Chapter Text
It was sunny on the way to the Luxembourg Gardens that day. The kind of sunny that lit the Pantheon’s roof and made the clustered rooftops of Paris gleam. The glow of spring that didn’t really belong so early in March, Jehan had mused, as he weaved between the milling couples and pouting children that had been forced outside to enjoy this novel early heat.
He’d started out that afternoon strolling, as all citizens of Paris do, but the text that had buzzed through moments ago as he had been starting along the Rue Cujas had caused him to turn abruptly and head back towards the Boulevard Saint-Michel; past the brasseries and cafes to that expanse of lawns tucked in the heart of Paris. A small pastoral oasis nestled amongst lazy urban sprawl.
Dashing over the busy road and through the gates; the tall trees hugging in on him, he wandered towards where the text had instructed him, hands in the pockets of his flower imprinted jeans as he gazed dreamily up at the tangled webs of branches where small buds were beginning to rise like raindrops.
“Prouvaire!”
His gaze darted back to the ground and the small smile that had been tugging at his lips blossomed into a toothy grin as he waved back to the cluster of people seated near the statue of the Greek actor; right where Courfeyrac had said they would be.
The statue was Courfeyrac’s favourite here in the gardens, Jehan remembered, as he began to hurry over. He could see why the graceful, handsome carving would appeal to the art history student, even if Courfeyrac most likely didn’t really take the time to take in all the small details of the spread toes and the intricate mask, and was perhaps a little more fixated on its rather well-formed torso. Grantaire had always mocked the statue, calling its facial features vacant and declaring his favourite was far better. Jehan had never asked him which one his favourite was.
The wrought iron bench by the statue was already occupied by two of Jehan’s friends; despite them sitting at opposite ends, a vast expanse of space between them as if they were strangers. Even if the dark haired boy at one end was shooting the unseeing politics student at the other lingering glances over a can of cheap beer.
Courfeyrac was spread out on the grass before them; his iPod by his side and pink headphones in his ears as he swayed his shoulders to inaudible music. Jehan had a feeling it was the Midnight in Paris soundtrack he’d downloaded after watching it with him yesterday, to which Courfeyrac had reviewed as ‘oh so beautiful, Jehan, why don’t we time travel more?’
By the art history student sat Feuilly, Joly, Bossuet and Combeferre; cross legged on the shaded grass beside piles of books and notepads. From the odd little squint Joly was sending up at the sky now and then, Jehan assumed they occupied the shade to avoid the possibility of the medical student acquiring sunstroke.
“There’s our little poet.” Courfeyrac smirked, yanking out one of his earphones to twirl it round his finger as Jehan sat down, “It seemed like too nice a day to have a study group in a café, so I suggested here.”
“Even if the coffee is a little further away here.” Combeferre noted from over one of his many hideous textbooks for his English and Economics course. Courfeyrac stuck his tongue out at him.
“Anyway, I thought you would appreciate the flowers that are reclaiming the gardens, Jehan.” He continued as if Combeferre hadn’t spoken, and paused a moment before adding with a less innocent grin, “And a lot of people are wearing shorts today. It would be a crime to not be out here to appreciate that.”
Jehan hoped he wasn’t blushing at the thought that Courfeyrac had summoned them all out here partly for his benefit, and decided to busy himself with digging a book of poetry from his rucksack along with his fountain pen, trying to hide his probably overzealous smile.
“Where are Bahorel and Marius?” He asked, more to turn his attention from the rather splendid way the gleams of sunlight falling through the high trees were tangling in Courfeyrac’s dark curls than actually caring for the exact whereabouts of the respective criminology and law students.
“Bahorel’s caught up in a lecture.” Feuilly answered before Courfeyrac could, almost to Jehan’s relief, looking up from the paper fan he had been folding instead of tackling the small mound of work laid out before him, “Or being started on in a back alley. I’m never quite sure which with him.”
“And Marius is still lost.” Combeferre added, double checking his phone. They heaved a collective sigh. The thing was, Marius got lost so often they’d unintentionally abandoned the initial impulse of sending him directions. It usually transpired he was only a few metres away, and just facing the wrong direction.
Jehan felt himself slip into a contented daydream as the group lapsed into a comfortable silence, looking through the rustling trees that were beginning to bloom into life, and across at the distant elegant form of the Pantheon visible rising above the railings of the garden’s walls.
He was half scrawling a few verses on the margins of his book when another person joined their group; thin and gangling beneath a lumpy jumper and corduroy trousers, and Jehan’s attention was diverted.
Marius had arrived; flushed and dishevelled as he crashed down on the grass beside Feuilly, who was now waving his paper fan in Joly’s direction as he complained about the heat.
“Sorry!” Marius exclaimed, “I came in from the other entrance and there are so many statues here I couldn’t find the actor one so I stopped to ask this old man and somehow I mentioned that I studied law and he started questioning me about what I thought about the new employment law or something and then I got confused so I ran away and-”
“The Sauvadet Law?”
It seemed in amongst Marius’s babbling the politics student, from his perch on the bench, had noted something of interest. Enjolras was now looking up from his book, his gaze piercing Marius in his intensely pensive way.
“I-” Marius trailed off, frowning as he pulled at the sleeves of his ugly jumper, as if he was wondering where on earth Enjolras’s comment had come from .
“I hope you told him that it will cause a generation of scientists to be lost, as it will take away any environment that would offer a secure guarantee of their futures.” Enjolras continued, still looking at Marius in that direct way of his as Marius looked increasingly uncomfortable.
“I’m sure that’s exactly what Marius told him, Enjolras.” Grantaire put in with an easy grin from the other end of the bench that put him slightly further away from their haphazard circle. He had started tapping his oil pastel covered fingers against his beer can, flicking his gaze to Enjolras every few moments as if to see if it was annoying him. The muscle flickering in the blonde’s jaw seemed to ascertain that it was.
“Are we heading out tonight?” Feuilly asked mildly, seeming to have noticed what Jehan had.
“Can we just go to the bar?” Marius was now trying to extricate himself from the jumper, and his voice was muffled as he tried to free his head from the monstrosity, “I’m a bit low on money this week.”
“Mmm.” Courfeyrac agreed, studying the slip of torso that Marius was revealing as his t-shirt stuck to his jumper. Jehan felt himself scowling slightly.
“I can’t go.” Grantaire announced loudly from his corner, “I have a deadline tomorrow. The art department has screwed me over.”
“You screw over the art department if you ask me with the amount of time you don’t spend in it.” Enjolras told him. There was a faint shuffling he didn’t notice as his friends on the ground below exchanged their not particularly secretive here-we-go-again look.
“There’s a lot of talk about screwing all of a sudden.” Courfeyrac said loudly as Grantaire opened his mouth to reply. Jehan suppressed a giggle. He was fairly sure some colour had started high on Enjolras’s cheeks. “But are you serious, R? You can’t come tonight?
“He’s never serious.” Enjolras said irritably, looking back to his book. Jehan thought he saw Grantaire’s smile waver slightly, but his beer can was brought up too quick to his lips for him to be sure.
“Nah, I’ll be there.” He said after draining the can, setting it down noisily in the space between him and Enjolras, who gritted his teeth.
Jehan felt himself worrying the ends of his jumper as he contemplated the seemingly unfathomable workings of Grantaire’s mind, and let his gaze fall onto Courfeyrac, who was busy plucking up the small, tentative clusters of daisies that had been growing over the past weeks. Fretting about Grantaire and his rocky link- if it could even be called that- with Enjolras was one thing, but this new thing, this new thing he felt stirring in his chest when he looked over at Courfeyrac, was quite another. It scared him, even here in this tentatively warm March sunshine; scared him in a way that he was unaccustomed to. He normally liked crushes; the way they flipped his heart and sparked scribbled verses on the nearest paper. But with someone who meant as much to him as a friend as Courfeyrac did…well it was another matter.
Jehan closed his eyes; letting the sun warm his face as he instead focused on the red beneath his eyelids and not on the interwoven dramas that seemed to be spreading out amongst their group.
His peaceful meditation was interrupted by a tinny rendition of Rihanna that began to pierce the calm air.
“Courfeyrac , if I have to hear that ringtone one more time I am going to ram your phone down your throat.” He heard Enjolras snap.
“I take it you do not feel we’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky?” He heard Courfeyrac enquire, not sounding at all apologetic, and no doubt sporting a toothy grin. He did however, mute the not so dulcet tones blaring from his mobile rather hastily.
Jehan opened his eyes in time to see Enjolras’s dark glare, that quickly established that, no, he did not identify with the song lyrics.
“I thought this was a study group meeting?” Combeferre said quietly, and his point was well made, even if he too had cast his book aside and was currently in the Burmese position.
“Well if anyone would care to test me on sexy Greek statues be my guest.” Courfeyrac commented smugly, digging a thumbnail into the stem of one of the claimed daisies and laboriously poking another through it. Jehan watched him with poorly disguised fascination.
Grantaire, for one reason or another, let out a very loud snort.
The study group didn’t last a particularly long time. What with Grantaire becoming increasingly rowdy, Enjolras increasingly irritated and Joly increasingly sunburnt, it wasn’t too long before they were all eventually clambering to their feet, damp from the grass the sun had been too slow to dry being brushed from their jeans, and bags being hauled back into hands.
It was as they were heading back to the path that Courfeyrac leaned over to Jehan. With gentle fingers he slotted the daisy chain in the poet’s hair.
* * *
The bar Marius had held preference over was one of their regular haunts.
It was one of those typical Parisian bars, tucked down a side alley you would only find if you were rather lost. Rather unsurprisingly, it had been Marius who had found it.
The neon lights that wound above the glass door, extinct in the day but glowing red at night, pronounced it to be the Café Musain, and Grantaire mainly liked it for the offer of shots of vodka at one euro each on Wednesday nights.
He’d been rather later than he had anticipated finishing off his damn art project; and in the end he’d been rushing; a shake in his hands that wasn’t born from holding a paintbrush for hours on end. He’d finally escaped onto the streets of Paris; hastening past the bars that already had customers spilling out onto the pavements with the dull throb of techno music beating with the flashing bar lights. The night was cold now; March having slipped back into winter, and he shivered in his thin jacket; wishing he’d remembered to eat before heading out and wondering if there was any way he could pull himself off his current course to buy some greasy chips or something else equally and wonderfully unhealthy that would make Enjolras shudder to watch him eat.
But he knew he wouldn’t; his mind too wired to head to anywhere but the bar and soak his lips on vodka, or tequila, or well…anything.
His head was reeling from the fresh air; his eyes heavy with a tiredness he liked to prolong as long as he could; because he hated sleeping of late. He’d always return back to the same dizzying dreams; walking alongside faceless people; driving himself mad for never seeing their eyes and waking up and staring at his grey, darkened ceiling and feeling that deep stab of loneliness, or despair, or whatever crippling feeling that was; that didn’t just touch his heart, but every centimetre of his body.
He now turned down a side street; one of the many he’d committed to vague and drunken memory, running his hands along the bollards; their cool metal soothing even to his cold skin.
The Musain was crowded when he finally reached it; bouncers at the door and a small queue that saw Grantaire shivering fully when he eventually was allowed into the warm depths of the bar; immediately revelling in the scent of alcohol and the pulse of music that would throb against his ears and forever be associated with drinking too much.
It didn’t take a second to pick out Enjolras; tall and lofty as ever as the bar lights caused his curling hair to gleam like a halo. Grantaire tried to avoid musings like that, particularly…well…perhaps he didn’t. In fact, he definitely didn’t. When he stopped to think about it, most of his thoughts seemed to be musings on Enjolras.
“Bastard.” He muttered, and knew he didn’t mean it at all. He then made the abrupt decision to head to the bar before joining Enjolras and the others. His friends, he should say.
Courfeyrac, seeming to have a sixth sense for new arrivals in bars, saw him before anyone else as he headed over, second drink already in hand. Grantaire ignored the slightly wide-eyed look he received from Joly and simply assumed the fact that he’d forgotten to brush his hair for a while was starting to become obvious.
“Hello Grantaire,” Beamed Jehan, stirring a mojito with a colourful straw, “Did you know there’s paint all over your face?”
Enjolras looked over at this and Grantaire could have happily throttled the little poet there and then.
“No I didn’t know. Thanks Jehan.”
Jehan, despite having the decency to actually point it out, blushed all the same.
“So were you actually painting onto a surface?” Courfeyrac asked him, as Grantaire inconspicuously ran a hand along his jaw, “Or did you just like…bathe in acrylics?”
Joly whimpered at the prospect.
Grantaire felt his normally outwardly pleasant mood returning once he’d found the bottom of his glass, and after a quick trip to the bathrooms to see to the paint on his face (which turned out to be matted in his hair too, which he left after copious amounts of tap water and swearing at his reflection) he was happy to sing loudly along to the music with Bossuet and help shove Courfeyrac in the direction of people he hadn’t flirted with yet. For some reason Jehan became fixated on his mojito whenever this happened.
The pair of arms that wrapped around Grantaire’s neck threw him off slightly as he went to head over to the bar for a refill.
“You going to buy me a drink, babe?”
The mocking voice was all too familiar, and Grantaire felt a fond smile wriggle onto his lips as he turned to face Eponine, her eyebrows tilted with the twisted grin she was wearing.
“Depends which one of us is feeling the most sorry for ourselves tonight.” He replied, digging money out his pocket all the same.
“It’s always a fifty fifty with us, honey.” She agreed, looping her arm through his and dragging him towards the bar, “Although I did skip my lecture today to help Marius find his house keys.”
“You win for now.” Grantaire noted.
Caught up as he was, talking animatedly with Eponine as they leant against the glossy bar, he didn’t notice Enjolras until he bumped shoulders with him. And then the resulting thrill down his arm was enough to rival any shot of alcohol. Hell, more than enough.
“Tequila?” He asked the stupidly beautiful man, partly from nothing else to say and partly because he was still in shock and that was the first word he could find. His arm had goosebumps.
“No.” Was Enjolras’s stiff reply.
“Come on, Apollo.” Grantaire wheedled, a toothy grin blossoming over his face as he saw a flush appear on Enjolras’s cheeks; a flush that always flowed over his cheekbones when he was growing irate, “Some student you are. You look like you want to pick a fight with everyone in here. Have a tequila or two and you’ll feel much better.”
“Is that your mentality?” Enjolras shot at him, folding his arms. Grantaire tried very hard not to look at the slanting curves of his arm muscles, stretching the fabric of his shirt. He really did try very hard not to look.
“Naturally.” He said, reassuming the grin that had slid slightly from his face, “It’s a universally accepted truth.”
“I don’t think I understand your mind-set, Grantaire.”
“If you would deem to stoop to it, you mean.” Grantaire muttered. Enjolras didn’t hear.
Still, he remained by Grantaire until the tequila came, and squinting through bitter lime and salt, Grantaire finally saw him re-join Combeferre and Feuilly and tried to ignore the deep plunge of discontent in his chest that he seemed to feel whenever he interacted with Enjolras. That afternoon in the park had been no different, and he’d tried not to dwell on it as he’d headed to the university campus afterwards. But it was like with everything he tried to do. Impossible.
Three tequilas later and Marius arrived, folding something that looked suspiciously like a map into his jeans and still clad in the terrible jumper he had worn earlier. It made Grantaire’s eyes hurt just looking at it, and he was someone used to looking at bad clothing choices. Just look at Jehan.
But the jumper didn’t seem to deter Eponine, who promptly vanished from his side, leaving him to brood into a glass beer bottle by himself until he pulled himself together and headed over to Bahorel, Joly and Jehan.
The night passed tolerably well after he’d lost count of exactly how much he’d had to drink and that tolerable buzz that came with the music and the alcohol had firmly established itself in his mind and limbs. The buzz made his voice grow louder though, straining to hear himself speak, and it made him grow stupid, pushing Enjolras to the point of snapping whenever he came within earshot, just because he could. Because that buzz made him daring.
In the end the plastered wall outside the bar was the only thing keeping him upright as he clung onto Jehan’s shoulder, humming Rihanna under his breath and realizing he must be a lot drunker than he thought.
“Help.” Jehan’s voice squeaked.
“You take him home,” Combeferre’s voice said, addressing someone out of Grantaire’s reeling eye range as he stared at the swaying pavement and tried to remember the rest of the lyrics. “I’m already taking Feuilly, Joly and Bossuet and the others aren’t coming yet.”
There was a brief, cloudy moment before hands pulled Grantaire forwards and he groaned in protest.
“Come on.” A voice said sharply. He froze at that and the pieces of conversation clicked together. Enjolras’s voice. Enjolras was taking him home.
“Do I have a rescuer?” He grinned, the darkness momentarily confusing him until he was shoved down into a car seat; the slam of the car door resounding through his head as he blinked in the sight of Enjolras’s Vauxhall Adam; all clean and fresh smelling. His exact opposite right now, he reckoned.
The driver’s side door opened and Enjolras slid into the seat, not looking at him as pulled his door shut and started the engine. From the angle of his jaw, he was angry. Nothing new there, then.
“I could have walked you know.” Grantaire finally said, moving his fingers absently over the pane of the window; not looking at the apartments and bars of Paris beginning to blur past as they pulled out of the side street and onto one of the many winding roads, but instead at the striking features of the man driving, drinking in his silhouette, the flicks of his curling hair, the tensed knuckles of his hand; drinking them in deeper and more devoutly than any spirit or shot.
Enjolras snorted.
“We tried that last time and found you down an alleyway at five in the morning.” He said, his voice terse.
“I was resting. It’s a long walk back to my place.”
“No, it’s not.”
Grantaire smiled at Enjolras’s frustrated tone, silently revelling in the way it was reserved just for him, angry words that were his and his alone. What did he care for praise from Enjolras when he gave it to others? This here, this was unique, and alongside the flickers of his agony, it gave him a flicker of twisted content.
“What were you thinking drinking so much anyway?” Enjolras snapped as he veered onto the Quai Voltaire, the Louvre just hidden past his shoulder on the other side of the Seine. “This is why you complain you can’t afford oil paint.”
“No, it’s why I complain I can’t afford central heating.” Grantaire corrected him, drumming his fingers against the window, and trying to ignore the queasy feeling tugging at his stomach.
“Please say you’re joking.”
“I’m never serious, remember?” Grantaire said with a twisted smile, bitterness seeping into his tones however much he tried to mask it. He felt Enjolras’s eyes on him, but he doubted very much he remembered his comment in the Luxembourg earlier that day. Enjolras didn’t remember things like that.
When he looked at Enjolras again his eyes were back on the road.
Grantaire slouched backwards in his seat, his arms folded petulantly, turning away from the boy who seemed to burn like the sun and instead forcing his eyes to his window; the streetlamps flashing past nowhere near as bright as Enjolras.
The dull rhythm of tyres turning on wet road and the cadenced thrum of windscreen wipers was all that filled the car for the next five minutes; the lack of any other reverberation pressing down on Grantaire as he shifted in his seat, wishing he wasn’t him, wishing a thousand things and above all wishing Enjolras would speak, and perhaps for once not with that dimly disgusted expression that would stab always a little bit further into his far too abused heart.
The queasy feeling that he had been successfully keeping at bay began to turn his stomach as they passed Pont Neuf, the cold window he’d been resting his head against doing nothing to deter it no matter how hard he tried to distract himself.
“Shit.” He moaned, “Stop the car.”
“Why?” Enjolras asked sharply, and Grantaire mentally cursed him.
By way of answer, he leaned forwards and started retching.
He lost most of what Enjolras was muttering under his breath as he pulled harshly over, car horns reverberating through the air, but as Grantaire clambered out he definitely caught the words ‘my upholstery’ and ‘drunkards.’
Spewing his guts up on the pavement made him feel both worse and better. The waters of the Seine glowed through his streaming eyes; yellow and black and red; the lights of the city flowing in that river. The familiar sounds of Paris soothed him slightly; the sounds of passing traffic and distant pounding of music, despite the overlay of the open car door beeping. The cold night air soothed his tired skin as he worked a hand through his paint-stained curls, and he turned back to the car; hating himself for doing this now, and unmanageably revelling at the drawn out length of time he was circling his sun.
Enjolras hadn’t moved from his seat, his hands resting on the wheel as he looked at Grantaire with an odd mixture of mild pity and strong disgust. That look that hurt and that look he would crave if it was gone forever. Because he’d rather have disgust than nothing.
“I feel much better now.” He announced in a cheerful voice once he’d climbed back into his seat, strapping himself in and turning to Enjolras with an overzealous grin. “You’ve missed the turning for my place, by the way.”
“You’re staying on my sofa if you don’t have heating at your place.” Was all Enjolras said as he pulled off the curb. The words weren’t spoken kindly, or lightly; but perhaps there wasn’t quite as much sharpness as usual in his tone. And it took Grantaire so completely aback he felt as though he had just been plunged headfirst into a vast, freezing ocean; his heart beating out such a ridiculously fast rhythm in his chest he wasn’t sure if he needed to be sick again. Enjolras didn’t try to fill the silence that had suddenly mapped out between them, and Grantaire wondered if he had any idea that effect his words had held. Probably not.
In the end, he recovered in the only way he could. By being a thorn in Enjolras’s side.
“Ah radio, great.” He grinned, leaning over to thumb the controls so that a sudden blare of techno filled the car.
“Turn it off.” Enjolras said instantly, and unless Grantaire was still a little drunk on alcohol and surprise, he was sure he caught relief in Enjolras’s tones, mingled with the usual waspishness.
“How am I supposed to stay up-to-date with all these morbid current affairs if you won’t let me listen to the radio?”
“This isn’t current affairs, Grantaire. It’s Chérie FM.”
“You were hoping for a more classical station, I suppose?” Grantaire persisted, still leaning forwards to ram the ‘next’ button, his head almost knocking into Enjolras’s elbow,
“Just leave it alone.”
“But now it’s on Romantic FM.” Grantaire said with his best impression of a whine, flopping back in his seat and ignoring the way his stomach still pulled uncomfortably at the rapid motion. “And that’s no good. Unless you’re trying to seduce me?”
He wish he could say exactly where this streak of insurgence was hurtling from; words spilling from him like a burst river as he clutched at anything that would make Enjolras tighten his grip on the steering wheel all the further, his knuckles whitened with ill-suppressed exasperation.
When Enjolras flicked him an irritated glance, Grantaire met his gaze grinning and, throwing any reservations and attempts at self-preservation out of the window, he trailed a suggestive finger up along his paint-stained jeans.
The car lurched to a stop, which didn’t do a hell of a lot for his queasiness.
The engine cut and the silence that fell on the two students fell heavier than a dumbbell.
“We’re here.” Enjolras’s voice was tight, his jaw gritted and his movements stiff. Grantaire found that his heart was thudding in his chest; thudding so much he was sure his entire body was moving with it and as Enjolras stepped out the car he ran a hand over his face; letting out a shaky breath that he wasn’t sure was entirely down to sickness.
He got out the car with weak legs, the night having caught up with him, if he had really escaped it in the first place. The pangs of hunger were still there in his stomach, but the cold of the night seemed to be radiating away from him right now; his skin warm to the point of feverish as he followed Enjolras into his apartment building, only pausing to look back at the car.
Which was almost diagonal and at least a metre from the curb.
“That was some atrocious parking.” Grantaire noted. Enjolras ignored him.
They took the stairs, which Grantaire thought was possibly a form of punishment for him having nearly thrown up in Enjolras’s car, but he followed obediently; a dust stream following its comet up those cold staircases with black iron banisters.
Enjolras’s apartment was on the fifth floor. Grantaire had only been in there once, but he’d filed its image away; a clear thought in his hazy memory, and when Enjolras pushed open the door and flicked on the light, he found it very much the same.
Essentially Parisian; whitewashed with windows that looked out over the city, to where the Eiffel Tower was flashing in the middle ground. Totally devoid of character, except where Jehan had helpfully added a few photo frames and vases and rugs; it seemed the only part of his apartment that Enjolras focused on was the ridiculously expansive bookcase that really did look very threatening with huge bound volumes on subjects Grantaire had absolutely no interest in.
He loved it though, the whole apartment, because here was where Enjolras lived, where he would step barefoot in mornings and where he closed his eyes and rested. Stupid little things Grantaire had never seen him do that made Enjolras so unequivocally human he felt foolish for considering that of course, never weary Enjolras must indeed get weary.
“The sofa’s over there.” Enjolras said curtly, shutting the door behind Grantaire and gesturing towards where the open plan kitchen met the living room, “I’ll get you a blanket.”
Grantaire watched him head off towards a door that must lead to his bedroom and, oh god, it took every ounce of his willpower to wrench his eyes away and try and focus on the Eiffel Tower; its lights glittering over Paris.
“What the hell kind of student can see the Eiffel Tower from their apartment?” He muttered to himself, traipsing through the living room with moonlight glinting on kitchen utensils and the softly humming fridge.
He’d gone to the bathroom and worked some of Enjolras’s toothpaste round his abused mouth by the time his host returned with a blanket slung over his shoulder. It had made Grantaire jump to see Enjolras reflected in the bathroom mirror as he’d stood in the doorway. He’d been examining the line of products on the shelf, and trying very hard to push the image of Enjolras using them in the morning from his mind. An Enjolras fresh from the shower, a towel slung on his hips and tiredness still in his eyes; slick wet curls dripping down his arching neck.
“Here.” The blanket was held out to him, and he hoped he didn’t look as flustered as he felt as he accepted it.
And then Enjolras turned away and that grating feeling of unsure regret and sorrow sunk against him as he followed him out of the bathroom, and then was unceremoniously split as Enjolras headed to his room without another word, and Grantaire to the clean little sofa pushed up against the back of a kitchen counter, after he’d watched Enjolras’s door close and he’d hit out the lights.
“Goodnight, Apollo.” He murmured to the night air.
The thing about cities that Grantaire loved, he reflected, as he absentmindedly traced his fingers over the patterns on the blanket that still somehow felt warm from Enjolras’s touch, was how they were never quiet. One of the windows was ajar, and the steady stream of ever flowing traffic drifted up to his ears. Somewhere, a plane was flying low, and the fridge hummed and the TV set crackled now and then. And his heart beat loud in his ears as he stared with open eyes at Enjolras’s apartment, both exhausted and not wanting to sleep at all. Because he wanted to remember this forever, to feel this blanket over him forever and to not miss a single moment he spent in this segment of Enjolras’s private little world, characterless yet at the same time undoubtedly his.
But in the end, he fell asleep anyway.
And the nightmares were still there, waiting for him.