Chapter Text
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Late into the night, with the sun starting to show on the windowsill, Enjolras' door opens and Grantaire slips inside. Quiet as his shadow, Grantaire takes off his clothes, then with feet only halfway unsteady comes towards the bed and eases onto it.
Enjolras has been awake since the first stair-creak; he observes through lidded eyes, reaching out to palm the curve of Grantaire's hip once settled.
“Apologies,” murmurs Grantaire, rolling at once against him, as soon as he is touched. “I thought I managed to steal in silently enough.”
“You are many things, but you make for an unlikely cat burglar, Grantaire.” Enjolras speaks lightly and grips him fiercely. He pulls Grantaire into the circle of his arms, tangles his fingers in the tangle of Grantaire's hair. “I wanted to be awake for your return. I have been awakening on the hour, and glaring at the candle.”
Grantaire smells of sweat and musk and revelry, and the bow of his mouth tastes like wine.
Enjolras samples several vintages, then releases Grantaire and falls back. “The night was a success, I see.”
Grantaire keeps their bodies pressed close as he props up on an elbow. “If you mean, my star, have I taken drink in precisely twelve cafes across the length and breadth of Paris, until the soles of my shoes were gone and I strolled in stocking feet, I can confirm it; if you ask what I have learned, whom I spoke to, what I drew, where I drank, what I heard for and against your cause, the report will be considerably longer. In the morning I shall scribe it all in a scroll for you, on ancient vellum, using scarlet ink, and add my little pictures. You will find that today I have sketched many streets for maps and strategy, and done some small likenesses of men you should want to meet, and men you must never meet.”
Enjolras is always heated by the depth of Grantaire's devotion, and the depth of his cunning. When Grantaire manages an operation with such finesse and fine result, Enjolras is quick to show his admiration. He puts his hand to Grantaire's cheek, runs his thumb along the edge of Grantaire's cheekbone.
“Your courage in this is extraordinary,” Enjolras says. “You bring me more than I should ask of any man.”
Grantaire’s lips turn up, pleased; he cants his hips, presses more firmly to Enjolras. “Who should have thought that I would make a better spy than a painter? Well, my painting master might have said so. Spying seems to come more naturally than nature pictures ever did. It is easy enough to drink with many men and get them talking about their political ideas; there is nothing easier in the world. Then, to prod and examine a person's character, one must only ask him about himself; people love to talk about themselves, did you know, Enjolras? And they will tell you every last thing, should you query with a smile on your face.” Grantaire is still smiling. “Also, I am singularly motivated. What I do is to preserve you, and to benefit your campaign; I will leave no cobblestone or wine-jug unturned on such a holy quest.”
Enjolras' hand goes from cheek to shoulder, trails the smooth planes of Grantaire's chest, travels considerably lower. “I await your report with baited breath,” he says, ducking his head, the better to observe the instant effect he has on Grantaire, their mutual effect, when flesh is on flesh. Grantaire's is the breath caught. “I beg a summary, only.”
“You know I can refuse you nothing,” groans Grantaire, trying hard to gather scattered thoughts.
With his hand working Grantaire thus, Enjolras knows Grantaire would do anything, swear any oath, give over any boon; he is entirely Enjolras', body, mind and soul, and Enjolras would be frightened of the intensity if he did not share and return and abide by it. From the first his relationship with Grantaire has been a thing of love and lightning; they met in class and sparred and sparked and came together and have not looked back.
When Enjolras sought to lay the groundwork for what would become les Amis de l'ABC, it was Grantaire who suggested the subterfuge. If they played at seeming strangers, even foils, the rewards far outweighed the hidden truth.
One night in bed he spelled it out for Enjolras:
“Only think of it more clearly before you refuse again,” Grantaire said, tracing distant sights on the bed-linen with a fingertip. “I will join up and be congenial with the other fellows, but if they do not think I am in with you at all, imagine all that I will hear and be party to that you will not. I can go from club to club; I will be welcomed everywhere; I know how to talk to anyone. I know every cafe and restaurant in Paris and what to eat and drink at each; I can drink a man under the table, and I could be good at playing very drunk. Can you not see it clear, Enjolras? It would be like a play. We shall have scenes between us that would make Aeschylus weep, and thus impress that we are far from friends. You will show yourself to be strong, in shouting me down; and I will play the devil's advocate to your ideals, to show how strong you are.”
Enjolras was hardly breathing, trying to wrap his mind around an idea three parts mad and also maddeningly brilliant. Grantaire, embedded as the opposition, could prove enormously valuable to the future of the club and its operations. An unlikely emissary who could go amongst the varied crowds of youth and workmen in Paris, and speak Enjolras' plans with native fluency to each. With a reputation as an indulgent libertine, Grantaire's presence would not draw suspicion, and he would plead intoxication if caught saying anything too dangerous.
It took a long while -- half a night -- for Enjolras to agree. Once he did he saw the potentials unfolding like petals and they stayed up far in the next day making plans for the scheme and practicing.
“No, with more venom,” Grantaire said, his lips to Enjolras' ear, “you must disdain and repulse me, repudiate me, call me out for a disgrace and threaten to cast me forth. Behavior such as I intend to perform should not be tolerated in your revolution. Make an example of me.”
Grantaire's eyes, alight. The lightning that always crackled when they were together. “I think for my part I should act as in love with you as I am; for who would ever guess the truth of our nature, if I were seen to adore you openly, and you to seem indifferent, even cruel?”
And that had been even harder to agree on; it was risky, but once more, damn him, Grantaire was right. In the early states of plotting the club's inception, Enjolras worried that their relationship could be uncovered and used against them by a number of parties. He had often voiced concern that he would find it quite impossible to be impartial to Grantaire, that he would make a mistake and let slip some sign of the intimate affection that was between them, or that Grantaire would.
If Grantaire was free to proclaim adoration of Enjolras, and Enjolras appeared to pay him no heed, they had a chance to stay safe. Enjolras thought it might be easier to pretend to ignore Grantaire entirely than to pretend to be merely his friend.
Not that it will be easy to pull off, Enjolras cautioned, when he cautiously agreed to it all; but the promise and temptation of the plan was enough.
It has not been easy.
Far now from the confidence of those younger days, in the frenzied, uncertain, unstable present. Everything and more that they have planned has taken root and sprouted and spread.
Paris is a keg of powder and les Amis de l'ABC are the lit candle held up by the people in the dark.
In the dark Enjolras holds Grantaire as Grantaire gives his summary report of the young men agitating in cafes and clubs across the city. Talk has turned decisive and in Enjolras' favor, as has been the growing trend all summer.
For many months Grantaire, grown too used to his cynic's role, has argued with Enjolras over the logic of preparing for outright war, but lately he is silent on the opinion -- hesitates only a little as he describes how the boys claim they will take to arms if called.
Enjolras listens to him with deep satisfaction and growing dread. They are coming to it at long last, it is spinning close entirely too quickly: he knows they they are nearly at the end and the new beginning.
He has no illusions that he will survive it now that he can see the shape of things. He is quite certain he will be made a martyr. From this he feels excitement and vague regret. He cannot bear to consider Grantaire's result. Grantaire speaks of neither. This is the only part they do not discuss.
Though it was his proposal, the play-act of their sour relations has proved more difficult for Grantaire. His heart is soft where Enjolras' is resolved, and the day-in, day-out seeming indifference in public, the harsh words against him, falsified but nonetheless spoken by Enjolras' mouth in Enjolras' voice, have worn on Grantaire.
Difficult, after all, to stand ever on the outside looking in, never quite accepted or valued. Grantaire's speeches are faltering as of late, losing heart and steam. Often he puts his head down on the table, and loudly snores, and thus says silently to Enjolras: I cannot act it any more; I will break apart.
The drinking Grantaire must undertake on such days and when he goes out in Enjolras' service has been considerable; he can only turn down so many, or sip so slowly, as to avoid detection, though his watered wine-bottle helps some. There are also intoxicants from the Far East, pressed on him in bistro bathrooms or passed around the dinner-table, with sharp eyes watching until he partakes.
Some evenings Grantaire plays his part too well, stumbles back to their rooms without sound recollection of his whereabouts – the character Grantaire adopted is not a total stranger, after all. He is Grantaire amplified and emboldened to disrupt.
When Grantaire makes his own speeches to the club the topics he declaims are never lies, only made much rowdier and in full caricature. He is at heart a cynic; that act at least comes naturally enough, and he enjoys nothing so much as poking holes in commonly-held assumptions. He believes in the capacity for social change and in Enjolras enough to maintain the charade. Often Grantaire seems to enjoy the performance. But when Enjolras must castigate him, it is terrible to watch the blue light dim in Grantaire's eyes, watch him sputter and go out like a snuffed torch.
Only when they are reunited in the stolen hours between sleep and waking can it be anything like the old normal. Grantaire will detach from some party, and make his way back and into bed; they couple with heated abandon, then stay up through three candles talking of what has passed, and on strategies going forth, and sometimes, blissfully, of nonsense.
There are nights when Enjolras will relent and let Grantaire tell him an old story like he used to, with his nimble fingers in Enjolras' hair and his fingertips driving the headache from Enjolras' brow. Grantaire insistent on rest and refusing to hear of any other thing.
Tonight it is Enjolras who insists on distracting Grantaire from his exhaustion. Despite the trials Grantaire has kept steady and done crucial work, with none the wiser. Even Combeferre and Courfeyrac remain unaware of the deception, though sometimes Enjolras thinks he spies Combeferre looking thoughtfully at them.
The ruse has worked well enough.
“You have done so well,” Enjolras murmurs, with Grantaire's summary of the cafe-tour at a close; his hand has worked Grantaire throughout, and the final bits are split by sighs and sharp intakes of breath from Grantaire. Grantaire's cock is flush and lovely in Enjolras' fist. “To the victor the spoils.”
Enjolras means it for them both. He puts Grantaire onto his back, where Grantaire beams up at him; then Enjolras bends low to take Grantaire's cock, most of it at least, between his lips. He takes more and more, until Grantaire is at last fit in, stretching the hot wet heat of Enjolras' throat. He takes the little jerk of Grantaire's hips, until they find their pace; and Grantaire's hands are shaking but they work free the long plait of Enjolras' yellow hair, letting it spill free.
Grantaire gathers fistfolds of Enjolras' hair with reverence, speaking of fields and cloth of gold, and of colors like the streak of Phaeton crashing the sun's chariot, and amber fished by mermaids from the Baltic Sea, and honeycomb stolen from the monarch of honeybees. Through it Enjolras moves on him, swallows him down, can never, ever have enough of Grantaire like this. They have spent lazy days doing little else. If they had the time they once did, Enjolras would take him to the quick and past and taste him, but they do not have the time. The sun is nearly risen.
Enjolras drags off with a sound of regret that could be from either throat. Grantaire, quizzical and slack-jawed, relents his hair, and Enjolras leans after the round glass bottle left set by the bedside. He pours a measure into his palm, warms the oil, then reaches to slick the proud length of Grantaire's cock.
Grantaire's gaze tracks him. “Position me as you will, o mine sculptor. You will find I am not made of marble, like some amongst us, but of pliable clay--”
“I already have,” says Enjolras. He swings a leg across to straddle Grantaire's hips. “In fact while you were gone I sketched my statue precisely so in the dark. I tried to sleep, while I wanted to have you thus, and there was nothing for it until I could have you. I took the liberty of hastening the preparation.”
Now Grantaire's eyes are quite wide. He brings his hands up to settle at Enjolras' waist, steadying him, needing to be steadied himself, as Enjolras shows Grantaire how he is slick with oil and already open. Enjolras rises on his knees, taking hold of Grantaire's cock and sinking down so that Grantaire comes into him all at once.
Grantaire bites his lip hard enough to threaten blood, biting off the moan he wants to give; the walls are too thin, the neighbors too nosy, but as Enjolras brings them together Grantaire tosses his head, and his throat works, and he says, “Enjolras, you--”
“No, it was for you, as I said. I lay in bed, and thought of having you, and being had, and readied myself for you, that there need be no delay.” Enjolras is suppressing his own groans as he goes up to his knees again, then down, then up. Grantaire moving within him, Grantaire in him so deep, so deep, for all the talk of preparation. Grantaire filling him and keeping him grounded to earth, Grantaire playing his truest role.
“Well,” Enjolras considers, panting so that he does not gasp, “I suppose it was for me as well.”
They knew each other to be sympathetic from the first day in class more than two years ago: they were the brightest students in the lot, and shook hands with the sense of instant camaraderie that comes from mutual superiority. After class they strolled the winding track of the Seine arm-in-arm, as good friends will do, and by that very evening they were in bed, and have never climbed out of it --
Grantaire's hand twisting in his hair again. The roll of Grantaire's hips up to meet him as Enjolras rises and falls with a rhythm older than the Garden of Eden.
Grantaire murmurs about it as they fuck, Grantaire with his ability to monologue no matter the situation: “Do you know the old Jewish tradition about Lilith, Enjolras? You must listen for it. It is a whispered history. They hold that before there was Eve, God created a wife for Adam named Lilith, and she was made as equal to Adam as anything – her own woman, not fashioned from Adam's rib, as we say Eve was. Adam and Lilith lived in the Garden a while, but they had a problem. Adam wanted Lilith on her back, but she preferred to ride him.” Grantaire pulls a wickedly gleaming grin. His eyes sweep Enjolras, keenly appreciative. “I imagine her long hair streaming over her shoulder as yours does,” he chooses his words carefully, “whilst bucking authority.”
Enjolras laughs as he rides. “And what of Lilith?”
“She would not be subservient, so she left the Garden, or was cast from it, depending who you ask. Thereafter she set to coupling with demons, which I suppose God had also seen fit to create, and lay down in a cave, and became the mother of all monsters.” Grantaire manages to look circumspect beneath the building pleasure, the relentless push and pull of their bodies. “Rather an extreme reaction to an extraordinary position, if you were to ask me. But I like the story. And I, unlike Adam, worship unconditionally. I care not how we are, only that it is you and I, and we two together.” As he speaks he moves to take Enjolras' cock in hand with every sign of reverence, and a muttered prayer when Enjolras tightens up everywhere.
Enjolras shakes his head, is sure to shake out the gold silk of his hair. He leans in against Grantaire, rests his weight against him, puts his lips to Grantaire's neck. Grantaire's mouth is saved for last. He tastes of liquor and smoke, and his tongue is clever and sure.
Enjolras knows Grantaire's tongue and the things that it is capable of better than his own. Here now Grantaire's tongue, welcoming him, and when they are like this it is as though none of the rest of it ever happened. It is like that, for a while.
Timed well, partners in a dance, they can find release as one, and they like to time it that way. They know just how and where to hold and grip and kiss. One's earlobe is sensitive, the other's belly button is; sometimes they switch. Enjolras will kiss Grantaire through crisis, to quiet the cries they want to make, and Grantaire's fingers will find a way to be buried in his hair and sure to make a mess of it.
They prefer to go over the edge together, spill into and across and shine their bodies with the mutual evidence of desire. Tonight it is no different, only that when Enjolras, shaking, exhilarating, would have pulled away, Grantaire begs to keep them whole a moment longer.
“Every second in Paradise must be savored now,” says Grantaire, fingers grazing the nape of Enjolras' neck, blue eyes open, “since we are soon to be cast from the Garden.”
“Grantaire--”
“Do you truly believe that if we do not speak of it, it shall not come to pass? That is a child's trick, Enjolras. I know better than any man that a turning-point is coming to the city, for it has been my job to observe and excite it, and I have read my histories, and I know just how popular uprisings end up. You choose death and I choose you. It is really quite simple.”
Enjolras' throat feels tight, and for several breaths he cannot speak. Grantaire at last eases free of him, though he keeps his arms around Enjolras, and guides him to lie close. They watch each other face-to-face, sharing skin. Grantaire can see too much, Grantaire knows him too well, and he Grantaire, but still Enjolras must try.
He tries: “There is a chance for you. You could go to--”
“There is no chance,” says Grantaire. “I have accepted it, and I wish that you would. It would put my mind to rest. I do not fear death, only a death without you, which would be unacceptable, and quite a waste, considering my recent efforts. Where we go we go together.” He shrugs, as though that place might be to dinner, and looks as resolved as Enjolras has ever seen him. “In this life I am yours, and I suspect in the next I will be, and the one after that. I am not afraid to start again.”
Enjolras closes his eyes, and when he opens them Grantaire is studying him.
“Did you really think of a place for me when this was through, Enjolras?”
“I had to. I could not bear otherwise.” It feels torn out of Enjolras, but Grantaire deserves to hear it said: the way his imagination has run wild, imagining it. He cannot stop himself. He runs wild. “There is a minor property of my family's in the South, near a quiet town, far from the main road. I like it better than the other places they claim. There are a few acres of growing crops and a bit of forest with tall trees, and at night it is quiet enough to believe you are asleep in the woods. The house is not large, but it is sufficient.”
To speak of it is to see it and Enjolras aches with vision. “It is here that I imagined you might go. You could pass time on your artwork, and the town is only a short walk. Surely you would make friends there, and find employment if you wanted. Further down the road there is a schoolhouse--”
Grantaire's expressive face is changing as Enjolras talks and talks; his face is melting, and for the first time he looks completely undone. Talk of death was easier than plans for life.
Grantaire is saying, “Is it only me that you see there?”
And has Grantaire not earned the right to know the depth of Enjolras' affliction? Is it not Enjolras' turn to tell an old story?
Enjolras tells Grantaire, “I am there as well, in my hidden dreams. Impossible things, Grantaire, like you, and as beautiful. A world turned ideal, and you and I retired to the country. I know the headmaster at the school, and might apprentice myself to him; one day I should have his position, and instruct generations of France's young men to be righteous citizens; and you would teach them ancient arts and otherwise. The estate is small enough to be run by a handful of workers; our friends might come and go for grape-picking season, and all would gather every year when the wine is ready. Our bedroom is in the back of the house, with a door out to the garden, and very thick walls --”
Grantaire's eyes open, close, with each blink more luminous. “It would be a gentler life after so much difficulty,” he says, interrupting as though he cannot bear to hear the intimate details of a room that they will never share. “I see why you have chosen it, and I would have gone with you gladly. A man tires of cities as he ages.” He cants his head, putting his face half in shadow under the dark of his hair. “Do you often think of this country seat?”
“Every day,” says Enjolras, “since the first day.”
Grantaire reaches for his hand. Their fingers catch. “It is far away,” says Grantaire, “but it is a lovely sort of place, and I am happy to have visited it with you. We might get bored, but I think that if we brought enough friends and books, it would never be boring. When I let myself think on futures out of reach, my thoughts were not nearly so well-organized.”
“I would hear them,” says Enjolras. He hears himself sounding hungry.
“Instead of plans, they are flashes, and strong impressions, fancies of mine,” says Grantaire slowly, staring as though from a distance. “The bedroom I see as well, a room that is ours with no sneaking to share it. How it might be to know that I could join you every night, and have it bother no one else that I did. I would have you on my arm for all the world to see, but that is for another world, I think.”
Their arms are linked around each other now; Enjolras tightens his hold on Grantaire. Anger and growing regret burn brightly in his belly. Why should they be afraid to saunter again along the Seine, arm-in-arm, as they did the first day of class? They feared someone seeing their love for what it was: a terribly improbable reason not to be able to stroll with arms around each other, as other doting couples could.
Had they been able to show the truth of the relationship from the start of les Amis de l'ABC, they could have played other parts in this. Maybe Grantaire would not have had to play the cynic. He does not sound cynical now. He sounds vulnerable, and resigned, and softly wistful.
Grantaire's expression draws serious; his eyebrows knit. His pitch is barely above a whisper, and Enjolras has to tilt in to hear it: “Would you hear that in another world, I would have a family? I am fond of children, and this planet has enough of them without our meddling. With your contribution I can see it more plainly now. We could let it be known that troubled ladies and unhappy orphans might find respite with us, at your house in the country, and in time there would be children. Sometimes I see a little girl, upright and fair, like you, and a small stubborn boy more like me, with chalk in his hand.” Grantaire clears his throat as his voice begins to betray him. “A third child, sex undetermined as of yet, who might be better off a Combeferre or a Courfeyrac, a citizen of nature--”
Enjolras does not realize that he is weeping until Grantaire moves to smooth his thumb across the wet in wonder. Grantaire tries to wipe the tears away, and at length succeeds. It is such a new thing between them that they are frozen at first.
Then Grantaire says, “Enjolras, I did not mean to--”
Enjolras takes Grantaire's hand between both of his own. “Say that you mean it all.”
Grantaire nods, with his blue eyes enormous and his black hair a crushed halo, his red mouth an uneven line. No one would call Grantaire beautiful, not with his too-strong features and thin, wry, spectacular lips – none save Enjolras, who makes a point of it --
“I see all of it before me like a book, or a painting,” answers Grantaire. “It is enough to get a glimpse. Every man and woman imagines their ideal life as a matter of course, and that is mine with you. It is far more rare to know that another would share the same self-delusions.”
Enjolras can do little but hold him, and say: “I am sorry it is only a dream.” He tightens his hold. “Grantaire, I am so sorry--”
“Hush. Enough. I would not have you speak as though we did not go into this with our eyes open. I have always known who you are, and what you would do, and what we would do together. As I said, my fear is not of death but that you will try to keep me from it. Yours will be a heroic swoon, set down for the ages, wherever you fall; men will speak your name for centuries, and say how well you stood. I ask for nothing but to stand beside you. I have earned that, I think.” Grantaire leans in to press a kiss against Enjolras' slack jaw, his frowning mouth. “Only indicate through some sign to me when the fight is finished, and I will follow.”
Enjolras thinks about this. He feels hollow and too full of remorse. The looming outcome of the undertaking is cast over them like a mourning cloak. Yet with Grantaire so resolved, what can he do?
Once he had exchanged words with Combeferre: “If we are in a situation where the outcome is desperate, I would have it be an order that you secure Grantaire and find a way to safety.” And Combeferre looked at Enjolras in his considerate way, and shook his head, and did not ask why Enjolras would seek to preserve the seeming thorn in his side, and said, “You know quite well that neither of us will go,” and that was that.
After all that they have been, how can Enjolras deny Grantaire his bid to man the barricade? Grantaire is right, as he ever is, he has more than earned his place; and if they die together in the end none could know that it meant anything more than martyrdom. They might hold hands, and turn as one into the attack, and thus never have to understand what it is like to have to live without the other.
Instead of answering, Enjolras kisses Grantaire. Enjolras opens his mouth, the better to allow for the reentry of Grantaire's smart tongue, and as they kiss he feels himself starting to smile. The absurdity of life and death is laid out more plainly than Grantaire's maps of Paris. That they, striving for a better, more just mode of living, must whisper of their eminent execution, is one of the curiouser cases out of history.
“Is it not strange,” Grantaire once said, “that every land on the globe has men and women who tried to change society for the better, and also stories of how they suffered? Why else should you want to be a martyr, Enjolras, save that martyrs are remembered, when so many are not? Prometheus the Titan stole fire and brought it to the early humans that he loved; for the gracious act he was chained to a rock where a great bird picks at his intestines every day, and every night his body regresses and goes back to its previous state: that is the fate of revolutionaries. Yet too few of us recall Prometheus' sacrifice. Do you ever think he wishes he had chosen another path, now that he has been upon the rock in torment so long, with the bird?”
It is all of it absurd: Prometheus' punishment for humane disobedience, the punishment Enjolras and Grantaire court; for no man can try and alter the status quo without inciting the rage of those who maintain it. Yet Grantaire too easily glosses the impact of rebellion, Enjolras knows. Those who defy the wrath of gods and men have their names written down in books and whispered when other humans need hope and strength. The fires that les Amis spark will burn far after their own smaller lives. A few brave handfuls of men and women, cleverly deployed, can send a message of resonant defiance.
Enjolras is still smiling gravely while they kiss. So when they stop, he tells Grantaire, “I will smile when it is over,” and Grantaire nods.
To have it settled feels barely as tolerable as to have it unsaid. Grantaire must feel the same way, for he draws up the blanket over their bodies for cover, and puts his head to Enjolras’ shoulder, burrowing closer. “Tell me again about the bedroom.”
Enjolras swallows. “Are you certain --”
“The walls, I think you said, are very thick?”
“The house has been standing several centuries; it is solidly built, and simply. Whitewashed walls and wooden floors, a roof of red tile. The bedroom opens into the garden, which is neatly kept by the caretakers there. There are many flowers and many bees. Upstairs, three guest-rooms standing ready to be used. Downstairs, a big warm kitchen after the rural style. Outside, a smaller farmhouse for the grounds, and a modest farm; I mentioned the vineyard. Only enough vines to make the house wine, but enough.”
“Three empty rooms?”
“Yes. Three.”
“The house wine?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me more about the school down the road,” says Grantaire, his hands in Enjolras’ hair, trailing from root to tip; his eyes are blue like the sky without clouds, and his jaw is stubborn, set.
So Enjolras tells him -- tells him how it might have been, in an impossible future. Tells Grantaire how they might have lived and loved, all that he has dreamed and day-dreamed, recklessly plotted and planned inside his head.
Because Grantaire is right: no man or woman is immune to imagining their perfect life; in fact, Enjolras is relying on it. His comrades in philosophy will follow him to arms because they believe in a better world they have pictured. Enjolras will lead the charge because he can see that world in reach and knows the cost of entry. Grantaire also knows. You choose death and I choose you.
They burn through candles talking, until the sun is up and burning too. It could be any other day, only they know that it is not, it is the edge, and every day after will be a lucky and unlucky sign.
“Do you know,” Enjolras is saying to Grantaire, Grantaire bathed in sunlight beside him, “before we properly met I thought we would not get along? Your answers were correct, your instincts keen, but I disliked your casual delivery; I thought you were there to make trouble. I knew enough bored young aristocrats by then.”
Grantaire chooses laughter rather than taking offence. “If I tell you that I went to class that day with the express intention to play a bored young aristocrat, will you forgive me for the first impression?
Enjolras’ turn to laugh and shake his head. “What I meant to say was this: we met after class, and went along the river, and to dinner, you remember? -- Yes. And after dinner, when I asked you to see me home, and then come inside--”
“I think of that day often,” says Grantaire, deceptively mild. “It is one of my favorite days.”
Enjolras is briefly sidetracked. “Your favorite overall?”
“The Louvre,” says Grantaire, raising his eyebrows, his tongue laving the L.
Enjolras blushes. Blushes. There’s a deepening red on his cheeks, and he feels himself heating. “That was a good day, yes.”
“I should have had you by the statue of Euryalus,” muses Grantaire, “alas for the museum guards.”
“I should think the stairwell sufficed,” says Enjolras, remembering the way Grantaire had caught him up and held him up in the narrow dark staircase they found, how they fucked helping each other stifle sounds, roused to the tipping point and past by the threat of discovery. The Louvre had been Grantaire’s kingdom; therein Enjolras played his follower, and it proved an excellent sort of switch.
Grantaire took him on the grand tour, diverting for his favorite highlights, and then took Enjolras in the stairs off a wing of Greek and Roman statuary. The smell of stone, of their mingled sweat, the press of their bodies and mouths in the daring dark. The risk and reward of them. That is the Louvre. Grantaire’s favorite day.
Enjolras exhales. “What I wanted to recount before certain distractions was the first night we passed. Or maybe it is the morning. We lay still awake, and talking, as we talk even now. We agreed that while it was improbable, it was possible that we encountered our ideals in one another, and that we should not resist the sympathy but embrace it. “ He slants an eyebrow at Grantaire. “You spoke of epic and divine lovers, and said that we would rival them.”
“Prove me incorrect,” says Grantaire.
Enjolras inclines his head. He does not argue. He says, “And I said--”
“That it was entirely unlikely that we should be in love, having just met, even if it felt as though we were in love,” recounts Grantaire, with perfect memory. He sets his hand to the bend of Enjolras’ thigh. “You argued about statistical improbabilities and inflated fairytales and ancien régime romantic tropes, and declared that while you had never been one for undue sentiment, there was no denying that we were compatible. I was ready to say I loved you, before you even took my arm to walk along the river; I tried, if you recall; but you asked me not to say so that day.”
“That is why I have recalled it,” says Enjolras. “I wanted to tell you that you were right. I debated with you then, and refused to see, but I see it clearly now. I loved you from the moment you stood up to answer in class, and when I saw what you were truly made of, I loved you the more.”
“If this is a ploy to woo me, it arrives late--”
“Many days since I have told you that I loved you, Grantaire. In this I know we are assured. But I knew it long before I ever told you. I knew it from the first. And since then, I have let myself see us in a house in the country, in the space between sleeping and dreaming.”
Grantaire bites his lip. He says, “I can see it too. I could paint it all--”
“You would paint every day, and never need to draw another scene of a street for strategy.” Enjolras drops his gaze. “The work that you have done for us is extraordinary.” The briefest hesitation. “I hate it.”
“Necessary evils for the greater good,” shrugs Grantaire.
“You should not do so much alone. If we told the others of the scheme--”
“Then it would not be a scheme. They are good men but that is far too many loose lips to account for. No, our secrets must be kept until the crisis, and then it will not matter. We have come too far to jeopardize this, Enjolras.” There is a pause, and then a slow, suggestive smile curves Grantaire’s lips. He steers them elsewhere. “But let speak no more of death or destiny a while. We have sacrificed enough candles, and all my questions are answered.”
“Tell me another story,” says Enjolras, in agreement.
“Hmm,” hums Grantaire, looking happy, and considering, “If we stay with the Biblical theme, the Song of Songs is wholly appropriate. Every day as a youth I used to bless its author for slipping such fine erotic art into that brick of a book.”
He moves to settle over Enjolras, and Enjolras cradles him between his thighs. Grantaire recites, half-singing: “‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.’” He ducks down to put word to deed, kissing Enjolras deeply, binding them up.
Grantaire murmurs distant poetry against his neck, scratches words into his skin. “‘Because of the savor of thy good ointments,’” and Grantaire reaches for the oil with a serious face and laughing eyes, “‘thy name is as ointment poured forth,’” his hand is slick, his fingers seek Enjolras, “‘therefore do the virgins love thee.’”
Enjolras wants to laugh but all he can do is groan as Grantaire’s fingers slip back inside to prime him. Grantaire knows just what he likes best like this, Grantaire has had him hundreds of times and still acts as though each time is treasured and new. Every day he looks at Enjolras with wide-eyed wonder, and that has never changed, even now, with their world so altered.
“‘Draw me,’” says Grantaire, still quoting, “‘we will run after thee,’” and he moves to hook Enjolras’ ankles over his shoulders. Fully aroused again -- a particular skill of Grantaire’s -- he waits for Enjolras’ breathless nod, then presses slowly in.
Enjolras groans again, because it feels better than anything else he knows, and because Grantaire has timed the poem on purpose --
“‘The King hath brought me into his chambers,’” so that Grantaire twists his tricky hips and drives deep, “‘we will be glad and rejoice in thee,” and he does, rejoicing again and again.
There is sweat on Grantaire’s brow that turns his hair the color obsidian and he has one hand on Enjolras’ hipbone, the other on Enjolras’ cock. “‘We will remember thy love more than wine.’” Grantaire’s thrusts are achingly thorough, electrifying. “‘The upright love thee.’”
“Ah, Grantaire, how I love you --”
“A symphony of words and masterwork of syllables. I could hear it sung forever. Now come kiss me, and I shall show you what I think of you in return.”
Enjolras moves to kiss Grantaire, pushing up on his elbows. He grabs for fistfuls of Grantaire's ink-black hair and holds. The second round is even more intense, faster and deeper, sweat painting their skin, the bed frame creaking dangerously from the strain. They twist and writhe and bite moans into shoulders to stay silent. Their fingers twine. Their lips graze. They watch each other through it. When they are like this there is nothing else. The world outside fades at the edges. They are young and alive and in love, the most sustaining state of all, and the most isolated.
If they do not leave bed until long past most men have risen and washed and dressed, only they know. They have the weight of world-changing on their shoulders, but they are lying down. They remain tangled up together, whispering plans for their ideal paradise. Only they know if they speak on the coming tide of social protest or of a small house in the south of France.
They reside in the Garden a few days more. Then they rebel, and meet monsters.
Their story is an old one; one day Grantaire will tell it.