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Enjolras and Combeferre are bickering. Not the fun kind of bickering, where Courfeyrac can sit back with the metaphorical (or, on a good day, literal) popcorn and occasionally heckle them, or the very occasional kind where he has to step in and be the voice of reason (a rare kind indeed, this). No, this is just the boring kind. Combeferre keeps re-adjusting his glasses, never a good sign. Enjolras’s hair is getting more ridiculous by the minute.
‘-can’t afford to antagonise them-’
‘-think I care for one second-’
‘-just be a bit less you for once?’
Ominous silence. ‘A bit less what?’
Courfeyrac winces and glances around the room. Most of the Amis are either pretending not to be listening, talking amongst themselves or, in Feuilly’s case, trying to distract Enjolras with something on his laptop. A braver man than most, Feuilly. He turns to survey the rest of the café, determined not to be drawn back into the fighting. The corner table is occupied.
People tend to avoid the café when they know the Amis will be there (he suspects only the truly epic quantity of coffee they consume keeps them from a ban), but this person doesn’t seem to mind. He’s hunched over a notebook, scribbling something. His blonde hair hangs in a fishtail braid over his shoulder, but much of it has escaped, feathery strands on the back of his neck. He’s wearing an enormous floral cardigan, lumpy and hideous, with sleeves that fall over his hands, and first glance tells Courfeyrac that he isn’t wearing anything else. Courfeyrac shakes himself, earning a confused look from Joly, and keeps looking. He shifts in his chair and the cardigan falls back a little, revealing a tiny pair of denim cut-offs. His legs are long, bare and freckled, and he has a rose drawn in Biro just above his left knee. One pink flip-flop dangles from his right foot, the other lies under the table. Courfeyrac’s chest feels suddenly tight.
And then he turns around. He catches Courfeyrac’s eye and smiles, not a polite a-stranger-is-making-eye-contact smile, an unembarrassed goofy smile that seeps into Courfeyrac like sunlight. His green-blue eyes flick to where Enjolras and Combeferre are tête-à-tête, talking in undertones like parents who don’t want to row in front of the children, and he smiles again and winces sympathetically.
Courfeyrac is scrambling for something to do, something incredibly cool and witty that doesn’t require making any noise or catching Combeferre’s attention, but he’s already turned back to his writing. There’s a cup of tea next to him that he seems to have forgotten about; instead he’s chewing on the hangnail of his thumb and looking down at his notebook. Courfeyrac can only half-see his face, but he gleans from the set of his shoulders and what he can see of his profile that he is frowning. It makes Courfeyrac’s chest ache that he is frowning, which leads him to conclude that he is well and truly fucked. He kind of wants to buy him another cup of tea or something, but a) standing might attract the attention of The Parents, b) he has no money, c) he’d have to actually approach him and d) he isn’t drinking the cup of tea he already has anyway, so e) buying him more tea is pretty much a terrible idea. Maybe he could buy him chocolate. Steal him chocolate. Steal him a car.
What the hell is wrong with him? Courfeyrac is an excellent flirt, he really is. He flirts with everyone. He flirts with Enjolras, and flirting with Enjolras is pretty much a guaranteed route to blank stares and general uncomfortableness. And here he is, staring at a total stranger in what is probably an exceptionally creepy manner, without a clue how to approach him. He really should stop staring. He’s bound to notice, no matter how immersed he is in his writing.
He is absolutely, definitely going to stop staring.
At long, long last, Combeferre glances at the clock and realises that the Amis have been sitting around watching him and Enjolras argue for the last two hours. He hands Courfeyrac a KitKat on the way out, presumably to placate him. Courfeyrac has no idea how Combeferre always manages to produce chocolate from nowhere, but it’s one of his favourite things about him.
He’s almost at the door when someone touches his elbow.
‘Hello.’ Strands of blonde hair fall over his forehead. He has a small constellation of freckles across his nose. Courfeyrac’s mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. This is ridiculous. He has to say something, even if it’s ‘giraffe’.
‘I thought you weren’t wearing pants.’ In retrospect, saying something might have been a mistake. He would have been better off with ‘giraffe’.
To Courfeyrac’s amazement, he laughs. ‘Are you disappointed that I am?’ Courfeyrac finds himself, yet again, unable to form words. ‘I’m Jehan.’ It’s an appropriately beautiful name for such a beautiful being.
‘I’m Courfeyrac.’ Jehan holds out his hand, and they shake. His fingernails are bitten, and painted with mint-green nail polish.
‘Are your friends usually so-’ Jehan makes a vague gesture that somehow perfectly encompasses everything Enjolras and Combeferre have been doing for the last two hours. Courfeyrac thinks he might be in love. ‘More often than I’d like. Usually I throw rocks at them until they get annoyed at me, instead. Only I didn’t have any.’
‘You’re clearly an excellent friend.’ They are probably getting in people’s way, standing by the door like this, but he can’t remember how to move his feet.
‘I am a saint of a man.’ He nearly adds ‘and a skilled and gentle lover’, but manages to stop himself just in time. ‘They weren’t distracting you, were they? From your- writing?’
Jehan smiles. ‘I do write in public on purpose, you know. Besides, they seem- passionate. I like people who care about things.’
‘Enjolras would love you.’ He takes a breath. ‘Come to our next meeting. You could write, he probably wouldn’t notice. Plus we have the sofas.’
‘I’ll come. Here.’ He writes something on a blank page of his notebook, tears it out and hands it to Courfeyrac.
‘You don’t even know what we do. We could be terrorists.’
Jehan’s smile grows. ‘You think I haven’t been eavesdropping for the last two hours? I’ll see you around, Courfeyrac.’ And then he’s gone. He doesn’t think he imagines that Jehan’s fingers brush his arm as he leaves.
Courfeyrac stumbles dazed out of the café to find Combeferre leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Like Enjolras, he only smokes when he’s stressed. Unlike Enjolras, it’s usually when they’ve fought.
‘Are you-’
‘It’s fine.’ Combeferre drops the stub of his cigarette and steps on it. ‘If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have let him go. He always sulks when he knows he’s wrong.’
Courfeyrac looks down at the note in his hand. Underneath his phone number, he has written Jehan and drawn a tiny heart. Jehan’s handwriting is cramped and swooping and somewhat difficult to read. It looks sort of like someone took some fancy Victorian cursive and ran it into a wall so it bunched up on itself. Combeferre glances at him, then at the note in his hand. He smirks.
‘New recruit?’
Courfeyrac traces a finger over the row of numbers. ‘I hope so.’