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Enjolras knocked on Grantaire’s dorm room door, already impatient at the dark-haired man because he was supposed to have brought the flyers to last night’s meeting, but of course had forgotten to do so. Which was why Enjolras now stood at his front door, irritation creeping up his spine as he waited for him to come answer the door.
After a few moments of waiting, he knocked again and called, “Grantaire?” When he still received no answer, he checked to see if the door was unlocked and poked his head into the room, his second call of “Grantaire?” dying on his lips.
He had thought he heard guitar music coming from Grantaire’s bedroom, which didn’t quite make sense because Grantaire didn’t play guitar. Grantaire could play piano decently well and did so occasionally on the clunky upright in the corner of the back room of the Musain, and if he remembered from their conversations, had played saxophone back in high school, but he had never once said anything about playing guitar.
Still, the sight before him didn’t lie. Grantaire sat on his bed, facing away from Enjolras, lost in his own world as his long, talented fingers strummed out notes and chords, and Enjolras, against his better judgment, lingered in the doorway, listening to Grantaire play.
And then, to his immense surprise, Grantaire began to sing, softly, to himself, in a voice was clear and…there was really no other word for it than beautiful, and Enjolras felt as if his heart had completely stopped beating as Grantaire sang softly.
“And I’d give up forever to touch you
‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t want to go home right now”
Enjolras felt like he couldn’t breathe, like his lungs had stopped working, which was absolutely absurd, not to mention physically impossible, but still, he felt frozen in place, Grantaire’s voice and those words wrapping around him.
“And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
When sooner or later it’s over
I just don’t want to miss you tonight”
Enjolras valued truth above most things, was never one to sugarcoat or beat around the bush, was never one to lie. But he thought of just a few weeks ago in the Musain, after the meeting, when Courfeyrac had jokingly accused Enjolras of being in love with Grantaire, and Enjolras had heatedly denied it.
Here, in this moment, listening to Grantaire sing, it felt a lot like a lie.
“And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am.”
Grantaire stopped playing suddenly, frowning down at his guitar. “That was out of tune,” he muttered to himself, fiddling with machine heads. Then he froze, having caught sight of Enjolras out of the corner of his eye, and swiveled slowly to stare at him, something like guilt and accusation etching itself across his face.
“Um, hi,” Enjolras said – squeaked, more like – completely mortified at having been caught. “Um, I just came to…to pick up those flyers.”
Grantaire was still staring at him. “They’re on my desk,” he told Enjolras, sounding almost angry. “Were you listening to me play?”
Enjolras blushed. “I, uh…not on purpose, I swear. I just…I didn’t want to interrupt you.” He crossed to Grantaire’s desk, gathering the fliers together, and with his back turned to Grantaire, he said, almost accusingly, forcing his mouth and vocal chords to cooperate and work, “I didn’t know you could play guitar.”
Grantaire snorted, setting his guitar down and propping it against his bed. “I’m sure there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Apollo.”
“That’s not true,” said Enjolras instantly, wheeling around to face him.
Raising an eyebrow, Grantaire asked coolly, “Really? So if I asked you what my favorite color was, you’d say…”
Enjolras didn’t even have to think about it. “Green.”
Grantaire’s brow furrowed slightly. “Fine. That’s easy though. I wear green almost as often as you wear red. When’s my birthday?”
“June 17th. I won’t say the year to spare you from the reminder that you’re older than me.”
The look on Grantaire’s face was equal parts scowl and something completely indefinable. “Very well, if you think you’re so smart, what else do you know about me?”
Enjolras looked at him, really looked at him, from the defiant set of his shoulders to the defensive way that his arms were crossed in front of his chest as if trying to physically hold himself together. He saw the look in Grantaire’s eyes, the hope mingled with fear mingled with longing, the look that he wondered if Grantaire saw reflected in Enjolras’s own gaze. So he took a deep breath and said quietly, “I know you have an older sister. I know that you have your father’s eyes and that you hate that fact because you don’t want any part of him, let alone a part that’s so prevalent. But your eyes are part of who you are, and as a whole, that’s something that your dad couldn’t destroy, so you shouldn’t despise them as much as you do. I know that you say your favorite drink is whiskey but when given a choice, you’d probably pick Mountain Dew. I know that you sometimes go to the movies by yourself, just because. I know that you love arguing for the sake of arguing, no matter how much it pisses me off sometimes. I know that you’re the smartest man I’ve ever met, the only one who can match me, could maybe even beat me in an argument.”
He paused, eyes searching Grantaire’s, and added, softly, “And I know that you hate yourself, sometimes. Some days more than others. But what I don’t know, what I’ve always wondered, is why.”
With that said, he grabbed the stack of flyers from Grantaire’s desk, his ears turning red. “Anyway,” he said quickly, “this is what I came for, so I’ll just—”
“How do you know all that?” Grantaire asked softly, interrupting him.
Enjolras didn’t meet his eyes. “You’re my friend. I know those kinds of things about my friends.”
Grantaire’s smile turned wry. “Oh really? When’s Joly’s birthday?”
Blinking at him, Enjolras hazarded, “Um. The twelfth?”
“Of what month?”
Enjolras scowled. “That’s not the point,” he said, quickly, trying to hide the fact that he had no idea. “You know when my birthday is.”
“Of course I do,” said Grantaire, not even bothering to deny it. “I know just about everything there is to know about you. I’ve been trying to memorize you for years. But that has nothing to do with why you know so much about me.”
“I just do, alright?” Enjolras said, almost angrily, edging toward the door.
Grantaire frowned. “No, Enj, no. It’s not alright. You know why? Because I remember driving you home from that night at Courf’s when we were in high school, when he and Jehan first got together. And I remember you sitting in the front seat of my car, scowling, and swearing that you’d never fall in love because it was stupid, it made people act stupid and you had more important things on your mind, more important things to do. And I remember hoping and praying that you were wrong, that you would fall in love. That you’d fall in love with me. And the only explanation I can think of for why you’d know any of that about me, why, instead of facts about genocide and human trafficking, about voting fraud and whatever the fuck else it is you’re studying at the moment, you would devote any of your memory to me, is because maybe you were wrong. Just a little.”
“I wasn’t,” Enjolras said, licking his lips, hoping it didn’t show that he was lying. When Grantaire’s expression didn’t change, Enjolras flushed and looked away. “Well, what, was that song supposed to be about me or something?”
Grantaire laughed, even though nothing was particularly funny. “Of course it was. Every song I’ve ever sung has probably been about you. Or so it seems anyway, which is I guess something you didn’t know about me.”
“Oh,” said Enjolras, in a small voice. He bit his lip, feeling more indecisive than he ever had in his life. Then, in an even quieter voice, he said, “Well, I guess I lied.”
Grantaire went very still. “Can you repeat that?”
Enjolras blushed and looked down. “I guess I lied,” he said, louder. “I guess that’s what I’ve been doing ever since I told you that in your car. I’ve been lying.”
Standing, striding over to where Enjolras stood, Grantaire grabbed the fliers from Enjolras’s hands and tossed them on the floor, not even noticing that they scattered everywhere. Then he took Enjolras’s hands in both of his. “If someone were to ask you, point blank, if you had feelings for me, if you liked me, hell, if you loved me, what would you say?”
Enjolras looked Grantaire in the eyes and whispered, “I’d say no. I’d say that I have more important things to think about than love, that achieving justice across the world was more important than any of these feelings. I’d say that I was incapable of feeling anything like that for anyone, let alone for you.”
Grantaire’s grip on Enjolras’s hands loosened, and hurt flashed across his face until Enjolras squeezed his hands and added in a low voice, “Grantaire, if someone were to ask me right now if I loved you…I’d lie.”
Hope flared in Grantaire’s eyes, and after a long moment, he asked, his voice so quiet that Enjolras almost couldn’t hear it, “What if I were to ask you?”
In lieu of an answer, Enjolras leaned in and kissed him. In a way, it was an answer in and of itself, and it was an answer that couldn’t – and didn’t – lie.