Chapter Text
Montague house
"Emergency meeting," a breathless Cosette greets them when she appears after first period Lit, slamming her binders on the table hard enough for Grantaire's markers to bounce and start rolling off in every conceivable direction.
"Dude," he protests as he scrambles to rescue them before they plunge into the turbulent waters of the carpet never to be seem again. Joly snags four without even looking up from his textbook in a kind of ninja move, and Cosette hands him #11 Violet in a peace offering as she sits down opposite them.
"Sorry, sorry," she says, evidently flustered; her hair looks frazzled, and Grantaire has always had a lot of faith in Cosette’s hair as a means of deducing how she’s feeling. "Emergency meeting though."
He stuffs the last marker into his bottomless pit of a pencil case and tosses it elegantly in the general direction of his bag. (His sixty quid sketching pencils are in a different case, a hard case, thank you: he's not an animal.) He’d finished up anyway and had very visibly been playing Crossy Bird on his phone with his feet kicked up, so it’s not like he could call her out on jogging the table even though he wanted the point as reinforced as possible that you should never jog the table.
He clasps his hands together before him with a flourish, so as to fully embrace his role as her therapist as he has to every few weeks. “’Sup.”
Cosette waits until she has everyone's attention and then leans forward conspiratorially.
"He's back," she whispers ominously.
Grantaire feels Joly tense up beside him, physically having to restrain himself from ruining the sobriety of the moment with Eminem. Grantaire himself struggles to keep his mouth from twitching because now he can't unthink it – the beat is already starting in his head.
"…Voldemort?" he offers, because he has no idea who she's talking about and the fact that he isn't laughing already is proof enough of how valiantly he's trying, for the sake of their friendship, to take her problems seriously, even though he is entirely aware of her affinity for unnecessary dramatisation at every opportunity.
Cosette gives him a Look. "No, actually, not the Dark Lord, but almost."
"Oh no!" Jehan says in epiphany, hands flying to his mouth like an anime character. "Oh no."
"See? That's the appropriate response of a perceptive and engaged friend. Take notes, R," Phrasie huffs, and she pokes him in the chest pointedly with the corner of one of the binders. "Who could I possibly be referring to, d'you think? Who?"
Grantaire racks his brains while everyone stares at him. He sees it hit Joly, then Feuilly, then freaking Bossuet, who’s only listening with one un-headphoned ear, and all he can fucking think of now is Harry Potter characters.
"Uh," he ventures, which he reckons is a safe bet.
"Marc!" Cosette hisses.
"Who?"
"What– how–? How do you not remember him? The guy from my English who had all the opinions? The subject of, like, eighty percent of our conversations last year?”
Nope, still nothing.
Grantaire blinks at her.
"Sideburns," Joly helpfully whispers.
"Oh, Sideburns!" Grantaire whoops. "Oh man, those were some great sideburns. Well, until they... weren't. Quite abruptly."
"Yes, yes, we are all aware of that particular tale," Cosette interrupts, clearly aiming for nonchalant but falling flat by about a hundred metres.
"I can't believe you fancied a guy who set his own facial hair on fire," Grantaire continues happily, basking in this newly-recalled information.
"Would it have been any less terrible if he’d set someone else's on fire?" Joly opens up for discussion.
Bossuet snorts. “Takes less skill, I would’ve thought, right?” and Joly nods enthusiastically.
"I mean,” Grantaire chips in, on a roll now, “if it had been in Chemistry, then sure, shit happens, but in Bio–?"
"ALRIGHT, R," Cosette all but screeches.
Grantaire grins at her. "It's endearing, Phray. You have the worst taste in guys."
"Look, can we just focus on the fact that he's back," she implores a little desperately. "He said he was dropping Lit in A2 – that's the only reason I told him I liked him, because I wouldn't have to sit opposite him every day, and now he's back and I do."
"What a conundrum," Jehan says, and from anyone else that would sound sarcastic, but then Jehan has never managed to write any essay without using the word ‘lest’ at least once.
"Yeah, well." Cosette looks grim.
There's a moment of silence to let the misery of the situation sink in. Rejection's shitty, especially when people as hot as Cosette probably never get turned down ever.
"Hey, well, I wouldn't feel too cut up about it, Phrasie, he's obviously mental if he doesn't want a piece of that," Grantaire says, ramping up the vulgarity a notch to try and make her laugh. She smiles a bit, so he counts his part in the consoling as successful.
Joly reaches over to pat her arm. "Yeah, and, well, I hate to fixate on this, but he did set his own face on fire–"
She snorts, and then puts her head in her hands, although carefully so as not to smudge her eye make-up. "Ughhhhhhh, guys."
"You know what this situation calls for," Feuilly pipes up, and they stand (or rather, sit) to attention because if Feuilly has an idea then it's going to be an excellent one.
"What?" they chorus, Cosette with a distinct malaise.
"Hot chocolate," Feuilly reveals, and yes. He never disappoints, that boy.
Capulet house
"Marius, for the love of Christ, can you just get a girlfriend already and quit whining?" Musichetta groans, throwing her apple core at his head. It misses and hits the strings of his uke, making a weird twang that just brings more attention to that fact that one of them has a goddamn uke. "If I hear the opening notes to Wonderwall again I will skin you. Literally skin you."
From over her shoulder where she's braiding Chetta's hair, Eponine makes a face. "Yeah, it's bad enough you carting that abomination around in public, but Oasis?"
"Hey!" Marius protests belatedly, still reeling from the graphic imagery of the threat. "It's within my rights as part of our group to have my ukulele with me at all times! Enjolras, back me up here."
Enjolras turns from his conversation – or more accurately, heated debate – with Combeferre, and feigns ignorance so as to delay the bad news a few seconds. "Hm, sorry?"
"I'm trying to exercise my freedom here. My uke is allowed, right?"
Ah. Not much of a delay as he was hoping for. Enjolras winces, glancing as Eponine and trying to convey with his eyes how truly, truly sorry he is. "Yeah, we can’t really bar personal possessions; it’d never end.”
“Prithee, make a very specific footnote,” Chetta pleads.
"Ha!" Marius yells delightedly over her. "And I can play Wonderwall?"
"Well now, surely that's different," Bahorel weighs in, sitting up properly in his squeaking plastic chair with the furrowed brow of the Thinker himself: clearly he’d exhausted all forms of entertainment on his phone. "That's something that more directly involves the rest of us. It’s like busking, you need a licence."
"Exactly, dude," Chetta jabs a jump in his direction.
"A vote?" Enjolras suggests, and he savours the words on his tongue: this is where he's at. A vote a day keeps autocracy at bay. "All in favour of banning Wonderwall from all Pontmercy And The Pontmercies performances, raise your hands."
Marius pouts as he is thoroughly betrayed by his favourite people in the world.
"Sorry, mate," Combeferre says, patting him on the back. "You'll just have to get a girlfriend instead."
"Let's brainstorm!" Enjolras says, not unlike a Blue Peter presenter, because it might be stupid but it’s problem solving, which is sort of his entire thing. (He hadn’t had a lesson yet today, so was kind of buzzing, okay.)
It immediately becomes apparent that they have zero suitable candidates. None of them are especially well acquainted with any girls apart from Bahorel, and they would all be exes, which: not a good idea.
Musichetta surveys the common room with her eagle's eye. "What about... thingy? Her, that one." She points rather obviously at a random red-haired girl by the fire escape.
"Who's she? What's she like?" Marius asks, craning his neck.
"No idea," Chetta replies cheerily.
"Perfect." Combeferre decides. "Sorted. Now, can I have Enjolras back now, he was saying something interesting about the socio-economic standing of–"
The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the familiar groans that accompany words like "socio-economic" and "recycling", although admittedly usually it's Enjolras who's the one to bring them up. It's not that they're anti-recycling or anything – it's just... Well, Enjolras can admit that he can be extremely vegan sometimes. A political vegan. A vegan vigilante.
Combeferre is talking again, very animatedly, over the chatter of the others, and he does his best to tune in again but now he's thinking about the morality of being a vigilante.
Robin Hood was alright. Matt Murdock. Is the law the end-all?
This isn't the kind of question a prospective student of law should be asking the year before university, but it's the first day of term so he cuts himself some slack.
Montague House
Grantaire likes to think their vibe is that one song by McFly, you know: punk rockers with flowers in their collective hair. They're all for defying the man and eating dessert before dinner and anarchy, but more prominently for picnics on hills and tie-dying – not to mention naps. They're a bit ridiculous, he's not gonna defend that, but he adamantly defends their right to be ridiculous; it's their last year of compulsory education, alright, and after half a decade in this hell hole they deserve some downtime.
He and Cosette have been friends forever. Neither of them have siblings, so when their parents moved in next door to each other it was natural for them to fill these roles for one another. For a while in Year Nine Grantaire even dyed his hair dirty blonde and successfully convinced at least four of their teachers that his surname was Fauchelevent now. Valjean even went along with it at parent's evening, when his own parents didn't show.
Because that's what he's escaping, really.
Ever since he can remember his parents have been nothing but hostile to each other, although never divorcing for reasons not entirely clear, and the hostility bleeds into their relationship with Grantaire. They don't talk to him often these days. He eats dinner alone when he gets home and generally tries to stay out of their way and out of the house as much as possible. Cosette and Valjean know this, and he spends most evenings doing his homework on their couch instead, which is more than fine with him. (Valjean shares his awesome music taste, for one.) He doesn’t like being such a cliché, but the truth is he does in fact have a sob story.
So he loves hanging out a school, really. His friends are so chilled out all the time – it's fucking lovely to just shoot the shit with them on the grass slopes outside the Sociology building instead of hiding in his bedroom eating cold Poptarts and listening to the shouting resonate through the floorboards.
They had met on an Art department residential to London, where Grantaire got roomed with best friends Joly and Bossuet, a quiet kid with a name that sounded like a type of pasta, and a sort of mythical creature disguised as a human who introduced himself as Jehan. By 1am Feuilly had annihilated them all at the Lord of the Rings shot game, and Grantaire – from his position of face-planting the carpet, groaning quietly – had outwardly applauded his ability to hold so much liquor and inwardly decided there and then that they would all be friends for a very long time.
Cosette hadn't been particularly surprised when one friend left and five returned, and honestly that seemed about right, like a natural progression. They'd drifted in and out of other people's groups for their whole academic career, Cosette being a social butterfly and Grantaire, effectively, her loyal pet Labrador. It was about freaking time they made their own distinct party. And so here they were, the... six musketeers. (Their band name was still in progress.)
They’d all been carefully not thinking about June and the horrible pain it would bring. Since forming, the group has been weirdly familial (or maybe not weirdly, what does Grantaire know about family) and the idea that they would all be going off to separate universities and jobs and things is one not worth the agony of considering.
Although, fuck, now Grantaire was considering it. No more grass slope bitching, no more movie nights on Fridays, no more being kicked out of the Musain for being too raucous in the early hours, no more seeing Jehan's magnificently awful outfit combinations, no more losing to Joly at hangman in double Bio on Thursdays, no more Cosette climbing in his window in the middle of the night to make him proof-read her essays.
That'll be the worst thing. No Cosette.
"R?" someone's saying, and Grantaire startles out of his grim trance. Cosette's frowning at him. "You okay," she says quietly, and Bossuet laughs manically at something Joly says behind them. The rest of the common room is bustling. It's all still here. It's alright. (And that soothing crickety voice in his head sounds like Cosette too, which isn’t surprising in the least.)
"Yeah," he shakes it off, and means it at least for now, and Cosette just gives him her signature side-hug as if she knows. And really, she probably does.
Capulet House
Enjolras' biggest peeve is when people point out that none of them can really talk about oppression and poverty and the problems of the world because they're all rich and educated and live in one of the most powerful countries in the West, and the reason he hates this so much is because they're absolutely right.
He can't go around being the voice of the people if he isn't really one of the people – but then the opposing argument is equally logical, because obviously you don't have to be a woman to support equal pay, right? It messes with his head. It's not his fault his family owns a huge fucking soft drink corporation – he's sure he'd be exactly the same as he is now if he was born into any other family. For God’s sake, he’d had to fight for his parents to send him to a sixth form that didn't cost to attend, just for the principle of the thing.
He wants to save the world, bring the system crashing down, etc etc, but by definition this means he has to do it from the inside, because that's where he is. Combeferre's mum is a major shareholder. Eponine's dad invented Air B&B. They're all at the top of the food chain, and it infuriates Enjolras more than he's ever gonna admit to anyone (although Combeferre knows, innately, because he's clearly omniscient or something).
They're the privileged adolescents who sit on their arses making fun of the rest of the universe – but they're also a socialist’s wet-dream in the making with plans to go straight for the throat of the prime minister when school ends, and oh, is Enjolras dreaming. They’re planning their world domination quietly, and thoroughly, and fiercely, and one day they will be an example of how even the privileged can rise to the top. (And there's some stupid Wildean symbolism in there somewhere about how 'the top' is actually the gutter.)
Ugh. To be honest, Enjolras is just low-key pissed off all the time.
Beside him, Combeferre laughs at that, and it turns out the last couple of minutes has been a very one-sided conversation rather than a thought process, and Enjolras feels his cheeks start burning.
"Aw, little flame," Musichetta coos. He bats her off as she reaches over to ruffle his hair.
"Touch the hair and I will end you," he says calmly, and the whole table bursts out laughing at his face; and he knows he's being mocked, but he still can't help grinning along with them after a few seconds.
"Hey, order, order," Bahorel calls, pointing to his phone and then holding it up to his ear. "I gotta take this– oh hey, man! Y’ite?"
Shushing them was a pretty futile move because (a) within half a quark the noise is on the rise again, and (b) Bahorel almost immediately walks away to take the call. But hey, the guy can fantasise of having a gavel if he wants. He returns a little while later with a bag of Skittles, which causes considerable alarm because this is not a drill, they have not discussed having a drill.
The table falls silent.
Bahorel thrusts the bag first at Combeferre, then Enjolras, then Eponine, Marius and Chetta, all with a stony expression.
(This is their business-like approach to bad news (suggested when Marius spilt lasagne down Eponine's parents' cushions and genuinely thought he'd be let off if he gave her the rest of the lasagne): the bearer offers confectionery to soften the blow. As an unspoken rule, none of them now ate sweets in the presence of the others due to the fact that the sight of it implied drama. It wasn't much of a loss, really. They’re crisp and cracker people. Enjolras just keeps his Malteser addiction secret now.)
"Guys, I'm really sorry," Bahorel starts, making no move to produce any kind of ruined item from his person, so that's a good sign, Enjolras supposes. Although it could of course mean something much worse has occurred. "Like, really," Bahorel adds, "The street cred we have accumulated over the last year is about to be very trashily... trashed."
"What is it?" Marius asks, clutching his ukulele in dread.
"My crazy French cousin is here," Bahorel says, chugging the rest of the Skittles like pre-attack rum in the Great War. "And I mean crazy."
Montague House
On Wednesday, a complete stranger plonks himself down next to Joly underneath the big oak tree they all sit at when it's warm outside but the social sciences area is too crowded. "I'm Cosette's friend," he says cheerily by way of explanation, justification and introduction all at once. "Courfeyrac, at your service."
He's wearing aviator shades, a gigantic scarf and fingerless black gloves straight from 2007, and has such an easy manner that he pulls it all off, the sudden approach included.
Grantaire blinks at him. It's what he does best when faced with people.
"...Hello," Jehan offers, eyes fixed on the gloves in something akin to awe.
"Hello! She tells me you all do art," Courfeyrac continues, nonplussed by Grantaire's just-woken-up-what's-happening stare. He holds out his bare arms, palms to the sky. "Ink me up and I'll buy you a pizza?"
By the time Cosette returns from the bathroom, Courfeyrac is a walking Mauer Park and Jehan is wearing the gloves.
"Cosette! Cosette! You never mentioned your friends were this delectable!" Courfeyrac yells as she sits down, and then lies down, and then rolls over to join Grantaire on the grass while he draws.
"Well they're my friends, I thought it was implied," she replies smoothly, grabbing a yellow marker and starting to colour in the rose by Courfeyrac's inner elbow.
"Very true, it is," Courfeyrac concedes. "Although Grantaire doesn't like Jurassic Park so that knocks some points off."
"Wait, we have points?" Grantaire squints up at him. "Like a score? Tell me my score! Was I good?"
"Almost excellent," Courf answers and, well, that's just about every report Grantaire's ever got from school. How depressing. "But Jurassic Park is an essential step on the path to enlightenment."
"But it's so dumb! Who thought a theme park of, of genetically modified wild nightmare beasts was gonna be a good idea?" Grantaire argues.
"Capitalism," Courf replies without hesitation.
There's a moment they have to take as they just absorb that; and then Jehan bursts out laughing, and they collapse.
"Jesus, Phrasie, where'd you find this guy?" Grantaire says, wheezing slightly from laughing horizontally, which he wholeheartedly does not recommend.
"Oh!" Feuilly exclaims, raising his own pen like Excalibur. They hold their breath, even Courf, who seems to have caught on already that Feuilly's words are sporadic but spectacular. "Band name! Wild Nightmare Beasts!"
"Fuck," Grantaire hiccups, embarrassed at his inability to describe dinosaurs, even as everyone else cheers around him.
"Can I play kazoo?" Courf asks, clutching Joly's arm in plea.
"You were made to play kazoo in the Wild Nightmare Beasts, my friend," Joly replies with conviction.
Capulet House
Crazy Cousin Courfeyrac takes them to an all-night café that none of them had heard of before despite living in the same town as it for several years.
"You want an HQ, amis? Here is your HQ," he says proudly as he backs through the doors with his arms outstretched like an overexcited estate agent.
And it’s... great. Really great. There's a jukebox, and little diner booths, and that weird poppy art that Combeferre likes, and "Kareoke Tuesdays!" Musichetta and Marius exclaim in unison, and as promised, never closes.
"How did he know about this place?" Enjolras hisses to Bahorel, kind of angry because he'd been on the look-out for a proper base for their whatever-this-is for months now, even writing to the deputy head in a fit of desperation before the summer, and nothing had made itself apparent.
"Magique," Courf replies, floating past.
"What the fuck," Enjolras says.
They get a booth, and much to everyone's dismay Marius finds some change in his pocket and puts Uptown Funk on the overhead speakers. They order milkshakes and Chetta takes a group selfie, angling her phone camera so that everyone except Enjolras knows what's happening and he ends up looking like he's in the middle of a sneeze. But all in all, yeah, it's pretty great.
Courfeyrac is crazy, but maybe that's exactly why he fits in with them straight away. The story is he’s moved to England for sixth form – so is technically in the year below the rest of them, but with the shared common room it makes no difference – and so far seems to like it. It isn't clear why he moved, but it could just as easily be for the hell of it as for family trouble or anything like that – you couldn't tell with his demeanour.
He would have been in Enjolras' and Combeferre's law class if he hadn't been put in Year Twelve, and it's easy to see they have a fair bit in common, at least politically: he'd immediately gotten on board with their world domination plans.
("What do you mean you don't have meetings? What party doesn't have a conference once in a while?"
"Well," Combeferre defended gallantly, even though Enjolras knew he was only really being devil's advocate, "we see each other all the time, there's hardly a point in scheduling for something we'd just talk about as and when it came up."
"But it's fun! It would make it feel more exciting!" Courfeyrac protested.
Enjolras cut in at this point. "See, I was about to agree with you but you've just ruined it; I think it is a good idea, but it's also a useful one. Separating work and play would be a good way to increase efficiency."
And Courfeyrac had hugged him like he hadn't just been kind of insulted, and said something about Care Bears in rapid Français to no one in particular, possibly God.)
Now, they sit in the Musain with several fancy Oxford notepads they’d bought for the occasion, and dutifully transcribe the last few months' ideas into ink, and two hours later their dream seems much closer, much less pipey.
Enjolras has to admit that Courfeyrac is sort of brilliant when he’s concentrating on something other than painting his nails in magenta stripes – which is fine, of course, he has no beef with self-expression; he just wishes everyone had bigger-picture priorities.
Montague House
This time when Cosette comes back from Lit she announces that the world has righted itself again.
"Why does something major happen every time you have Lit?" Grantaire asks, rather reasonably he thinks.
Cosette ignores him. "Have any of you heard of Marius Pontmercy?"
Grantaire pings a hairband at her shoulder in his witty way of returning it. (Acrylic. Don’t ask.) "You make him sound like a celebrity or something.”
Cosette ignores him. Grantaire senses a pattern emerging. "Well? Have any of you?"
"Everyone knows everyone around here," Joly points out, turning to a new page of notepaper with panache.
Cosette grins, eyes glinting. "Exactly. Have you?"
"Er," Joly falters, looking up finally. "Thinking about it, no. Who is he?"
It turns out Marius Pontmercy is perfect. It also becomes quickly obvious he is an idiot.
"First Sideburns, and now a guy who got lost at his own school?" Grantaire can't help but bring to light, even though it's now obvious why Cosette didn't want him to be part of this conversation. It's not his fault she has atrocious tastes. (Because that's why Marius hadn't there in the last English lesson. He'd gone to the wrong class. He is nearly eighteen years old. There are only two buildings.)
"Look, he's nice, don't keep going on about this one mistake! He was having a bad day," Cosette sighs, hugging herself around the waist in a way Grantaire recognises, and his heart twists guiltily.
"Okay, alright, I won't mention his navigational skills again, I promise." He makes eyes at Joly and Bosuset so they'll change the topic. Mercifully they are all well-versed in silent conversation.
"What's he like then?" Bossuet prompts, and Grantaire takes this as his cue to tune out with a clearer conscience.
Not that he isn't into love: he just isn't into high-school romance. I mean, wham bam, this dude comes along and suddenly Marc's out of the picture entirely? Either love works fast or Cosette's just bored.
Maybe he's being cynical. Maybe this Marius fellow really is nice and perfect and everything. It's doubtful, having the evidence he has, but maybe.
Capulet House
"Oh no, not Rosie Sanders," Courf says dismissively. He takes a bite out of his... pickle sandwich?, and then gestures with it. "She's super great, but I've seen her in an argument and she'd rip you apart, man. Two years into your relationship and you'll accidentally ignore one of her calls and she'll egg your car and steal your cat."
"Is car egging a thing?" Bahorel asks around his mouthful of Quavers.
"Nope," comes the unanimous answer.
"I don't have a cat," Marius says.
Courf shrugs. "She'll make you get one, make you nurture it and come to love it, and then she’ll steal it. After egging your car."
"I don't have a car either."
"Artistic license!" Courf exclaims, waving his sandwich for emphasis. "Point is, you want a bae, and I got you one."
"You have?" Marius perks up.
"Oui, cheri. Cosette Fauchelevent." As if on a heavenly cue, the bell for next period goes exactly as he imparts this wisdom. He grins lecherously and stands up, hauling his bag onto his shoulder. "Think about it."
An hour later, Marius is practically vibrating with excitement when he returns.
"Yes!" he says on arrival. "Yes! Yes!"
"This is either the worst porn shoot of all time or a practically euphoric breakdown," Eponine drawls.
"Yes!" Marius continues. "Wait, no, what?"
"What's up?" Ferre ploughs ahead, ever the one to keep the conversation moving towards its point, which for their group is a much needed service.
"I've met her! I've found the One! My love, my Cosette!"
Courfeyrac grins his leery grin again, as if he had somehow coordinated them meeting right after he'd mentioned her. Well. Perhaps he had. Who knows with this guy.
Montague House
Grantaire meets Marius by accident in the Book Nook when he's perusing the sci-fi section and happens upon him and Cosette engaged in some heavy PDA up against the graphic novels.
"Jesus fuck," he yells, spinning on his heel and resolutely staring at the bookcase behind as the two scuffle into a state of decency.
"R!" Cosette says brightly, panting a little, not at all like she was having to rearrange her shirt to be more family-friendly.
"H-hello!" he shrieks back, addressing the bookcase. "You must be Marius!"
Cosette snorts. "You can turn around, idiot."
Grantaire gingerly does so and is greeted with a sheepish but hopeful smile from the guy. He really hasn't seen him around before, which either makes him very forgettable or Grantaire very unobservant. He's kinda short, wearing a sophisticated coat and has freckles that match Cosette's. Grantaire doesn't know what to do with this information.
"Hello," he says more normally.
"Hi," Marius replies, holding out his hand like it's 1793. "You're Grantaire?"
"Yep. I'm the one who has to give you the if-you-hurt-her talk, but I've left my gun at home, so."
Marius laughs uncomfortably. Cosette rolls her eyes.
"Don't try being funny, R. Look, we were just about to get some coffee..."
Which to Marius probably sounds like a delightful invitation to hang out with them, but Grantaire is instantly relieved because this is Cosette's way of telling him to Fuck off I'm busy.
"I gotta find this book," he says apologetically, aiming it at Marius. "Nice to meet you though. See you, uh, at school?"
"See you later, R," Cosette sings over her shoulder as they leave, and then she does a quick thumbs up behind her back at him. Grantaire grins.
He whips out his phone and messages the others through the group chat.
phrasies boyf seems nice my dudes, not to mention existent. DEM FRECKLES THO.
Jehan replies with a row of multi-coloured hearts, Joly with an appalled “boyf” and Feuilly – the most interesting by far – says, I think he's part of the RPs, I looked him up on fb. combeferre's lot?
Ah. The Rich Pricks. That explains... well, nothing really, but at least now it's verified that he actually goes to their school. But seriously, those guys? They're school-famous for being the second generation millionaire clique who brood in corners and always look like they're plotting to overthrow Caesar. How someone as normal as Marius Pontmercy got in with them would be a mystery if Grantaire hadn't seen his coat, which positively screamed old money, and old money is the requirement for membership into their gang. Cosette had better look out.
condolences, phray, Grantaire taps out in reply.
Capulet House
"I want to meet her," Eponine declares before their Saturday meeting, which although is technically the first one to be organised, feels like the beginning of a tradition.
"You're not allowed to scare her," Combeferre mandates. "Or lure her away."
"True loves shouldn't be lureable," Ep points out, examining her wrist of festival bracelets in lieu of her nails, which are too bitten to do much with.
"She needs to pass initiation," Chetta chips in, and Eponine cackles and grabs her in glee.
"Excuse me, this is my girlfriend, not the group’s," Marius says, his usual pout in place.
Bahorel pats him on the back, smiling gently. "We are one entity, Pontmercy, you know this. A friend of mine is a friend of yours, etcetera and so forth, and the same goes for enemies and girlfriends."
"And boyfriends," Enjolras adds.
"Amen and all that, but does this mean we can do an initiation ceremony or not?" Chetta persists.
"Vote," Combeferre calls. Only the girls vote in favour of lamb's blood and robe-wearing in a basement, which is lucky because Enjolras is the only one with a basement and his parents would not be down with that. Their love for him only goes so far.
"Thank you," Marius says, visibly relieved, and Enjolras suddenly feels squeamishly guilty that democracy can work against good people in this way sometimes, and that if the For side had won Marius would have been forced into the whole thing. Goddamn conscience. It was probably too stupid an idea to have even considered voting on, really, but that would screw with Enjolras’ one constant in life. Go figure.
Courfeyrac finally arrives twenty minutes late, a whirl of chunky-knit and gleaming teeth. He sits down and steals a gulp or three of Bahorel's shake. "I hear you met R," he opens with, and this must be a new record because Enjolras is already lost and the conversation hasn’t actually started.
"Oh, uh, yes," Marius replies, and he's blushing for some reason. "Nice guy."
"He threatened to shoot you," Courf reminds him. Everyone but the two of them is entirely lost, glancing between them like they're watching a tennis match, bewildered.
"Well, it's a natural response to, um..." Marius trails off and blushes again.
Courf winks.
"Wait, that was only like, two hours ago – how do you know about it? How do you know him?"
Courf shrugs, sipping some more of the shake. (Bahorel whacks him on the arm.) "I was ‘round his house."
Everyone stares at him.
"...To play Mario?" he expands.
And it's strange because obviously, obviously any of them can have other friends – especially Courfeyrac, who's only here by genetic circumstance – but the sad truth is they don't really associate with anyone outside the group. They're like the friends in Friends who have no other friends. There's no real need. Or it could be that they simply have no social skills whatsoever, but Enjolras chooses to believe otherwise.
"Cool," Enjolras breaks the silence, stealthily hiding his pinprick of jealousy under a blanket of bored determination, as per. So what, Courf’s been here five days and made more friends than he did in a year? (One. One friend.) "Can we start now?"
Montague House
"Absolutely not," Grantaire says. "How is that a good idea?"
Cosette blows a raspberry at him and then laughs hysterically for about thirty seconds at her own wit. "Just is, Rrrrrrrr," is her final argument, slurring to the point of being indecipherable and only not so because he’s known her so long, and sometimes they have whole arguments just using the medium of the eyebrow.
"No but, it's not even like you have to win him over – you've already got to third base with him," Grantaire points out, grabbing her by the shoulders as she sways worryingly, socked feet slippery on the floorboards.
"T'll be fun, babe," she purrs, and starts stroking his hair like a really shit lion tamer or something.
"I'll come, Phray," Joly decides, getting up from where he had been lying on the floor 'for reasons' for forty minutes. He chugs the rest of the Prosecco like a champ. He looks determined, and giggly. "We were gon' go out soon anyway. Kebabs!"
"Kebabs are never the answer," Bossuet says shrewdly, also on the floor, and Grantaire rolls his eyes because it sounds like the start of a debate. Which actually would be welcome right this second because then Cosette would stay here long enough to be persuaded to stay staying here.
Unfortunately, she is having none of it and just pulls Joly towards the door by the hand.
"It's such a good idea, right?!" she conspires with him in a stage-whisper, and Joly immediately almost falls flat on his face at the top of the stairs.
Grantaire groans, and out if the good of his heart, goes with them.
Marius' house is a huge mansion of a thing, pitch black with just the moon's reflection shining on the windows. In one of them, a V for Vendetta poster is blue-tacked accusingly, facing the street.
"That's it!" Cosette squeals; she drops to the ground and starts hunting for something.
"Wh–" Grantaire starts, hoping he's wrong.
"Gravel!!" she whispers.
"Damnit," Grantaire mutters. Is this how annoying he is when he's drunk? Too bad he has a driving lesson tomorrow morning, or he'd be down there with her, off his tits and scrabbling around in his love interest's driveway. He hauls Cosette to her feet and confiscates the jagged pieces of rock she'd already managed to collect. "No one does that in real life, dude, just... just don't."
She looks heartbroken.
Grantaire tries very hard not to shake her, and then fails. "Call him? With your phone?"
Apparently she hadn’t thought of this, so she does, and he and Joly make a swift exit so they don't have to be subjected to round two of Cosette's exhibitionist self-discovery. They go and sit on the wall at the end of the long ridiculous drive, Grantaire having to physically restrain Joly from scampering off in the direction of the nearest kebab shop.
"We can't leave her, she'll die or something," he insists, but it's honestly just the overprotective sibling thing rearing its head.
"But fried vegetables," Joly whines, and oh my God, is he crying?
"Christ on a bicycle," Grantaire mutters, but he offers him his left shoulder to cry on and a hug, as a sort of consolation prize.
Capulet House
Marius has been gone for twenty minutes now and the lack of absent-minded string plucking that is normally the backdrop to their lives is becoming more unnerving by the minute. The uke lies there on the carpet, silent and symbolic, as the rest of them resolutely try to ignore it.
Enjolras rolls a six and goes to jail. Again. "Did you rig this?" he accuses Bahorel, because the guy is grinning far too much to be unbiased. Also they’re his dice.
"Nah, just thoroughly enjoying the work of whoever did," Bahorel replies smoothly.
Enjolras scowls but concedes that he probably wasn't the culprit because he probably didn't care enough. He nonchalantly moves his top hat and pours some of that tacky vodka Chetta’s partial to into a shot glass, as are the rules of this particular round. It was the natural compromise between the equally popular proposals of going on a pub crawl and staying in to play Monopoly: each turn in jail means a shot. Thinking about it, it made no sense at all actually. "Well someone's definitely trying to get me drunk, but know that I will not sleep with any of you or sign any incriminating documents regardless of my state of inebriation."
"It's clearly not working if you can still say 'inebriation'," Eponine says from the windowsill where she's smoking. She takes a long drag and rather unsubtly peers out to spy on Marius and The One. "Eugh, I can actually see tongue. From two floors up! There's gotta be a law about that."
She turns to look at Combeferre, desperation in her eyes, but he just shakes his head and makes sad-puppy eyes. Enjolras pets him on the head because, okay, he's a little drunk now, but also because Combeferre is constantly having to 'let people down' by informing them when gross things are legal and fun things aren't.
Courf rolls an eleven and lands on Fleet Street, which Enjolras owns, and somehow ends up buying it instead of paying rent, in a deal that Enjolras apparently okayed even though it seems to have no benefits for him at all. Is Courfeyrac behind the rigged dice? Quite possibly. He appears to be an evil genius.
Chetta moves Mrs Peacock (they had lost a few pieces and had to substitute them) past Go and shamelessly takes from the bank even though Enjolras is the bank. "What's this chick like then?"
"She's cool," Courf testifies. "All into photography and walks on the beach and films with subtitles."
"Bit like Enjolras then," Bahorel says, making eyebrows across the room at him. Enjolras sticks his tongue out with grace.
"Yes, except more in touch with her emotions," Courf replies. He does another of his signature winks and Enjolras has the sudden urge to puke on him. "Seriously though, don't worry about your boy, she's from a good family."
He obviously means her friends, whose lives he has managed to infiltrate unaccountably easily. (Well, maybe accountable to his charm, which Enjolras is beginning to realise he is completely, embarrassingly envious of.) Their school year is divided into about ten or so distinct groups, and Cosette's is one of the most tight-knit. He’s seen them around, even before he could put her name to a face, and they always look so… inviting, in this way that says leave us alone please thanks. They're always drawing all the time in their little corner or having civilised coffee dates or playing cards on the grass. Their chilled-outness is pretty fucking noticeable come exam time when everyone else looks like they're dying.
However, as lovely as that sounds, it's hard to see them as anything other than hippies. Enjolras would rather look like he was dying and get shit done than doodle away the hours. He hasn’t said this to anyone, because it’s too close to pity than he’s comfortable with, but he reckons the others know he thinks it.
"I thought she had a boyfriend though," Chetta frowns. "The long-haired guy?"
"What, R?" Courf splutters, finding the idea hilarious for some reason none of the others can fathom. "Mon dieu, what an appalling thought! He's the best friend."
"Sounds fake but okay."
"Don't meme at me, connard!" He throws a pillow at her. "It's true, though. The girl has great everything but he doesn't even seem to notice."
"I've changed my mind, this guy sounds like Enjolras," Bahorel decides, immediately ducking behind Chetta so nothing can be thrown at him, as that seems to be the mood now. Enjolras doesn't throw anything, but only because he'd rolled a double and was finally out of jail. This time for a whole twenty-eight seconds before a Chance card sent him back.
Montague House
It happens on Monday after school, and it's unclear whether it was planned and if it was, who was the mastermind. But it happens: Grantaire and Jehan are arguing over the exact point the decline in quality of CBS's Supernatural began, Jehan with his phone out to back up his points with Wikia evidence, and Joly is herding them through the doors of the Musain so he can get his sugar fix, when Cosette squeals "Marius!" and they realise they've walked into an ambush.
There at Table 3 is the entire Rich Prick squadron, settled in with half-empty mugs and notepaper strewn across the table, obviously not just passing through. Marius is up on his feet greeting Cosette, and is that a fucking ukulele, and it suddenly becomes crystal clear that they can avoid it no longer.
They have to meet the parents.
Not that they were avoiding it, pfft. More that they had all been hoping that by a miraculous series of chances they'd never have to exchange actual words with these new questionable in-laws. It's unfamiliar territory for them to socialise with auslangers, as pathetic as that sounds, but more prevalently they're chicken shit and the Rich Pricks are fucking scary.
Contextual anecdote: last year one of the girls got into a fight with the head of Psychology. He ended up in A&E. She ended up with a hangnail.
Feuilly looks up from his iPod screen as Jehan's yelling dies in his throat. "Shit." he says quietly, succinctly encompassing all the unvoiced thoughts swirling around them.
"Hi, Grantaire," Marius says, waving dorkily over Cosette's shoulder. He waves back with even less grandeur, under the ludicrous momentary impression that if he brings as little attention to himself as possible he will simply fade out of the situation. Combeferre is now looking over at them, however. Shit.
"Guys, this is Marius," Cosette introduces them graciously, as if everyone present isn't aware that they had thoroughly stalked him on social media already. "Marius, this is Jehan, Joly, Bossuet and Feuilly!"
"Hey," Marius beams at them. "Uh, do you wanna–?"
"Salut, my sunbeams!" Courfeyrac sings, appearing. Just – appearing. (It's not obvious which group he's here to meet, because R knows as of this morning, after inquiring about how the dude's scarf addiction is funded, that he is the cousin of quadrillionaire Bahorel Celeste, a detail he neglected to mention at any point. It’s like a nightmare spiralling out of control.) "We come together at last! Enjolras, rally the troops!"
The blond guy next to Combeferre looks up at that, and then he’s getting up too and walking over, flanked by the rest of them. It's like that scene in Twilight when the Volturi are elegantly sweeping towards the Cullens on the battlefield, beautiful and terrifying... except Grantaire has never watched Twilight, obvs, and this is a café not a CGI field and they're not vampires (yet to be confirmed).
They all meet in the middle of the room, the lovebirds sandwiched between like boxing referees. Thankfully the Musain is empty except for one guy with a laptop facing the window, because this undoubtedly all looks really weird.
"Ha ha," Marius says, failing to relieve the tension. "Well you guys’ve met Cosette, so, uh. I guess–" he turns to the blond kid and Combeferre. The ring leaders, Grantaire guesses. The equivalent of Cosette and him. "Dad, dad, meet Cosette's... people."
And because he's an awkward fuck, and a perpetual victim to exploiting opportunities for humour, and essentially Cosette's brother, leaving him the sole soldier on this particular front line, Grantaire extends his hand to the blond kid and says, "Grantaire, how do you do?