Chapter Text
The mid April sun was shining through the high placed window of the art studio when Enjolras pushed the door open, the cardboard coffee holder with its two paper cups tipping slightly in his spare hand as he did so.
The room smelt as it always did, powerfully of turpentine and oil paints, as well as the cigarettes Grantaire and Feuilly smoked as discreetly as possible whenever the room was empty, or simply devoid of a member of staff.
Grantaire was over by the window, the back of his dark curls facing Enjolras as he bent before a canvas, humming under his breath. The phone Enjolras had called him on half an hour ago to ask if he was free was discarded on a table by the window, among sketchbooks and paintbrushes and twisted tubes of paint.
Enjolras had found himself memorizing the meticulous expression Grantaire wore when he was painting, the way his teeth would bite down on his lower lip, and the way quick
dismissiveness would jump into his words when he caught him looking. But he couldn’t see that look now, with Grantaire turned away.
The only other person in the room was a girl listening to music that was echoing muffled from a pair of headphones, as she plastered kitchen roll to an oddly shaped cardboard sculpture. Enjolras had learnt from looking around this studio that art seemed to have a rather extensive definition.
Grantaire looked over his shoulder when the door shut, a cigarette in his mouth and a streak of blue paint brushed across one side of his face. Enjolras had come to associate the heavy smell of acrylic with him, from stained fingertips that had pressed against his face and tangled in his hair.
“I sing of the arms and of the man who comes bearing coffee.” Grantaire grinned, teeth glinting rather ridiculously around the cigarette, “What literary perfection Virgil missed for not seeing what I do now.”
Enjolras didn’t think he’d ever be sure if Grantaire was mocking or complimenting him when he spoke like that, and simply gave him an exasperated smile as he stepped forwards, the door swinging shut behind him. Grantaire watched his progress, a grin still tugging at the corners of his lips, but his eyes were lidded in some appreciative way that made Enjolras’s heart stutter.
“How’s your painting going?” He asked, as he pressed the cup with its requested three sugars into Grantaire’s free hand, purely to feel the way his warm fingers brushed his, some novelty he didn’t think he’d ever grow accustomed to. Grantaire waved a free arm in a dismissive gesture, his eyes never leaving Enjolras’s face.
“It is a poor excuse for a painting, but it’s a painting nonetheless. That should please an exam board.” His eyes roved Enjolras’s face, as if perhaps he were trying to decide the exact shade of his skin in the late morning light, and his eyes were glittering in the manner that seemed to hint he was enjoying some private joke. His fingers moved, and stopped halfway to reaching for him.
“It is almost unfair how striking you still appear with that black eye of yours.” He finally mused, and the smile on his face slipped a moment, before reappearing, a small breath escaping his lips as if he were laughing at himself.
Enjolras hoped the extent of his eye roll at his words was sufficient. The blue, almost faded bruising that framed his left eye, the work of a drunken student, was the only remaining evidence from the otherwise, mostly positively received protest a few Saturdays ago. The commonness of it distressed him, the ridiculousness in the face of what they’d been there for sending white hot anger through him. But he pushed the mottled bruising and all it symbolized to the back of his mind at Grantaire’s expression.
There was an unease that still settled about Enjolras when Grantaire looked at him like that, because Grantaire still looked at him like that. He’d notice it now and again, far too frequently for his comfort. Moments when he’d look up from something he was reading, Grantaire on the sofa beside him, their legs brushing, or moments across a room, through surrounding company. It was an almost consternating look in his eyes, he looked at him as if perhaps he had a limited time to, and that look kept Enjolras up at night, when Grantaire slept beside him, warm skin against his. It had been a look that had faded in frequency as the months had passed, but it was still there, and Enjolras had seen the expression in Grantaire’s eyes, as if he was still doubting, and all Enjolras could do was wait, and pull him closer at night and tell him the unwavering strength of what lay in his heart in the day.
Grantaire turned now, paintbrush reaching for the palette he’d laid nearby on a low surface. He seemed to be shielding Enjolras’s eyes from the canvas as he began work on it again, a tautness to his shoulders as if he were somehow embarrassed of it.
Enjolras moved back unconsciously, resting against a table piled with blank sheets of paper, coffee mostly forgotten by his side as he watched Grantaire’s profile, taking in the dark curling hair and the strokes of the face that he’d woken up beside for the past two weeks.
It had been an agreed yet never worded thing, them sleeping together every night. Some nights, they’d be walking along the streets together, fuelled by angry debate, and find
themselves at the door to one of their tenement blocks, entering without a second thought and only pausing for a moment when they found themselves in a darkened apartment. Other nights Grantaire would appear at Enjolras’s door, sometimes tipsy, sometimes with smiles that seemed too large to be meant, or sometimes just the side of him that looked at him tenderly, and made sarcastic quips as Enjolras pulled him towards the bed, as Enjolras feigned impatience and tried to hide his grin.
Some nights, when they reached his front door, Enjolras held out his hand, and Grantaire took it.
The mornings had found some ritual too, in-between their variations. Enjolras had days where he’d left Grantaire in his bed, a thought that made him light-headed as he rushed to a lecture with hair still mussed from sleep, or Grantaire’s fingers. Sometimes, with groggy eyes, rumpled clothes and unwashed hair, Grantaire would eat some of the cereal Courfeyrac had once slipped into Enjolras’s cupboard, the clatter of a spoon against a china bowl the soundtrack to gathering light, accompanied with the rustle of the newspaper Enjolras would scan. He’d look up to find Grantaire watching him, a smile pulling his lips. He’d find himself smiling too.
There was a new kind familiarity that draped itself about Grantaire now, that came from his heightened presence. It slipped between the foreignness of it all, of Grantaire in his bed, of leaning over to brush his fingers through his hair, of arguments ended in kisses. Enjolras could only suppose it was the new familiarity that came from sleeping next to someone, of having someone be so constant; to feel his cold feet, the warmth of his laughter and hear the sound of his breathing, to feel the way unshaven skin rasped against his skin when he kissed him in the mornings.
And this was so new to Enjolras, so terrifyingly new, to feel this way about someone, feelings he simply hadn’t thought he’d ever feel, so diverted and distracted as he had been, as he was. It was all untrodden to him, the touches to his skin, the kisses placed on his lips, simply sitting on a battered settee with Grantaire. But the familiarity of it still, impossibly, existed, and it warmed his chest like a light that had grown brighter in navy blue darkness, a flare that had sparked into wildfire. And whilst so much of it wasn’t easy, whilst there were things that went misunderstood and missed between them, so much about it worked, to a point where Enjolras couldn’t imagine waking without Grantaire there beside him, any fear of insufficiency and any feeling of instability both prominent and somehow absent with Grantaire.
He took in the swirling lines Grantaire was making with the brush, a dark landscape twisting out of the canvas, colours that Grantaire’s eyes saw, patterns and habits of scenes that Enjolras somehow always overlooked. But perhaps he’d been noticing them more nowadays.
He’d asked a question he’d never quite summoned the courage to ask before he’d even thought on it properly.
“Have you ever drawn me?”
Grantaire’s cigarette was still between his lips, and he smiled slightly around it with his gaze still fixed on the canvas, something glittering in his eyes that Enjolras couldn’t quite read. He didn’t reply.
“Sorry.” Enjolras muttered. “That came out strangely.”
“Don’t we all?” Grantaire asked in the false musing tone he sometimes used to go off on philosophical debate, and Enjolras couldn’t help laughing at that, and Grantaire faltered slightly, his smile slipping into some pensive expression as he looked at him.
He was quiet a moment, and had reached for the palette filled with paint before he spoke again.
“Courfeyrac phoned a minute or so ago.” He said, an arm waving out to indicate the phone lying on the table. His movements were always quick and expressive, fingers spread and hands moving, just one more thing Enjolras had taken so long, too long to notice properly. “I said I was hanging out with you. I think we’re actually breaking him, you know?”
“Hm?”
“I’m guessing you haven’t told him?” The look Grantaire sent him was slightly cautious, “I haven’t, I mean. I...” He trailed off and flicked his eyes back to the canvas, as if he were studying it critically. There was a restlessness about him now, as his fingers moved against the palette, legs shifting slightly, “I mean, if you didn’t want to tell anyone, I guess I understand-”
“I told Combeferre.” Enjolras broke in, his voice a little harsher than he had intended, in his hurry to dispel what Grantaire was implying, “That is, he asked me a few days ago, and I told him.”
“Ah,” Grantaire still wasn’t looking at him, “Well, you didn’t have to tell him the truth. It’s not like you owe me anything.”
“You are impossible sometimes.” Enjolras told him hotly, and the girl behind them coughed. He took a measured breath, taking in the way Grantaire was still focused on the painting, even if his eyes weren’t moving, and he was gripping the palette in a way that made his knuckles white. He glanced over his shoulder at the girl determinedly layering kitchen towel onto her model, and took a step closer to Grantaire.
“Can we go outside a minute?”
Grantaire’s lips worked together as he set the brush and palette down, a hand almost unconsciously reaching for his hair, oblivious to the paint on his fingers. But he turned towards Enjolras and sent him a weak smile, gesturing for him to head towards the door first. Enjolras hesitated only a moment before reaching for his hand, ignoring Grantaire’s murmurs about acrylic paint as he twined his fingers about his.
The street outside the art block was busy, buses and motorcycles moving past on the roads, a whirring silence left when there was a gap in the traffic. Sunshine was filtering in between the new leaves that adorned the trees, shadows on the pavements reeling as the branches swayed in a lazy breeze. Enjolras led Grantaire unthinkingly down a street to their right, where the buildings seemed taller in their closeness, black iron balconies glinting just before the sun failed to touch them. A few shops littered the ground floors, motorcycles parked before them haphazardly.
They kept walking until they reached the boulevard at the end of the street, a bottle green presse stand shining in the light over the road before a row of old buildings, and Enjolras’s vision was filled by whites, greens and greys, shades of Paris he’d come to take note of because of the person beside him with paint-stained fingers.
“What is it?” Grantaire asked quietly when they’d both drawn simultaneously to an awkward halt. He sank against the railing bordering the road from the pavement, near a chained bicycle, and crushed his cigarette beneath his shoe. He looked tired again, Enjolras thought.
“What…” Enjolras exhaled loudly and sank down next to him, back to the streaming traffic, ignoring the city as he looked at Grantaire, who was busy playing with his hands. His feet scuffing against the pavement. “I feel I should be asking you that.”
Grantaire shrugged, sunlight glinting on the dark curls at the back of his head, fingers toying with the knees of his jeans.
“Should I not have told Combeferre?” Enjolras pressed, brows lowering as he tried to decipher the set of Grantaire’s shoulders, and Grantaire gave a breathless, humourless laugh.
“Tell the world, Enjolras, please. It’s just,” He bit his lip, one eye screwing shut as he pulled the words forwards, “I didn’t know how far you wanted to take this. I didn’t know if you wanted to tell anyone.”
Enjolras looked at him, feeling he’d be struck as he processed that, wondering how there was so much he’d missed, how there was so much he always seemed to miss. Frustration lit hot along his veins, a frustration at himself.
“I never thought about it.” Enjolras confessed, ignoring the curls of hair that were playing across his temples as he frowned at Grantaire’s tightly entwined fingers, “I didn’t know how to, I mean…god I’m ridiculous.”
Grantaire laughed again, that same humourless laugh that seemed directed at himself, that made Enjolras want to press him close.
“This was never a mistake, Grantaire.” He told him, summoning the voice he’d use in debates and rallies, a voice that brooked no room for doubt as he reached forwards and gripped one of Grantaire’s hands in his. “I haven’t been thinking about this properly. And I’m sorry. Would you like us to tell our friends?”
“Whatever you want-”
“No.” Enjolras said fiercely and Grantaire looked at him at the harsh sound of his voice. He turned to look at him and Enjolras was reminded of a night along the river, the Seine below them as they sat on Pont Royal, and Grantaire had closed the space between their lips, “No, I want to know what you want.”
Grantaire studied him, eyes moving over the curls still playing across his vision, taking in the firm set of his lips, and what he hoped was an unyielding look in his eyes.
“I’d like that.” Grantaire finally sighed, tension easing out of his body as he dropped his gaze from Enjolras’s, the hint of a smile, a genuine one this time, curling his lips, one of those genuine smiles that twisted Enjolras’s heart.
“We’ll tell them then.” Enjolras said stoutly, getting to his feet, “Courfeyrac suggested a takeout at his flat tonight, so then. Is that ok?”
“‘Ok’?” Grantaire repeated weakly, taking Enjolras’s outstretched hand and clambering upwards, “Yeah, I think so.”
Enjolras considered his expression a moment, and Grantaire sent him a small grin, half hesitant, half self-mocking.
“I want to do this right.” Enjolras told him sternly, his hand still in Grantaire’s, his skin warm against his, a warmth he’d never considered feeling from another person. “And I know I can sometimes miss a few things. You have to tell me.”
Grantaire made a low noise of half-hearted agreement, and Enjolras moved forwards to close a cautious arm about his waist, half-imagining, half-feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt, and he wondered if he would ever fully understand the indescribable need he had to be this close to Grantaire, to see the exact way the skin about his eyes creased as he smiled weakly at him, to take in each strand of hair that flicked almost lazily in the breeze.
He certainly didn’t think he’d ever fully understand the thrills that shot down his back as Grantaire leant forwards into his embrace and pressed his lips to his, his breath hot and clouded by cigarettes. Surety was always something Enjolras had possessed in recent years, an unswaying certainty in so much, but with Grantaire here, kissing him, his own arm about him and hauling him close as the breeze that no longer held biting chill stirred their hair, here he felt unseated and kicked up like the leaves that would scatter along the pavements when autumn came. And he didn’t think it negative at all.
“I have a painting to finish.” Grantaire mused after a moment, his lips a little red, his cheeks flushed, “But then I’m free if you are.”
“Definitely.”
The girl was still there when they re-entered the art room, so quiet from being separated from the bustling city outside, their fingers linked and the reeling freshness of the outside air draping them.
“Stay there.” Grantaire told him, dropping his hand from his as he headed towards the easel, leaving Enjolras paused by a steel column tacked with sketches and magazine clippings.
“What?”
“I said, stay there, oh muse. Some male mix of Erato and Calliope. The sunlight lies particularly well on you there.”
His rambles made little sense to Enjolras until he saw him pluck his sketchbook from the nearby desk, reaching after a moment for a packet of pastels.
“I have a black eye, Grantaire.” He pointed out, feeling his face heat a little.
“Then perhaps today you’re Ajax, or Aeneas.” Grantaire smirked, then shot him a quick look, the question in his eyes, and Enjolras sent him a resigning smile, trying to force his shoulders down.
Grantaire flicked a look to the other student across the room, who was unwaveringly still working, before leaning over to gently crush his lips to Enjolras’s. He always kissed him like that at first, Enjolras had found. As if he were something to be revered, or he still couldn’t quite believe he was there. And perhaps Enjolras still felt disbelief that it was Grantaire’s fingers that whispered against his cheek, skimming his hair, disbelieving that this time last year his mind had been so terribly lacking with favourable thoughts for the person before him. But Grantaire had always been not far away in his mind, he considered. He’d just been appallingly slow to notice.
But life moved quickly, he considered, as Grantaire drew away with a smirk on his face and began to draw quick lines over paper, the way his long, slender fingers moved always dragging Enjolras’s attention, from when he’d first drawn beside him as they’d slumped on the sofa at Enjolras’s flat one rainy night a week or so ago. Life moved frustratingly fast, reeling along and leaving him breathless. There was a frustration in the limit of time he was granted to walk the world, a restriction of years that meant so many of his dreams might not have enough time to flower. Not that that would halt him for a moment, he knew he’d spend his life doing everything he could do, and that frustration was always something that would shroud his shoulders. Life moved quickly and he’d move with it, and if luck was his, Grantaire would be by his side. And that thought made him dizzier as he stood in that cluttered art studio, Grantaire leaning against the table before him, a grin on his face as he drew him, eye flicking up to his for far longer than he probably needed for the paper before him. And Enjolras couldn’t really help the smile that began to tug at the corners of his mouth, because of this new, never-felt-before contentment that he’d been feeling these past few weeks, a contentment that was truly and utterly immersing him in for the first time.
Grantaire didn’t admonish him for the movement, and he paused slightly as he took in his expression, eyes travelling his face. And that slightly crooked grin of his widened.
* * *
Feuilly yawned so widely he thought perhaps he heard his jaw crack, clearing his throat and staring blankly at the laptop he’d placed on his chest.
It was eleven o’clock on a Tuesday, and he had work in an hour or so, and had spent the last sixty minutes he’d been awake messaging various people. His leg had fallen asleep about fifteen minutes ago, and he supposed he should probably move, except the hangover he’d given himself from a late night was debilitating any incentive to do so.
His breath felt stale from alcohol and cigarettes, his throat sore, and his eyes were still a little bleary as he looked at the bright light of the screen, ignoring the pokes Bahorel kept sending him on Facebook, in spite of his being in the next room.
It’s your turn to make coffee. He messaged him, before turning back to the other conversation he’d started, the duvet rustling as he crossed his legs, wondering how he’d find the will to get out of bed.
Cosette’s latest message on their Facebook chat window was blinking at him. It had been a few weeks ago when they’d sat, tipsy, on the steps outside the Musain, waiting for Bahorel, Marius, Jehan and Courfeyrac to get their coats, and had exchanged half-drunken words to alleviate whatever was resting on their hearts. And Feuilly had been rather surprised to find such similarity with Cosette, happily taken aback with the ease with which they had talked as people around them smoked and stumbled home down narrow streets.
The world had adopted Cosette, Feuilly had learned that night, and he later supposed he had adopted the world.
They were being less musing today, and she was instead torturing him with pictures of fluffy animals from the shelter she did volunteer work at occasionally.
He unseeingly clicked on a few of the photos Courfeyrac had taken from the night before, when they’d all crowded into the small apartment he and Marius shared up on the Rue de la Verriere. Most of them were of Courfeyrac himself, which did little to surprise him, but the rest were shots of them all, various photos when their attention was turned away and they were laughing. Tapping through them, he was met with close-ups of the freckles on Jehan's nose, Eponine with her arm around Combeferre, and Bahorel flipping off the camera. He passed one of Grantaire, pulling a stupid face at the lens, a beer bottle halfway to his lips, and then again when he hadn’t realized the camera was trained on him. His eyes were narrowed in laughter, and fixed on something out of sight, and Feuilly knew that had been where Enjolras had been sitting. That evening they’d all had to pretend they hadn’t already noticed all the lingering glances and skimming hands that had passed between them the last few weeks, all determinedly avoiding one another’s glances as they congratulated them, and forcibly suppressed the comments on the ridiculous amount of time it had taken to happen. Feuilly had decided the determined expression Enjolras had worn as he had held Grantaire’s hand, seemingly trying to ignore the shade of scarlet that had crept across his face would be something to remember whenever dejection settled on him.
“You make it.” Bahorel voice carried from the next room. Feuilly sent him one of Cosette’s cat pictures in retaliation, and thought he heard chuckling. He supposed it was fortunate Jehan had stayed over at Courfeyrac’s the previous night.
Feuilly’s room was dark, facing away from the sun that was slowly rising over Paris, and he passed a hand across his face, trying to force some energy into his body and dispel the mild headache he’d given himself. Some days dragging himself to that restaurant took all of his will, days when just for once, he wished he could relax and indulge in the beauty of doing absolutely nothing. Bahorel and Jehan would sometimes sense when he was in that mood, ambushing him with a pile of DVD’s when he came home late, or ignoring when it was his turn to wash up or clean the floor, and doing it themselves. Cosette had once plied him with enough cookies for his shift he’d spent the following five hours on a complete sugar high. He thought now he heard Bahorel open his bedroom door, the blaring noise of classical music that Feuilly couldn’t quite understand his liking for growing louder as he did so.
He cast a look to the time, groaning when he saw that really, he should probably get up. The world wouldn’t stop demanding, even after it had taken so much, and it was a certain strength that was needed to face it sometimes, Feuilly supposed, as his feet hit the cold floor.
He heard Bahorel cheering the climax of the concerto over the whistle of the kettle, and his laptop chimed at the new messages he was receiving.
And he didn’t have to look far to work out what that strength was.
* * *
The sun was setting over the Île Saint-Louis and the summer was ending.
Over the past few days the air in Paris had taken on a new chill, a chill that remembered how to dig to the bone, biting at exposed skin. The vivid green trees in the Luxembourg Gardens had faded, leaves dying and scattering the ground, hurtling down the pavements and roads in winds that belonged to the coming winter. Colours seemed muted, somehow, amid the new orange and pinks, and the Seine was a cold slate grey, winding as ever through the old city.
And they were poor and happy, Grantaire reflected.
Paint was still staining the fingers he’d shoved in woollen gloves, from the paintings he’d create with some fevered need, and he’d kickbox until his hands bruised, as if the pain could remind him that this was real, he was here and this had happened. Exhaustion would come, but then it would ebb, and after so long of lying awake for so many nights he could finally sleep.
And he was happy.
The sun was orange that evening, an evening in ageing September. Orange as the trees lining the south bank of the Île Saint-Louis, trees also imbued with pinks and reds. The pale buildings at Grantaire’s back seemed all the more washed out for the occasional flaring colours, and he kicked the heels of his feet against the wall that they were perched on above the riverbank, a small, unconscious smile lifting his lips.
They were all there that evening, all of them sitting with the fading day, a time that somehow managed to be the most colourful and brightest part. The evenings had grown shorter now, night coming faster, even if it could never be fully dark in a city strung with lampposts and car headlights.
The Pont de la Tournelle was to their left, slow-moving ferries passing under it, filled with the tourists who Cosette was waving at with Marius’s arm around her, and the white buildings across the river were glowing yellow as the setting sun shone on them.
Grantaire’s gloved hand was entwined in that of the person sat next to him, so close their thighs were brushing.
“Are you aware this street is named the Quai d’Orleans?” He whispered to Enjolras, moving his lips close to his ear and not at all successful in hiding a smirk. “I’m sure you can sense the ancien régime if you try hard enough.”
“It was named the Quai de l’Égalité throughout the revolution.” Enjolras told him, speaking before moving his gaze to fix on him, eyelashes glinting with the movement, a small smile turning his lips, that were pressed together with his considered verbal victory.
His hair had grown longer over the summer, and the curls about his neck lifted with the leaves that went scattering across the narrow road behind them.
“You’re aflame.” Grantaire had told him when they’d first sat down there, the result of aimless meandering when they’d left Courfeyrac and Marius’s apartment with the desire for fresh air. Enjolras still looked somewhere between amused and exasperated when Grantaire said those kinds of things to him, eyes halfway to rolling and skin halfway to blushing.
The summer sun had left its mark on him, Grantaire could still see; a light dusting of freckles across his nose, far more numerous than the first time he had kissed him, on that rainy night in spring. Images of Enjolras in summer played on his mind now, the sunlight in his hair as they’d sat in the Jardin des Tuileries, him smiling at some weak joke from Grantaire, who had read Enjolras’s course books, not so much for their contents, but for the notes Enjolras had scrawled in-between the printed words.
Grantaire might like autumn with its cold nights and fiery colours, but summer he would now mourn, as September washed the city in its new colours and its new biting wind that felt cool and clear.
Paris had emptied itself of their friends when May had ended, most of them heading back to their various homes, Feuilly to the north coast to stay with an aunt who had offered a roof over his head whilst he worked on the landscaping job he’d managed to get hold of. Enjolras and Grantaire had been left in Paris, because both of them were already in the only place they had ever considered home.
He’d felt ridiculously terrified the first time he’d realized Enjolras would be more than the already idyllically frequent presence that he’d slowly, somehow found himself getting used to over the past few months. His heart still hurtled when Enjolras touched him, the shaky, unbelieving feeling still creeping over him, occasionally drowning him, and the thought that there would be so little between them being alone had made some unexplainable divide between joy and terror flood through him.
And it hadn’t always passed well, those days of summer where they’d wander the streets of Paris together, or spent days in their apartments and indulged in doing nothing. There had been days when stupid words had set them on edge and hurt, days when they’d both secretly called a rather put upon Courfeyrac.
And Grantaire was half-strong, half-destroyed next to Enjolras, and there were still the days that would catch him as they always had now and then, when he’d lie there and want to curl in on himself, when he couldn’t even bring himself to get up to reach the cigarettes and alcohol he would crave.
The first time Enjolras had seen him like that Grantaire had managed to persuade him to leave for the library talk he’d wanted to go to, amid false smiles and half-hearted sarcastic comments with half the hope that Enjolras would lose his temper and leave with no regret.
He’d probably made it halfway down the street before he turned back, letting himself in with muttered words about not caring about library lectures, and he’d settled on the bed next to him with his laptop, the soft sound of his breathing and his fingers across the keyboard the sound with which Grantaire remembered that day, sounds that were soothing to him from then on.
There were days when they argued, days when they argued too much, days when the storm in Enjolras’s eyes, that restlessness, felt like too much. An endless stirring that would not be satisfied, Grantaire thought. Because no matter the force of light that Enjolras was, the world would never be fair or perfect.
And those were the things that fell between them, or rather things that threatened to fall. Because there were still the nights when they’d stay awake with the stars, and let the morning sun greet them, tired and heads resting on shoulders, fingers entwined. And the world had its demons, and they had theirs, but in that morning sunlight that lit against tired eyes, those shadows couldn’t touch them.
Eponine now leant over to snatch the cigarette Grantaire had been clutching determinedly through the thick gloves, regardless of the mild ridiculousness of the sight.
“Thievery.” He commented, and received only a wink in return as she settled back against Combeferre. His hand came up to close about her shoulder, a gentle and affectionate movement, his head ducking a moment later to press a kiss to her cheek. Eponine would still look tired to Grantaire sometimes, but perhaps she seemed a little brighter these days.
“I think I just dropped something on that couple below us.” Bossuet whispered loudly from Enjolras’s left, peering forwards to look at the riverbank and the people seated there. Musichetta gave her loud, unapologetic laugh at that. Grantaire had grown to be enormously fond of her, with her comments and pointed looks that were almost as sharp as the winged eyeliner she wore.
“It was your pen.” Joly confirmed, leaning forwards to check.
It was Courfeyrac who gladly swung his legs over the wall and jogged down the steps to their right to retrieve it, all smiles and laughing jokes, and the couple who had been sitting below them at the river’s edge didn’t remain irked for long, infected by that warm light Courfeyrac seemed to cast on everyone.
He swooped his arms around Cosette and Marius in a impulsive hug as he passed them, and he entwined his hand through Jehan’s as he settled down against the free stretch of wall once more, his back to the river and feet planted on the pavement, the narrow roads of the Île Saint-Louis before him. The sun was dipping lower, and Grantaire looked at Enjolras, one of those sneaking glances from underneath the rim of his lashes, the acrid smell of the cigarette Eponine was now smoking reeling over him.
The evening had set Enjolras aglow as he stared out across the river, mind lost in some contemplation or thought, all of him washed in the warm yellow radiance of the setting sun.
Grantaire didn’t think he would ever not find a reaction in his heart at the sight of Enjolras, at the warmth of him, of the smell and touch of his clothing, of the way he would smile, smiles that were so heartfelt and so stunning he felt the world must have fallen down around them. As long as he walked this imperfect, flawed earth he’d want Enjolras there, as he had ever since he’d met him, so drunk and lost in some crowded bar whose name had sunk forgotten in his mind in the wake of the person he’d encountered there.
All stars burned out eventually, he thought. But he didn’t think Enjolras ever would. And Grantaire, cautious and tentative and terrified at the prospect, had nonetheless felt like perhaps he had been ablaze somewhat too these past few months. But he didn’t dwell too much on the idea, not like all other thoughts that would come unbidden into his mind for him to overanalyse.
Enjolras’s eyes flickered to him, his head turning with the movement, and Grantaire, caught out, smiled. And a lot of Paris tumbled away when Enjolras smiled back, the hand he’d laced through Grantaire’s tightening.
It was sometimes tiring labour, they were still working, still learning about one another, about themselves. And they were still slow with one another, fingers still fumbling, shaking with their movements, somehow both unhurried and frantic with how they took things, sometimes falling into bed with one another, lips bruising and hands rough, other times when Grantaire was sure his heart would burst just from Enjolras’s skin brushing his.
And sometimes their quick words would burn the other, words that would sometimes not be fixed with swiftness. Sometimes Grantaire would feel like he was suffocating, heart too full and heavy to bear. But Enjolras too would have days where he’d press him closer under the covers, sleep still dragging at his eyelids as he held him so tightly, and the way he’d ask Grantaire to not get up, as if he couldn’t bear for him to move away, would made his heart stutter.
Half-deaf to the proceedings, Grantaire caught the tail end of the story Bahorel had been regaling them with from his time back home during summer,
“-so we put the goat back and the businessman never knew we’d used his yacht in the first place.”
“That is the most unbelievable story I have ever heard in my life.” Feuilly told him flatly, seemingly struggling to hold back the grin on his face, as Eponine, Bossuet and Courfeyrac collapsed with laughter. Grantaire saw Combeferre smile, flicking a look at Enjolras, his glasses glinting in the evening light.
“I’ve got pictures, sucker.” Bahorel told Feuilly, sliding across the wall to show him.
The sun had dipped out of sight now, streaks of light that leaked across the low cloud the only evidence that it was still there, behind Notre Dame.
Grantaire leant against Enjolras, momentarily disentangling his hand to tug the gloves from his own fingers, taking the cold for the sake of bare skin touching. The evening light had sent their features into contrast, shadows on blonde hair, stroking the features of the person who seemed to be a personification of sunlight. Enjolras’s free hand began to trace idly along his arm, the warmth of his jumper making Grantaire immune to the cold air that September evening. And he dwelt on the morning, an image of Enjolras looking down at him, their foreheads pressed together before Grantaire pulled back to take in his expression, to take in the spark in those blue eyes, fair eyelashes glinting, words unneeded and unspoken. And Grantaire could feel him smiling now, like he could feel the pulse of blood in Enjolras’s veins beneath his fingers, alive, sitting on a world spinning the sun away until morning.
There was a brief lull in their conversations, a comfortable silence between them all, the sound of the flowing river and the whir of traffic a background for them, thirteen friends with Paris draped across their senses.
And Grantaire kept his head leaning against Enjolras’s shoulder, half-imagining the warmth that flooded from him, and he listened to Jehan quietly talking once more, as they looked up at the few stars that were appearing in the hazy twilight over the Île Saint-Louis, burning quick and bright, perhaps a little like them. And Jehan talked of the dying summer, lamenting a day when it was sunny on the way to the Luxembourg Gardens, a sunlight with heat that made the clustered rooftops gleam.
But Grantaire found little to lament, with Enjolras’s fingers wound through his, his grip as firm and strong as ever.
And Grantaire had once thought that all things should end with Enjolras’s hand in his. And that was how the evening ended, their hands entangled, sitting on a small, low wall by the river, Paris around them. Paris with its streetlights, its sun and its stars, and Enjolras. And Grantaire smiled at that, because no other place could be so lit, or so shining.
And the winter winds might slowly be starting to sweep through the city, and the tips of his fingers that were not wrapped in Enjolras’s might be starting to grow chilled. But Grantaire had never felt warmer.
And they were poor and young and happy, and life could never really be perfect. But as they all sat there together, a group of friends watching the dying light of the autumn evening in a city swathed in history and light, Grantaire thought they’d got as close to perfection as mortals could.