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In the yellow light pouring out from the café, Enjolras looks almost painfully young. It’s snowing, the snowflakes landing in her hair and sparkling like glitter, tumbling and melting and making her shiver when they slip down the back of her neck. She’s biting her lip to stop herself from crying and her hands are white with cold, shuddering slightly. Her cheeks are dyed pink with chill, her nose red and her lips iced and bitten. Her eyes are wide and slightly teary and she’s blinking fast and staring hard into the twinkling lights of the shop front ahead of her.
It’s not like she’s dressed sensibly for the weather either, with a Christmas-patterned t-shirt with long sleeves that are pulled down over her hands and skinny red jeans. She’s covered in glitter from earlier when Courfeyrac decided that she needed a bit of sparkle, red and gold and green. She feels stupid and obvious and she huddles further in on herself.
She looks like a little kid, disappointed by Santa on Christmas day.
When the door opens behind her, she doesn’t move or turn round. A blast of warmth and heat and light pours out for a second before it closes again and a few instances later, a warm weight settles on the steps beside her.
It’s Grantaire, a smile caught on her face for a second, her cheeks flush with alcohol and her movements loose, before she looks at Enjolras properly and her eyes widen. “Apollo!”
Enjolras turns her face away, ignoring her. She’s cold and she very much wants to go back inside but she can’t quite face it yet. It’s their Christmas party, the best part of their year according to Courf but she just doesn’t feel like it.
This year, the Christmas party is doubling up as Grantaire’s leaving party.
Enjolras is much more upset than expected.
She hasn’t spoken to R all day, not since she turned up 10 minutes late to the Musain where they were meeting and announced that she’d got the job. She was excited, happy. Enjolras felt like someone had punched her in the stomach.
They’d just started to build up their… friendship? Was that the right word for it? Their friendship. They’d just started to piece things together after all their arguing and fighting, finding mutual ground and getting to know each other better and she’d been surprised to figure out that she really… liked the other girl.
Like, like liked.
And now she was leaving and Enjolras could do nothing but sit outside in seasonally inappropriate clothing and try not to let R know that she was crying because of her. Maybe she should just try and freeze herself to death. That had to be less painful, right?
“What’s wrong?” The girl beside her nudged her arm and smiled encouragingly. She barely fit on the steps, her long legs splayed out awkwardly in those… incredibly tight leather pants. Enjolras gulped, and then tried to pretend that she hadn’t been looking. R was more appropriately dressed for the weather, a green hoodie and a leather jacket thrown over a bright red Christmas jumper loudly proclaiming that she was ‘Santa’s favourite ho!!’, but she still looked like her usual disaffected self, her hair messily pushed back and covered with a beanie even though strands always escaped and got in her eyes. In the winter, her freckles had somehow gotten darker, Enjolras noticed.
She shook her head and sniffed. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
She almost laughed at that even though it wasn’t funny and she was being irrational. “No. I’m not.”
“Talk to me.” R shrugged out of her hoodie and jacket and handed them to her. She took them with a wobbly smile and a shake of the head at the state of R’s jumper. “Is it your parents again? You don’t have to go home for Christmas if you don’t want to, no matter how much you feel like you ought to.”
She shook her head. “That’s not it. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Really. I just needed a moment.”
R frowns and raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything.
Enjolras sniffs again and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I’m gonna miss you. When you go back to England.”
R smirks. “Sure. You’ll be glad to see the back of me. You can finally get back to organising real justice without me taking the piss every five seconds.”
“No, I mean it. I really will miss you.”
Grantaire is silent for a moment. “I’ll miss you too.” Her hand rests on the steps and Enjolras decidedly does not look at it as she put out her hand and slides it over the top.
“Bloody hell, Enjolras!” R swears, snatching her hand away. Enjolras blushes, biting her lip.
“Sorry, I-”
“You’re fucking freezing!” She reaches out, grabbing both of her hands and pulling them to her chest. “How long have you been out here?”
Enjolras shrugs, flushing at the rush of warmth radiating from R’s hands. It almost burns her and she wants her to never ever let go.
“Come on, let’s get you inside. You can’t stay out here like this, you’re turning blue.”
“No, I…” Enjolras blurts and then stops. “I want to stay here,” she says, quieter. “This is nice.”
R looks between her face, glowing with contentment in the snow and the orange light, and their hands, clasped together and pressed against her chest, just tucked under her chin. “Oh.” She says, eyes widening.
“Oh.” Enjolras echoes, and smiled hopefully.
“Come with me,” R says suddenly.
“What?”
“Come with me to England. Stay with me.”
“But-”
Grantaire plays with her fingers, rubbing them warm one by one and Enjolras flexes them slightly as the life returns, distracted for a second. “You’d like it there.”
“I’d like it anywhere that had you in it.” Enjolras says absently and then turns purple and starts coughing. The world seems to be spinning a bit- she can’t believe she just said that and it’s suddenly too real and she can’t handle it.
The slight pressure of R’s hands on hers keeps her in the right place. Enjolras shakes her head as if clearing away her thoughts, and makes eye contact- R is looking at her like she’s the sun, like she’s the only source of light in the whole world and Enjolras knows, knows without a doubt that no matter how much they fought before and no matter how rocky the road to patching things up completely is going to be, she never ever wants to let go of her hand or say anything that makes her stop looking at her like that.
“Come with me,” R says again, and this time she nods, vigerously, like she can feel her brain rattling, and then she’s half shuffling, half tumbling in her eagerness to throw her arms around Grantaire’s neck and pull her close as she can, leeching off her warmth and burying her ice-cold nose in R’s neck so that she squeaks and bats her away, breathing in the smell of R’s washing powder and perfume and then her natural smell of sunshine and woods and rain.
There’s a snowflake landed right on the end of R’s nose, and she giggles at it for a second before kissing it off. She’s never felt warm like this- it’s a bit like being drunk but she’s still vaguely aware of everything. She just feels perfectly right for once.
R kisses her nose back and helps her haul herself up. “C’mon, I don’t know about you but I’m freezing my arse off. And anyway. If you’re sure about coming with me…?” She nods. “Then you should probably tell the others that this won’t just be my leaving party.”
They both go inside, Enjolras still firmly clamped to her side because she doesn’t want to let go, not quite yet. Courfeyrac sees them instantly and cheers because she’s been waiting for this to happen a long time. Beside her, Joly and Bossuet join in and point upwards.
“What?” R says, confused, and then they both look up to see the mistletoe above them.
“Fucking Courf,” Enjolras mutters under her breath with a smile, blushing and burying her face in R’s sleeve.
“You don’t have to-”
She looks up, smiles. “I want to.”
And then they’re kissing. There’s still snow caught in their hair, Enjolras’ fingers are still cold as ice when they reach up to tangle in her hair and their friends are still annoying, but everything seems to fade out a little. Enjolras is still dimly aware of the camera flashes and the woops and cheers, aware of the cold that has settled in her bones and of the Christmas music that is playing in the background, but it all fades out.
She may be leaving all she knows behind, but here and now, she feels like she’s come home.