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The first time Enjolras sees her, she’s drunk and tearful and sitting alone at the bar. It’s nearing last orders and the place is emptying slowly, the people trickling off home in ones or twos. Behind the bar, drying a glass, Enjolras watches them go and turns her attention to the stragglers.
The girl at the bar doesn’t even seem to notice that people are leaving, instead choosing to down her drink in one and slowly but firmly drop her head down onto the table with a thump. “Ow,” she says to the table, drunkenly surprised.
Enjolras bites her lip looking at her- she doesn’t recognise her, assumes that someone else served her because she would have cut her off long ago. She’s crap at dealing with people though, especially when they’re drunk- she just doesn’t know what to say. “Um…” She starts. “Are you… ok?”
The girl lifts her head. She is pretty enough, Enjolras thinks almost as a knee-jerk reaction, with big dark eyes made small and red from crying and dark skin marred by the stains of mascara running down her cheeks and the sharp shock of freckles, lighter than her skin, that scatter over her nose like spattered paint. Her pink-painted lips fall open in a sarcastic laugh, but when her eyes meet Enjolras' they widen slightly and her tongue flicks out to moisten them slightly. “Do I... do I look ok to you?”
“Well, no but I-”
“Don’t ask stupid... questions… Artemis.” She slurs with a miserable smile and lets her face fall back into her arms. Enjolras frowns and shrugs, and continues to wipe down the bar. It’s pretty much emptied in there by then, the only people left Enjolras and the sobbing girl and the shitty pop music piping out of their stereo system.
Courfeyrac, the other bar attendant, comes out of the back room and shoots her an odd look. “She ok?” She mouths, and when E sends her “help-me” vibes and looks panicked, she raises her eyebrows and grins. “You ok to lock up here and all? If I leave now and get the tube back instead of getting a lift from you, I might get back before Jehan falls asleep.”
Enjolras bugs her eyes at her, in what is meant to be code for “don’t leave me alone with the random attractive stranger”, but eventually laughs- she can practically see Courf’s heart-eyes as she talks. “Go on, I’ll be fine. Tell Jehan I say hi, too.” It’s weird, losing one of her best friends to a painfully dramatic love affair, but it doesn’t bother her. Not when Jehan and Courf are two of the most dramatic people she’s ever met and are 100% perfect for one another. She’s relatively embarrassed about the fact that she didn’t see it sooner. And she has to admit, they are adorable. Courf with her cut-short braids and neon-pink eye-shadow and Jehan and their slim, willowy frame draped in pastel-coloured skinny jeans and clashing shirts, they’re the perfect exercise in contrast. Jehan works the evening shift at an all-night café and almost always is asleep by the time Courfeyrac gets home.
She shakes herself out of her thoughts, pours a glass of water and slides it along the bar to the girl. “Drink up. We’re closing and you need to sober up,” she says, brushing a bit of hair that’s escaped from her ponytail from her eye and walking out from behind the bar to pick up the glasses left on the tables. The girl doesn’t move, still nearly sobbing into the arms of her leather jacket, and Enjolras can’t help but stare blankly as she wonders what to do. Maybe she should try for sympathetic? But when she tries that people usually just look at her like she’s got a few screws loose.
Instead, she awkwardly pats the girl on the shoulder as she passes. Aiming for kind, she gives the girl a smile that probably comes across as more of a grimace. “Um.” There is an awkward silence, with her stuck on pause with a terrifying grin on her face while the other girl just looks at her with a questioning expression and very slowly pulls the glass of water towards herself. Enjolras tries again. “Have you got any, I don’t know, friends or something who can come pick you up? You’re in no state for walking or public transport…” It comes out sharp, and she flinches, not meaning to sound callous or cruel.
“I’m fine." The girl waves her away, downing the glass of water in one and slamming it back down onto the table and then trying unsuccessfully to stand. "Well. Maybe fine isn't the word. But I'm dealing with it. Thanks." She’s short, shorter than Enjolras, but that does little to lessen the impact as she topples gently over and manages to slot herself perfectly into Enjolras’ outstretched arms.
E stumbles back with an “Oof!”, holding her up with one arm and bracing her other arm against the side of the bar. “Ok, you can’t even stand straight. Do you want me to call you a cab?”
Wrinkling her nose, the girl shakes her head and staggers back. “Money,” she says like that explains everything and to be honest it pretty much does.
Enjolras sighs exasperatedly. “You probably shouldn't have spent it all on booze, should you?" The other girl doesn't answer, looking at her like she's the sun- powerful and beautiful but at the same time terrifyingly powerful and bad for your eyes if you stare at it too long. Enjolras picks up a chair and hoists it up onto the table. "Fine. I’ll give you a lift, is that ok? Just tell me where to go.”
The girl rolls her eyes and mutters something like “Go to hell,” under her breath, but Enjolras ignores it and casts a cursory glance around the rest of the deserted bar before she’s slinging an arm around the girl and helping her up and out of the room.
Outside, the cool air is like a slap to the face and the girl sobers up a bunch. She reaches down and tugs off her heels, and Enjolras realises that she’s not exactly dressed for a hard night’s partying. Her outfit is more of a date-night type ensemble, a pretty purple dress that flatters her skin tone and fits on her curves where it’s right and then flares out at the waist. The hemline is uneven and lacy, but it’s too long to be a clubbing dress.
“What’s your name?” She asks, trying to instigate a conversation as she guides the girl down the road to her car.
“R. Well. Grantaire.”
“I’m Enjolras.”
“Pfft.” The girl hiccups slightly. Her eyes are dry again but her face still looks raw from crying and she’s shaking a little. “Whatever you say, Artemis.”
Enjolras frowns, and then shakes her head, exasperated. “You’re drunk.” She tells her, as if she doesn’t already know.
“Yup,” R agrees. She sniffs and wipes her nose on the back of her hand.
“Do you mind me asking- I mean. Is everything… alright?”
“You mean, why are you sat drunk off your face in a bar in the middle of the night crying your eyes out?” Grantaire slurs, surprisingly articulately. “Montparnasse’s a dick.”
She says it like Enjolras should by default know who Montparnasse is, and E frowns. “Who?”
“My… um.” She flaps a hand in the air, looking for the word. “My boyfriend. My ex-boyfriend. Dick.”
Ah. That makes sense now. She unlocks her car and opens the door for her, realising too late that she should have offered her her jacket. She can see the tiny goose bumps forming on R’s skin and she bites her lip before sliding into her seat. It’s weird- she’s known this girl for all of five seconds and yet she wants her to stop crying, to stop being sad, to feel happy so badly. But instead she settles for letting her pick the radio station as they pull out into the traffic (she regrets it almost immediately when R switches from a talk station to Radio 1 but can’t exactly complain when she offered her the choice). “Where to?”
The bouncy pop music seems to have had an uplifting effect on the shorter girl and she attempts to smile when she answers. “Right here and then straight along until you get to the lights.”
“Ok,” Enjolras nods and lets her thoughts be carried away a little by the surge of bubble gum pop. She can almost see the appeal of this stuff. Almost. She’d never tell Courf that though.
When the song shifts from a fast paced poppy melody into a melancholic love song, the shift in R’s mood is tangible. Out of nowhere, she murmurs, “I actually thought I loved him, you know. I really… It’s stupid. But.”
Enjolras has nothing to say to that, no words of wisdom or comfort. It’s an area she’s truly had little experience in. She settles for the cliché words of advice- “He’s not worth it. You’re so much better than him.”
“How would you know? You’ve known me five seconds- I could have cheated on him, or punched his mother or something, there are hundreds of reasons why we might have split up that you don’t know.”
“Well, yeah, but-” She pauses. “You didn’t punch his mother, did you?”
Grantaire snorts. “No!”
“Good.”
“God.” She tilts her head back and stares at the ceiling. “What do I do now?”
Enjolras shakes her head. “I don’t know. The best you can, I suppose.”
Grantaire smiles at her, a little wobbly, and then glances out of the window. “Oh! We’re just about on my road.” She leans over and plants a lipstick-y kiss on her forehead, and then opens the door to get out. “Thank you, Artemis.” Then she walks away, her bare feet swaying on the pavement and her high heels swinging from her hand.
Enjolras watches until she’s gone, to make sure she’s safe, and then stays a little longer lost in her thoughts.
**
The next afternoon, as usual, Courfeyrac turns up at Enjolras’ door for a lift to work and hammers rhythmically on the glass pane until she opens it.
“Hi, Courf.” It’s an effort not to sound stressed or pissed off, because she’s tired and emotionally strained and not particularly in the mood for Courfeyrac’s special brand of sunshine and rainbows that afternoon.
Still, Courf picks up on it right away and gives her a narrowed eyed look. “What’s wrong with you, grumpy?”
You left me alone with this really cute drunk girl who’s infuriating and funny and irritating and straight and I hate you for it and I was up half the night thinking about her and whether I’m ever going to see her again. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Ok great!” Courf grins and bounces on the balls of her feet. She’s surrounded by that kind of loved-up glow that seems to follow her everywhere these days, and normally it's cute but today it seems annoying as fuck. "Lets go then!"
Enjolras picks up her keys and stifles a yawn.
"Get much sleep?" Courf notices. "Oh, how did it go with that girl last night? Did she get home ok?"
Enjolras squeezes her eyes shut as she walks down the stairs, stupidly proud that she doesn't loose her footing.
"She didn't look familiar, so I'm guessing she isn't a local. Did she end up getting a cab or something?"
"Yeah," Enjolras lies for the sake of a quiet life. For some reason, she just really doesn't want to talk about this right now. She climbs into the car, and then in a moment of spite she flips the lock before Courf can get in and pulls up the lapels of her jacket over her head so that she can't see her tapping desperately on the window. Inside her jacket, it's quiet and no one asks stupid questions. Stupid questions that she's not even sure why she's so against them.
A moment later, she uncovers her head and flips the lock back again so that the door flies open with Courf's pulling. "What was that for?"
"Nothing. Sorry, I'm being horribly moody."
"Yes," Courf said, pursing her lips. "You are."
"Sorry," Enjolras says again, and she knows that she's forgiven when she pulls out of the parking space and Courf just gently rests her head on her shoulder. "I still don't want to talk about it."
"Fine. I'll drop it." There is a pause. "On one condition."
Enjolras groans. "I knew that was coming."
"I'm going out with a couple of our friends, Jehan and Joly probably. You should come."
"I spend half my life behind a bar, Courf."
"Exactly! Don't you want to see what it's like on the other side?"
Enjolras huffs. "I have been to bars before, you know."
"Sure, whatever. Of course you have." Courf sniffs, clearly sarcastic. "But you'll come anyway?"
"Anything to make you shut up."
Courfeyrac doesn't answer but she smiles like an angel and bats her eyelashes.
**
Grantaire shows up the next night to thank her for the help. She's sober this time, and she orders a cranberry juice from Courfeyrac and asks her about Enjolras. "Where's the blonde one? The pretty one?"
Courf laughs. "Oh! You're the girl from the other night, aren't you?"
She blushes and nods. "I just wanted to thank her for dropping me off the other night. It was really kind of her, and... Yeah. I didn't get her name. Is she here?"
Courfeyrac held eye contact with her, eyes widening slightly scarily.
"Uhh..."
"Enjolras!" she shouted suddenly, still not breaking eye contact. "That girl you dropped off last night and didn’t tell me about is here to see you!” Suddenly, Courfeyrac smiles sharply. “She’ll be right with you.”
Grantaire takes a step back. “Uhh, thanks?”
“You’re welcome.”
A moment later, Enjolras’ head pops out of the back room, frowning slightly. Her eyes meet Grantaire’s and it’s like a punch to the gut. “Oh, hi!” She says, a little breathily. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“Hi,” Grantaire repeats, smiling.
There is almost a minute of silence between the two of them, both unable to break eye contact or break the quiet.
Beside them, Courfeyrac is practically bouncing up and down on her heels and flapping her hands. “Excuse me! Yeah, hi, I exist, remember?”
Enjolras gives her a stormy glare. “Go away, Courf.”
“Not until you explain what exactly is going on here.”
Grantaire raises an eyebrow at her and Enjolras blushes bright red. “Nothing! Nothing is going on here! I was worried about her the other night so I took her home because neither of us could pay for a taxi. And I didn’t tell you because you’re a pain in the backside.”
“Charming.” Courf smirks at her, swatting at her butt and sashays down the bar to deal with another customer. “See, I’m going. Going.”
“Anyway-”
“Still going...”
“Courf!”
“Ok, ok! Sorry.”
Enjolras turns back to Grantaire, trying to look annoyed but failing and letting out a little smile. “Sorry about her.”
“There’s no problem. I just wanted to pop by and say thanks. For the other night. It was nice of you and you didn’t have to. So yeah.” She rummages around in her huge bag, pulling out a box of chocolates. “These are for you- a thank you present.”
“Oh! Thank you! You didn’t have to do that, I didn’t do it so that you’d buy me chocolates.”
“I know but I wanted to buy you them. Are they ok?”
“They’re great. Thank you.” Enjolras is staring at the box of chocolates with a slightly odd expression on her face.
“Good. Oh, and I’m sorry for crying all over you the other night.” For the first time, her smile wobbles a little bit. “I broke up with my boyfriend, and... Well, he broke up with me.”
“I’m sorry,” Enjolras says a little awkwardly.
“Oh, don’t worry about me, Artemis.” She tilts her head back, shiny black-brown curls bouncing with the movement. “I just got a bit upset, but I’ll be fine.” Is it her imagination, or do Grantaire’s pretty, dark eyes flicker over her? “Single and ready to mingle and all.” She shrugs. “But anyway. Lets not talk about that.”
Enjolras laughs and leans forward on the bar. “Ok, what do you want to talk about?”
“Umm,” Grantaire pauses, thinking, and shuffles a little on the bar stool. “So. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“Really?” She rolls her eyes. “Well. I’m on my gap year, before I go back to uni to do a PHD. This isn’t exactly my dream career.”
“Cool,” Grantaire says. “I figured you’d be one of those people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, you look smart?”
Enjolras laughs. “It’s the glasses, I think. People always say stuff like that.”
Taking another sip of cranberry juice, Grantaire asks, “What were you hoping to get a PHD in?”
“Politics, probably.” Grantaire pulls a face, wrinkling her nose and Enjolras tenses up slightly but decides to let it slide for now. She doesn’t want to argue. “What about you, what’s your life plan?”
“I’m an artist, or I like to think I am.” She sighs. “Most galleries tend to disagree. I’m ending up going more into illustration right now. I got a commission for a book on the Classics, it’s pretty fun. It just doesn’t pay too well.”
The conversation wanders and Enjolras laughs a lot and finds herself loosing track of time. She’s enjoying herself, laughing like this for the first time in ages. Finally, Courfeyrac flicks her in the ear to get her attention and smiles at Grantaire.
“Sorry, R, but I’m going to have to steal Enjolras back because it’s the end of her shift and she needs to drive me home.”
“Oh,” Grantaire says and she looks disappointed for an instant. “Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“I hope so!” Enjolras says, and lets herself get dragged out into the background, taking off the half-apron that they have to wear and handing it over to Bahorel, the guy who’s taking over her shift. “Here you go.”
Courf pulls her out of the door, and the cold of the night feels nice against her skin. “Oh my god!” She says the moment she gets outside. “You like her!”
“What?” Enjolras snorts. “Of course I like her, she’s nice.”
“No, you like-like her!”
“No.”
“Yes!” She bounces up and down, giggling. “You do!”
“She’s straight.” Enjolras strides off ahead of her on her long legs, and Courf has to jog to keep up.
“Not if you judge by the way that she was looking at you.”
“She’s just come out of a bad relationship. With her ex boyfriend.”
“So? Bisexuals exist, Enjolras, you can still hope. And if she’s just come out of a bad relationship, well… She could do with a good relationship, then.”
“Courf, stop talking,” Enjolras says, getting into the car.
Immediately, she speeds up. “Don’t lock me out again!”
With a huff, Enjolras waits for her to get in before she turns on the engine. “She’s not interested, Courf.” And then, “Oh, fuck!”
“What?”
“I didn’t get her number.”
Courf pulls a sad face.
Enjolras groans and face-palms onto the steering wheel.
***
A few weeks later, it’s Courf’s bar-hopping night and she rocks up at Enjolras’ place super hyped up in a tiny bubble-gum pink dress and silver-patterned tights.
Enjolras answered the door in skinny jeans and a black and red hoodie, not quite prepared for the force of Courfeyrac planning an outing.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
“I am dressed. I am wearing clothes. These are clothes. Therefore, I am dressed.”
“Don’t you have any… pretty clothes?”
“Do I look like the kind of person who owns pretty clothes?”
Courfeyrac considers this. “Fair point.” Then she digs into her shoulder-bag, shooting Enjolras a grin. “But fortunately for your sense of style, I was prepared for this kind of resistance.” She pulls out a… top? A sparkly red short thing, covered with red, glimmering sequins. “I picked this dress up from the sales, it looks about your size.”
“I’m a bit taller than you, Courf,” Enjolras points out. “And also I’m not really the kind of person who wears dresses like that. It’ll look weird.”
“You’ll look lovely. Let me do your make up!” Enjolras puts up a weak kind of fight, but eventually slumps, letting Courfeyrac prod her and poke her and curl her hair and smear her face with all kinds of pots of make-up. Eventually, Courfeyrac pushes her in front of the mirror, and grins. “You look brilliant!”
Enjolras looks herself up and down. The dress is horrifically short on her, tight all over and it makes her legs look miles long. Face-wise, she looks like a totally different person. There’s glitter on her cheekbones and she doesn’t appear to have zits anymore. Her eyes look like they’re glowing. She looks at Courf, grumpy.
“Aww, don’t pout like that, you’ll smudge your lipstick.” Courf grins at her. “You’re so beautiful.”
“I look weird. I look like an alien.”
Courf pokes her in the ribs. “Like a hot alien, maybe.”
Jehan arrives shortly after and showers her in compliments, and they all are set to leave when Enjolras is poked by Courf for a second time. “Just a sec- do you have any high heels?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“I think these are in your size too,” she says and produces from her never-ending bag a pair of shiny red heels. They look about six inches high.
“I won’t be able to walk in those.”
“Just try them.”
“I will fall and die and break my neck.”
“Put them on.”
“Courf, I will die.”
Courfeyrac huffs and hands her the heels. “Put them on,” she repeats.
Pouting, Enjolras puts on the heels and clutches desperately to Jehan’s arm as she gets up. “I look ridiculous. I can’t walk. I’m going to fall.”
“Stop being a baby. Just tilt your hips forward and put one foot in front of the other. Walk like a model.”
Enjolras took a shaky step like a baby deer on ice, and then another. “Oh my god. I don’t like this.”
Courf just smiled. “Come on, let’s go!”
*****
The whole place is too loud, too bright and too crowded. Enjolras decides within about five minutes that she doesn’t like it. “I’m just going to…” she shouts to Courf but Courf can’t hear her, pushing her way through the twisting, sweating dancing bodies to get to the bar. “I’ll be back in a sec!” Courf finally hears her and nods, holding tight to Prouvaire’s arm to stop them from wandering off into the crowds and getting lost.
“Try not to have fun,” Courf tells her sarcastically.
Enjolras flips her off as she sways away through the crowds, her ankles twisting almost every step she takes. Luckily the people are packed in so tight around her that she can’t fall over completely. She clutches her bag tight to her chest- it’s her normal old leather shoulder bag, and she had to fight Courf to be allowed to take it with her. Eventually she manages to break through the crowd and stumble out into the corridor, and into the toilet. A moody-looking girl is fixing her make-up in the mirror, but she leaves as Enjolras comes in- the room is starkly empty compared to the bar itself. She catches sight of herself in the mirror and watches herself for a moment, feeling like she’s not even in her own body. Courf is amazing at make-up, she has to admit. Her hair falls soft around her face, her skin looks bright and smooth in comparison to the red dress.
She leaves the bathroom, wobbles uncertainly back onto the dance floor. There are people all around her trying to avoid a collision. She tries to weave her way through the crowd until-
Smack!
She walks straight into someone, sending a drink spiralling down her front. “Oh, shit! I mean. I’m so sorry, are you ok?”
“Enjolras!” The girl in front of her exclaims, and Enjolras looks at her properly.
“Grantaire! Hi!”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t-”
“I’m really really really sorry-”
Grantaire laughs. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” She looks her up and down. “You look amazing!”
“Thank you.”
“Do you… Um. Do you want a drink?”
Enjolras blinks, and then grins. “Oh! Yes, please. Thank you!”
Grantaire takes her hand and leads her through the crowd. She looks well, Enjolras thinks. She’s cut her hair short and it’s exposed her neck and Enjolras is so distracted by it that she almost twists her ankle on the ridiculous heels. “I love your hair!” She half-shouts and Grantaire looks back at her over her shoulder and blushes. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a green shirt and her hair is perfectly curly and messy, shaved sides. Enjolras never really realised quite how pierced her ears were.
Grantaire grins. “Thanks.” She signals to the bartender, and shouts something to him that Enjolras doesn’t hear over the music, then passes her a drink- tall and dark and sweet, but she’s not quite sure what it actually is. “Here. You’ll like it.”
She nods. “Mm, that’s good.”
Grantaire nods, and takes a sip of her own drink.
“So, what brings you out tonight?”
Grantaire laughs. “Well, not an unsuccessful date, for once. We’re meeting under positive circumstances. It’s my friend’s birthday.”
“Oh, I’m sorry- I don’t want to monopolize your attention!”
“It’s fine, don’t worry.” Grantaire gives her one of those slow smiles and runs a hand through her hair. “Believe me, they’ll be relieved I’ve met you again. They were getting pretty annoyed constantly hearing me mention you.”
Enjolras smiles back at her, meeting R’s eyes. She feels warm, for once, and right. Grantaire’s hand is resting on her arm, and it feels like a beacon of contact over her whole body.
“Oh, god, I hope that didn’t sound creepy. I didn’t mean it to be-”
Enjolras leans forward, and brushes her lips against hers carefully. “It wasn’t creepy.”
R blinks. “Oh, ok. Good. Ok.” Then she seems to remember to breathe. “Um. Can we do that again?” Enjolras smiles at her, so Grantaire leans across and kisses her again, one hand sliding over her hip and pushing her back slightly so that the small of her back bumps gently against the bar. Enjolras’ teeth graze across her lower lip gently, teasing, and one hand strokes along her neck and through her hair.
Enjolras pulls her closer, tilting her head down, mouthing unintelligible words against her lips. She closes her eyes and let herself melt.
Grantaire pulls away carefully, eventually, and heaves a breath. Her smile seems superglued to her face. “Enjolras. Will you do me the pleasure of hopefully accompanying me on a successful date?”
Enjolras kisses her on the corner of the mouth. “I will.”