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The light of the flickering lamps grows too bright, too blurry.
“Abed, darling.” Courfeyrac's voice is soft in his ear. Courfeyrac's voice is rarely not soft, not when he's speaking to Combeferre. Combeferre stretches his arms, sore, and his back, dully hurting from staying bowed over a heap of pamphlets until long after the moon's rise. It is not that Courfeyrac wants to keep him from working, quite the contrary: he has assisted until around an hour ago, has offered suggestions and quipped until Combeferre had shooed him away in the futile hope to come to a conclusion.
He has not come to a conclusion; still, he will not work until sunrise, not with warm hands on his shoulders, the fingertips pressing into his skin through his clothes and attempting to rid him of the tension that has accumulated there.
“I am exhausted,” he tells him, now, and stands. Courfeyrac is right behind him, his arms snake around his waist and his gaze is gentle. He places a kiss on Combeferre's neck from behind, and another, and another.
“Oh, you are exhausted, really! What will you tell me next? That the Earth is round?” His question is punctuated by another kiss. “That the King will not remain comfortable on his throne for much longer?” He nips at his skin. “That oil is flammable? Although it is useful for other purposes, too.” Another kiss, and Combeferre shudders.
“Yes, thank you, you have explained yourself adequately. I am tired, and I look like it. The bed, it seems, is the only solution.”
“Indeed,” Courfeyrac says and tugs at his waist, until they stumble towards Combeferre's bed gracelessly. Combeferre smiles, satisfied. There will be no exhausting activities in bed tonight, he is certain – if Courfeyrac has resorted to bodily dragging him away from his work to give him a rest, then he will not tire him further. They will sleep until sunrise, they will wake and share their breakfast and they will go their separate ways until the evening, and maybe Courfeyrac will stay over again.
But right now, it is sleep that he yearns for. Courfeyrac has let go of him and he would bemoan that fact if he did not know that soon, they would be a tangled heap of warm limbs pressed together. He unties his cravat while Courfeyrac, who, having quickly slipped out of his loose shirt and who is thus already in the nude, crawls beneath the sheets.
Combeferre looks at him for a few quiet moments. He is lucky, he knows, endlessly lucky. Courfeyrac is generous, kind, caring; he is passionate and brilliant, he is gorgeous and inviting, he is open and charming and loving. He has his faults, too. Who hasn't? But considerably less than others. They rarely fight. When they do, it is terrible, a thunderstorm in a desert, but they are both inclined to forgive and to love, not to let harsh words divide them. Combeferre is lucky because this man chooses to share his bed, this man chooses to be with him, this man is not only his friend but his lover, too, on top. Sometimes, he feels that he has asked for a meal to have a whole restaurant thrust at him.
He is lucky, truly lucky.
His gaze turns sad. Subdued.
Their eyes meet.
“You are thinking about him? Here, now?” Combeferre cannot keep himself from smiling. Courfeyrac can sense what people feel, and it seems to him that sometimes he can read his mind. He's unbuttoning his shirt carefully and thus must shift his attention to his chest.
“I thought about you, my dear friend. That prompted me to think of him.”
“Oh!” Courfeyrac exclaims, faking indignation, “now you think of Grantaire when you think of me? Pray be honest with me, is it my teeth, have I not taken care of them the last months, have they become as yellow as his?”
Combeferre snorts in an undignified manner. “Your teeth are as white as they could be. Every meal is honoured to be chewed by a set of such magnificently white teeth.” Courfeyrac preens under his words, dry as they may be. “There are very few similarities you and Grantaire share. I was not reminded of him. Only, I reflected how in the world it is just for me to be infinitely lucky: to love one who is not only amazing,” and here Courfeyrac preens again, because compliments never fail to please him, “and able to return my affections, but also willing to do so.” His shirt is folded and put next to his waistcoat, which he has gotten rid of earlier that night, and then he extinguishes the lamps. The moon is bright, it is a cloudless summer night. “It is such a tiny chance! And yet here we are, and he must remain alone.”
“Grantaire is not always alone,” Courfeyrac objects, more serious now that the compliments seem to have stopped. “If you believed his stories, he would have at least two women in his bed, each day. You should not believe his stories, of course, but not all of them are lies. He pays them as often as not, his women, true, but to call him alone would be to force your pity upon him when it is unwarranted.”
His trousers must go next. Courfeyrac leans over and nimble fingers help his own.
“It is not a sexual solitude I am talking of, Courfeyrac.” While Combeferre speaks, Courfeyrac leans back again, resting his head on a pillow. “He loves him. With every tiny part of him. I do not know if lust plays a role-”
“My dear,” Courfeyrac interrupts him, “I would bet my apartment's rent for ten years on the fact that Grantaire wants him in every way.”
“That wager is not fair; if you lost, you would just set up permanent residence in here.”
“But I would not lose. You, you keep to your reason and your intellect. Let me keep to matters of the heart and the groin. Grantaire might not be fully aware of it himself, but if Enjolras were to ask him to share a bed, innocently or not? I promise he would spend right there and then, in his trousers. And be utterly ashamed of it afterwards.”
Combeferre shrugs. He chooses a bedgown, but Courfeyrac makes a displeased noise, and so he sits down on the edge of the bed naked. “It does not matter. If he wants to be intimate with Enjolras, that, then, is only a small part of his adoration.” Courfeyrac does not disagree. “He has chosen one worthy of such veneration, yet it will not bring him anything but misery, I fear.”
“We have talked about this before,” Courfeyrac says and of course they have. It is in both of their natures, they worry about their friends. Combeferre sighs and lies down, and immediately there's a hand on his chest, blunt fingernails dancing over his skin. He draws Courfeyrac close with one arm and leaves it wrapped around his shoulder. “And I do not see how another discussion between us will aid anyone, either me, you, Grantaire or Enjolras. It is they who need to talk, and we both know they won't.”
Combeferre groans in mild frustration. Of course Courfeyrac is right. He will not open his mouth, will not speak about it with anyone but his lover; Enjolras is closer to him than a brother, but there are things even he will never hear.
“And even if they talked,” Courfeyrac goes on to say, “it would leave Grantaire in much more distress still. Enjolras, too, would not be happy. They are unable to talk with each other, even when they try to, and Enjolras would reject him.”
He would, Combeferre is certain of it. Enjolras loves with all of his heart, he knows the man's infinite capacities for affection better than anyone else, but that love will never concentrate on one single human. It is such a great love that it must encapsule all of humanity, and consequently nobody. He sighs again. “Now, you must see how futile anything we could do for them is. Let us do something for us, instead.” Courfeyrac smiles and his lips are back on Combeferre's skin, and he feels the familiar tingling sensation, his nerves crackling, his blood heating in his veins. It is pleasant and he is dangerously close to nodding off, with a sheet drawn over their legs and Courfeyrac covering his neck, his jaw, his chest with light kisses.
“Still.” Combeferre persists, although his eyes have slipped shut and the word is followed by a content, non-verbal sound. “There is guilt, that I am so lucky, and he is not – I would fight such guilt by helping him, but that is impossible in this case, I fear.”
“If you must feel guilty, then so must I; because I am not less lucky than you are,” Courfeyrac whispers against his skin. Combeferre pulls him closer still. He combs his hand through the other's hair, thick and dark. “Although I do like to believe that in my case, it has less to do with luck and more with my charm.”
Combeferre yawns. When he opens his eyes, they hurt, so he keeps them closed; he breathes in and out, taking in his lover's scent, memorizing it for the thousandth time.
“I can introduce him to some of my acquaintances,” Courfeyrac's voice comes from far away, “see if somebody can make him forget Enjolras.”
“Enjolras is not easily forgotten,” Combeferre objects, “I doubt he can be forgotten at all. No, you must be right.”
“Am I?” Courfeyrac asks and his hand stills, somewhere below Combeferre's throat, “because it's usually you who's right.”
“It saddens me. They sadden me.” Of course, Courfeyrac already knows that, so it is not some exciting news Combeferre shares with him; and he knows that it saddens Courfeyrac as well. “No matter what may happen to us all, they will never experience this.”
He can sense Courfeyrac smiling against him and is overwhelmed with the love he feels for him.
“They will not –no, Grantaire, it is only Grantaire – Grantaire will never get what he yearns for. He will never get a happy ending.”