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I.
A man walks into a café. It’s raining hard outside and he feels frozen to the bone. He slings his thin denim jacket over a vacant chair at the last empty table, orders a coffee and then pulls a battered paperback out of his bag. His bookmark is in the wrong place when he opens the book and he frowns, flicks back twenty or so pages and then resumes reading.
He doesn’t look up when the bell chimes above the door, doesn’t notice someone else come in and order a coffee. He’s too busy staring down at the page in front of him. Someone has drawn a line under a paragraph in the text, jotted down a note next to it in a neat cursive that looks strangely like his own. Huh, he thinks. That’s what you get for buying books second hand.
“One flew east, one flew west,” says a voice beside him, sing-songing the nursery-rhyme phrase from the start of the novel. It makes Enjolras startle, which jolts the table and leaves his mug rattling loudly against the china saucepan beneath it. When he looks up, he sees a tall man with messy brown hair grinning down at him from under a red beanie hat. “Ken Kesey is awesome, right? That guy has really got the right idea.”
Enjolras shrugs. “I wouldn’t know,” he says. “This is the first novel of his I’ve read and,” he holds up the book, showing the man how little of it he’s got through, “I’m only just getting started on it.”
“Oh,” the guy says. “I suppose I should leave you to it, then.”
The door chimes closed behind him.
II.
A man walks into a café. The sky is grey and overcast today, but it’s not too cold outside. He’s glad it isn’t raining. He slings his denim jacket over a vacant chair at an empty table, orders a coffee and then pulls a battered paperback out of his bag. His bookmark is in the wrong place. He frowns, flicks back twenty odd pages and then resumes reading.
There’s something written in the margins in a neat, cursive type that’s strangely similar to his own. The lines next to it have been underlined in pencil, reading: “It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”
That’s what you get for buying second hand books, he guesses.
Enjolras wonders absently what those lines meant to the person who underlined them. He’s still thinking about it when the door swings open, setting the bell off with its chiming. He watches as a tall man with messy brown hair and an art-folder clumsily pushes his way through the door. The man is all limbs, all gangly elegance and big smiles for the barista behind the counter. He asks for “the usual, please” and drops a tip into the tip-jar before taking his cardboard cup. Enjolras wonders if he’s ever seen this guy before.
Then the guy looks right at him, a strange gleam of recognition in his eyes. “Hey, it’s you again! The Ken Kesey guy!” he says. “How are you finding the book?”
“Huh?” says Enjolras, blinking at him dumbly before he realizes that Ken Kesey wrote the book he’s got in his hand. “Oh, right. You mean this.” He waves the book in the guy’s direction, hoping to god he hasn’t misinterpreted this. From the look of confusion on the man’s face, he must have. “It’s good so far, I guess. I only started it last night, though.”
“Oh,” the guy says a little flatly, like Enjolras just snubbed him something awful. “Right, okay. Well, have fun with that.”
The door chimes closed behind him.
III.
A man walks into a café. It’s drizzling outside, with wet splatters of rain trailing lines like tear tracks down the glass windows. He’s cold, but he remembers being colder recently. Shrugging his thin denim jacket off, he sets it down at his usual table and takes a seat. A moment later he gets up and orders a coffee. Pulls out the battered paperback he slipped into his bag from his nightstand this morning. He only started it last night.
The bookmark is in the wrong place. Frowning, he flips back a few chapters so he can pick up where he left off. There’s something scrawled in the margin there in a neat script almost identical to his own. He bends his head closer to the book so he can read what the annotation says but it’s small and the pen marks seem to have smudged together.
“Okay, what the hell is your deal?” someone says suddenly, dropping down into the chair opposite him. “You’re here every morning reading the same goddamn page of the same goddamn book every time I see you. The exact same page! I swear to God, either you are the slowest reader ever or you’re a broken record or something awful like that.”
Enjolras startles. It sends his mug rattling against the china saucepan beneath it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says honestly. “You must have me confused with someone else.”
“No.” The guy shakes his head. “We talked yesterday, Ken Kesey, and the day before too.”
“My name isn’t Ken Kesey,” Enjolras says slowly. “It’s Enjolras.”
The guy sighs. “Right, sure. Whatever.”
He pushes his chair back, picks up his cardboard coffee cup from the table and leaves. The door chimes closed behind him.
IV.
A man walks into a café. It’s cold today but the sky is clear and cloudless. He shrugs his thin denim jacket off as he steps inside, slings it over the back of the nearest chair and orders a fresh fruit smoothie. Usually he orders coffee when he goes to cafés, but today he’s in the mood for a bit of variety. It feels like he’s been drinking coffee every day for months, though he can’t remember the last time he ordered one.
Once settled at the table, Enjolras pulls a battered paperback out of his bag. He opens it at the bookmark, which seems oddly displaced, then closes it again. Maybe he’s not in the mood for reading today. The weather is too nice for him to concentrate properly and, for some reason, he’s certain that this is the kind of book that requires a lot of attention.
The bell on top of the door chimes and Enjolras looks up on reflex. He watches as a man with long limbs and wild, curly hair steps through it. He’s got a sketchbook tucked in the crook of his elbow and a copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest clutched in the palm of his hand. He’s all smiles and sunshine for the barista as he orders a frothy cappuccino and caramel combination. While the barista is fixing it for him he turns, catches Enjolras staring and shoots him a wink.
Enjolras can feel himself blushing. His face is nearly as red as the berry crush smoothie he’s drinking. It’s making the guy at the counter smile to see how flustered he is. Maybe if his smile weren’t so nice and his cheeks weren’t so dimpled, Enjolras would try harder to look away.
“Hey, so, you’re reading this book too?” the guy says, dropping into the chair opposite Enjolras once he’s got his coffee. He runs his finger down the spine, smiling when he gets to parts where it’s broken. “Looks like a pretty well-loved edition. You read it before?”
“No, I haven’t,” says Enjolras, forcing himself not too stare too obviously into this man’s big blue eyes. “I got it at a second hand store down the street. I just started it last night. Is it your first time reading it, too?”
“Oh no,” says the guy, shaking his head. “I’m just rereading. It’s one of my favourites.”
Up close, Enjolras can see he has a scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He finds himself nodding along to what the guy just said, though he’s not exactly sure why. “I don’t usually read fiction,” he says.
“Let me guess,” the man returns. “You read philosophy books in a deep and pretentious manner then proceed to overthink everything about the world ever.”
Enjolras laughs and shakes his head. “Sometimes,” he says. “I like to be more grounded in reality than all that, though. I read political theory more often than anything.”
“Ah. So you’re one of those types,” the man says.
It’s a long time before the door chimes closed behind either of them.
V.
A man walks into a café. The weather is mild enough that he shrugs his thin denim jacket off as soon as he’s through the door, setting it down on top of one of the vacant tables. He orders a coffee and a large blueberry muffin. He’s in the mood to treat himself today. When he gets back to his table, there’s someone sitting there. They’re thumbing through the copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that he put in his bag this morning.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demands, his good mood fading away in seconds flat. “Has no-one ever told you that it’s rude to go through people’s bags? Especially when you don’t know the person whose bag it is you’re going through. How would you like it if a stranger went through your stuff?” He pauses here, for effect. “Exactly! You fucking wouldn’t. Now take the fucking hint and put the book down already. Hell, you’ve even made me lose my page.”
The guy looks startled at the force of Enjolras’ rant, but he doesn’t put the book down. “Enjolras,” he says instead, soft like he’s trying to soothe him. “Can you calm down and talk to me for a second?”
Enjolras freezes. “How the fuck do you know my name?” he demands. “I don’t even know you. Did you take my wallet and look at my ID cards or something?”
“No, I’m just—” Grantaire starts. “Enjolras, come on. You’ve got to remember. We were talking here yesterday. We talked for hours, right here at this table. We talked about this goddamn book until it was dark outside. You were pissed off that I spoiled the end for you, remember?”
“No. I don’t remember that and I don’t remember you,” says Enjolras. “Now get the hell away from me before I report you to the police.”
He doesn’t know why, but he’s almost disappointed when the man gets up and goes. The door chimes closed behind him. Enjolras wants to laugh at how hollow and pointless his lie was, but disappointment is throbbing through his veins. The man had seemed so sure that they had talked yesterday. For a moment, Enjolras had wanted to believe it. But if they had talked, Enjolras would have remembered. And if he didn’t, then at least the guy would have known that his’ threat to call the police wasn’t genuine. If there’s one thing everyone picks up on after hours of talking to Enjolras, it’s that he fucking hates the police.
It’s not until he’s leaving the café that he realizes the man took his book.
VI.
A man walks into a café. He keeps his thin denim jacket on, though it’s warmer outside than usual, as he goes to the counter to order a coffee. The barista gives him a strange look from behind his glasses, asks him if there was something the matter between him and his boyfriend yesterday. Enjolras blinks back at him. “I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “You must have me confused with someone else. I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
He takes his coffee and sits down at a vacant table. It’s too hot to drink just yet, scalding at his tongue. Enjolras sighs, picks his bag up from the floor and rummages through it in search of the battered paperback he bought from the second hand bookshop yesterday. He’ll read it while he waits for his coffee to cool. It doesn’t seem to be in his bag, though, which is strange. He could have sworn he put it in there before he went to bed last night. Maybe he left it on the nightstand, he thinks. He hates when this happens.
“Looking for something?” someone says, dropping into the seat opposite him. The sound of their voice startles him and he jolts forwards, jarring the table. It sets his mug rattling in its saucer, a “clack-clack-clack” of china against china. When he glances up, the first thing he thinks is that the man opposite him looks weirdly familiar. He has curly hair, dimples and limbs that look too long for his body. Then it dawns on him that this total stranger is holding Enjolras’ book in the palm of his hand.
“Uh,” says Enjolras coherently. “Where did you find that?”
The guy ignores his question, just leans forward in his chair and fixes Enjolras with the most intense blue stare he’s ever been held under. “I need you to listen to me,” he says. “There’s something wrong here. There’s something very wrong here and I don’t know how to fix it. But I swear to God, Enjolras, I’m going to try. But I’ll need you to help me.”
Enjolras shifts back in his seat, away from him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know how you know me, but I don’t know you and—”
“You’re in danger,” the guy with the dimples tells him. “I need you to trust me.”
“Why should I trust you?” Enjolras asks, narrowing his eyes. “Because right now I don’t feel like I’m in danger from anyone apart from you.”
Grantaire rocks forward further in his chair so his face is inches away from Enjolras’. Up close, Enjolras can see the light scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Grantaire says. “I just need you to tell me everything you can still remember.”
Something in his tone sounds so desperate and broken that Enjolras nods once, stiffly. He starts talking. He’s not sure what he’s meant to talk about, but with each sentence that comes out the man called Grantaire smiles at him all dimples, encouragement and sympathy. An hour later, the door chimes closed behind both of them.
VII.
A man walks into a café. He doesn’t take off his thin denim jacket and he doesn’t order any coffee. Instead, he sits down at a table and waits. Instinct tells him to rummage in his bag for a book. Maybe he’ll read the battered paperback he bought at the secondhand shop yesterday. But a part of him tells him not to. Part of him says that even if he looks for it, he won’t find the book in his bag. The thought of it being missing frustrates him, which is strange. He doesn’t know why his urge to read it is suddenly so great. Really, he can’t even remember it being all that gripping.
The door chimes open and he startles upright. He wonders if this is the man he’s meant to be meeting, according to the little note he has folded up tightly in his pocket. It’s in his own neat cursive, so he knows he must have written it to himself. He has no recollection of writing it, though. Maybe that’s why he’s feeling so disjointed today.
The man that just walked in has curly hair and too-long limbs. He orders two coffees to go, one caramel and frothy and one just how Enjolras likes it. Once he’s paid, he turns to face Enjolras. “Hi,” he says, all smiles and dimples. “Would you mind taking me to the second hand shop where you got this?”
He waves a familiar looking copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at Enjolras, whose first instinct is to grab it back from him. He needs the book. Needs it like burning. But Grantaire is taller, and Grantaire holds it out of reach.
“Whoa there. Easy tiger,” he says, backing away from Enjolras. “You have to remember the plan, Enjolras. I need you to stick to the plan.”
That’s easier said than done when every fiber in his body is aching to just snatch the book back and get out of here, Enjolras thinks. But the letter in his pocket feels hot and heavy. He knows that’s not an option.
Low and gravelly, in a voice he barely recognizes as his own, he says: “Follow me.”
The door chimes closed behind them.
VIII.
A man walks into a café. The only thing he’s certain of is the rain outside the window. Everything else around him feels like a part of a hazy dream. Something vital is missing, he knows. A battered paperback he got in the second hand bookshop yesterday. He had spent the morning sacking his apartment in search of it without success. It couldn’t have just disappeared, he knows, but there was no sign of it anywhere in his apartment and he couldn’t spend all day looking for it.
He knew he had to come here. There’s something important he has to do here.
The door swings open and the bell above it chimes. A man with gangly limbs, curly hair and bright blue eyes walks straight over to him, all dimples and a pearly white smile. “I have your book,” he says, and every muscle in Enjolras’ body tenses in an instant.
“Give it back,” he blurts out involuntarily.
The man shakes his head. “I can’t right now. First I need you to tell me what this says.”
He pulls a photocopy of a sheet of the book. There are several lines underlined in it, and some scrawl in the margin. Enjolras recognizes his own small, neat cursive and snatches the paper, leaning in close to examine what he’s written. It’s hard to make it out, though, which is strange. His writing is always very neat. Maybe someone else wrote this, he thinks, but he knows as soon as the thought crosses his mind that’s not true. There’s no doubt in his mind that this is his script.
“It’s not in French,” he says after a moment. “Or English. Those are the only languages I know. Other than that, I can’t help you.”
The man shakes his hair. “They’re not words, Enjolras,” he says. “It’s a code.”
“Well,” says Enjolras. “I don’t understand the stupid code.”
Grantaire sighs. “Fine,” he says, letting out a hollow laugh. “I guess you can sleep on it.”
The door chimes closed behind him.
IX.
A man walks into a café. It’s overcast outside but he doesn’t care. He pulls his thin denim jacket taut across his shoulders, like that’s going to protect him from whatever it is that’s out to get him. He woke up today covered in bruises and he can’t remember how he got them. When the barista sees him, he has to hide his gasp. “Did your boyfriend do this to you?” the man demands as he pours out Enjolras’ coffee.
“No,” snaps Enjolras. “I don’t have one.”
He doesn’t know if that’s true or not. From the look the barista is giving him, it doesn’t seem likely. Enjolras doesn’t care. All he knows is that he needs to find the book.
The door swings open and the bell chimes. A man walks, all dimples and smiles at the barista beneath his thick, curly hair. The smile drops from his face as soon as he sees the bruises on Enjolras’ face.
“Fuck,” he says, rushing over. His gentle hands graze over the swollen skin in barely there touches, blue eyes wide and frightened. “Fuck, Enjolras, who did this to you? I’m so sorry, fuck. Do you remember who it was? This is my fault. I’m so sorry. You weren’t fucking supposed to get hurt.”
Grantaire was close enough that Enjolras could see the light scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. It makes him want to cry and he doesn’t understand why.
“What the hell is happening to me?” he asks.
The man with the curly hair shakes his head as he pulls Enjolras closer, close enough it’s practically an embrace. The contact leaves Enjolras’ heart hammering embarrassingly fast against his ribs. “I’m sorry, Enjolras. I don’t know what’s happening either,” Grantaire whispers into his hair. “But I swear to you now, I’m going to fix it.”
“I’m so fucking tired of this,” Enjolras says, though he’s not sure what he means.
Grantaire nods. “I know,” he says. “But everything will seem better tomorrow.”
He doesn’t leave Enjolras’ side until he’s calm again. When he goes, Enjolras feels like calling him back so he can panic some more. Anything to keep the man’s warm presence by his side. By the time he opens his mouth to call out to him, though, it’s too late. Grantaire has gone, and the door chimes closed behind him.
X.
A man walks into a café. The weather is irrelevant to him. This morning he woke up with fading bruises and he doesn’t know how they got there. He takes his thin denim jacket off and sets it down on the counter, ordering two coffees. One of them is his usual order. The other is a frothy cappuccino with caramel combination. His fingers itch to reach for the battered paperback he picked up at the second hand store yesterday, but he knows better by now than to look for it. He turned his apartment upside down this morning in the hopes of finding it with no luck. There’s no point in continuing to look now.
The door swings open and the bell above it chimes. A man with curly hair walks in. He looks tired and haggard at first, but when his eyes meet Enjolras’ everything about him lights up. He’s all dimples and smiles, throwing himself into the chair opposite Enjolras and declaring, “I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” Enjolras asks him blankly.
The man leans closer. He’s close enough that Enjolras can see the scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. “I’ve cracked the code,” he says in a soft whisper. “I know how we can fix this. See, it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen. That’s what Kesey said. It’s the truth, Enjolras. We’ve got to find out the truth.”
“I don’t get it,” says Enjolras. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
Grantaire sighs. “Sometimes,” he says.
He takes the full cardboard cup from beside Enjolras as he stands up to leave. It’s the one Enjolras ordered but didn’t drink without really knowing why. The door chimes closed behind him.
XI.
A man walks into a café. It’s a hot day and the sun is shining. There are dark circles under his eyes and he wonders if he slept at all last night. He can’t seem to remember it. He shrugs his thin denim jacket off, slings it over the back of a chair and orders himself a coffee with caramel. The barista looks at him strangely, as if he knows that Enjolras only ever drinks his coffee black. He can’t know that, though. Enjolras has never even been here before.
He settles down at a table in the corner and waits, though he isn’t sure what he’s waiting for. His fingers are itching for a book to read, something to occupy them, and Enjolras thinks absently of the battered paperback book he was reading before he went to bed last night. He had found it in the second hand shop yesterday. It strikes him as strange that he can hardly remember what it was now, here in the clear light of day.
The door chimes as it swings open and a man steps in, all messy hair and gangly limbs that don’t quite fit his body. He has a bulging sketchbook in one hand and a book of nursery rhymes in the other. “Good morning, Enjolras,” he says pleasantly, all smiles and dimples and sunshine.
It feels so right and familiar that Enjolras doesn’t question it. Doesn’t question how this man knows his name. Doesn’t protest when the man throws himself down in the seat opposite him. He just smiles and says, “Morning.”
“Look what I found,” the man says excitedly, like they’re carrying on a conversation from last night. He opens the book of nursery rhymes at a page with a dog-eared corner and hands it over to Enjolras. “Three geese in a flock,” he reads. He gestures to himself, to the barista, and then to Enjolras. “One flew east,” he continues ominously. “One flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. O-U-T spells OUT. Goose swoops down and plucks you out.”
Enjolras blinks back at him. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?” he asks after a moment of hesitation.
“Damn it,” mutters Grantaire. “I forgot you never read the ending of the book.” He leans across the table, close enough that Enjolras can see the light dusting of freckles that span their way across the bridge of his nose. “It’s the nursery rhyme Kesey took the title of his book from. The one you got in the second hand store.”
“I know that,” says Enjolras impatiently.
Grantaire sighs. “I wish you could remember,” he says. “You’d understand me if I could. It’s us three. All three of us. Me, you and him. We’re trapped here in this café. You’re the only people I see every day, and this café here is the nest. The only way we’re going to get out of here is if we find a goose. The goose has got to pluck us out of this or we're stuck here.”
“You’re not making sense,” says Enjolras, shaking his head.
Grantaire stands up, all curly hair and gangly limbs. “Tomorrow,” he says. He raises his voice so the barman can hear him. “We’re going to get out of here tomorrow.”
The door chimes closed behind him.
XII.
Enjolras woke up the next day knowing exactly what the code meant. The code that he had scribbled into the margins of that damned book the day he picked it up from the second hand store. It’s like the fog has been lifted and he can see clearly again. It’s hard to have a clear mind thinking on it. Of course it’s fucking hard. But it’s the truth, even if it never happened.
He looks in the bathroom mirror. The bruises around his eyes are barely there anymore. If it weren’t for the yellowy marks they left behind, he’d wonder if they were ever there.
It’s nearly noon when he gets to the café. The barista gives him a slow, tired smile as he shrugs his thin denim jacket off and sets it down at a vacant table. “The usual?” he says, and Enjolras nods.
“Can I have a caramel cappuccino too, please?”
The door swings open, and the bells above it chime. A man walks in, all curly hair and dimples and gangly limbs. “Morning, Enjolras,” he says, waving.
It’s the first time he’s ever gotten here before Enjolras has already taken a seat.
“Hey, Grantaire,” replies Enjolras, waggling his fingers back.
Time seems to stop all of a sudden, then speed up again three times as fast. One minute Grantaire is all frozen in the doorway and the next he’s pressed against Enjolras, close enough that he can see the scattering of light brown freckles that decorate the bridge of his nose. “You remember me,” he whispers, and he’s grinning for real now. He’s grinning so hard he looks like he’s never going to stop. “Holy fuck, Enjolras, you remember me.”
“Yeah,” says Enjolras, “Yeah, Grantaire, I remember you.”
And then Enjolras leans close, close enough he thinks he’s going to drown in Grantaire’s deep blue eyes, and he kisses him. He kisses him like he has nothing left, clutching his hair, biting his lips and tugging him closer. He kisses him against the counter, kisses him until all he can taste is Grantaire and all he can see is Grantaire’s skin and eyelashes and eyes and all he can hear is the soft sound of Grantaire’s shallow breath against his lips and all he can think is Grantaire, Grantaire, Grantaire.
The barista blushes red behind his glasses and politely averts his eyes.
“Fuck,” says Grantaire, resting their foreheads together as he tries to. “I can’t believe my dumb idea actually worked.”
Enjolras blinks at him owlishly. “What did you do?”
“I got the goose,” whispers Grantaire. “Oh man, did I get the goose good.”
~
Understandably, it’s a while before Enjolras goes back to the second hand bookshop that stands around the corner from the café. He gets the shivers every time he thinks of the darn place, let alone attempts to walk past there. But it’s not until he does go back that he understands what Grantaire means when he says he “got the goose”. He means it literally. There are “MISSING: PET GOOSE” posters stuck all around the shop.
When he goes inside, he almost feels bad for the old woman who runs the place. She’s sitting behind the counter looking awfully dejected. She had been raising the thing like a daughter, apparently. It answered to the name “Nancy.” It takes all Enjolras has not to laugh as she tells him how her poor Nancy took off one night and never came back. Later, he calls Grantaire to make sure he didn’t kill the poor thing.
“Jesus, Enjolras. What sort of man do you take me for?” Grantaire huffs down the phone. “Wait, no. Don’t answer that. You think I’m a bird murdering extraordinaire. That’s why you’re dating me, isn’t it? Something about the bad boys does it for you, doesn’t it, the ones not quite on the side of morality…”
Enjolras rolls his eyes and hangs up.
He hasn’t kept track of the days since his life got stuck on repeat, but he does keep a diary now. A dairy so he remembers, and the battered old paperback copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest so he doesn’t forget. They both stand proudly on his bedside table, one beside the other.
Grantaire laughs at him when he wakes up and sees them there in the morning, all curly bed-hair and gangly limbs, dimpled smiles and sunshine. He tells him he’s paranoid then rolls closer to him in bed so their legs tangle more tightly together. “You know, you’re never allowed to do that to me again,” he says sometimes, when he’s tired and stressed out. “No more buying cursed books from that shitty store and getting stuck in nursery rhymes, you hear me? Next time I might not be there to rescue your sorry ass.”
Enjolras rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I did it on purpose,” he points out. “And if I hadn’t bought that book, who knows if I’d have ever met you.”
“You would have,” Grantaire says, like it’s an inevitable fact of life. “And you would have fallen for me so much harder and faster than you did when you couldn’t remember who the hell I was every day.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Enjolras points out again. He leans forward, close enough to kiss the scattering of freckles across the bridge of Grantaire’s nose. “But for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure I love you.”
“Yeah you do,” says Grantaire, fist-pumping the air with a wide smile that brings out his dimples. “And don’t you ever forget it.”