Chapter Text
“Fuck!”
Jehan looks up, alarmed, at the noise. He glances around once, quickly, making sure the floor is empty of customers, before finding the source of the swearing.
It is, unsurprisingly, Grantaire.
“What’s with the swearing?” Jehan asks, curiously. Grantaire turns around, and the look on his face is enough to cause Jehan to start laughing. He looks pathetic.
“I spilt my coffee, and…” Grantaire trails off, gesturing to the spreading stain in his shirt.
“Hm. I’ve heard that brown and green go together, you know,” Jehan says, and Grantaire glares at him.
“Do we have any spare in stock, so I don’t have to buy one?” Grantaire asks, scowling at his shirt.
“White, or there’s ivory,” Jehan suggests, and Grantaire looks horrified.
“Fuck that, I’ll look like a waiter,” he says, nose wrinkling.
“There’s floral?” Jehan offers.
“Won’t we clash?” Grantaire says, sarcasm lacing his voice.
“Clashing is what’s fashionable,” Jehan says, ignoring his tone. Grantaire groans, running a hand through his hair, before nodding.
“Fuck it. Okay, the floral print then,” He says, scowling, “I’m not wearing goddamn ivory or white, I’ll look like I belong upstairs.”
Jehan laughs, and disappears to stock, finding a spare shirt in Grantaire’s size. When he returns, Grantaire’s waistcoat is off, laying across the counter, and Grantaire is looking slightly uncomfortable.
“What is it?” Jehan asks, tilting his head as he holds out the shirt.
“I don’t,” Grantaire stops, the tries again, “I should go into the fitting rooms.”
“No one is down here,” Jehan says gently, smiling softly at Grantaire. “It’s okay.”
Grantaire’s face twists as he follows his own internal dialogue, before he sighs and unbuttons his own shirt half way, followed by the sleeves. He grabs the collar with both hands and yanks up. Jehan almost cringes at this, and he’s secretly glad that Grantaire decided to stop wearing a suit and tie to work. Grantaire treats the things around him almost reverently, but anything of his own he has a complete disregard for, as if their value is an extension of his own.
Jehan raises his eyebrows, making a quiet noise in his throat.
“Yeah, I know. I’m not really much to look at,” Grantaire says, sneers, looking down at his stomach. He’s not fit, not by conventional standards, though how he looks to Jehan and how he looks to himself are obviously different. He inhales deeply, pulling his stomach muscles in and scowling.
“Stop that,” Jehan scolds, before stepping forward. “That was not what I was looking at.”
He reaches out, slowly enough for Grantaire to move away if he wanted, before curling his hands around Grantaire’s wrists and turning his arms over.
“Oh,” Grantaire says, quietly. Jehan’s fingers trace over the black lines and dots that dominate his left arm, criss-crossing over each other before ending at his shoulder. The pattern is elaborate and intricate, the result of several long hours spent in the chair.
“Did it hurt?” Jehan asks, curiously.
“They drag a needle over your flesh,” Grantaire replies, sardonically. Jehan looks up and glares.
“Don’t sass me, I can end you.” He says, smiling.
“…you’re terrifying sometimes, Prouvaire,” Grantaire laughs, dropping his arm as Jehan releases his wrist. He shakes it out, and takes the new shirt, thumb brushing over the collar gently. Something that is not his.
Jehan moves to his right forearm, and studies the roses, tattooed to look like watercolour on his skin. They burst in blooms, escaping from the lines, bleeding out deliberately. He doesn’t once look at Grantaire’s body.
“You’re beautiful,” Jehan says.
Not them, not your tattoos, you.
Grantaire flushes pink, and pulls on the new shirt, fingers flying as he buttons it, and he doesn’t look back up until his waistcoat is back in place. Jehan can tell he’s uncomfortable.
But he spends the rest of the day smiling in a way Jehan hasn’t seen before.