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Enjolras is at his desk when there is a knock on the door of his cabin. As usual, he cannot sleep, and has decided that he might as well get some work done if he is not to be unconscious for the night.
Grantaire's grin flashes at him like the blade of a knife when he answers. Drops of water cling to his hair and collect in the hollows of his collarbones; he is not soaked to the skin, the crew's quarters are not far, but he is damp all the same. He steps past Enjolras without invitation, although Enjolras can never refuse him and he knows it.
Enjolras closes the door behind him and they stand there facing each other, watching each other carefully. Theirs is a complicated dance, one that Enjolras hasn't quite learned all the steps to yet. Grantaire dances it as he does all things: with an effortless, easy grace.
"Looking for anyone to warm your bed tonight, captain?"
The words are barely out of Grantaire's smirking mouth before Enjolras is on him, fitting his hands to his slim waist and pressing him up hard against the wall. He's so delicately made, so much more wiry than Enjolras, that at first Enjolras had made sure to be gentle, to not touch too roughly lest he break beneath his clumsy hands. He has since learnt that, while Grantaire appreciates tenderness, he likes to know it when he's being taken, as he's told Enjolras in no uncertain terms. Even when Enjolras is slamming brutally into him, Grantaire knows what he wants. It's one of the things he loves the most about him.
It's Grantaire who kisses Enjolras, hungrily, like a half-drowned sailor sucking great lungfuls of air into his chest. Enjolras is just as eager - it's been a while since they've done this, what with the raid on the British frigate, and there is an urgency to their mouths, a sense of desperation and perhaps a hint of relief. Grantaire nips at Enjolras's bottom lip, and Enjolras groans like a sinking ship.
They break apart, both breathing harshly. Grantaire's head is tilted to one side, milk-pale throat bared as if in submission, but his smirk is caught on the edge of his mouth like a hook even as he gasps when Enjolras presses wet lips to the fading bruises he left last time.
Grantaire wears every impression Enjolras's teeth and tongue and hands leave on his skin proudly, stripping off and bathing in front of the crew without shame. Nothing they can say to him will stick; he just shrugs it off with an easy smile and a glint in those devious eyes of his. Once, when they were both heavy-limbed and panting, sprawled over each other in Enjolras's bed, Enjolras had asked if Grantaire minded the bruises he gained from their nighttime dalliances, and Grantaire had simply propped his head up on Enjolras's scarred chest and looked at him, his stormy-sea eyes full of an expression Enjolras couldn't read. He took it as a negative, though, judging by the way Grantaire brought Enjolras's hands to the fingermarks on his hips during their next meeting and held them there until he was certain Enjolras would not move them.
Enjolras does not hide the marks Grantaire gives him either, shows the world the red scratches on his back and shoulders, but for a different reason (or perhaps the same; he cannot tell). The whole crew knew Enjolras was Grantaire's the minute the young man with the wild hair and the wine-dark lips stepped aboard the ABC. It was just a matter of when Grantaire decided to let him know the feeling was reciprocated.
Grantaire's hands have run up Enjolras's sides, slipping under his shirt and pressing cold palms to his stomach. He shivers minutely, and Enjolras gets even closer to share more of his warmth, cupping Grantaire's cold cheeks in his hands.
"You make a good fire, Enjolras," Grantaire says, still with that infuriating smirk on his face, "but the door's rather close, and I believe your bed would be better suited for the purpose." He hitches one leg up around Enjolras's hip, as if to prove his point. Enjolras gets the hint and settles his other hand under Grantaire's thigh, helps him gain enough height to wrap both legs around Enjolras's waist. He buries his face in Enjolras's neck and clings to him like a monkey.
Enjolras spreads him out on his bed, grateful that he had the foresight to install a larger one; it would be hard to get all of both of them on one narrow sailor's bunk. Grantaire wriggles out of his shirt and Enjolras kisses down his chest and stomach, going slowly for the way the muscles flutter and ripple under his lips.
They are both hard, but Enjolras pauses at Grantaire's hipbone. A British sailor had slashed at him and ripped a deep gash in the pale skin. It is no more than a fading scar now, but still Enjolras kisses along the line of it.
There is a tug on his hair, and he raises his head to see Grantaire smiling wryly at him. "Kissing it will not kill the man that did it, Enjolras."
"I know," Enjolras says, because he's already done that and Grantaire would've if he hadn't been occupied with two others. "I do not like to see you hurt."
"I know." Grantaire strokes the nape of Enjolras's neck, where the hair is finest, an almost fond expression on his pretty face. "You're more transparent than you realise. But in our profession it is a guarantee."
"I am aware." Enjolras ducks his head again to kiss Grantaire's navel, which makes him squirm and chuckle. "That does not change the fact that I dislike it."
"As you wish," Grantaire says, only a hint of mockery in his voice, and rises a little, propping himself up on his elbows. "Now, are you going to fuck me, or do I have to seek out another of your crew tonight?"
It is a trick, meant to goad Enjolras into action, but although he recognises it he responds in the desired fashion, because he hates to disappoint Grantaire. He pulls his own shirt over his head and discards it while Grantaire undoes the laces of his own breeches and gets them halfway down his thighs before Enjolras comes back in to help. They are kissing, now, and Enjolras has no idea who started it but it doesn't matter all that much because Grantaire is not wearing underclothes.
"You're not wearing underclothes," he says, when Grantaire has let his mouth go, and Grantaire laughs his musical laugh and shakes his curly head.
"You're not the only one who's good at planning ahead, captain." He reaches for Enjolras's crotch, his clever fingers making light work of the ties. "Now come on and fuck me before we reach Jamaica."
"Jamaica is at least two days away," Enjolras points out, but manoeuvres his way out of his trousers and underclothes all the same, settling in between Grantaire's spread legs, which he soon raises to rest on Enjolras's shoulders. He dips his fingers in the dish of oil on his bedside table and wonders what he would have thought six months ago if someone had told him he would keep a dish of oil on his bedside table.
He is slow and patient with Grantaire; tonight of all nights, he would not hurt him from lack of preparation. Besides, this in itself is a dizzyingly enjoyable act - he cannot fathom the men who view it only as a means to an end.
Grantaire's head is thrown back, the long line of his neck arched. His silver tongue is silent now, only letting out the occasional whimper when Enjolras crooks his fingers inside him. He pushes up against Enjolras's hand until Enjolras adds a third, sighing gratefully and closing his eyes. Enjolras watches him all the way through it, taking note of the emotions that flit across his face. Grantaire, with his smirk and his wink and his witty rapport, is never so expressive as when they do this.
When he judges the time to be right, when Grantaire takes three fingers easily, when he’s squirming impatiently and telling, no, ordering him to come on, Enjolras, stop teasing, for God's sake; only then does Enjolras use the leftover oil to slick himself up and push into the welcoming heat of Grantaire's body.
Grantaire immediately lets out a string of curses, but his face is screwed up in pleasure, not pain. "All right?" Enjolras asks all the same, resting his forehead against Grantaire's.
"All right," Grantaire agrees. His eyes are open now, the pupils blown wide with lust until the blue is nothing but a sliver around the edge of the black. Enjolras kisses him, and kisses him, and keeps kissing him as he pulls out again and then shoves back in hard.
Grantaire's blunt nails dig into Enjolras's back like an anchor, like he’s using Enjolras to keep himself from floating away. He is letting out a mixture of moans and curses and Enjolras's name, alternatively damning him to Hell and praising him as the most benevolent of angels. Enjolras only listens, amused, and leans in to kiss at the underside of Grantaire's jaw. Another difference between them: while Grantaire lets the whole ship know what activity they are engaged in, Enjolras is silent, intent, all his energy focused on Grantaire, on pleasing Grantaire, on how he can make Grantaire's body sing.
Grantaire is still hard and leaking, so Enjolras wraps the hand that isn't holding himself up around him and strokes, twisting his wrist in the way he knows will drive Grantaire wild. There are nights when Grantaire can be brought to completion only by hitting the sensitive spot inside of him over and over, but tonight is not one of them. Tonight, Enjolras lets Grantaire fuck up into his hand as he fucks down into him. There's a poetic sort of symmetry there, but Enjolras is far too close to the edge to look into it right at this moment.
As is Grantaire, as it turns out, because not a minute later he cries out and his body arches up off the bed and he spills all over their stomachs and Enjolras's hand. Enjolras follows soon afterwards, spending himself inside Grantaire and pulling out, rolling over to one side, chest heaving.
They breathe in tandem for a while, too fast and too shallow, until Enjolras drags himself up to fetch the washbasin and cloth, and sets about cleaning them both.
"Perhaps you missed your calling," Grantaire says, smirking lazily as Enjolras carefully washes off his stomach. "A deck-scrubber."
"Your skin is somewhat softer than a deck," Enjolras points out, still stroking Grantaire's abdomen absentmindedly, although it is clean. He wrings out the cloth and puts it in the basin, setting them both on the floor and coming back up to lie next to Grantaire. Grantaire curls into a ball and turns away from him, and Enjolras obediently fits himself to the curve of Grantaire's back, slinging an arm around his waist and spreading his fingers over his stomach.
They will wake in the morning to the Caribbean sunlight streaming in through the wide windows. Grantaire will grumble and fuss and complain, and Enjolras will probably have to kiss him just to get him up and dressed. They will leave his cabin at different times, but Combeferre will give Enjolras a knowing smile as he steps aside to let him take the wheel, and no one will be fooled in the slightest.
All this will happen tomorrow. For now, they sleep, lulled by the soothing motion of the waves as the ship sails on through the night.