Work Text:
Bahorel is asleep.
He’s not really, though. He’s just cracked open a beer, and he’s got a movie ready to go, but it’s 1 AM and if anyone tries to call him, he’s asleep. Those are his rules, and he sticks by them and he expects everyone else to stick by them, too.
Which is why, when someone knocks an erratic pattern on his door just as he’s taken his first swig of beer, he gets up, ready for a fight.
Except when he opens it, there’s Grantaire, leaning against the frame, eyes half closed, and—
“Jesus Christ, are you drunk?” Bahorel asks, surprised. He’s known Grantaire for almost a year and a half now, and he hasn’t seen him drunk. He hasn’t seen Grantaire even touch alcohol and Bahorel knows why, he knows what the date on Grantaire’s chest means, but there’s no denying the smell coming off his body, or the way he lurches in through the door.
Grantaire looks terrible. He looks like shit. He looks like he’s dragged himself from bar to bar, crying the whole way and that’s so unlike the Grantaire that Bahorel knows that Bahorel isworried. He looks Grantaire over, concerned, making sure he hasn’t been fucking stabbed or anything as equally bad, and that’s when he sees it.
Grantaire’s right hand hangs by his side, white bandage, blue tape.
“Fuck,” Bahorel breathes out, catching Grantaire as he stumbles into Bahorel’s chest.
Then Grantaire is crying. He’s crying. He’s got his other hand, his left hand, curled around Bahorel’s bicep and he’s clutching as if Bahorel is some kind of lifeline.
“What the hell happened?” Bahorel asks, arm curving around Grantaire’s shoulders. He’s not too sure what to do, this is new, this is beyond the edge-skirting they’ve done for the past year, this is beyond the vehement assertions that it was just sex, just casual sex, between them.
“I fell… I fell, and my hand came down, but it came down palm up and the bone… the bone…” Grantaire says, barely able to speak through the hitching, gulping breaths he’s taking.
Bahorel doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t know what he can say that will even start to make this better. He’s not a doctor, he can’t make bullshit promises. All he can do is close the door behind Grantaire, and pull him towards the bedroom. Grantaire’s barely walking straight, but he’s light, so it’s not difficult for Bahorel to support him.
Grantaire’s so gone on painkillers and alcohol that he probably won’t remember coming here, won’t remember Bahorel stripping him methodically and won’t remember Bahorel guiding into bed, into the side where Bahorel doesn’t sleep but it definitely absolutely isn’t Grantaire’s side.
Bahorel notices the aborted movement of his right hand, as Grantaire reaches out to catch him.
“What am I going to do?” Grantaire asks, completely hopeless and Bahorel feels his chest tighten and fuck he doesn’t even have an answer to give. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and watches Grantaire press his face into the pillow as he speaks, “I’m gonna have close the shop. Sell it, maybe. You can’t do blackwork if you can’t draw a straight line. I’m fucked. I’m useless.”
“You’re a lot of things, R, but useless isn’t one of them,” Bahorel insists, because he can at least give Grantaire that. Grantaire curls, as if trying to surround Bahorel. He glances to where his beer sits, and his movie is ready to go, and sighs.
“I can give you a list,” Grantaire says, hiccups, “Of good artists. Others.”
Bahorel’s spine straightens, and his eyebrows raise, alarmed, because oh, he gets it now.
“You’re worried you’re going to lose me if you can’t tattoo anymore,” He says, a statement rather than a question. Grantaire whines, low, as if he doesn’t want Bahorel to confirm it as true. Bahorel rolls his eyes, because Christ, Grantaire is a moron.
“You’re a fucking moron,” he says, immediately after. “I know we haven’t exactly put a name to this fucking around we’ve been doing for a year, but c’mon R, I’m not just in this for your tattooing skills. I haven’t been since you put your stupid gun in my hand and rolled up your jeans.”
Grantaire groans softly, and Bahorel elbows him in the side, “Are you fucking listening to me?”
“I’m listening, asshole,” Grantaire mumbles against his thigh.
“This bullshit ‘just casual sex’ is bullshit. I’m not going anywhere. Not until we’re both done,” he says, hand slipping into Grantaire’s hair in a way he hopes is comforting.
Grantaire is silent for a long time, long enough that Bahorel thinks he’s passed out until he feels a huff of breath against his skin.
“Okay, okay,” Grantaire says, trying to convince himself, then he pauses again, struggling with something, before, “I lo—”
Bahorel moved fast, slapping a hand over Grantaire’s mouth, cutting off the rest of the words. Grantaire grunts, opens his eyes and looks up at Bahorel with a frown, expression clearly what the fuck, man?
“Tell me when you’re sober,” Bahorel says simply, fixing Grantaire with a look.
He gets to his feet, going into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and when he returns Grantaire has definitely passed out. He’s rolled over, right hand clutched protectively to his chest, left stretched out to the side where Bahorel sleeps. Bahorel runs his fingers through his hair, leaning against the doorframe and thinks about how fucked this entire situation is.
He doesn’t think about what Grantaire was going to say.
He doesn’t think about what he’s going to say in return.