Chapter Text
The problem with Enjolras and Grantaire is that they’ve been doing this dance since before they knew what the dance even was.
In an ideal world, it would go like this: six year-old Grantaire spills hot chocolate on six year-old Enjolras’s shirt. Grantaire apologizes. Enjolras ignores him. Grantaire apologizes more. Enjolras ignores him. Grantaire shares his Oreos with Enjolras. Enjolras forgives him. Enjolras and Grantaire become friends. Enjolras and Grantaire grow up. Sometime after becoming annoying hormone-riddled teenagers Enjolras and Grantaire realize they want to have hot back-breaking sweaty sex with each other. Enjolras and Grantaire have hot back-breaking sweaty sex with each other. The end.
However, because this is not an ideal world and the universe apparently hates Courfeyrac (the universe is just jealous it does not have Courfeyrac’s manly shoulders), it goes like this: six year-old Grantaire spills hot chocolate on six year-old Enjolras shirt. Grantaire apologizes. Enjolras ignores him. Grantaire apologizes more. Enjolras ignores him. Grantaire shares his Oreos with Enjolras. Enjolras forgives him. Grantaire promptly manages to spill water all over Enjolras’s hair. Grantaire apologizes. Enjolras ignores him. Enjolras and Grantaire grow up. Enjolras and Grantaire argue about every single thing on the face of the planet. Enjolras and Grantaire become annoying emotionally stunted hormone-riddled teenagers who apparently haven’t yet managed to notice that they want to have hot back-breaking sweaty sex with each other. Enjolras and Grantaire don’t have hot back-breaking sweaty sex with each other. Courfeyrac has to put up with the endless amounts of eye fucking that happen every single time one of them thinks the other isn’t looking. Courfeyrac eventually gives in and murders them both in their sleep.
Okay, so maybe the last two haven’t happened yet. Courfeyrac reckons it’s only a matter of time anyway.
Specially because heavens forbid he brings it up to either of them. Grantaire will blush and attempt to hide under his beanie and throw the occasional pillow in Courfeyrac’s general direction (it’s okay, he mostly has terrible aim). Enjolras, however, will just go very still and get that terrifying look in his eyes that no one not even old enough to legally buy alcohol should be able to produce and, quite frankly, makes Courfeyrac want to look into the witness protection program.
The work of a martyr, Courfeyrac thinks sadly, is never fully appreciated.
And, honestly - Courfeyrac is tired. Courfeyrac is so, so tired and if he has to put up with Enjolras and Grantaire Enjolrasing and Grantairing all over the place in a remotely sober state he’s going to have to punch someone. Although, of course, it won’t be either of them, because Enjolras doesn’t look like the kind of person who enjoys getting punched, and he’s quite sure that the blonde would like it even less if he were to punch Grantaire.
So, he does the next best thing - he makes a drinking game out of it. First, he bugs Éponine into helping him, partly because she’s Grantaire’s best friend and therefore must be suffering as much as Courfeyrac, if not more, and partly because she’s a genius with computers.
Her answer, however, is a clear and resounding no. It’s okay, though, Courfeyrac had planned for Éponine being difficult.
“Éponine - “ he starts, but she cuts him off before he can get start explaining why it’s important to do good things for the greater good and how the pain of one isn’t more important than the happiness of many. Or something along those lines, he didn’t actually plan the speech ahead.
“Oh, hell no. You can turn the puppy eyes right off. Enjolras will kill you,” Éponine says, waving a threatening finger at him.
“No, he won’t,” Courfeyrac replies, with more confidence than he feels.
“Yes, he will. Slowly. And worse, he will make you listen to the indie bullshit music he’s always listening to while he does it. You hate his indie bullshit music.”
“Do you honestly care how he does it?”
“No, but Enjolras isn’t an idiot. He knows it’s a wonder you can find the Start button on your computer at all.” And Courfeyrac has to admit she has a point. “He’ll know you had help. And we both know there’s no way you’ll hold under torture. Two minutes into “The Cave” and you’ll be telling him all your dirty secrets. And worse, you’ll be telling him all of mine. Like how I was the one to help you. He’ll come after me next. I don’t know about you, but I actually enjoy having all my limbs firmly attached, Courfeyrac.”
Luckily, Courfeyrac had planned for her sense of self-preservation of well so he knows he’ll have to bring in the big guns. “I’ll do your history homework for a week.”
Éponine snorts. “You’ll do all my homework until the end of the school year.”
“I’ll do all your homework for a week.” Courfeyrac counters.
“Courfeyrac,” she says slowly, as if talking to a child, “you want me to create an iPhone app for the basic purpose of stalking Enjolras and Grantaire.”
“It’s not stalking!” Courfeyrac says indignantly, because it isn’t. “It’s just like a checklist. Whenever they do something sexual tension-y we’ll check in and then we can all get together and get drunk later. You approve of getting people drunk. Hell, Grantaire loves getting people drunk. Grantaire would think this was a good idea if it allowed him to get drunk as well.”
“Yes, I’m sure Enjolras will let you live if you put it just like that.” She rolls her eyes. “All my homework. End of the year. Or you do this on your own. Your call.”
Courfeyrac can’t help but be impressed, even though he still thinks she is only doing this because if push comes to shove Enjolras will only kill him and allow her to live - Grantaire would miss her, and Enjolras wouldn’t want to upset him. “You drive a hard bargain, Thénardier. Deal,” he says, putting out a hand for her to shake.
She shakes his hand and then immediately settles down to work, asking him, “Do you have a list already?”
Courfeyrac snorts. “Of course I have a list. Who do you take me for?”
He does have a list. He is very proud of the list. The list goes like this:
----------
Enjolras and Grantaire argue about something mind bogglingly stupid - Drink one sip
Enjolras starts pacing - Drink one sip
Enjolras and Grantaire glare at each other - Drink one sip
Grantaire blushes - Drink one sip
Enjolras blushes - Finish your glass
(“I didn’t even know Enjolras was actually physically capable of blushing.”
“Grantaire’s last birthday. He was drunk and decided he wanted to pet Enjolras’ hair. Enjolras actually purred. It would’ve been glorious, if it hadn’t made me want to punch myself in the face.”)
While claiming to watch TV, one of them is actually asleep on top of the other on the couch - Drink one sip
The one being used as a pillow can’t bring himself to wake up the other one - Drink one shot
Enjolras gets jealous of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to Grantaire - Drink one shot
Grantaire drops whatever he is holding because Enjolras smiled at something - Drink one shot
(“Wait, what is this even supposed to be called?”
“So You Think You Can Sexual Tension.”
“That makes no grammatical sense.”
“I am not paying you for your grammatical skills, Thénardier.”
“You’re not paying me at all, Courfeyrac. Remind me again of why I am doing this.”
“Homework. The kindness of your heart? Because you believe in karma? Because this will inevitably lead to drunken revelry and you enjoy encouraging the corruption of youth?”
“That does make sense.”)
Enjolras smiles his “Grantaire is an annoyingly adorable contrarian and if I could I would be nakedly cuddling him” smile
Grantaire smiles his “Enjolras is an annoyingly outspoken hot greek god and I want to nakedly cuddle him” smile
(“Who the hell even says nakedly cuddling?”
“Shh, just stand there and code.”)
Grantaire trips over his feet because Enjolras smiled at something - Drink one sip
Enjolras catches Grantaire before he falls down - Drink one shot
Enjolras forgets what he was saying because Grantaire smiled - Drink one shot
Enjolras and Grantaire fuck each other’s brains out - You have alcohol poisoning and are clearly suffering from hallucinations. Please go to the nearest hospital.
----------
It takes her ten minutes to finish and while Courfeyrac is impressed at the speed, he is not impressed at the design. “Thénardier, this is the ugliest fucking app I have ever seen.”
“Do you want this app or do you want an app that looks good and for me to punch you on the face?” She replies sweetly, with her hands on her hips.
“You make an excellent point.” And then, because unlike some people, Courfeyrac isn’t an emotionally stunted asshole and Éponine is, objectively speaking, very hot, while not putting up with any of his bullshit, he simply turns to her with a winning smile and says, “So, do you want to go on a date or something?” and because Éponine also isn’t an emotionally stunted asshole, she looks him up and down in a truly unimpressed sort of way and says, “There’s no The Walking Dead on this week, I can do Sunday.” And that had been that.
And sure, Courfeyrac knows that she has a crush on Marius, but he does enjoy a challenge and Éponine is fun and tough and hot and smart and he likes that in a woman, so there’s no reason why he shouldn’t ask her out. And when one date turns into two turns into three turns into so many he loses count, Courfeyrac can’t help but be sure that asking her out was a good decision, even if she still is still making him do her homework.
On the plus side, he doesn’t have to do quite so much begging to get her to update the list, which has now grown to be around five pages long, and were they to strictly check everything on it, everyone would wake up on the hospital with alcohol poisoning within an hour of putting up with Enjolras and Grantaire.
Still, they have a system for it now. Whenever Grantaire calls because he needs help with his maths homework or Enjolras wants someone to go see the most recent independent movie with him, they all make their excuses so that Enjolras and Grantaire have to spend time together.
Courfeyrac will say that he can’t because he’s having sex with Éponine. Combeferre will say that he’s volunteering at the puppy shelter (and he probably will be volunteering at the puppy shelter rather than drinking with them but, whatever, Courfeyrac still admires his dedication to the cause). Jehan will say that he can’t because there’s a poetry reading downton and invite them both to come along. Bahorel will have kickboxing practice. Feuilly will say that he can’t because History Channel is showing a documentary on Polish history. Marius will say that his cats are getting lonely (and Courfeyrac will roll his eyes, because there’s only so much shrieking over Napoleon and Bonaparte that he can take and who the fuck even names their cats that?). Bossuet will say that he’s lost his keys again. Joly will say that he’s coming down with a cold. And Éponine, charming ray of light that she is, will say that a) she’s having sex with Courfeyrac and b) even if she wasn’t having sex with Courfeyrac, she still wouldn’t want to.
And in reality, they will get together at Courfeyrac basement and drink, bet and plot.
Which is why he isn’t that surprised when, on Grantaire’s eighteenth birthday, a male stripper jumps out of his cake. It’s what Courfeyrac had wanted to give him, but Grantaire had made him pinky swear he wouldn’t and even Courfeyrac wouldn’t break that kind of promise. Still, when the cake arrives, it is nothing if not ‘stripper-sized’.
Courfeyrac doesn’t really question it and instead just makes sure the cake isn’t under any direct sunlight so whoever is inside it won’t get too sweaty. The way he sees it, the universe owes him and this is it’s way of paying him back.
And when the guy inside it jumps out, Courfeyrac thinks he’d prefer it if he was younger, blonder and blue-eyed, but he is hot and attractive in a dark-haired, dark-eyed, broad-shouldered, old enough to be be his dad sort of way but - again - he doesn’t really question it, just thinks it is karma paying him back for all his hard work.
He doesn’t punch the air when Enjolras breaks the glass he was holding because he doesn’t actually have a death wish. But it’s close.
Instead, as the man who jumped out of the cake drags a very reluctant Grantaire into the nearest bathroom (Courfeyrac thinks it would make more sense for the lap dance to be public but he’s not about to question the universe as it has finally decided to work with him), he turns to his friends and asks, “So, which one of you gorgeous gentlemen did it?”
He doesn’t even find it particularly strange when he is met with eight confused expressions (Éponine’s, Feuilly’s, Joly’s, Jehan’s, Combeferre’s, Bahorel’s, Bossuet’s and Marius’) and one murderous one (Enjolras’).
He only starts to realize that something doesn’t quite add up when the man walks out of the bathroom barely five minutes after walking in, with all his clothes still on, and a very confused-looking Grantaire following closely behind him. A very confused-looking Grantaire who doesn’t look at all like someone who just got a lap dance. A very confused-looking Grantaire who turns to his friends, runs a hand through an already extremely untidy mess of black curls and, with an apologetic look in his eyes, says he has to go deal with “family issues”, before being dragged out of the door by the man.
Courfeyrac isn’t one hundred percent sure, but he thinks Grantaire may just have been kidnapped by a stripper.