure awkwardness? (Yes, to that one.)
(2) Why.
(3) Because it deserves to be reiterated, why.
(4) Why is Enjolras so invested in attaining a vicarious sex life? Out of boredom? (Contender.) Is he far, far drunker than he looks? (Probably.) Is he just such a control freak that he coordinated this scene just to puppeteer, like for some weird kink? (Honestly, it's not ruled out.)
(5) Why is Enjolras even talking to him?
(6) Why hasn't Johnathan H. Doe fucking come over already and broken up this whatever it was????? It's been at least five minutes, right? It feels like it's been fourteen years.
x
Then Grantaire spills his drink in a particularly grand flail, soaking both their shirts, bursts out laughing at everything, and ends up in a fit of hysterics with Enjolras joining in, presumably because he looks insane.
Every time he looks up to compose himself he catches Enjolras' eye and collapses again, wheezing. "Oh my, oh my God," he chokes out. "Dude, dude."
"Dude," Enjolras echoes, which sets them both off again. All of a sudden the alcohol seems to have caught up with them.
"What are you even...?" Grantaire giggles. He's attempting to mop up the spilt beer with his sleeve and it's just moving the liquid about comically. In fact he's fairly sure it's multiplying it somehow. Can you multiply liquid? Can now.
Enjolras whacks his sleeve away and starts to do the exact same thing with his own, apparently under the impression that his sparkling personality was more absorbent. "I dunno," he says, punctuating with a hiccup. "I don't know."
Grantaire punches him bro-ly in the shoulder as he rides out the last of his giggles. "This might be the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. Okay, not the weirdest, lots of weird shit happens to me, but still."
"It's not that weird."
"It's very weird!"
Enjolras shrugs and flaps his damp arm to try and dry it a bit. "Ah, well. We're nearly there now, may as well achieve your goal."
And, well. Alright. That's a good point. In for a penny.
"Okay," Grantaire says decisively, and Enjolras looks up at this new tone of voice. "You wanna go?"
"Huh?"
Grantaire swallows down his dignity, rationality and the part of him that isn't a complete masochist, and snakes his hand across the sticky bar top. "Take it."
After staring at him for a long second, Enjolras does.
Grantaire smiles the lop-sided smile he has on good authority makes him look like a man with a dick on a mission. Enjolras' eyes widen fractionally as Grantaire leans forward to whisper, "I bet I can make him come over within a minute."
"...Trust you to make a competition out of a favour," Enjolras whispers back.
"Trust you to think this was a favour."
"What?"
For misdirection and misdirection only, obvs, Grantaire starts playing with Enjolras' fingers. "I'm murmuring sweet, sweet nothings to you," he tells him. "And you cannot hear them because of this god-awful music."
"Huh?"
"So I lean closer - gimme your ear, man - and you hold onto me and la- shit, Jesus, I got your hair up my nose-"
Didn't go exactly to plan, but the endgame is reached and Enjolras' face crinkles up as he laughs. He briefly rests his forehead on Grantaire's shoulder to regain composure.
"What next, O Great Seductress?"
"Have a drink, make is slutty."
Enjolras obliges, stealing Grantaire's drink again, and makes an extra special effort to emphasise his rather ravishing throat. He ruins it slightly when he almost chokes due to laughing again.
"Sto-op," Grantaire reprimands hypocritically; he tugs their still-entwined hands to refocus him. In a sort of lolling movement, Enjolras puts the glass down and looks across at him through lidded eyes, and fringe, and eyelashes. Grantaire swallows. "Okay, now I, uh."
Lizard-quick, Enjolras' tongue flicks across his lips. "Now you stare dumb-founded," Enjolras finishes, and Grantaire lets him have that with a shrug.
"To be honest you just ruined the plan, but nice improv," he admits after a hot moment.
Enjolras breaks character for a nanosecond. "A plan? That involved... moisture?" He snorts but manages to quickly shake it off before Grantaire can do anything more than quirk a smile in solidarity, "Sorry, sorry."
"Yeah, actually, I was gonna... fuck it, I'll do it anyway," he huffs.
He bravely meets Enjolras' eye. They both struggle valiantly to keep straight-faced. "You have lime or something at the corner of your mouth," Grantaire explains, starting the grand, slow lean.
"I do?" Enjolras licks the left inside corner of his mouth in reflex.
"Seriously?! Goddamnit, Apollo, alright - the other corner then: don't."
Enjolras winks at him, significantly less coordinated of a wink than ten minutes earlier on the dance floor.
The lean continues in all its glory. "So, so I'm gonna - stop making that face, it's distracting - I'm gonna swipe it."
"Like Dora the Explorer?"
Grantaire backtracks. "What the fuck? What the literal, jewel-encrusted fuck, Enjolras?"
"Pop culture," Enjolras nods in apparent justification. His gravitas almost sets Grantaire off again but he reigns himself in.
"Jesus, why do I even- it's not even Dora who does the swiping, it's Swiper, you idiot! But we're not having that conversation now, I'm swiping your, your lime mouth."
"Good band name," Enjolras suggests. "Lime mouth."
This is surreal, Grantaire thinks.
"Yep. Now comply. Be like a maiden."
The grand, slow, motherfucking lean begins its journey once more.
"Save me, my dashing white night, for I appear to be in great danger... of lime mouth!" Enjolras whispers dramatically.
Grantaire chuckles and squeezes his hand in lieu of hitting him. "You're such a dipshit."
Enjolras meets his eyes and says casually, "You love it."
"Tomorrow You is gonna hate you for all this, y'know," Grantaire replies equally casually.
"I know," Enjolras shrugs.
Grantaire lifts his thumb to the corner of his mouth in a weird combination of hesitant and determined. When he finally touches it, Enjolras' lips are warm and soft and slightly wet and wholly unlike what Grantaire was expecting because he'd been busy trying not to think about it. Fuck.
There's a moment where the room seems to lull around them, the voices and laughter distorted, but maybe that's just him. He licks his own lips, and Enjolras flicks his gaze to them. Right on cue. They're a good team.
"Sexual tension," Enjolras murmurs, still looking at Grantaire's lips. Grantaire feels overwhelmingly like he's drowning.
"A passionate... passionate gaze..." he gets out. He scoots forward in his stool a little, pulled like the tide. "Now, I'm, uh. I should go for... gonna-"
"Kiss me?" Enjolras asks, quiet, hazy.
"Y-yeah, he'll be over in five," Grantaire starts to stretch his neck up, "Four," He puts his free hand on the back of Enjolras' neck, "Three," Enjolras shivers; Grantaire starts to panic as his resolve gently disintegrates and it occurs to him that- "Two."
Their faces are very close. Enjolras is looking into his eyes now, which makes everything roughly three hundred percent worse and five hundred percent better. The back of his neck is damp and strong against Grantaire's unsure fingers. At this angle, Enjolras is hovering just above Grantaire, breath puffing onto his lips.
"One," he whispers into Enjolras' mouth.
Freeze-frame.
John Doe isn't there.
Enjolras squeezes his hand, once, like permission.
Grantaire kisses him.
x
The one thought Grantaire manages to have before his brain melts is a weird comparison to being in a lift the second it starts moving - y'know, when you leave your stomach a few feet above you - and he is momentarily confused by his own drunk literary devices; and then it hits him that he's kissing Enjolras, holy shit, and not just that but he's being kissed back. He'd been imagining this fantastical, impossible moment for years and had never been able to decide what it would actually be like, and this at least he knows he got right because it's nothing like he could've thought up alone in his shower. Grantaire is hot all over, the sticky humidity of the club closing in on them, and Enjolras has his hand in Grantaire's collar, and oh Jesus-
He pulls away, because he's had a lot of practice in restraint. "Dude," he pants.
Enjolras is red in the face and his eyes are even more glazed than before. Grantaire's hand is still at his neck, which suddenly becomes very obvious when he tries to move away and is tethered, but Grantaire doesn’t let go. "Sorry. Sorry." he says kind of mechanically. "That was. That."
Grantaire flicks his eyes over the nearby crowd; the stupid torso guy is nowhere to be seen. "Y-your plan failed," he says.
"Yeah," Enjolras replies, eyes downcast and jittery, looking anywhere but at Grantaire. Then he appears to steel himself. "Look, I'm sorry; it was a- a bad plan in the first place-"
"You're tellin' me."
"-and we've both had a lot to drink, and I- I took advantage of you-"
"Wait, what?"
Enjolras swallows. "I didn't need to let it go so far," he says. "It was... improper of me."
"Ungentlemanly?" Grantaire supplies before he can help himself, and Enjolras quirks a smile at that, a ghost of the laugh from minutes earlier.
"Yeah. I'm sorry."
"Wait, hang on, you took advantage?"
"Well, yes - I made you do this, I made you... kiss me-"
"You didn’t make me do anything," Grantaire exclaims, half-indignant and half-reassuring. "Well, okay, you made me do this entire thing, but really, man, the- the kiss? That was my fault."
"How was it your fault?"
"I- initiated it!"
"Yeah, because of my freaking plan!"
And Grantaire can see it coming, like a purple cloud in the distance just ripe for rain: he's gonna do something stupid. But now he knows what Enjolras tastes like, and he doesn't think he can live with that information alone; better to be beaten up by Combeferre and thrown out of the country and know for sure that Enjolras hates his guts and doesn’t wanna do that, just one more time. And anyway, sober Enjolras will figure everything out instantly in the morning, so he’s technically already lost.
He sighs. "Are you gonna feel irrationally guilty about this forever?" he asks.
Enjolras huffs. "It's not irrational."
"Christ! Okay. Alright." He braces himself, and vaguely appreciates the seconds he has left of normal life - although at this stage everything had been turned on its head anyway. "You can't possibly have taken advantage of me, even though I'm kinda sloshed, ‘cause... well, 'cause I was already there."
Enjolras looks at him blankly, still red, still frowning.
"I was a willing participant," he tries again.
"In a game I created for my amusement," Enjolras counters, and Grantaire shakes him.
"How are you not getting this? Do I really have to spell it out for you?"
"Yes please."
Grantaire casts around for his glass and finds one, not necessarily his, and downs it. Whatever it is, it's sweet and fast-working and hopefully spiked with some kind of fatal drug that’ll kick in ten seconds from now.
"Enjolras," he says, and he finally takes his hand away from his neck, rests it awkwardly in his lap. Enjolras shivers at the loss of contact, and maybe that's what does it. "You did not take advantage of me because I already wanted to kiss you."
Nothing. Just stares. Then, "What?"
Ah, the odd relief in having completely ruined your own life. Once more unto the breach.
"I'm not in love with that rando over there, I just panicked when you asked me. I’ve literally never seen him before in my life."
It's quite refreshing to be the eloquent one in one of their conversations for once.
"So don't be all self-sacrificing about it. I'm just a creep who's been wanting to kiss you for a while now. I take full responsibility for my lack of self-control."
"Your control?" Enjolras says weakly, and then, quieter, "What's happening?"
Rather suddenly and jarringly, he bursts into peals of laughter. Grantaire scoots back.
"Wait, what is happening? You're not gonna, I dunno, punch me? Recoil hissing?"
This mental imagery makes Enjolras laugh harder, and Grantaire has to fight not to join in, only marginally succeeding.
"R, R," he manages to get out between breaths. "I'm the one who managed to make out with you while trying to set you up with someone else."
Grantaire scrunches his face up in confusion.
Enjolras grins, still giddy from laughing. He scratches the nape of his neck where Grantaire's hand had been before. "Do I really have to spell it out for you?" he says softly, eyes gleaming in the low light.
Oh.
Oh.
No fucking way.
"You-?"
Enjolras hiccups in his haste to expand. "I thought I was being obvious about it! I realised when we were, uh, dancing, that I'd really set myself up for that one because obviously you'd figure out-"
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Grantaire interrupts, his reaction delayed due to trying not to fall off his seat.
"I can't believe you didn't notice."
Grantaire stares at him. "I'm very stupid you know."
"I think we can gather from this evening that we both are."
Honestly, this felt like dying; Grantaire is well aware, okay, of how annoying his constant self-deprecation can be (Eponine tells him often enough) but seriously – how could this be happening? It’s like Ryan Gosling having a crush on a parsnip. Incomprehensible.
But- but Enjolras is smiling at him, a little wary, apparently worried that he isn’t going to take it well, and Grantaire is, as usual, too drunk to make good decisions, and Enjolras wants to kiss him, and maybe Enjolras just has a parsnip fetish but Grantaire is totally okay with that, and-
"Do you like parsnips," he asks in a low voice, leaning into his space.
Enjolras swallows at the proximity and whispers, "What the fuck," and then, "Yeah, I love parsnips, they’re my second favourite vege-" and then is cut off because Grantaire kisses him again.