Work Text:
From the moment he set foot in the grocery store, Enjolras felt like a cat who had its fur pet the wrong way. It wasn’t that he had anything against the grocery store, specifically, other than the fact that there always seemed to be unaccompanied minors running around and getting in the way, and he somehow always wound up in line behind the slowest old lady with an oxygen tank who had eighty tins of cat food that she unloaded from her cart one at a time, and really, if Enjolras could subsist on something besides food, he probably would.
Because the problem with food was that it took time, both to shop for and to cook, and one thing that was at a premium for Enjolras was time. He traveled all the time, and normally ate at least one meal at work, and that meant whatever few minutes he actually spared in his apartment were better spent doing things other than cooking.
Unfortunately, not eating wasn’t an option, and Enjolras had already eaten all the stale packages of ramen he had stashed in his pantry (and Combeferre had physically barred him from his apartment, saying he was tired of Enjolras eating all of his food, and the Chinese takeout place down the street had started to get that fake sympathetic tone whenever he called to order food for one), so he sucked it up and headed to the closest grocery store.
The first half of his trip went fine, grabbing some cereal and more boxes of Kraft mac and cheese than a self-respecting man should probably take. But when he got to debating over different frozen dinner varieties, that was where trouble began, when someone literally rammed into his cart with one of their own. “Oh, shit,” the man in question swore.
Enjolras glared at him, more irritated than angry. “Watch where you’re going,” he snapped.
The man glanced up at him and swore again, this time his tone low and appreciative. “Shit. Sorry about hitting your cart, but maybe it was fate.”
Enjolras raised an eyebrow at him. “I very highly doubt it,” he said crisply.
The man laughed, leaning over the edge of his cart to smile at Enjolras, and Enjolras tried not to be distracted by the fact that it was a very nice smile, or that the man had really blue eyes. “So what’s a guy like you doing buying frozen meals? No girlfriend — or boyfriend — to cook for you?”
“No,” Enjolras said shortly.
“Then maybe I can cook for you sometime.” The man held out his hand for Enjolras to shake (which he did, reluctantly, and he didn’t let his hand linger. Much). “I’m Grantaire.”
“Enjolras. And I buy frozen meals because of the convenience.”
He didn’t mean for the tone to sound haughty, but the other man — Grantaire — didn’t seem to care, his grin widening. “Sure, the convenience and the increased chance for diabetes. I can see the appeal. But hey, it’s better than starving. Wouldn’t want to be like the 842 million people in the world that are.”
Enjolras stared at Grantaire’s grin, at the way he was casually mocking the state of food insecurity in the world — which was only one of Enjolras’s personal missions to address — and decided not even to dignify that with a remark. “If you don’t like it you don’t have to eat it,” he huffed, grabbing his cart and starting to stalk away.
“I’m sorry,” Grantaire called after him, sounding surprised. “Didn’t mean to insult you. You’re just really hot and I’m an asshole.”
Enjolras would’ve liked to say he didn’t turn around and look back, but he did, and his heart did beat a little faster at the sight of Grantaire staring after him like a kicked puppy.
But then the rage kicked in, so much so that he didn’t even notice until he got back to his apartment that the groceries in his grocery bag were not the ones he had put in his cart. In his anger, he must’ve grabbed Grantaire’s cart instead of his, and instead of his nutritionally void but easy to heat up frozen meals, he was stuck with a bunch of fresh produce, some salmon, and for some inexplicable reason, a jar of olives. “Shit,” he sighed.
Well, it wasn’t like he could go return them now. He would just have to make the best of it, and hope that when he slunk back to the grocery store to buy more food in the next few days, Grantaire would not be there.
Of course, that plan failed.
It was almost as if Grantaire was waiting for him, which was confirmed when Grantaire saw him come into the grocery store and perked up. “I thought I might see you here,” he said, far too cheerfully for Enjolras’s liking. “Figured you wouldn’t last long on what I had in my cart.”
“It was fine,” Enjolras said stiffly.
Grantaire’s smile faltered and he said quickly, “Look, we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over? I’m Grantaire. I’m an artist. I’m also a huge douchebag, but I’m working on that. Or trying to. Insulting your food choices was meant to be my way of flirting. Douchebag. I know. But I’d really like to make it up to you.”
Despite himself, Enjolras was intrigued. “How?”
“Well, for starters, if you’ll let me I’ll accompany you on this little sojourn into buying incredibly unhealthy food options, and I promise that I won’t make fun of you — or at least, I’ll try really hard not to.” Grantaire bit his lip before adding, “And if you’d let me, I’d really like to cook you dinner.”
“Why, so you can show me what I’ve been missing?” Enjolras asked, though his tone was teasing, and Grantaire relaxed slightly.
“Something like that. Anyway, what do you say?”
Enjolras glanced at him and shrugged. “Let’s start with shopping, and see how it goes.”
As it turned out, it went fine. Grantaire was surprisingly good company when he wasn’t insulting Enjolras, keeping up a steady stream of commentary ranging from topics as varied as the World Cup to random science trivia about kale to just about everything in between. Enjolras found himself laughing and having a good time — which, considering the fact that he was doing his most-loathed activity, was saying something.
Finally, they got to the checkout, and Enjolras looked at Grantaire appraisingly. “Well, shopping went well,” he said hedgingly. “Maybe we could try dinner.”
Grantaire grinned. “Good. First date. Me cooking.”
“Second date,” Enjolras corrected. “Since I think this kind of counts as a date.”
Grantaire looked positively elated at that, and he bounced on the balls of his feet, beaming. “Absolutely. Second date. Sounds perfect. Tonight?”
Enjolras shook his head. “Can’t, I’ve got work. Tomorrow night, though? I’m going out of town for work stuff at the end of the week.”
“Tomorrow night works for me,” Grantaire said, still grinning. “Let me give you my address—” He entered his address and number into Enjolras’s phone. “And now I’ve got some shopping of my own to do.”
He hesitated before leaning in and giving Enjolras a quick hug, then headed in the direction of the produce. “It doesn’t have to be anything fancy!” Enjolras called at Grantaire’s retreating back, but Grantaire just waved at him.
Enjolras sighed and turned back to the checkout lady, who was staring at him. “This is going to sound super weird,” she said. “But I’m, like, 98% sure I own your cookbook? At least, you look a lot like the picture on the back cover.”
Forcing a smile on his face, Enjolras said in as cheerful a tone as he could muster, “Yeah, that’s me. Chef Enjolras.”
She let out an excited squeal and started talking about all the recipes that she had made, but Enjolras’s mind was elsewhere. Namely, he was wondering if he should have told Grantaire that he was a chef before agreeing to let him cook dinner for him.
It wasn’t like Enjolras was a famous chef.
Ok, he was. Fairly famous. Very famous. Could retire now and never have to work another day in his life because his restaurant and cookbook had made him enough money famous.
But did that really matter? If Grantaire had recognized him, he would have said something, right?
And it was just dinner, after all.
How could it possibly go wrong?
Enjolras knew exactly what went wrong the minute he walked into Grantaire’s apartment, bearing a bottle of wine. For starters, the bottle of wine he brought probably wouldn’t pair well with spaghetti alla carbonara, which was what he smelled.
And secondly, it was Enjolras’s recipe.
It was difficult to tell by smell alone whether a recipe as simple as carbona was his variation, but the combination of scents and aromas was as familiar to Enjolras as if he was back in his restaurant’s kitchen. Luckily, the scent made his stomach growl, since there was a reason he had included it in his cookbook — it was one of his all-time favorite recipes.
So he swallowed his trepidation and put a smile on his face and let Grantaire pour him a glass of wine. And after small talk while Grantaire dished out, they sat down at the table — complete with a candle, since Grantaire was apparently a bit of a romantic — and Enjolras took his first bite.
It was orgasmic.
He was pretty sure his eyes rolled back in his head and he made a particularly indignified noise, given the laugh that Grantaire just barely smothered. “I’ll take it it tastes alright?” Grantaire asked innocently.
“It’s amazing,” Enjolras said, truthfully, and tucked in with gusto.
Conversation was at a minimum over the next fifteen minutes as both men ate, though Enjolras caught Grantaire looking at him with a huge smile on his face when he thought Enjolras wasn’t looking. Grantaire had also made a caprese salad and some garlic bread and while the restaurateur in Enjolras wanted to complain that these things didn’t all go together, he resisted, instead helping himself to seconds and thirds.
Finally, though, dinner was over, and Enjolras looked almost ruefully at his now-empty plate. “That was seriously good,” he told Grantaire, raising his glass in a toast. “My compliments to the chef.”
“You only say that because you haven’t eaten real food recently,” Grantaire teased, though he looked pleased as he clinked his glass against Enjolras’s.
Enjolras shook his head. “I absolutely mean every word,” he promised, before gesturing at his plate. “Do you want me to clean up, or…?”
Grantaire gestured dismissively. “Nah, leave it. Cleaning up isn’t nearly as sexy as the cooking was.” He winked at Enjolras, who shook his head and laughed. “You know,” Grantaire said thoughtfully, propping his chin on his hand and watching as Enjolras took a sip of wine, “you look familiar. Should I know you from somewhere?”
Enjolras rolled his eyes and shook his head, though he avoided Grantaire’s gaze. “Of course I look familiar,” he scoffed. “There’s like three guys who look just like me in Congress.”
Grantaire snorted. “Like I pay any attention to Congress.”
Frowning, Enjolras said, a little too eagerly, “You really should, though. Don’t you know how important the decisions they make are? I mean, I was just in a meeting to discuss possible changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and with food security being a far bigger deal in this country than people think — let alone in other countries, where things are far more dire—”
He was about ready to settle into a rant but instead Grantaire choked on the wine he had just taken a sip of. “Oh, fuck,” he swore, his eyes wide as he stared at Enjolras. “I do know you from somewhere. Fucking shit — you were just on the news talking about SNAP. You’re…you’re…you’re a fucking famous chef.” Enjolras felt his ears burn and he gave a non-committal shrug as Grantaire continued, his voice rising in volume, “You do a whole shitload of work with, like, USAID and the World Food Programme and shit, right? And your food is fucking incredible, even though I’ve never gotten to eat in your restaurant because, well, I mean, it’s hugely expensive and the waitlist is longer than my arm and—”
He broke off, sounding like he was about to start hyperventilating, and stood up from the table, as Enjolras quickly said, “I was going to tell you, I just never really had the chance…”
“I have your cookbook,” Grantaire said weakly, gesturing vaguely towards a cabinet in the kitchen. “The recipe I just cooked for you was from your own fucking cookbook.” He actually smacked a hand against his forehand, and Enjolras winced, wanting to somehow comfort him but not knowing what to say. “You must think I’m an absolute idiot,” Grantaire continued, his voice a low mutter. “You were on fucking Iron Chef for fuck’s sake, and here I am making your goddamn recipe like a complete—”
“It wasn’t my recipe,” Enjolras interrupted, half-rising from his chair in an attempt to get Grantaire to stop. “It was my grandmother’s. And you cooked it just as amazingly as she did, I promise.”
If anything, his words only made it worse, and Grantaire shook his head wildly. “You own a Michelin starred restaurant. I repeat, you were on Iron Chef!”
Enjolras couldn’t help but smile at the fact that Grantaire clearly ranked his appearance — and win, thank you very much — on Iron Chef America as a higher estimation of his cooking prowess than his restaurant's accolades. He cleared his throat. “Well, yes, all of that’s true, but that doesn’t change the fact that you cooked me an excellent meal.” Grantaire made a low whimpering sound and sank into his chair, reaching for his glass of wine, and Enjolras continued earnestly, “Seriously, you have no idea how long it’s been since someone’s made me dinner, other than Combeferre, my best friend, and he really doesn’t cook for me, I just steal his food. When people find out I’m a chef, they just assume that I’ll be cooking, and it’s really nice not to have to worry about that, especially since I rarely have time to cook for myself.”
“Hence the frozen dinners,” Grantaire said hollowly.
Nodding, Enjolras cautiously sat back down at the table. “Hence the frozen dinners. And hence why I absolutely 100% mean it when I say that this meal was delicious, as good as how my grandma used to make it. After all, what did I say in the introduction to my cookbook?”
Grantaire managed a small smile. “If I recall, you quoted from the movie ‘Ratatouille’.”
“Damn right I did,” Enjolras said proudly. “Anyone can cook. And you proved that right tonight.”
Snorting, Grantaire ran a hand through his hair, pointedly looking away from Enjolras. “Not everyone can cook,” he muttered. “You should meet my friend Bossuet, because even you would revise that statement.” He glanced back at him. “But seriously, you do all this bullshit work with starving people and here I am like a prize idiot.”
Enjolras shook his head. “You’re not an idiot,” he said impatiently. “And the work I do is not bullshit, it’s important—”
“But it’s hardly going to help anything in the long run,” Grantaire argued, clearly back on more familiar ground despite having learned Enjolras’s real identity. “The system is intended to keep those without from gaining anything and there’s no amount of education in the world that can change that.”
“But it’s more than education,” Enjolras shot back, “though that is a huge part of it. It’s about working with local and regional governments across the world on infrastructure improvements and other systemic changes that are preventing people from moving forward.”
Grantaire shook his head. “But without the money to keep those systems in place, the system overall is never going to change. And besides, people are hungry. It’s kind of hard to focus on bettering your life when you’re starving. Maybe we should work on making sure everyone has a full stomach before anything else, even if it’s not sustainable or whatever word you’re spouting these days.”
Enjolras let out what sounded like a combination between a growl and a moan and leaned forward to kiss Grantaire full on the lips. “It isn’t sustainable,” he murmured, barely moving away from Grantaire, who seemed frozen in shock, “though I wish that it was.”
Grantaire blinked and swallowed hard. “You kissed me.”
Cocking his head slightly, Enjolras said, “Yeah. I did. And I’m going to do it again.”
And he did.
Grantaire let out a small squeak. “But why?” he spluttered. “I literally ripped off your grandma’s recipe to cook dinner for one of the most qualified chefs in this city and then spent the last five minutes ripping apart the work you do, and—”
“You said ‘we’,” Enjolras said, cutting him off before he wound himself up too much.
“Pardon?”
Enjolras couldn’t help but smile, even as he leaned in to kiss Grantaire for a third time. “You said ‘maybe we should work on’ things. Meaning that you care. And besides, you made my grandma’s recipe for me. Accidental or not, that’s kind of amazing.”
Grantaire just shook his head slowly. “I have no idea what’s happening right now, but I guess that I shouldn’t be complaining?” he asked weakly.
“Come to my restaurant with me,” Enjolras said, in lieu of an answer.
Now Grantaire positively gaped at him. “I’m sorry?”
“My restaurant. You said you’d never been. I want to take you.”
Grantaire looked stunned. “You can’t be serious.”
Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I never joke about my restaurant.” Grantaire didn’t smile and Enjolras sighed. “Fine, I’ll prove to you how serious I am. Where’s my cookbook?” Grantaire gestured weakly at the cabinet next to the oven, and Enjolras stood, walking over and pulling it out. He grabbed a pen from the counter and uncapped it, putting the pen cap in his mouth as he signed the inside cover and wrote his phone number underneath his signature before adding, “Anyone can cook — but only the fearless can be great. Be fearless and cook for me again? I love your food, I love your laugh, and I want a chance to see where this goes.”
Then he recapped the pen and set it back on the counter before marching back over to Grantaire and handing him the book. “Here.”
Grantaire read through what Enjolras had written, his eyebrows so high they almost disappeared into his hair. Then he pronounced solemnly, “Fuck”, and tossed the cookbook aside, standing up to grab Enjolras around the waist and kiss him, hard.
“Is that a yes, then?” Enjolras asked.
Grantaire growled and kissed him again. “Yes, it’s a yes to everything — to going to your restaurant, to cooking for you again, to hopefully walking the twenty steps from here to my bedroom at some point soon because fuck here I thought I was just going to be hitting on the guy buying How to Train Your Dragon mac and cheese and instead I wound up with…well, you.”
“To be fair, I do indeed buy How to Train Your Dragon mac and cheese, though admittedly spirals are my favorite shape,” Enjolras said nonchalantly, grinning when Grantaire whimpered. “And I am very amenable to going to your bedroom.” Contrary to his words, he took a step back. “Do you want me to do the dishes, though?”
Grantaire glared at him. “I’m not making a fucking Michelin starred chef do my fucking dishes, are you kidding me right now?”
Enjolras looked offended. “You’re not making me do anything, I’m offering.”
Rolling his eyes, Grantaire grabbed Enjolras’s hand and tugged him towards the bedroom. “Fucking professional chef wanting to do my fucking shitty dishes are you fucking shitting me,” he grumbled.
“I can at least put them in water to soak,” Enjolras suggested, mostly in vain, especially since Grantaire pulled him to him and kissed him again, his hands resting possessively on Enjolras’s hips. “Then again, the dishes can wait.”
And he followed Grantaire into the bedroom, where he was going to repay Grantaire for one of the best meals he had ever had.