Chapter Text
Someone was throwing paper at his head. Which, of course, could only ever be a good thing.
“Gran. Gran. Gran. Gran. Gran. Gran. GRAN!”
“WHAT?” Grantaire eventually roared, opening his eyes and tipping his head back over the edge of the – admittedly tiny – couch. His legs were dangling over the other end from knees downwards. Jehan just grinned at him benevolently.
“I was just trying to enquire if we were... y’know... tonight?” the excessively floral creative writing student asked, eyes wide and suggestive.
And Grantaire had been a maximum of two seconds from completely drifting off, as well. He levelled a blank glare at Jehan, before closing his eyes and shuffling back down into comfort, and asking, “Don’t you have an essay you’re meant to be writing?”
But apparently Jehan was going to carry on pestering him regardless. “I mean, Feuilly’s all for it. He said he’s even got extras of that one you were struggling to find. And you said you’d managed to perfect-”
“I’m pretty sure you said you had an essay to write.”
“-and I’m pretty sure you’ve got a project you’re meant to be working on.”
“Mm,” Grantaire agreed, absently elbowing the backrest until it moulded to his shape. “It’s called sleeping off a hangover.”
Thankfully, Jehan seemed to take a hint, and all Grantaire could hear for a few minutes was him tapping away at his keyboard. It was doubtful he was actually doing the essay he’d been set... what, two weeks ago now? But even if he was just spurting out more poetry, at least he was doing something other than pestering Grantaire.
And then when the silence finally did end, Grantaire decided to take the path of less resistance.
“No but really, can we-”
“Yes we can do it tonight,” Grantaire moaned, before pulling his green beanie down over his eyes and blocking out the world entirely. He determinedly did not grin along with Jehan’s pleased chuckle. He had sleep to catch up on.
*
It was so, so tempting to scrunch up the front page of the tabloids spread out on the desk before him and chuck them, one at a time and with immense force, at Courfeyrac’s head. Perhaps, then, he might actually pay attention to what was written on them.
“Will you please stop flirting with the damned waiter so we can get this done?” Enjolras sighed, strongly resisting the urge to slam his head onto the copy of the Guardian currently taking up space on the table before him.
To Enjolras’ left, Combeferre carefully licked a finger before flicking over a page of the Independent. “In his defence,” he muttered, tracing a line of text with a finger before going over it with a highlighter, “this new waiter does have a particularly fine ass.”
“Good old Huchloup does have particularly good hiring specifications,” mused Bahorel, who didn’t seem to be bothering to do the work either, which was actually fine by Enjolras, because whenever Bahorel tried reading the Daily Mail or other such broadsheets he usually ended up in a rage that didn’t end until at least one piece of furniture was broken and several bottles of beer had been drunk. Though unparalleled in the field, when it came to having to sift through pages of politically biased shit to find something to act upon, Bahorel was better exactly where he was; reclining across several bar stools and absently paying the tab. “Anyone remember that – what was her name – that blonde chick who worked here for a fair while?”
There were a few appreciative hums from around the room. Even something that was almost a whimper from Marius, but as he was hidden behind a laptop screen nobody could really be entirely sure.
This really was getting away from him, Enjolras lamented silently. Again. “Look, the pertness of the new waiter’s arse is not in questions here,” he stated, probably a bit too loudly considering said waiter was still only just behind the bar, cleaning out mugs. “We’re meant to be finding enough evidence to make sure we’re not just following some bullshit propaganda here, before we actually make the hit tomorrow night. So if you could all tame your libidos and get back to work?”
That simple statement did not deserve the death glares he received for it.
“I think it’s just been so long for poor old Enjolras, that he’s forgotten what he’s missing,” Courfeyrac stated with supreme superiority, flicking his hair before returning his attention to whatever it was he was reading. Spectator, perhaps. “Due to lack of nourishment, his sex drive has shrivelled to the size of a pea. No, smaller – a lentil. His libido is the size of an itty-bitty lentil-”
“I’m not sure that’s biologically possible,” Joly mused, head tilting before pulling out his phone, undoubtedly to Google it. Enjolras levelled a stare at him. Joly quietly slipped his phone back into his bag.
“I don’t think Enjolras needs to sex to reproduce,” Combeferre interjected. Et tu, Brutus. “I think one day he’ll just split. Like an amoeba.”
“Yes, but then that’d mean there were two identical Enjolrases in the world and I don’t think the world could stomach that-”
Suddenly, frantic stabbing at a keyboard drew everyone’s attention away from a slowly steaming Enjolras. On his own little table, Bossuet, wide eyed and mouth ajar, had resorted to slamming his whole hand down on the keyboard. Then lifting up the whole laptop and shaking it once. Then, slowly, he set it back down on the table, watched it mournfully for a moment and raised his gaze to meet the curious, suspicious, and exasperated gazes of his fellows. “I think I broke it,” he admitted sheepishly.
And with that, Enjolras gave up and called it a day.
*
“So here’s the thing.”
“Grantaire, I swear to god-”
“No no no, the flat’s fine,” Grantaire assured carelessly, mobile pressed between his ear and shoulder as he pushed up from the banister and jumped down about three steps. “Well, I assume so. I’ve left Jehan there for a good fifteen minutes now, so something’s probably got something written on it. But probably not in permanent marker. No, this is more a logistics issue.”
“Logistics? Why the fuck are you asking me about logistics?”
One of his feet slipped – the soles of his converses has been worn flat years ago, it was a miracle there was any rubber left there at all – and Grantaire mildly refrained from swearing as his landing sent a jolt through his spine. “Fffuuu- well, you know how I tend to use the bike?”
“Bike? What? Yes, but – no, no, Grantaire, no.”
“Well we tried fitting the case on the back of the bike, but I may have been that bit intoxicated.” The confession came quite cheerfully, finally landing on the corridor of the first floor and strolling around to the door of flat 1A. It should probably just have been called ‘1’, really. It’s not as if there were more flats in on that floor, just the one above in which Grantaire cohabited with Jehan. “And I may have kicked the harness in frustration and knocked it off, so using the bike to carry the stencils is out of the question-” He leant on the door frame, and knocked shortly.
“I don’t give a damn what you’ve done to your bike, you’ll just have to fix it if you want to – hold up, there’s someone at the door-”
The door in front of Grantaire swung open, to reveal Feuilly, his large home phone held a centimetre from his ear. When he recognized Grantaire, his face quickly fell into a frown. “No,” he said shortly.
“Feuilly-”
“No, you are not using my bloody car as your damned getaway vehicle, don’t you bloody dare implicate me like this, I have a business to think about, a shop to run-”
Grantaire bat his eyelashes a few times. “Please, Feuilly? C’mon. Do it for the Polish?”
Feuilly met his gaze with narrowed eyes and clenched jaw. “I fucking hate you,” he muttered, slamming his phone down on the nearby table and grabbing his keys from the bowl he kept them in. He all but kicked Grantaire back into the corridor and slammed the door behind himself. “Right, where’s Jehan?”
“Fetching the stencils. He’ll meet us down at the car...”
*
The papers had been carefully collected and placed into two piles beside the steps that led up to the first floor of the cafe. The waiter-slash-bartender had vanished from behind the worn oak bar, probably to help Huchloup pack away the good stuff for the night. He’d stacked most of the chairs upside down on their respective tables before he left, with only the table Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Enjolras were sat around left untouched. And good old Huchloup had even instructed the waiter to leave behind the keys to the drinks cabinet.
These were the quiet hours. The hours late into the night and after the hard work was done with, where the three core members of their group could sit and drink together (in moderation), and talk, maturely, about the more serious things.
“No but really,” Courfeyrac said, after setting his first empty bottle of Stella on the table between them all, “That waiter. What d’you think my chances are?”
Enjolras heard Combeferre, somewhere to his right, snort in an uncharacteristically inelegant manner into his glass of Pinot Grigio. “You cannot be serious,” Enjolras drawled, absently crossing his ankles where his feet were resting on a spare chair. “Are you really getting that desperate?”
Combeferre snorted into his drink again.
“That goes in your mouth, not up your nose,” Enjolras chose to point out in a completely helpful way. Combeferre flipped him the bird.
“Hello! Back to the main topic of conversation here! My wilting love-life!” Courfeyrac called out, waving his hands lazily about in a half-hearted attempt to draw the focus back to himself. “Do you know how long it’s been? Do you?”
“Quite frankly, I’m not sure I want to-”
“It’s been-”
“-and I certainly don’t care-”
“-even the local paperboy is starting to look appealing-”
“-that fact was certainly something I never wanted to hear-”
“-and I’m finding myself wanting to cuddle. Cuddle! I mean...”
Finally, Courfeyrac trailed off, leaving him sat there with a terribly pathetic kicked-puppy expression on his face.
With a horrible feeling that he knew exactly where this was going, Enjolras rolled his head around languidly to look across to Combeferre. Combeferre, helpful as ever, just shrugged, displaying where his allegiance truly lay.
With a weary sigh, Enjolras swung his feet back onto the floor, quite happily letting his boots make horrendously loud thuds he knew Combeferre would roll his eyes to. “Fine,” he said with heavy exasperation as he set his half-empty bottle of Kopparberg on the table, “if we’re going to be talking about... feelings, I’m going to need more cider.”
Courfeyrac’s laughter followed him as he headed over to the bar. “What, the great marble leader lowering himself to talk about emotions?”
“Of course,” Enjolras said blandly, pulling out another cider from the fridge and kicking it shut with a steel-capped toe. “I just love talking about roses, bonnets, girl’s chests, boys’ posteriors and Gucci’s new autumn range.”
At that, Courfeyrac gasped dramatically and pressed a hand to his heart. “Combeferre, did you hear that? Our ickle Enjolras knows what Gucci is! Our little girl is growing up!”
Really, the lengths Enjolras was willing to go to keep his friends alongside...
*
“Is that level?”
“Tilt it a bit... to the left, down a bit on your side, Jehan...”
“Now?”
“You really fucked that up. Up, up, up Feuilly – that means you raise it-”
“Yes thank you Mr Artist I know what ‘up’ means-”
“Now down a bit – tilt it a bit towards Jehan-”
“How about there?”
“A few degrees clockwise-”
“There?”
“Two degrees anti-clockwise-”
“There?”
“Just a jot to the left-”
“Grantaire-”
“-and then a step to the right-”
“Seriously?”
“-now, put your hands on your hips-”
“Grantaire I swear to all the fucking gods you can think of, if you don’t tape this to the wall right this fucking second-”
With a snort, Grantaire conceded and tore off a strip of masking tape with his teeth. With barely a flourish he stuck it over the edge of the cardboard stencil, sticking it to the pristine whitewashed wall.
This particular piece wasn’t all that complex. Block colours of a woman in a stylish long red dress, old-fashioned thick fur scarf, brunette hair piled up Audrey Hepburn style, chunky diamond necklace, and a placard reading, ‘TRUTH! JUSTICE! REASONABLY PRICED LOVE!’
The location? 54 Lombard Street. Putting it on a bank just felt appropriate.
Once the stencil was stuck in place, all that there was left to do was for Grantaire to spray on the colour, for Jehan to pass him the right aerosol cans, and for Feuilly to stand look-out and just generally enjoy the rebellious atmosphere. It was a routine they’d perfected over the last year or so, so much so that Grantaire no longer bothered checking the cans Jehan passed him, and neither Grantaire or Jehan paid attention to anything but what they were doing, trusting Feuilly to warn them if anyone came by.
Though, the issue with having it so perfected, was that they did have a tendency to get a bit... lax.
“Feuilly, the fuck do you think you’re doing? Turn off your fucking phone!”
And yet, despite Grantaire’s semi-authoritative tone, Feuilly held up a finger and continued to finish his text. “One... second...”
“Feuilly-”
With a weary sigh that seemed to manage to mark Feuilly out as the good guy here – and how the fuck did Feuilly always come off as a good guy out of the three of them – Feuilly closed his phone down, and said, “Look, calm down. No one’s going to see us – even Jehan’s wearing nothing brighter than his navy blue-toned damned flowery scarf, which leads to my second point that even if someone did see us, our faces are eighty percent covered so no one would recognise us. Comprende, senor?”
“Yes, but all our careful clothing falls to shit when you’re shining a light on us!” Grantaire hissed back.
“Yes, well, are you going to finish your little painting or stand there moaning at me?” Feuilly replied, head tilted remarkably sassily for someone who professed to be straight.
Behind the black scarf covering the lower half of his face, Grantaire grinned. “You love my ‘little painting’,” he said, shaking the can twice before resuming spraying.
He vaguely heard Jehan ask Feuilly who he’d been texting, the two of them starting up some kind of small-talk, being all casual as they assisted a crime. Just chilling as they graffiti this bank. No biggie. But Grantaire couldn’t care less what they were talking about because he was starting to see it all come together, the colours and the outlines, just as they had in his loft...
There’s always about twenty last sprays of paint, twenty ‘I’ll just touch up over there’s, but eventually he deemed it done to a satisfactory level. The scrap piece of cardboard he used to protect the other areas was thrown to the ground, the used can dropped back into the bag with the others. It was the clang that caused which drew the attention of the other two, who fell silent and turned to watch as, carefully, and the still slightly wet paint staining his fingers, he pulled the stencil from the wall.
And there, yes. All the shapes and colours suddenly made sense, all slot together to form the same picture that covered a seven foot scrap of paper Grantaire had covering his bedroom wall.
Behind him, Feuilly whistled. Grantaire grinned, turned to face them and curtsied. Jehan mock applauded, but with very real appreciation.
Another sound joined in with Jehan’s applause, a slowly building rhythmic wailing sound, that’s far, far too familiar to say anything good about Grantaire’s life.
And, as one, Grantaire and Jehan turned to glare at Feuilly.
Feuilly’s mouth fell open, and he defensively spluttered, “Wh – what? You seriously – you can’t think-”
“You fucking ever,” Grantaire gritted out, raising a paint-spattered finger and flourishing it at the stuttering art shopkeeper, “fucking answer you stupid fucking phone again-”
Thankfully at least one of them has common sense, and Grantaire found himself grateful for the reminder that such a thing exists as Jehan grabbed both of the bickering men by the back of their coats and started to drag them off down the street. “Forget whose fault it is, just run!”
Grantaire managed to grab the straps of the bag with the spray cans in it before he stumbled around and chased off after where Feuilly and Jehan were already strides ahead of him. He swung the bag onto his back and started to run, following wherever Jehan was leading them, skidding to take the sharp 90 degree angle, clinging to the walls to propel himself forwards, catching up with Feuilly and pushing the man faster forwards and almost crashing into Jehan and rounding another corner and
Almost slammed into Jehan where he was slumped over the boot of Feuilly’s car, half panting and half laughing.
Without even really thinking about it, Grantaire joined him. He stumbled a bit and collapsed forwards, hands on his knees to stop him falling entirely to the floor – which Feuilly promptly did a second later, almost gracefully rolling down onto the ground and lying spread-eagled on his back, on the pavement, and laughing as if it was his last chance.
With one forceful move, Grantaire tugged the scarf down from his mouth and took one huge breath, before declaring, “I fucking hate you.”
And somehow, Feuilly managed to laugh even harder. Reaching up and slapping Grantaire’s thigh twice, he said, “No, no you don’t.”
Grantaire couldn’t help it. He laughed too.
*
They were meant to be heading home – they should have been heading home, it’s fucking two o’clock in the morning – but of course, Enjolras’ mind won’t let him get anything so much as resembling sleep until the last parts of the plan are straightened out in his brain. So, after locking up the Musain (Huchloup had long gone home, but she trusted them enough to leave them with their own keys to the place), and before heading back to their apartment, Enjolras was striding through the streets of London with Combeferre strolling beside him, heading towards the designated target site to check it out one last time.
“You should be easier on him,” Combeferre said suddenly, his voice muffled by the scarf winding around his neck and tucked into his trench coat.
It wasn’t hard to figure out who Combeferre was talking about. “He’s acting like a teenager,” Enjolras replied, without half an ounce of sympathy. “I can’t have him acting like some kind of horny teenager when-”
“Two things,” Combeferre cut in quite casually, raising a finger. “One, he’s got Marius living with him, even you’d start acting like a horny teenager if you had to spend that many hours with him, if just to counter out the frankly absurd amount of love-dovey crap that seems to seep from his very pores.”
Enjolras sincerely hoped he wouldn’t, but then, Marius did have an excess amount of lovey-dovey seeping pores. Hopefully, they would never have cause to find out what effect such excrement would have on him.
“And two – he’s only two years away from being a teenager, Enjolras! Not everyone grows up as fast as you do.”
“Or you,” Enjolras pointed out.
Combeferre just snorted. “I’ve decided to accept the fact I never grew up at all. I just became even more middle-aged.”
“I was fifteen the first time you told me to turn my music down,” Enjolras mused. “And I can’t think of a time when you wouldn’t tell me off for running in corridors, or leaving my shoelaces untied.”
“Please,” snorted Combeferre, absently tugging his gloves around and back into place. “You’re painting an entirely unrealistic picture. You almost managed to make yourself sound like a normal child.”
Enjolras laughed at that, his head falling back. “Ah, too true,” he agreed, still smirking and shaking his head slightly. “I doubt ‘normal’ will ever be a word that can ever be attributed to me.”
“You say that like it’s something to be proud of,” Combeferre said.
“I happen to think it is,” Enjolras replied, lips twisted into the subtlest of sly smiles.
In silence they walked down the last part of the street, the tall building, their destination, slowly rising up in front of them.
They didn’t say anything when they got there, either. Combeferre probably didn’t care enough, at 2am, to say anything when he knew that Enjolras would be too deep in thought anyway. And he was, his eyes narrowing as he studied the front of the buildings, the windows and the doors, in his head putting together layouts, comparing them to what he had already considered, debating, contrasting, fiddling until he could get something loudest, something with impact –
“Ah – it appears we might not be the first.”
Combeferre’s words drew Enjolras’ attention immediately. Fear and fury starting to surge in equal measures, he snapped his head towards where Combeferre was standing, utterly still and making quite an imposing figure in his long coat. His gaze was fixed on the wall, his eyes narrowed, and head tilted sideways as he thought.
“Someone else? But we would have heard, we were working until eleven-” Enjolras cursed, striding towards him to see what it was that might ruin their plans.
“I’d say we hadn’t heard about it, because I don’t think it’s been here much longer than we have – the paint’s still slightly wet, if I’m any judge.”
Paint? Enjolras came to stop next to Combeferre, and reluctantly turned his head to look at the wall. Sure enough, the wall of the back was covered in paint. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but it seemed to be a woman in a red dress, carelessly carrying a placard stating, ‘TRUTH! JUSTICE! REASONABLY PRICED LOVE!’
The style was instantly recognisable. Biting back the curses forming fast and furious on the tip of his tongue, Enjolras ground his teeth.
Combeferre, however, was tilting his head even further, before saying, “Looks like Audrey Hepburn.”
Of all the things to say. Jaw hurting with the pressure he was forcing upon it, Enjolras reached out and quickly brushed his finger down the red of the dress. Combeferre had been right, it was still damp, leaving some of the red paint of Enjolras’ skin. He rubbed it between his fingers until it all but vanished. “Where do you think we can get paint this late at night?”
“There’s that art shop by Covent Garden,” Combeferre suggested absently, before turning and continue down the street, hands shoved deep in his pockets against the cold.
Enjolras stared after him in shock. “Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Home!” Combeferre called back, “it’s too bloody cold for this shit!”
After a few more seconds, during which Enjolras firmly refused to move and Combeferre got further away, Combeferre visibly sighed out and turned back to face Enjolras – whilst still walking, albeit now backwards. “Look, even if that Covent Garden place is open, painting over that piece of artwork will just be disrespectful, no matter how much you violently disapprove of the guy’s work. We can just stick our stuff on the other side – that’s on the far side, well away from the door.”
It took a few moments, but eventually the truth of what Combeferre was saying sunk in. It was true, Enjolras wanted nothing more than to scrub every inch of that self-promoting, tasteless graffiti artist’s work off every wall in the city – all the man (supposing it was a man) did was cover every surface available with basic, supposedly witty designs, but what made it a hundred times worse was that this vandal so clearly had both the means and the talent to make an impact, to do something that mattered, had had ample opportunity to do so, but hadn’t. To a man like Enjolras, to have such a chance and ignore it was the worst trait a man could have. “Fine,” he reluctantly conceded, biting the word out like it physically wounded him to say it, even to the person who was probably the only person he’d ever apologised to, and only then because his GCSE Chemistry teacher had been staring him down until he did. “But if a single newspaper mentions out work in conjunction with that damned piece of graffiti-”
“Let me guess, you’ll stab someone?” Combeferre asked wryly, looking across at Enjolras with a grin as he drew level. “Well then. I guess I’d better start locking away the knives.”
“Please. As if that would be able to stop me.”
“You know, some nights I pray thanks to our lucky stars that you chose the revolutionary route, rather than the serial killer one...”
*
Seven o’clock in the morning, just as the alarm went off summoning him to college, Grantaire shot bolt upright in bed and stared sightlessly at the easel on the other side of the room. He didn’t move as Jehan kicked his door open, stumbling through wearing nothing but a pair of peach-toned, flowered, loose silk pyjama trousers and cradling a pint sized mug of coffee in his hands.
His flatmate had reached his bedside table – a praise-worthy feat, considering all the shit that littered his floor – and was setting the close-to-overflowing mug down on top of a closed notepad before he said, “Oh dear. You’re not moaning about exhaustion, hangovers, or college. What’s wrong?”
“Tag,” Grantaire said, blinking absently and eyes still fixed on that same spot directly in front of him. “Last night. Didn’t tag it. Before we ran. It’s not tagged.” He blinked a few more times. The bed dipped as Jehan settled onto it, now drinking the coffee he’d brought in. “...Shit.”
A hand stroked his back semi-sympathetically. It counted for shit, though, when Grantaire knew that Jehan was drinking his coffee. That Jehan had been the one to make it was inconsequential. “Trip out tonight as well, then?”
Grantaire groaned, and Jehan only just moved out of the way in time as Grantaire fell backwards, landing on his mattress with a thud.
*
“Take it off.”
Bahorel balked. “What? No! Why?”
“It’s red.” This really shouldn’t be such a hard concept to understand.
“Red’s a good colour,” Bahorel protested, hands desperately clinging to his waistcoat. “A bold colour. The colour of blood. Revolution. It’s an apt colour to the cause-”
“And a colour that will be seen down the fucking street, I said, take it off,” Enjolras repeated, unmoving, and firmly staring Bahorel down.
Bahorel stared back.
Leaning against the outside of the cafe, Courfeyrac chuckled. “So concerned about your appearance, ‘Orel? You’re losing serious man points for this.”
Impressed, Enjolras turned to look at Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac winked at him, grinning.
Reluctantly, and with each movement threatening a violent revolt of the kind Enjolras didn’t want, Bahorel removed the fitted blood-red waistcoat, leaving himself in a black shirt with rolled up sleeves, fingerless leather gloves, and loose black jeans tucked into his usual biker boots. His ruffled hair was dark enough that it didn’t need to be hidden under a black beanie, like Courfeyrac’s lighter hair did. Enjolras’ blonde curls weren’t hidden by anything, but nobody even mentioned that.
“Oh, really?” Bahorel spit out, balling up the waistcoat and chucking it through the open window of the car behind him. “So how many man points have you lost?”
Courfeyrac was wearing grey skinny jeans, dark coloured Vans, black denim jacket over a black Henley, and one careful curl was loose from the beanie covering his hair. Even the way he was leaning against the wall was clearly carefully designed to be stylish, and at Bahorel’s words he just grinned. “Metrosexual, darling,” he said, with an exaggerated camp voice, nothing like his normal speaking voice. “I am what I am, and what I am is fabulous.”
“What you are is a waste of time, right now, the both of you,” Enjolras almost managed not to yell. “We should have left by now! For god’s sake, pick up your damn rucksacks and let’s go!”
He didn’t miss Courfeyrac pointedly checking out the long, black, double-breasted wool coat Enjolras was wearing over a fitted black shirt and black jeans, his usual boots on. The coat was an admission to Enjolras’ vanity, Enjolras knew it, and Courfeyrac knew it. But, it turned out, Courfeyrac was intelligent enough to not say it aloud.
With his usual perfect timing, Combeferre emerged from the cafe with Bossuet trailing behind him, the two of them carrying three black rucksacks.
“Why is he carrying a rucksack?” Bahorel demanded, pointed a finger at Bossuet and looking between Combeferre and Enjolras for an answer. “Who let him carry one? If he breaks something now, we don’t have time to fix it.”
“Oh, ha ha,” Bossuet drawled, chucking a rucksack at Bahorel hard enough to make him stumble back against his car. “I don’t break everything.”
“And that reminds me,” Combeferre said calmly, turning to Enjolras. “We need to buy another laptop.” Enjolras cocked an eyebrow. Combeferre shoved a thumb over his shoulder at Bossuet. Bossuet blushed.
“I didn’t mean to,” he moaned.
“You are incorrigible,” Courfeyrac lamented, shaking his head. He stretched his hands out to Combeferre, fingers wiggling at the rucksack. “Gimme!”
But Combeferre shook his head. “Apologies, but this one is for our fearless leader.” Be slightly more responsible then Bossuet, he stepped forwards to hand it over to Enjolras, muttering under his breath, “There’s an added present in there from yours truly, klutz over there, our pet hypochondriac, and even our boy Marius. Turns out he’s not a useless romantic waste of space – well, not just.”
When Enjolras raised his eyebrows, inquiring, Combeferre just smiled.
Slightly confused – but mainly very suspicious, Enjolras unzipped the top of his rucksack and started to leaf through the papers inside – none of which were the right size or right thickness to be the posters they’d prepared.
Bahorel, who must have overheard the exchange and got curious himself, pulled two sheets from the wad in his own bag. Frowning, he looked across to Bossuet and Combeferre. “These aren’t the-” he began, before lowering his gaze back to the sheet. The words stopped, his mouth still open as he took in the first line. Then the next. And he started to laugh.
“What?” asked Courfeyrac, eyes wide. “What is it?” And when no one gave him an immediate response he yanked open his own bag, grabbing a sheet and reading it himself. He was a slower reader than Bahorel, but it wasn’t long before he, too, was laughing.
Eyes still fixed on Combeferre’s poker face – which was really wasted, stuck in London and not in some casino in Las Vegas – Enjolras pulled out his own sheet, and raised it to his eyeline.
To: Jeremy Michaels
From: Jason Houghton
Word is, that stupid Hooper bastard is wanting to hire Mirren. MIRREN. For fuck’s sake Jim, I’m not having a stupid bitch of a woman in a position of power in my company. Let him give her a job as a secretary if he wants her cunt so badly. And I hear she’s a fag to boot – is this the level our company’s going to fall to? Disgusting, fucking all of it. If you can’t get Hooper to see fucking sense, he’ll be out of here on his arse...
Eyes wide, Enjolras’ eyes shot back up to Combeferre, who was now grinning with wild abandon. “I think that’s my personal favourite,” he mused, his calm tone totally contrasting his excited expression. “Straight in with the sexism and homophobia, and if you keep reading there’s even a fair bit of racism later on...”
“Are all these from the Chairman?” Enjolras demanded, gesturing at where Bahorel and Courfeyrac were giggling at their own emails.
“Dear gods, no,” Combeferre said, looking aghast. “Grief, Enjolras, give us some credit. No, no, not all of them. There’s some from the executives too.”
As Enjolras kept watching, Combeferre’s eyes sparkled with a rarely seen mischief. “If the idea wasn’t so repulsive, I could kiss you right now,” Enjolras declared boldly.
Combeferre shivered. “Eugh, no, thank you. Please don’t.” But all the same, despite the apparent repulsion of Enjolras, he reached over to pat Enjolras on the shoulder in the brotherly way. “How about this – you can pay both halves of the rent this month.”
Grinning now, Enjolras shook his head and turned away. “C’mon, let’s get going,” he called to the other two in black. “We’ve got some deliveries to make.
*
“Get in, losers!”
Grantaire’s heart fucking stopped. Fuelled by a fury worthy of Mars himself (and he really needed to stop listening when Jehan went on one his rants about the loss of the Pantheons in literature) he spun around, brandishing a finger at where Feuilly was hanging out of the driver’s seat window. “You fucker!”
Feuilly, fucker that he was, just grinned. “Are you two planning on walking all the way there?”
“Considering that I sent the bike in for repairs-” Grantaire started, fucking pissed because Feuilly had given him a fucking heart attack and he already fucking knew this-
“Yeah, like I said,” Feuilly cut in, still grinning, and waving a hand to gesture at his car, “get in, losers.”
Grantaire didn’t even have a chance to reply. Before Feuilly had even finished speaking, Jehan had let out a whoop of joy and danced off to climb into the back seat. But then, Grantaire hadn’t been going to protest.
“What happened to all that ‘don’t implicate me, nyeh, I’m an honourable shopkeep me’ crap?” he asked innocently, sliding into the passenger seat and absently chucking the aerosol can between his hands.
“Well I tried sitting at home doing nothing, but Poland wouldn’t let me do it,” Feuilly mused absently, gently sliding into first gear and entirely focused on the road and driving away.
Grantaire snorted. “Please. You just realised we’d be doing rebellious illegal things without you and couldn’t bear to be the well behaved one for the night.”
“Now, let it go on the record that I never said that,” Feuilly said. “All I’m doing is being a good friend and landlord by giving you a lift, and I shall be waiting in the car whilst you two pop over to the back and do what you’ve got to do. And Jehan, if you write a sonnet on the back of my chair so help me God I will not only make you watch as I scrub it off with paint stripper, I shall scrub you down just the same.”
With a glare at the back of Feuilly’s head, Jehan rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, and set the nib of the purple sharpie to one of the few remaining empty spaces on his arm, instead.
*
The bank was their last stop. Before going there, they’d stopped round the houses of each major player in the bank, posting a selection of the less incriminating emails through their letterboxes.
It would just be cruel to ruin their mornings by posting some of the worse ones. Enjolras did have some semblance of mercy.
By the time they got to the bank, 54 Lombard St., they still had around twenty emails left, including the worst five by the Chairman. Courfeyrac had about twelve sheets still in his rucksack, and, at a nod from Enjolras, started to back up. Then, rubbing his gloved hands together and eyes flicking over the various ledges and chips from the wall, he started to run.
Each member of the ABC had seen Courfeyrac perform his monkey act several times, but it still wasn’t something you could just look away from. His feet pushing off from ledges that didn’t even seem to exist, his hands clinging on to empty air, it was seconds before he was standing on the ledge of the second floor. For a few moments he stood still, looking at the window, the pillar to his left, before calling down, “I could probably make it to the third floor, if you want?”
“If you fall, we’re not going to be the ones making excuses to the paramedics,” Bahorel called back, grinning. Courfeyrac swore back at him cheerfully and swung his rucksack off his back. “We doing anything fancy with these here emails, boss?”
Enjolras chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought. “I think they’re pretty self-explanatory, really. Take... take these emails, and do like we were going to with the posters, one per window. I think I’ll write a little something on this one from Mister Chairman.”
“Aye aye, captain.”
“Fire in the hole!”
Sudden bolt of shock almost giving him a heart attack, Enjolras’ eyes widened as he looked up at Courfeyrac. “Don’t you dare blow anything-” and then stopped mid-sentence as an old-fashioned window bolt clattered onto the pavement next to him. A bit anti-climactic, really. “You know,” he said wearily, “you could just have said ‘watch out below’.”
“Yes, but then I wouldn’t have been able to see you panic,” Courfeyrac called back cheerily, pocketing his Swiss army knife and nudging the window open just enough to slip a few sheaves of paper through.
“Which is clearly high priority right now,” Enjolras muttered, ignoring the monkey and pulling a red pen from his pocket. He rested Combeferre’s favourite email against the wall as he wrote in print letters across the top, ‘why don’t you get to know the men you work for’. At the bottom he wrote, in exaggerated cursive script, ‘yours, les amis de l’ABC’.
“You done with that glue yet, Bahorel?” he called, stepping back and shoving his pen back in his pocket.
“Hang on, hang on, you’ve given me, like, five minutes to glue seven emails here-”
“Well hurry up, I need it-”
Someone, from somewhere behind Enjolras, whistled low. “This is technically vandalism, you know.”
That wasn’t Bahorel – definitely wasn’t Courfeyrac, who was still up high – and neither was it any other member of the Friends. And Enjolras knew the police officers that patrolled this patch (don’t ask), and it wasn’t any of them, either.
Courfeyrac set eyes on the newcomers before Enjolras did, letting out a quiet, “Holy shit.”
Two men; one wearing a leather jacket, ridiculously torn slim-leg jeans, a pair of green vans and matching beanie hat over dark curls, the other wearing flower patterned – were they jeans or leggings? - with a oversized, thick-knit maroon jumper. It also looked like his hair was not only braided, but also threaded with flowers - but most of the details like that, including their facial features, were obscured due the streetlamp behind them.
Looking up over his shoulder, Enjolras tried to meet Courfeyrac’s gaze. However, the imbecile was frozen, leaning against a pillar, eyes wide and fixed on the two below.
Bahorel did look back at Enjolras, however, with eyes wide and asking, ‘what now?’ Enjolras tilted his head sharply at the building. ‘Keep going. I can deal with them.’
“Oh, stop pouting,” said the man wearing the beanie, grinning. “It’s not as if we’re going to report you or some shit. What are they, flyers? CVs?”
“None of your business,” Enjolras replied sharply. “Keep walking.”
The man’s eyes widened comically, but his flowery companion was looking between him and the three Friends with something akin to concern. “Oohhh, I’m terrified!” Beanie man gasped, before laughing. However, he did indeed move, walking down the path and absently tossing between his hands a – was than an aerosol can?
And it all made sense, when he came to a stop in front of the graffiti he and Combeferre had noticed last night. “You’re R,” Enjolras said. And there went his good mood for the day. It was always when you’d been planning and looking forwards to something that the worst things happened, wasn’t it?
Courfeyrac didn’t seem to share the same view. Even from where Courfeyrac was, Enjolras could hear him gasp. “The artist? You’re – you’re both artists?”
The one with the beanie – R, he must be – chuckled and ignored Courfeyrac. The other, however was staring back at Courfeyrac, mouth open for a few seconds before he answered. “Uh – no, I mean, he is. That’s Grantaire, he’s the artist, I’m just a poet really, Jehan – well no, Jean, just most people-”
“Jehan,” Courfeyrac echoed, and Enjolras sincerely hoped that the new two couldn’t hear the new, stupid sappy tone in which Courfeyrac said the man’s name. Jesus, he really needed to get laid... “Jehan, sometimes Jean. Got it.”
R – Grantaire – whichever, stopped shaking the can to turn and look at Courfeyrac’s beloved poet ‘Jehan’ and ask, sarcasm heavy in his tone, “You done? Want to exchange social security numbers too, or...?” Jehan muttered something back, and even in the dim light of the streetlamp Enjolras could see Grantaire roll his eyes, and almost smile.
“Look, guys, I just need to do this one thing then you can go back to TPing the bank, or whatever it is you’re doing,” Grantaire said, crouching down to spray something small by the base of his piece.
The other, Jehan, had drifted away from him to peer at the windows Bahorel had already superglued emails to. “They look like emails,” he mused, his braid falling off his shoulder as he tilted his head, and, yes, there were flowers in it.
On a whim, Enjolras looked up to Courfeyrac. The idiot was about to fall of the ledge he was stood on, the way he was contorting himself to get a better look of the poet. He looked across to Bahorel, who he hoped would share his agony. Bahorel mimed being sick.
“Aw, aren’t they replying to you?” Grantaire asked absently, now setting his can down on the ground and rubbing at the red R with his finger. Seemingly satisfied, he pushed himself back to his feet, throwing the can up with his right hand and catching it in his left.
“These... are some really discriminating emails,” Jehan was going on to say, wordlessly beckoning Grantaire with his hand. “How did you get access to these?”
“He sent them to us,” Bahorel in an innocent tone that only served to make you more suspicious, if you knew him.
But neither supposed artist nor self-proclaimed poet paid him much attention, both of them focused on the email. By the time they reached the end, Jehan was smirking and Grantaire, less subtly, laughing loudly. “Oh, so you’re revolutionaries!” he crowed, spinning back to face Enjolras and Bahorel. “Informing the public of what they need to know and all that bullshit, is it? Rooting out the corrupt and putting them in their place, fighting for Truth and Justice with a capital T and J, yeah? Well, good luck with that,” he said, still laughing, but there was a mocking tone to it now that was really, really making Enjolras want to take a leaf from Bahorel’s book and deck the guy. “Jehan, c’mon,” Grantaire said, making to walk back from wherever it was he’d come from.
“Uhm-”
But before the hesitation of the man’s second could become apparent, Enjolras found himself talking. “Yes, of course, my thanks,” he said, slipping into a condescending tone without even planning it, “because of course I need the luck of someone as pointless as you.”
That caused the man to stop – body half turned away, he froze, before turning all the way back to look at Enjolras. “I’m sorry – did you just call me ‘pointless’?”
The image of Combeferre tutting after Courfeyrac related all of this was almost enough to deter him from continuing – almost, but not quite. “Of course. It’s the word that suits you best.”
He knew the man wouldn’t speak after that. He’d think. And Enjolras let him think, let him consider it before continuing.
“Your ‘paintings’, images sprayed gaudily onto walls all over the city – the time that would take, they must be the point to your life now, yes? It uses time, skill, a penchant for law-breaking, and effort. And for what? Self promotion? Fifteen minutes in the limelight and all you’re doing is teaching the next generation that they don’t have to stop scribbling the walls when they’re no longer toddlers. If you want to show them the importance of art, try painting something decent. At best, you might be teaching them to mock their superiors but then what are they going to do with that? Speak back to their professors, their parents? Because students rejecting their education always improves the conditions of society. So yes, I called you pointless.”
Bahorel was grinning, arms crossed, enjoying the show, Enjolras could see him out of the corner of his eye. But his attention was taken by the man whose lack of drive in life gave him a feeling of repulsion. And this man wasn’t grinning, not anymore.
Grantaire was staring straight at Enjolras, eyes narrowing. “So you think,” he said, stepping forwards slowly, “that this, this organised littering has a point? That it’ll build to something, cause a grand revolt of the system and fix bureaucracy? At most you’re going to get rid of one man, with all this, and it’s probably going to be the guy who deals with the press releases when he fails to twist this to make them look good. And if you do get rid of the guy in charge? Ave duci nova, similis duci seneca! They’re all the same. This? This thing you’ve got going on here? Changes nothing. You calling me pointless is the best example of hypocrisy I’ve seen all week!”
This wasn’t exactly a new argument. “So you’re saying doing nothing is better than doing something? If every-”
“No, I’m not saying that, I’m saying that you’re doing nothing-”
“If everyone does the amount I’m doing, then it will build up to more than something!” Enjolras yelled back, now, too, stepping forwards. “One person starts it, and the people shall follow!”
“You know, I almost could hear the capital P there-”
“You mock my methods,” Enjolras hissed, voice barely more than a whisper but Grantaire was by now close enough to hear it either way. “And yet, I don’t see you trying to do any better.”
Grantaire stopped moving, his face, his ignorant, stubborn grin now well within punching reach. “Than this little farce with superglue and pieces of paper? You bet your Armani clad arse I could do better, posh boy.”
“I highly doubt that,” Enjolras laughed at him.
Something twitched in Grantaire’s jaw. “I could prove it to you,” he boasted. “If I felt so inclined.”
This conversation had run its course. Enjolras didn’t care to listen to this man’s empty words as he showcased his ego. “I still highly doubt it,” he said, turning away and heading to where his rucksack had been abandoned, putting well-needed space between him at the cynic before he did something stupid. “But if you ever do ‘feel so inclined’, come to Cafe Musain, near Borough Market,” he said. “Ask for Enjolras.”
“And Courfeyrac!” Courfeyrac suddenly, randomly chipped in. “Courfeyrac. Um. That’s... that’s me...” That idiot wasn’t even bothering to pretend to be addressing Grantaire, his eyes fixed on the poet Jehan. Or Jean. Whatever. And he was close to falling over the edge in pursuit of getting a better look at the guy. Again.
“You’re going to fall off,” Enjolras muttered up at him. He rolled his eyes as Courfeyrac started, and almost jumped backwards, against the window.
“Perhaps I might show,” Grantaire called to his back. “I think it’d be fun to see you embarrassed!”
Enjolras couldn’t help but snort at the ludicrous idea, and he smiled wider when he heard Bahorel do the same.
“But for now, I am afraid I must deprive you of my presence,” Grantaire was continuing. “Jehan?”
Enjolras raised his eyes long enough to see the flowery poet dither a little, still making eyes at damned Courfeyrac, before walking towards where Grantaire probably was. Then he waited a few seconds, before turned back around, seeing Grantaire and Jehan vanishing into the darkness of an alleyway.
“What an ass,” Bahorel said suddenly, startling a laugh from Enjolras.
“Well, I can at least tell Combeferre he lived up to my expectations,” he admitted, making Bahorel laugh in return. “Stuck up, pretentious fools, the both of them.”
“Not the poet!” Courfeyrac called down, stunned. “Surely you can’t say that about the poet! That poet... Jehan... he was... he was...”
“Sounds like you need the ‘poet’ to come back and describe himself for you,” Bahorel chuckled.
“I do!” Courfeyrac declared, swinging as he clung to a post for balance, standing on one foot as the other swung out over the edge. Enjolras winced. “By the heavens I do! Oh that the poet would return to me! Oh that... that... damn I really should have listened when Combeferre was trying to teach me literature...”
“For my sanity I’m glad you didn’t,” Enjolras muttered. “And for god’s sake, get down from there before you get love sick and fall!”
And dear lords, Courfeyrac made a ‘squee’ing noise as he slid down a column.
“You realise this is only going to get worse when he meets the guy again,” Bahorel muttered, handing Enjolras the superglue. “Why the fuck possessed you to go and tell him where to find us? Just because you can’t bear to do anything but win an argument doesn’t mean you need to make space for more arguments, for fuck’s sake! What’re you trying to do, give the rest of us migraines?”
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Enjolras muttered, emptying the superglue on the back of the final, signed email. For a moment he entertained the idea that it was Grantaire’s face he was pouring superglue on, before questioning his sanity. Jesus, he’d never felt so furious at a person before! At an injustice, he’d often get angry, even violent, but to want to see someone with a black eye so badly... this was new. But what did it matter? “It’s not as if they’re actually going to show up.”
*
Feuilly was pacing back and forth in front of his car by the time Grantaire and Jehan finally returned, hot, bothered, and out of breath.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Feuilly yelled when he saw them coming, “How fucking long does it take to make your damned sign – Jesus Christ what the fuck’s wrong?”
“In the time we have been gone we climbed Mount Olympus,” Jehan sighed, leaning against the bonnet of the car and slithering down it so he was sat on the floor. “We have climbed to the heights of Olympus and met the gods...”
Completely stunned, and more than a bit scared Feuilly spun to Grantaire. “Say what now?”
But, it turned out, Grantaire wasn’t in much of a better state. Face covered with an expression of complete bemusement, he collapsed on the floor beside Jehan. “So much... passion, and, and fury and determination and jesus, that hair!”
“Gods of Justice and Truth...”
“He looked like Apollo, A-fucking-pollo, with, with his jaw, and his blonde hair, and his fucking passion-”
“I’truth, if he was Apollo then the other must have been Hermes, residing in the sky, perched upon a pedestal...”
“No seriously, Feuilly, that guy was literally high up, like, standing on the ledge of the second storey or some shit-”
“Courfeyrac...”
“But how could you look at him when fucking Apollo walks the fucking earth?”
And, to Feuilly’s horror, the two of them only went and sighed in unison.
Barely withstanding the barrage of Romantic imagery that was being (unfairly) thrown upon him, Feuilly just looked between his two tenants, and shook his head. “Dear gods,” he lamented. “I’m surrounded by homos.”
Grantaire and Jehan glared up at him, and he managed to glare back for all of five seconds before laughing. “Come on, you raging homosexuals you,” he said, proffering his hand and giving them both a tug to their feet. “Get in the damned car so I can get us all home, will you? You two can wax poetic when you’re safely locked away in your flat, and I’m home alone and can watch porn and feel like a real man.”
“Hey, I resent that!” Grantaire protested, stumbling around to the passenger door. “I’m a real man too! Bet I wank off to porn more than you do.”
“And that is a debate I really don’t think I want to take part in.”
Driving them back, Feuilly tried, desperately, to block out the muted whisperings of Grantaire and Jehan, neither of which seemed quite ready to stop dreaming about their Greek Gods just yet.
“We are going to this cafe he told you about, right?”
“What? What! No! No, no of course we’re not, I mean, that was all bluster, I’m not really going to... to... it’d just be... I mean... I... okay, yes, fine, fine, of course we’re going to the fucking cafe.”