Chapter Text
March
It took a few moments for the call to connect, but even when it started to ring, Enjolras did not release the breath he was holding. After five rings, he wondered whether R would answer his phone.
In the last three weeks he had learnt that Aire wasn't just talking physically when he said he wasn't the same. While the sadness and fear seemed to have gone, it had been replaced with an unfamiliar hardness, a self-sufficiency that only compounded Aire’s existing neuroses regarding pity. He didn’t like to be compartmentalised, categorised or otherwise be rendered predictable. His moods swung from day to day, making him sometimes impossible to talk to.
Despite this, Enjolras could still hear the warm, generous, vibrant boy he used to know underneath the biting sarcasm. The bark of laughter was also reassuringly familiar. He listened more than he talked, interjecting here and there with comments, questions and oaths. R's casual use of bad language was something that definitely hadn’t changed.
But sometimes he went quiet, the silence almost aggressive, especially if Enjolras tried to talk about the future or make any kind of plans. Even silly things like "shall I give you a ring tomorrow?" - R seemed reluctant to commit to anything even as vague as that.
Enjolras tried to accommodate this, calling at sporadic times, sometimes leaving a few days between chats, choosing to text or email instead. He understood that R had become fiercely protective of his privacy, now that he had some. He couldn’t help but feel hurt that this seemed to extend to him too. He desperately wanted to be let in.
The call was finally answered with a muffled "yelloo?"
"Sorry, were you sleeping?"
Enjolras felt a stab of remorse. In his efforts to be unpredictable he had left this call until 10:30pm which wasn't late by his standards but maybe R had already retired for the night.
"No, sorry was in the shower." Enjolras closed his eyes, allowing that image to fill his mind. He could almost hear R's smirk down the phone. He smiled too; it sounded like R was having a good day.
He sat back on his bed, sighing contentedly.
“How’s it going?” Aire asked lightly, sounding genuinely interested. It was a relief to hear him. When they had spoken three days before he had been short, gruff and stressed.
“Oh, the same. They’re not talking to each other and he’s definitely not talking to me.”
“Sounds nice and quiet,” the other man commented, dryly.
It was incredibly quiet in his house, no doubt about it. After the big row, Enjolras had decided to stay at Combeferre’s for a few days, on the excuse that there was an important Politics presentation that needed to be finalised. After three days his mother had phoned him and told him in no uncertain terms to grow up and come home. As she so rarely lost her temper with him, he had obeyed.
He found the change in dynamic in his house unnerving. His mother was unusually quiet and stressed. His father was out of the house for long absences and when he was there he didn’t say a word to anyone. Two weeks ago he had discovered that his father had moved into the spare room. He was appalled. Although he had been angry and hurt by recent discoveries that didn’t mean his parents should be arguing over it, much less that they should be splitting up over it. He stumbled into the kitchen to his mother, confused and afraid that he had inadvertently destroyed his parents' marriage.
She had taken his hand and silenced him with terribly sad eyes.
“Your father has kept a lot of secrets. This was just one more.” It was all she would say on the subject. The guilt had eaten away at him, nonetheless.
Combeferre had been a total gem about the whole thing, quietly offering reassurance and a reliable, constant presence as Enjolras’s world shifted even more around him. His own parents had divorced years ago and he now lived with his father while his mother had her new family somewhere in Malta. While this knowledge didn’t make Enjolras feel any better, as he definitely didn’t want to see his parents go through a divorce, it did comfort him to have someone who understood.
It meant that when he spoke to R, he could carry a conversation in a casual, easy fashion, as though this wasn’t tearing away at his insides. Instead, they spoke of less domestic matters.
Aire had noticed how Enjolras had also changed, had altered the way he interacted with the world around him. It was no longer enough to read political texts or listen to politically motivated rock bands. He seemed to be addicted to the news, reading a number of different websites; some commercial, some not, some reliable, others that were equally unreliable. He was eager to consume as many sources as possible. Some he read seemingly for the sole purpose of angrily disagreeing with them, ripping their articles apart piece by piece.
He was motivated by change. There was always a petition, a fundraiser, a gathering, a protest. Aire watched and listened as this driven young man shouted at the world. R wondered what it was that kept him going when all Aire ever wanted to do was stop.
His anger seemed to transcend politics, forming itself into society and culture. He had an opinion on everything; cuts to education, the police force, social welfare; foodbanks (lack of and use of) sexism, racism, fathers4justice, rape culture, genital mutilation, homophobia, transphobia, equal marriage, adoption issues, political corruption – the list was never ending. He had an idea for everything, a vision to fix it all if only people would listen, would work together, would understand.
“The people don't want to understand,” R had replied wearily one night, interrupting one of Enjolras’s longer speeches.
“They should be made to,” came the angry response which made R laugh heartily down the phone.
“Oh, Apollo,” he chided, “Isn't that a form of oppression in itself?”
They both enjoyed these calls more than they would care to admit. They always ended with a brain full of new ideas for Enjolras and a natural smile on R's face that his grandmother was a little too pleased to see.
"You've been talking to Enjolras" she would say, knowingly. No amount of rolled eyes and shrugged shoulders could divert her from her satisfied expression.
This evening the conversation was less heavy. Down the line, R could hear that Enjolras was tired, his voice strained. He slumped down on his bed, listening to Enjolras mutter about his day; the student council meeting, the year book meeting, his Politics essay that was due in two weeks.
R gave very little to conversations like this, replying with an agreeing hum as and when required. He pictured Enjolras stretched out on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He tried to remember the details of Enjolras’s room and he wondered if it had changed much since he had last been there.
“Do you still have that Paris 68 poster?” he interrupted suddenly, throwing Enjolras off guard. There was a pause.
“Yes?” Enjolras replied as if there could possibly be a wrong answer to that question. He gracefully ignored the fact that R was quite clearly not listening to what he had actually been talking about. He was met with a thoughtful silence. He decided to continue.
“The Rage Against the Machine one has gone – it got ripped one day when ‘Ferre fell over in my room.” There was a different sort of silence from Sheffield.
“Ferre?”
Oh right, Enjolras mentally kicked himself. He hadn’t actually gotten round to telling R about his new friend. He tried to ignore the slightly uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that accompanied this, deciding to save the analysis of it for another time.
“My mate in sixth form,” he tried casually. My guide, my best friend, the one who got me through all this…
“Right.”
The word was too short, too clipped, for Enjolras to read it properly. He felt a sudden stab of indignation. What should it matter who Ferre was? He knew damn well R had been with other people up in Sheffield, why should it bother him if Enjolras had met other people down here? And yet he still felt he needed to explain that it wasn’t like that.
Sometimes it felt like he was constantly explaining that to people. Yes, Combeferre was his best friend. No, he wasn’t his boyfriend. Yes, Ferre was straight. Yes, that was allowed.
He opened his mouth to give a scathing retort but then he stopped. He didn’t want a fight right now, especially not about this.
“Your Trafalgar picture is still here too,” he murmured quietly into the phone. He heard a sigh from very far away.
+
April
Enjolras had been worrying about this phone call for a few days. The Easter holidays were looming, along with the two year benchmark that nobody wanted to talk about. Last year Enjolras had spent the day studying, pretending that it was actually the 6th April all over again. R spent last year in hospital, another follow up appointment for his one remaining kidney.
Enjolras desperately wanted to go away somewhere but he knew R hated making plans. He mulled over the problem in his head for ages, thinking of various ways to approach R with his suggestion that wouldn’t end in a fight. There had been a row the week before when he'd tried to pin him down to whether or not Enjolras would be welcome to come up for the weekend. Not heeding R's non-committal "whatever you want", Enjolras had tried to ask him about times and plans which had resulted in a number of phrases involving the word "fuck" and the call being terminated.
Perhaps if he phrased it in such a way as to suggest that he was already going somewhere and that R was welcome to join him? Or maybe if they could just agree to do something and sort out the finer details later. In the end he decided to just bite the bullet, be honest and attempt to be vaguely assertive.
"I want to go on holiday with you for Easter," he said.
"Ok," came the almost lazy reply.
Enjolras nearly dropped the phone. What, no tantrum? No heavy sigh? No lecture or avoidance behaviour or deflective rant on an unrelated subject?
"Anywhere in particular?" R chose to fill the silence when Enjolras failed to respond.
"Somewhere with a beach," he swallowed. He could feel Aire's smile from three hundred miles away.
+
They ended up in Southwold, a sweet little town on the Suffolk coast with a number of cosy pubs and a lighthouse. They rented a little cottage within easy walking distance of the sea. Despite the early spring chill, R insisted on sleeping with the windows open, the soft sound of the waves seeping into the room and lulling them to sleep.
Enjolras was relieved and delighted to find R so relaxed, so open. His focus was entirely on Enjolras, on the here and now. His smiles were easy and came often. His laugh was wicked, his face expressive. His hands naturally found their way around Enjolras, round his waist and hips, through his hair and fingers, over his throat and shoulders.
For once the past had been left at the door and both men revelled in it.
The warm days were spent on the beach, Enjolras with his book while R sketched with enthusiasm. There was no shortage of subjects; the lighthouse itself seemed to take its job very seriously, watching over the little town. The views were spectacular and the little beach huts that lined the shore were too colourful to resist. He also sketched his favourite subject of all; Enjolras. He drew Enjolras asleep, Enjolras in the sea, Enjolras curled up in the bed sheets.
They did all the usual touristy things. They went round the brewery, visited the museum and the pier and the Sailor's Reading room. They walked easily down the high street, hand in hand.
The day it rained they hardly noticed, electing to spend the whole day in bed, wrapped up in each other. As they rolled together, Enjolras wondered if there could be anything better in the world than this moment, anything more honest, anything more worth fighting for.
+
May
They were in R's bed, the radio quietly murmuring to itself while they folded themselves together. It was one of their weekends which were becoming fewer due to the inevitably looming exams.
Enjolras had driven up on the Friday night so they could have most of Saturday together before he drove back in the evening, devoting his Sunday to study.
"We should do something," he whispered into R’s shoulder, kissing the soft skin there. R wrapped his arms around the blonde in his bed, pulling him even closer to him, pressing a kiss to his curls.
"We are doing something," he insisted, playfully.
"I don’t want to waste the day. I want to go and see some of the battlefields from the Civil War,” Enjolras didn’t even open his eyes while he spoke. “ The King was finally defeated in Preston, that can’t be far from here."
"Wrong side of the Pennines," muttered Aire into his skin, running hopeful fingers past the other man's ribs. Enjolras playfully shoved him.
"I know that; there is such a thing as a car." He leant up on one elbow, his face pulled into a ridiculous pout. R groaned, rolling his hips encouragingly at his bed partner.
“A wise man once started a revolution from his bed.” He started to kiss down Enjolras’s neck, beginning behind his ear and trailing his lips down his throat, making the other man moan almost imperceptibly.
“You… you are not John Lennon,” Enjolras gasped, but he knew he was lost. R’s hands had already sought him out, had already grasped him firmly and were now moving gently but insistently up and down his shaft. He allowed his eyes to fall closed as R flicked his tongue over his nipples, teasing them. He paused in his attentions to fumble in the bedside drawer, before returning with slicked fingers that teased around him, finding him still slightly stretched from the night before. He whimpered as those clever fingers thrust in.
“You’re so good, so beautiful,” R was practically purring as he continued to kiss his way across Enjolras’s body, sometimes biting the flesh before blowing softly on the nipped skin. Enjolras’s hands clawed at the sheets as he thrust down, fucking himself on R’s fingers, desperate for more. R withdrew them, tutting gently.
“Needy boy,” he chastised, grabbing the foil packet from the side.
“Please, R, please,” Enjolras’s tone was breathy, his curls clung to his forehead, his eyes closed and such a look of need, of desire on his face. R took it all in, wondering how on earth he should be lucky enough to witness this.
He knelt up, Enjolras’s legs around his waist, and gently pushed in. Enjolras moaned a sigh, leaning back into his pillow with pleasure. Aire went deliberately slowly, drawing out every moan, every whimper he could from the writhing mass below him until Enjolras could barely beg for more.
“Just, please, god, fuck” the stream of words continued and Enjolras stretched underneath him in frustration, keening into him with a groan. R moved suddenly, grabbing the other man’s wrists and pinning them above his head. Enjolras’s eyes flew open to meet the brown ones staring steadily down at him.
“I still fucking love you,” he growled in a low voice, as though making a confession. He then bent to kiss him harshly, biting down hard on Enjolras’s lips as he began to speed up, thrusting harder and faster, feeling the coil of heat in his guts building and surging. One hand continued to press Enjolras’s crossed wrists to the pillows, while he moved the other to his cock, fisting it in rhythm with his thrusts.
Enjolras cried out, surprised by his own orgasm, splashing his chest with his release. It took R only a few more thrusts before he collapsed on top of him, finally releasing his grip. Enjolras instantly wrapped his arms around the man above him, rubbing his back gently, kissing the brown curls as R lay there, breathing raggedly into his shoulder.
“I still love you too,” he whispered, half frightened that R might hear him, half terrified that he might not. R didn’t move.
After a while, he rolled off and trudged towards the bathroom to fetch a flannel. When he came back, he seemed unable to meet Enjolras’s eye, but when the blonde reached for his shoulder, he leant into the touch. Enjolras scooted over and wrapped his arms around him, drawing him into a warm embrace. He felt R drop his head on his shoulder, his hands resting at Enjolras’s waist.
“I wouldn’t say that was a waste, would you?” he asked into Enjolras’s neck, his tone serious. “Our time together has always been precious. I don't think we've wasted a second.”
+
June
Enjolras almost threw his phone across his bedroom in frustration. Why, WHY was he apparently unable to have a conversation with his… whatever his relationship was with R… why could they never just talk without it ending with someone slamming the phone down in anger?
It was a warm evening. Exams were over and now only the summer stretched on ahead of them. He had left school with the certainty that he would never look back, it was finally done. All he had to do was wait for his results and then prepare for University in October.
He had wanted to share this feeling of elation with R. Unfortunately it had obviously been one of Aire’s bad days because the conversation had not gone as planned and had definitely not ended well.
Pausing long enough to get a grip on his temper, he decided to text Combeferre. Ten minutes later the pair of them were sitting in Enjolras’s room listening to loud angry music while Enjolras ranted about their latest argument to his patient yet receptive friend.
Enjolras threw himself back onto the bed in frustration, pulling a pillow over his head melodramatically.
“I know I love him, but sometimes I want to throttle him.” Combeferre smiled affectionately as the pillow was hurled across the room. Enjolras rubbed his eyes, letting out a steadying sigh.
“Sometimes I feel like he’s deliberately pushing me away,” he said, his tone quieter, more fearful than angry.
“Maybe that is what he expects?” Combeferre offered. He had never met the guy, but he knew how Enjolras felt, knew what Enjolras had told him.
“He obviously has issues with trust. You guys are conducting an intense relationship over quite a distance,” he held his hands up as Enjolras moved to interrupt. “I know you’re committed, but he may expect you to walk away all the same.”
Enjolras considered this for a moment. He thought back to before, to the way Aire used to look at him, like he couldn’t believe what was in front of him. He remembered with a shiver the time R had thought Enjolras had broken up with him, the way he was almost resigned to it. It seemed as though, from the very beginning, he had expected Enjolras to walk away like everyone else in his life had walked away. He was always so surprised when Enjolras kept coming back.
He twisted his mouth unhappily, tugging his hands through his hair.
“I need to talk to him, face to face,” he said, distractedly. Combeferre nodded wisely. Usually direct communication was the way to go. He also knew that Enjolras could probably have figured that one out for himself. He felt a rush of affection for the confused person in front of him. It was so different to see him struggle like this, to be so unsure of the best course of action. He hoped it was all worth it.
+
July
Aire knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped out of his bathroom, towel slung round his waist, curls still dripping. Enjolras was sitting stiffly in the desk chair, shoulders hunched, his back to the room. As he drew closer he could see that Enjolras was clutching something tightly in his hands.
It was the prospectus for the Art school.
"Why the fuck are you going through my stuff?" His voice was harsh with aggression and defensiveness, but he wasn’t quite shouting, not yet.
"You said I could check my emails," the response was equally defensive, equally aggressive. "It was right beside the keyboard, as though you wanted me to find it.”
Blue eyes stared at brown, both angry, neither willing to break first, to back down. R snatched the prospectus from his hands, opened a drawer and threw it inside. He slammed the drawer shut as though the closing of the drawer could make the damn thing disappear from reality.
"So this is why..." Enjolras stopped himself with a shake of his head. All this time he had thought it was a trust issue, something that could be worked through with enough time, enough patience, when really it was R who was preparing to leave. He looked up at the man standing above him, his anger sucked away, replaced by hurt and betrayal.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” he felt his voice crack. Oh, he was not going to cry. Not here, not over this. “Or were you just going to email me once you got there?”
He saw the twitch in Aire’s shoulders, the way he took a small step back, his eyes closing down.
“I couldn’t tell you,” he said quietly, all emotion absent. “Not when I knew you’d react like this.”
Enjolras threw himself out of the chair to his feet, drawing himself up to his full height, his eyes blazing.
“How would you like me to react?” he took a step forward, the heat in his voice bearing down on the man in front of him.
“I thought we had a future, I thought we had a chance. When all this time…” he stopped, unable to continue. He closed his eyes, drawing in his breaths carefully.
“How long?”
R stared hopelessly at the cracked marble before him. Well, he’d started, he may as well finish the job. Finish it finally.
“They gave me an unconditional offer in January. About two weeks before mum died.”
Enjolras was done. He was so done.
+
August
His grandmother's hands were like old leaves, they brushed his cheek in a soft, comforting gesture. She stared up at him with so much pride it pierced his soul. What did he ever do to deserve a look like that?
She told him that he was to have the most amazing time out in Rhode Island, but that if he could remember to call home once or twice it would be appreciated. She kissed him on each cheek without apology before hugging him painfully tight. Her boy, her dearest boy was going away. She was allowed this.
His grandfather patted his shoulder, his eyes also swimming with pride. They communicated silently, understanding each other well. They had said their goodbyes in the pub the night before – one more for old time’s sake. Both knew there were no words to be said now.
"Let us know when you land safely," she instructed, arranging the collar of his coat absently.
"It'll be the middle of the night," he protested but she laughed, producing a hankie to wipe her suddenly full eyes.
"You seem to be under the illusion that I'll be sleeping, my lad." She tried to keep her tone light but he knew her heart was breaking.
Their tiny family had been through a lot and here they were; one more separation. But this one was a good one.
She caught him casting a hopeless glance around the departures hall. He had to go through now or he'd miss his flight.
Damn him, he knew better than to hope. He knew that Enjolras would not come. Was it even hope that kept his eyes wondering to the door? Or was it merely to confirm once and for all that he was right. That, for once, Enjolras was really gone.
This is not a dark moment, he reminded himself. Apollo shone brightest in the dark.
With one last hug, he presented his passport at the counter and moved along with the rest of the queue, keeping his eyes forward. As he turned into the line for security he failed to hear the shout of his name as Enjolras hurtled into the terminal.