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“I hadn’t thought this through,” Grantaire admits.
“You mean, navigating the awkward subject of sleeping arrangements after kissing the person whose apartment you were crashing in before said kissing?” Enjolras asks, lips quirking up. His blond hair is ruffled up in a halo first from sleep, and then from Grantaire’s clutching fingers. “Somehow, I didn’t think you had.”
“I can go,” Grantaire says, feeling suddenly unsure standing in Enjolras’ tiny living room—did that really happen did I kiss him did we kiss it can’t have happened I’ve made it up and oh god what if I haven’t made it up and I’ve ruined everything—and then, with more certainty, stepping toward the door, “I’ll go. It’s not far.”
“Is it not?” Enjolras asks, resting one hip against the open doorway to the kitchen, and Grantaire is about to reassure him that no, it isn’t, when he sees the look of amusement on his face and belatedly realizes, through an orange-juice-kisses-induced 3 a.m. haze, that of course he knows where you live, oh my god, what is wrong with you.
“You could stay, anyway,” Enjolras says, and suddenly he looks even younger than he actually is and Grantaire feels slightly less foolish. “Not, like,” Enjolras bats his eyelashes and says with exaggerated emphasis, in a voice heavy with innuendo, “You can stay. But, you can stay. If you want.”
And Grantaire decides there is something magical about the New Year. Because he might not’ve wrecked everything after all.
“I wasn’t planning to stay,” he says immediately. “To stay, I mean.” He puts the same deliberate emphasis on the word that Enjolras had. “I was obviously planning to, um, regular stay, since I was asleep on your couch. But staying hadn’t crossed my mind, I promise.”
Enjolras quirks an eyebrow, and Grantaire blushes, actually freaking blushes, and for someone as generally oblivious to anything involving sex as Enjolras, it’s really not fair that he’s managed to see through Grantaire so completely.
“I didn’t say it had never crossed my mind, alright, we were speaking of the present situation, not my entire deviant life, and you are, for the record, a terrible person.”
“I’ve been told,” Enjolras says, dry, and then asks, with poorly affected casualness, “Do you want to stay? Not stay, just stay?”
Grantaire tucks his hands into the pockets of his battered jacket. “Do you want me to?”
A furrow appears between Enjolras’ brows. “I’m not asking what I want,” he says, but gently. “And I assumed my feelings on the matter were implied in the invitation. So,” he says again, faintly pink in the cheeks, in the stillness of three in the morning on the first day of the New Year, “Do you want to?”
Grantaire almost says no. He has to practically bite his tongue in half to keep the no from bursting out. And that’s ridiculous, right, that makes no sense whatsoever, because this is what he’s dreamt of, this is all he can think about some days, this is everything he’s wanted, for every single day of the last two years.
But.
But this is everything he’s wanted for every single day of the last two years. And the idea of having it, of getting a chance at something he’s wanted so badly for so long, when he’s so used to sabotaging everything he might get so he doesn’t have to lose it, when he deliberately screws up even the things he does have, just because, is the most terrifying thing in the world.
“Yes,” he says, after too many seconds have slipped past and Enjolras is starting to look worried, self-conscious, fidgety in a way that he never is. “Yes,” he repeats, and it feels like coming up for air. “Of course I do.”
“Okay,” Enjolras says with audible relief. “Okay. Wait here.”
Grantaire would’ve waited forever, there on the worn rug in his mismatched socks, but he doesn’t have to wait long. Enjolras vanishes into his bedroom and there’s an audible rustling of fabric and then he returns, carrying his pillow and the second comforter off his bed, the one with frightening patchwork that Jehan’s mother had made him the first time she’d met him almost three years ago.
“I would like to spend the night with you,” he says, in response to Grantaire’s questioning look, “But I would also like to avoid the implication-fraught bedroom sharing situation, for now. So, this is my compromise. What do you think?”
“I don’t think I’m capable of thought, just now,” Grantaire says honestly, but he can’t stop the grin from spreading across his face, and Enjolras seems to understand that as the assent it is.
“How long?” Enjolras asks, once the lights are out and the apartment is quiet save for the sounds of revelry still going on out in the street.
Grantaire is settled back on the couch under the mass of down and Enjolras is curled up across from him in the threadbare orange velvet armchair Eponine had found on the sidewalk two months ago and enlisted Bahorel to haul up two flights of stairs to put in Enjolras’ apartment while he was out—because, as she had explained later, she loved it but it wouldn’t fit in her own place and so, clearly, someone had to keep it so she could still visit it.
Enjolras would have argued more about the chair, but it had taken him several days to notice it was there, or that is to say, that it hadn’t been there before, and by that point he had gotten used to it and so he had agreed to house Eponine’s orphaned chair until such time as she could take it back.
“How long?” Grantaire repeats, not understanding.
“You said, earlier, that this was something you wished for,” Enjolras says, and of all things he sounds embarrassed. “I’m wondering for how long. If that’s something you’re willing to tell me.”
I’ll tell you anything. I’ll give you anything. But even Grantaire knows those aren’t things he can say, because they would be terrifying to hear. No one should have to know they have that power.
So he exhales, rolling over to stare at the ceiling. “Will it sound dramatic if I say, from the moment I met you?”
Enjolras sighs. “Dramatic or not, that can’t be true. You didn’t know a thing about me the moment you met me.”
“Excuse you. You were reducing someone to tears using the Rights of Man, at a coffee stand, at eight o’clock on a Monday morning, and you were doing it in very tight jeans.” Grantaire grins at the memory, tipping his head to the side so he can look over at Enjolras. “What else did I need to know?”
“Anyone who brings up Edmund Burke to me at eight o’clock on a Monday morning, or ever, for that matter, clearly deserves what they get,” Enjolras says, quite testily for someone bundled up in a comforter with violently fuchsia cats sewn on it. “And Courfeyrac gave me those jeans.”
“I know, I have thanked him accordingly.”
Enjolras huffs a small laugh. Then, disbelieving, as if he's just realized the crux of what Grantaire has said: “That was almost two years ago.”
“That was exactly two years ago,” Grantaire corrects. “Points to the universe for symmetry.”
Enjolras gives him an incredulous look. “Did it never occur to you that instead of relying on the universe you could, you know, do something about it?”
“I did,” Grantaire says, adopting a tone of grave offense. “I drank a lot and pretended to date Eponine. I still can’t believe my obviously brilliant plan didn’t work.”
Grantaire can tell Enjolras rolls his eyes, even in the dim light. “I can’t believe you think I don’t know it was Eponine’s plan, not yours.”
“I’m inclined to be offended. How would you know that?”
“Because it was cruel,” Enjolras says, with a faint smile. “I didn’t realize why it was until tonight, but it was. I don’t think Eponine even realizes how cruel she is when she wants to be. You are many things, Grantaire, but you have never struck me as malicious.”
Grantaire is too busy considering this to realize, for several seconds, that the other man has gone still and quiet, quiet in the way that anyone who works with him knows means he’s thinking hard about something.
“What is it?” Grantaire asks, and he can feel panic clench at his heart, irrational but unavoidable, the breathtaking fear that he’s somehow already messed something up.
“I didn’t know,” Enjolras says slowly. “I didn’t realize, until you were kissing me, that I wanted to kiss you. Isn’t that pathetic?”
“No,” Grantaire says, relieved and then just as quickly not. He sits up, propping himself up on his elbows. “No, it’s not.” He feels guilt curl in his stomach. “I’m sorry. I should have asked first. I shouldn’t have—I should have asked.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Enjolras says, waving a hand as if Grantaire is severely missing the point, which he doesn’t think he is. “I just…when you kissed me, I wished you had done it before. Days before. Months before.”
He goes quiet again, for several seconds, and then asks, frustration coloring his voice, “How could I not have realized that I wanted you until I had you, when you knew all this time?”
“It’s not a competition,” Grantaire tells him. I wanted you, echoes in his head, and he wishes he could record it, wishes he could remember for the rest of his life the exact sound of those three words in Enjolras’ mouth. I wanted you.
He feels elated and terrified all at once, like his heart might burst from the strain of it. But Enjolras doesn’t look reassured, he still looks annoyed and upset, and Grantaire thinks he understands but he has to make him stop.
“Do you want me now?” he asks aloud, and even though Enjolras has just said he does Grantaire can’t help but be braced for a rejection.
Enjolras’ expression clears. He props his chin on his hand, regarding Grantaire lying on his couch. “Yes,” he says quietly, says it like a secret, and there’s something like wonder in his voice. “Yes, I very much do.”
“Then that’s all that matters,” Grantaire says. He’s actually fairly sure it’s all that will ever matter, ever again.
Enjolras doesn’t look completely satisfied, but he does look calmer, and Grantaire can’t believe how much he loves him, and he’s maybe on the verge of making a horrible mistake and saying that out loud when the front door, which Enjolras never locks, slams open on its hinges, accompanied by a loud “Shhhhh!” and an answering giggle.
Fortunately, it is not thieves.
Less fortunately, it is Cosette, face flushed in a sparkly minidress, half-supporting Eponine, in stocking feet, with her party hat knocked askew on her wild hair. Both girls stop dead in the doorway as they take in the current scene, plain as it is in the light from the hallway flooding into the apartment.
“Cosette,” Eponine says urgently, in the loudest whisper Grantaire has ever heard, and Cosette whisper-yells back, “I know,” and Eponine hisses, “Oh my God,” and Cosette says, “Right?” and Enjolras rubs his eyes and asks, “You forgot your house keys?”
Eponine makes a clicking sound and aims finger-guns at Enjolras.
“Are we fired?” Cosette asks, and she’s clearly striving for a solemn expression but her lips keep twitching.
“You don’t actually work for me,” Enjolras reminds her.
“Am I fired?” Eponine asks, propping her chin on Cosette’s shoulder.
“No one is fired,” Enjolras says, “As long as Courfeyrac is not with you.”
“Good,” Cosette says, sounding immensely relieved. “I would’ve hated to be fired. Courfeyrac is probably still table-dancing in the Marais. Oh,” she says, as if recalling the situation, “but we should go.”
“We should definitely go,” Eponine agrees. “You should be alone, and we are adult women who both totally know how to get home. Serious question before we leave: how does one go down stairs?”
Enjolras and Grantaire share a look, and Grantaire starts laughing helplessly, and Enjolras sighs and throws off the comforter.
“We’ll talk later?” he whispers, a question rather than a statement, and Grantaire nods, feeling light-headed and tingly, and Enjolras smiles, his most brilliant, genuine smile, and goes to dig extra blankets out from under his bed.