Chapter Text
Enjolras woke slowly, a beam of sunlight shining directly onto her eyelashes and she grunted sleepily and turned her face away into the pillow. Half asleep still, she squeezed her eyelids shut and huffed.
Her head pounded, a symptom of… Well, whatever the hell had happened the night before. She’d had fun, she remembered that much. Marius’ “stag do”, set up by Courfeyrac- of course. A pub crawl around every single hipster bar and pub in the town and then to a club in the basement of a house that looked relatively normal from the front but through the side door, pumping out screamingly loud music and glitter into the night air. Combeferre laughing as Joly shook confetti over him, petals tumbling down his face, sticking in his collar. Joly's dancing, messy dark hair stringy with sweat. Musi was there too, in a rabbit mask and fishnets and bearing odd-coloured shots that tasted like lemon and sugar and stars. Long curling purple hair and short shorts and white flashes of teeth. So many people dancing, hips bumping together and arms waving and bodies twirling. Feuilly taking her hands and drawing her into the crowds of people, throwing his head back in laughter and the flashing pink and green and gold and purple lights catching in his beard. Even Cosette, masked like Musi with flowers in her hair and a short summer dress as she danced with her betrothed. She could vaguely remember Marius’ look of confusion, deliciously bewildered in her vague fuzz of tipsiness. His air of a kid caught doing something he shouldn't be doing, and enjoying every moment. My Grandfather would not approve! She remembered Courf laughing, too.
The rest was a blur, a blur of colour and skin and too-sweet shots and whirling, spinning, dancing until her lungs felt like they'd burst.
But a blur nontheless.
Sleepily, hangover hovering over her head like a cloud, Enjolras smushed her face into the pillow and tried to get back to sleep.
Although actually, the pillow was warm, warm and soft and not entirely unlike a person.
And the pillow was breathing.
Very like a person, then.
She cracked her eyes open, trying not to disturb them, all the time thinking shit, shit, shit!
She hoped, in the back of her mind that it was Courf and that she’d just gone back to her place after the party but first, Courf was a lot ganglier than this person, whoever they were, and second, her curtains were made of hot pink velvet and they didn’t let in the sunlight at all.
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a belly button, on a slightly round stomach that was spattered with freckles. Stretch marks like fingers had dug into their hips ran along their sides and her hand was resting just under their rib-cage, her fingers lightly holding the edge of the person’s tank top (purple and green striped, with lime green buttons). The shirt had ridden up high over their soft curves, the sunlight catching their skin and making it glow.
She tried a little to sit up, trapped by their weight on her arm. The other person in question was a girl, eyes smeared with too much eyeliner, sleeping with tangled dark hair and little purple-brown marks all down her neck. Enjolras’ eyes bugged. Shit.
She felt like a creep staring, but she couldn’t look away and… Shit.
The pleasant fuzz of alcohol was fading and the pounding in her head was getting worse. Why the hell was she in Grantaire’s bed? Then she half-sighed, and bit her lip. Stupid question- she wasn’t that innocent. She knew… why. But why Grantaire?
She cursed her drunk self.
Her eyes kept darting back to the sleeping girl- she was… distracting. It wasn’t that she was pretty, exactly. Enjolras had never really looked at her like that before. Still, asleep and without the sarcastic twist to her lips, she suddenly seemed a lot prettier. She had wide-set, deep eyes with dark thick lashes and a wine-coloured birthmark that stretched across one side of her face. Freckles danced over the other side like orange starbursts. Her lips were chapped and bitten, her mouth slightly open as she slept. She had a gap in between her front teeth. There was a bit of hair stuck to her lip, and it fluttered every time she breathed out.
Worry lines were already set in her forehead even though she couldn’t have been more than, what? 19, 20? A year or so younger than Enjolras herself.
Grantaire shifted in her sleep slightly, a frown forming on her face. Enjolras squirmed in painful embarrassment- god, if R woke up and she was still there, she’d never hear the end of it. She’d be teased to death, especially if R told any of the others. R didn’t even like her. She took a deep breath. She had to make a break for it.
Hurriedly and carefully, she tried to detach herself, sliding her other arm out from underneath the girl without disturbing her and looking around the room for her skirt… and her underwear. She picked her bra up from off a stack of books, her skirt hung haphazardly on the door handle. The room was small, bright in the sunlight because there weren’t any curtains. The bed itself was a mattress on the floor, utterly surrounded by stacks of books and DVDs, records and CDs. A rail stood in the corner with a few items of clothing hung on it. Grantaire’s jeans lay on the floor beside the bed splayed out like a victim of a murder- she picked them up, uncertain, and folded them. Then she placed them back down where she found them.
The door creaked when she opened it, and she flinched, turning round to make sure the other girl hadn’t woken, but she was safe.
In the kitchen, she dithered. She’d never done that before, leaving after a one night stand. Should she stay? No, definitely not. Not with R. She’d decided to leave, so she would. It would be far too awkward. She didn’t know the girl at all, no matter how many friends they had in common. What would she say?
Should she make breakfast? No, again, that might be seen as a bit weird. And she couldn’t cook, anyway.
She opened the girl’s fridge anyway. It was bare, pretty much- just a carton of juice, a few eggs and a mouldering lettuce. Was it against one night stand etiquette to steal… borrow food off them? After deliberating for a few seconds, she picked up the orange juice and downed it, not realising how thirsty she was until she started drinking.
Then she bit her lip, one ear on the sound of faint snores that she could hear from the bedroom. She looked at the empty carton, and then at the fridge, and then at the pad of paper lying beside the microwave. She stuck a post-it note to the carton and scribbled a note, and then put it back in the fridge.
Picking her way through the messy kitchen to the door, she found her red heels and slid her feet into them, resigned. She could barely walk in them, but Courfeyrac always told her they made her legs look amazing, and there was nothing wrong with wanting to feel good about herself for one night. Her bag was there too, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she reached in and found her phone.
Turning it on, she found that she had 7 missed messages, and 14 texts from various friends- she opened them as she opened the door, making sure to shut it silently behind her.
From: Courfeyrac
OMG
OMG
OMG
R U SERIOUS?????????????
Did u just leave the club w/ R???? *O*
OMG My lil bbys all grown up! :D
I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN
The tension was almost edible aaaaaaaaaaaaaamygod
From: Combeferre
Hi, Enj- just so you know, I’m at Eponine’s place tonight. I just wanted to check she was ok, and I stayed over. Sorry if u needed a lift! You’ll have to ask Courf.
From: Jehan
You’re intoxicated! Think before you make any decisions!
She stared at the last text until her eyes blurred and then she took a deep breath and walked down the stairs of the apartment block and out onto the street, pressing the call button.
“Hello?” Jehan picked up, bright and chirpy and completely and utterly not hung over in the slightest.
She hated them. “Hi…” She said, managing to sound much more ashamed than she meant to.
“Enjolras! Hi!”
“I don’t know where I am- can you come pick me up please?”
Jehan sighed, even though she could hear them smiling exasperatedly. “Of course I’ll come. I’m just sitting around doing nothing while I wait for Courf to recover anyway…” They paused. “You do realise I can’t pick you up if you don’t tell me where I am, though?”
Enjolras huffed, looking around her. “I’m in the middle of town, I think. Lots of people around. There’s a Tesco Extra across the street… A New Look beside it and there’s a big apartment block behind me. Ummm. It’s called Linewick Street.”
Jehan waited. “You’re going to have to give me a bit more than that.”
“Jehan…” She sighed. “What do you remember from last night?”
She could hear Jehan sighing away from the microphone, and didn’t bother waiting for an answer.
“I’m at Grantaire’s flat.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“I left before she woke up.”
“R…”
“No.”
“Don’t you think it would be-”
“No.”
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea to speak to her?”
“Why should I?” Enjolras said, knowing as she spoke that she sounded immature.
“Because she’s a friend of all of your friends? Because you’re going to have to live with what’s happened between the two of you and maybe it’ll be less awkward if you talk about it?”
“Sure, like you do with Courf?”
There was a pause, and she could hear Jehan taking a breath. “That’s different and you know it.”
“You guys all treat me like I’m so emotionally stunted, but I can work things out myself. R gets wasted so often and forgets what happened the night before. What’s the betting she won’t even remember what happened last night?”
“Enjolras…”
“What, Jehan?”
“Don’t snap at me.”
She sighed again, rubbing her heel in her stupid shoes and swaying a little way down the street, leaning up against a lamp post. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue, I’m just… I don’t normally do this. I don’t sleep with people, I don’t do one night stands. It’s just not my kind of thing.”
“It’s ok.” She could almost hear the faint smile in Jehan’s voice.
“I left a note.”
“A note? That is the crappiest way to-”
“I didn’t put my name on it or anything. She doesn’t know… It’s just a note to say sorry for drinking her orange juice.”
“You’re ridiculous. That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry. Really.”
“Look, I’ll come and pick you up, if you promise me that you’ll at least try and talk to R.”
“OK. I promise I’ll try.” She smirked. “Emphasis on try.”
“Alright. Ok. It’s all good. I’ll pick you up in a jiffy!”
Enjolras smiled. “Thank you. You’re amazing.”
Jehan tutted at her, and she heard the sounds of keys being picked up and a door opening. “I’ll be there soon. Hold tight, golden girl.”
~~~~~~~~~~~