Work Text:
"So, you’ve all been left work. And you’d better get on with it, or Prouvaire’ll have my head.”
Grantaire gestured at the stack of textbooks and the page number scrawled up on the board.
There was a deflated silence, and then a chorus of scraping chairs and chatter.
He was far too hungover for this.
“One request, though.” He added, raising his voice again. “Keep it down, else I’ll have to start throwing tables.”
He retreated to the desk at the front, ready to while away the hour aimlessly.
His fingers danced over the thick tome on the desk, drawing it towards him to flick through it experimentally. Nietzsche. Grantaire had nothing against philosophy of any sort - most of it was interesting, if not utterly confounded, thinking - but in the middle of the day when he was still bleary-eyed and really wishing he’d brought along a hip flask, he wasn’t especially keen to delve into it.
Still, he found himself turning the pages anyway, reading the odd sentence or two that caught his eye until a paragraph became a page became a chapter. Stifling a yawn, he shut the book half an hour later, spending the rest of the lesson with his head in his hands, gaze drifting idly around the classroom.
Grantaire was surprised by how readily the class was working.
Then again, he’d never subbed a philosophy class before. Or any actual class, for that matter.
He wandered in and out of the school’s art department as an assistant, but there was nothing more official or contractual to that. For the most part, he came and went as he pleased, and while he was working he stayed in the art studios. He never lingered long in the school - it had the same air as a mouldering prison - and had never been tempted to set foot in the staff room, a place sure to be stuffed to the brim with decrepit old fools, all wrinkles and bones, stale breath and staler ideas.
Prouvaire - Prouvaire had happened upon him, rather than the other way round. It was then Grantaire realised he’d possibly been mistaken in his preconceptions of the school and the teaching staff. When he’d seen the back of the slender figure with the coppery mop of hair digging around in a box of pastels in the art store cupboard, he’d guessed at an eccentric student. If not an art nerd, then a literature geek. There had been something almost fairytale to the figure he struck; elvish ears and clashing colours and a bright knitted scarf wrapped around his neck three times and yet still trailing down to the floor.
“Uh, hi,” Grantaire had said.
Jean Prouvaire had smiled, offered an airy hello. “Oh, I came in looking for the book of illustrations - Gustave Dore’s illustrations -” he glanced down at his hands, covered in chalk pastel dust, “though I suppose I got distracted.” He nodded, almost imperceptibly, to a sketchbook on the floor.
Grantaire had been unable to hold back the grin. Still, he’d only realised Jehan wasn’t a student when he’d asked, in the midst of their collaborative search, what he wanted the Dore book for. After a ramble about Dore’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrations and a tangent on Coleridge, he’d explained wanting to show his class the Paradise Lost engravings.
“Your class?”
“Philosophy.”
"Oh."
“Are you the new art -?”
“Assistant, yeah. Call me Grantaire.”
“It’s a pleasure. Jean Prouvaire. Jehan.”
Jehan was difficult not to love. Grantaire had had to eat his words about the school’s staff after that. Admittedly, for them to hire him, even part-time, the institution had to be a little unorthodox.
* * *
The lunch bell jolted him out of his stupor. Students were already moving, the current of their voices picking up. “Alright, leave the essays here as you go,” he called out, drumming on the desk with one hand as he pulled the door open with the other.
He got a ‘see ya’ or two from the students, but most were already barrelling out to go eat, and Grantaire decided he would kill for a coffee. He was just dreaming up how life-saving it would taste when he noticed a pause in the chain of essays being tossed down on the desk.
“Wait, you - don’t you even think about leaving yet.” Grantaire let the door jut out in the boy’s path.
The student stopped. Two of his friends looked at him; one offered a mild wave, the other just rolled his eyes and continued strolling out.
Grantaire eyed him as the rest of the class left.
The essay-less culprit was slim and blond, with pale skin and features fine enough to be a girl’s. His hair was long enough to be tied up and pulled back behind him, but a few stray locks had escaped. Even so, they did not detract from the natural sort of grace with which he held himself; he had an assurance, an inherent purpose and confidence that didn’t border on arrogance like a great many of his peers. He didn’t slouch, but he didn’t smile. He was dressed plainly, in grey jeans, nearer tight than loose, and a dark red hoodie, but somehow even the casual outfit could not belie his odd seriousness.
Grantaire had spotted him whilst surveying the class earlier; he remembered now. His gaze had passed over him a few times, each time, the student had been sitting in the same position, brow furrowed in thought, arms crossed on the desk, and his textbook closed in front of him.
Grantaire had meant to check up on him to see if he was ever going to start working. Ah well.
Better late than never.
"So,” He began, letting the door swing shut and waiting expectantly, not entirely sure how to bluff his way through an altercation like this. It couldn’t be that hard.
“So?” The student replied.
Huh.
“You didn’t do the work.” He pointed out, perhaps a tiny bit smug that he’d even noticed.
“No, I didn’t.” The boy’s impassive expression didn’t waver. He didn’t seem concerned.
“Are you going to explain why not?”
The boy straightened up. “Would you like the answer in full, or simply the summary?”
Grantaire laughed. “I’ll take the shortcut, if you don’t mind. Wouldn’t want to detain you for your whole lunchbreak.” Actually, he’d have no objections, he thought, before he knew quite where in hell that had arisen from.
“We’d already discussed those questions orally before, and the exam structure the questions are based on is highly flawed. It doesn’t facilitate actual learning, so I object to it. I chose to use the hour in protest. Besides, Rousseau’s much more interesting.”
Well. That was a new one.
“I didn’t see you reading any Rousseau, though,” Grantaire said, a tone of ‘a-ha!’ about him. “You don’t have to lie, saying you were dozing works just fine. We’ve all done it.”
The boy’s eyebrows crashed together abruptly, and his tone was brusque. “I didn’t waste the time sleeping, as much as sleeping would be just as valuable an alternative to anything usually set at school. But this is philosophy. I was considering and evaluating Rousseau’s arguments. I was philosophising.”
Grantaire managed to mask his snort in a cough. Just about. Possibly.
“What’s your name?”
“Enjolras.” His face was still unreadable.
Enjolras. Perhaps he had heard of him. Jehan was enthusiastic about a lot of his students, and Grantaire tended not to pay attention to names, just at snickering at the stories.
But there was only one student Enjolras could be.
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
Grantaire didn’t respond. He tugged open one of the desk drawers instead, pulling out a slip of paper to report the infraction. He didn’t personally care for the rules, not one jot, but this was Jehan’s class, and the idea that anyone wouldn’t hand in the work for him was unthinkable. So he would write this report, if he could find something to write with. A pen, or a pencil… goddamnit. He groped around, but Jehan hadn’t been in today, so there were none on the desk… another drawer, perhaps?
“Behind your ear.”
Grantaire blinked. His fingers tugged vaguely at that realm and produced a pencil with almost the air of a magic trick. It wasn’t unusual to have a pencil nestled in his dishevelled hair, but it was strange that he’d not remembered it, and it was very strange that he felt so disconcerted by it being pointed out “Right,” He said, the gratitude displaced by an awkward clearing of his throat.
He scrawled a note on the slip of paper, leaning over the desk and signing it with a messy capital R. When he looked back at Enjolras standing stock still, the blond opened his mouth.
“You’re friends with Jehan, aren’t you? You know Jehan won’t care.”
"I’m sure he will - and that’s Professor Prouvaire to you,” Grantaire interjected.
Enjolras shrugged. “He told us we were more than welcome to call him Jehan - we’ve invited him to our meetings.”
Grantaire’s brow creased suspiciously. “Oh really? What meetings are these?”
“A discussion group.” Enjolras said delicately, almost as though he didn’t want to give too much away. “After school.”
“Well, you have fun with your little club,” Grantaire answered, his tone dismissive, “But this is still school, and he’s still your teacher, and Jehan’s got to answer to people, too. You’ve got to do his work, just like he’s got to get you all passing your damn exams -”
“But that’s precisely what we’re protesting against!” Enjolras exclaimed. He pinkened slightly in his sudden rush of passion, before resuming, in a level tone, “That’s what we’re arguing ag- discussing. The curriculum, the school system… it’s tired, corrupt and meaningless. We aren’t the problem, the system is. It needs to change.”
Grantaire didn’t doubt Jehan agreed with that. He’d heard the complaints and wishful thinking enough to be able to recite those himself. The ideal school; the institution of education, the realm of knowledge and learning. Not.. this.
Enjolras was still spewing out faults in the school system as though he were reciting the ten commandments. “And until it does, I won’t waste my time jumping through hoops to support this unjust system, without any real learning to benefit from.”
Grantaire laughed. “Fine, fine. I get it.” He answered, running a hand tiredly through his hair. “But you’ll be jumping through hoops for the rest of your life, so you might as well get in the habit of it all.”
The teenager looked affronted. “I won’t.”
“That’s what you think.” Grantaire said, unperturbed. He knew because he had thought the same thing for a while. But he’d learned the cold hard cliche of ‘starving artist’ and had let society force him into a job he didn’t much want, and then only to juggle his status as a recovering-but-not-quite alcoholic. There was little to look forward to, and backwards steps seemed so much simpler than moving forwards. His ambitions these days couldn’t realistically extend beyond the idea of standing still.
“Those you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster.” He quoted offhandedly. “Far be it from me - me, of all people - to impart life lessons, but everything’s measured in success these days. You want success, you want to survive in our society, you’ve got to give it up and conform.”
“Nietzsche?” Enjolras questioned first, caught off guard, eyeing the book still lying on the teacher’s desk.
Once Grantaire had nodded, the student seemed to have absorbed the lesson. Almost.
“I don’t care about success.” Enjolras practically spat, pacing a little closer. “Not society’s mangled idea of success. Nothing’s success, not until everyone has equal rights, and everyone has freedom.”
“Well, you aren’t ambitious at all.” Grantaire replied, rolling his eyes. He decided snark was a forgivable offense; he wasn’t even a real teacher. He wouldn’t give a shit if they decided to fire him from the art department. And Jehan had forgotten to outright warn him against provoking his students, so if this got back to him Prouvaire could say nothing. “Are you trying to change the education system or the world? Got a right little revolutionary here.”
Enjolras seemed to take no offense at the substitute’s jibe. Save for the little. He suddenly seemed downright serene, but the next thing Grantaire knew, the boy had taken one more brisk stride forwards and was right in his face - and a few inches above - saying calmly, “You may want to watch who you’re calling little.”
Grantaire managed a nonchalant ‘uh huh’, but he couldn’t quite get anywhere past that because his eyes had just flickered - accidentally - to Enjolras’ lips, and he couldn’t quite tear himself away.
From the student’s lips. The teenager’s lips. The boy’s lips.
Suddenly his twenty-three years seemed like a fucking millennium.
Still, at a bar, had he not known the guy’s age, he probably wouldn’t have blinked. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
At least this kid obviously didn’t take art. Grantaire wasn’t sure he’d survive it. At least he wouldn’t have to substitute this class ever again.
He tried to clear his head, which was an exceedingly difficult task when the persistent thrumming of a headache started to mingle with a rush of exhilaration at those lips, and that aristocratic nose, and that one blond wisp hanging down over his brow that was just begging to be brushed off his forehead and out of his eye, and at that insistent stare that had become almost perplexed in the silence, that stark blue boring into him - withimpatience?
“So I walked right into that… I take it back,” Grantaire breathed, as if he had just been trying to stretch Enjolras’ patience all along. As if that was any more appropriate than what he was thinking.
He paced backwards, before the lack of distance became criminal. Steps backwards always come easier.
“But like you, your ideals are quite a tall order.” He half-joked. Enjolras didn’t crack a smile, but he did fall back then, too, almost self-conscious.
“You think so?” Enjolras countered eventually, sounding far more authoritative than any seventeen-year-old ought to be. “Equality is too much of a demand? Wanting an end to an oppression is just being greedy?”
"Demand all you like.” He answered, disinclined to leave it at that. “It’s not wrong to want, and I even admire you for asking for it, but it’s just plain stupid to expect it. It’s never actually going to happen. Because it can’t happen.”
“Why? Because your dear friend Friedrich thinks man is a disease on earth? I disagree. That can be changed. The human race was born out of development, and there will continue to be development, progress. There can always be change.”
Grantaire wondered if Jehan’s lessons were just always full of discussion like this, or whether not every student was filled with such a stubborn spark.
“So says the idealist. But the idealist is always doomed to fail, and that’s that. The truth is ugly.” He remarked matter-of-factly.
Enjolras was suddenly glaring daggers.
If he’d been a friend, Grantaire would have punched him in the shoulder and passed him a drink. Here, now, in this situation, he wasn’t sure what to do. Why were they here again?
The closed door and empty classroom were telling him all the wrong things.
The slip of paper and stack of essays on the desk reminded him, thank fuck.
Grantaire crumpled the report in his fist, forcing a grin. “I’ll leave it to Jehan, then. He can report you if he likes.” They both knew Prouvaire wouldn’t do it.
Enjolras didn’t seem to think this warranted any outright thanks, but Grantaire noticed the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and -
He lifted his gaze to those blue eyes before he could repeat his mistake.
That didn’t help matters at all.
Especially not with the student staring back, direct but not entirely dispassionate. Still waiting, wordless and searching.
Grantaire had never felt so lost.
“Fine. Fine! You’re free to go.”
“Oh.” Enjolras said. It took a minute, but eventually he slung his bag back over his shoulder, impossibly graceful, and then glanced at the clock, as though surprised by how much time had ticked away since his friends had left the classroom.
It had hurtled past unconsciously, but Grantaire thought it better to ignore that smarmy voice in the back of his head telling him about how he could have made it last longer. How he still could make it last longer. How…
“Time is making fools of us again.” He offered mock-dramatically, as he held open the classroom door in a sweeping gesture, eyes deliberately fixed on the doorway.
“More Nietzsche?” Enjolras’ eyebrows were raised.
“Nope,” Grantaire said, glancing upwards again before he could fucking help himself. “That one’s Dumbledore.”
It was fair to say that he’d probably imagined that abrupt laugh echoing down the corridor, Grantaire mused ruefully a minute later, sinking slowly onto Jehan’s chair and letting his head thud against the desk.