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As the Les Amis meeting broke up, Enjolras was surprised to see Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire huddled together, their usual merriment somewhat dimmed. “What’s going on?” he asked Courfeyrac, who could generally be counted on to know the latest gossip.
Courfeyrac followed Enjolras’s gaze. “Oh, Grantaire’s boyfriend broke up with him,” he said.
Enjolras resisted the urge to curl his lip at the idea of calling some guy Grantaire was hooking up with his ‘boyfriend’, but he knew the semantic would be lost on Courfeyrac. Besides which, Courfeyrac would almost certainly use it as further ammunition for his belief that Enjolras harbored some kind of romantic feelings for Grantaire.
Which he very well might, but Courfeyrac was the exact last person he planned on ever having that conversation with.
Well, second to last, at least. Grantaire was probably last.
“You don’t need to look so gleeful about it,” Combeferre said in an undertone from Enjolras’s other side, and Enjolras quickly turned his attention to the papers in front of him.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
Combeferre just gave him a look. “Sure you don’t.”
But at least unlike Courfeyrac, he was willing to drop the topic, and all three of them returned their attention where it rightly belonged, to their work.
As the hour grew later, however, the noise from the back corner of the room still occupied by Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire grew exponentially louder, which Enjolras imagined had something to do with the pile of empty beer bottles that also grew. Combeferre threw down his pen with something like irritation. “See, this is why I always studied in the library,” he said sourly.
Courfeyrac quickly turned his laugh into a cough. “Walk me home, sourpuss?” he said, fluttering his eyelashes at Combeferre, who blushed.
“Might as well,” Combeferre said after a long pause. “It’s not like I’m getting any work done here anyway.”
He looked expectantly at Enjolras, who waved them on. “I’m still going to try to get through this,” he told them. “Let’s reconvene tomorrow morning for coffee.”
Courfeyrac fired off a sloppy salute before looping his arm through Combeferre’s and tugging him towards the door. Enjolras just shook his head and glanced back down at his papers, thinking a little sourly to himself that Courfeyrac was lucky that he didn’t give them the same treatment Courfeyrac gave him and Grantaire.
Of course, by now Enjolras’s concentration was thoroughly ruined, not that it mattered, since he cared somewhat less about actually reading through the article and quite a bit more about listening to Joly and Bossuet’s attempts to console Grantaire.
Though judging by the tone of their conversation, they had shifted somewhat from consoling Grantaire to roundly abusing his ex. “Y’know that song 10 Things I Hate About You?” Grantaire asked.
Bossuet screwed up his face as he thought about it. “D’you mean the movie?”
“No, no, no, the one from the TikToks.”
Joly frowned. “Isn’t that by Kesha?”
“Justice for Kesha!” Bossuet cheered, hoisting his beer in a toast.
Grantaire sighed loudly. “How the fuck am I the most sober among us right now?” he complained, promptly ruining his own statement by almost falling off of his chair. When he had righted himself, he told them, “No, the song called 10 Things I Hate About You. It’s used in a bunch of TikToks. The singer goes through a list of ten things she hates about her ex.” He took a swig of beer. “Well, I could list a helluva lot more than 10.”
“Do it,” Joly said, with no small amount of enthusiasm.
Grantaire held his hand up to tick the things he disliked about his ex off on his fingers. “Ten, he wasn’t that cute. Nine, he wore khaki cargo shorts. In public.”
Bossuet snorted. “Tacky,” he said. “But don’t let Marius hear you, he loves his cargo shorts.”
“Eight, on our very first official date he showed up at my place with no wine, no flowers, no chocolates, nothing. Like where the fuck was the romance?”
Joly scratched his cheek. “Didn’t you two meet on Grindr? I didn’t think romance was usually involved.”
Grantaire rolled his eyes. “That’s why I said ‘official’ date,” he said impatiently. “This was after we had fucked the first time, when a boy is entitled to flowers. Or financial compensation.”
“But only if he gives you mesothelioma,” Bossuet interjected sagely.
Enjolras was fairly certain that he was actively losing brain cells listening to this conversation, and was about to excuse himself when Grantaire sighed heavily. “I know he was a douche,” he said, his voice soft, and sad, and Enjolras paused. “But it was really nice to have someone, even for a little bit. Even if he never brought me flowers or whatever. It was nice not to feel alone, y’know?”
Something in Enjolras’s heart ached to hear Grantaire say that, and he stared down at the papers in front of him so hard the words blurred. “You’re not alone, R,” Joly said soppily.
“Yeah, you have us,” Bossuet added loyally.
Grantaire barked a laugh and ran a hand across his face. “Yeah, but neither of you will eat my ass, will you?”
Joly let out a wheezing noise as Bossuet cocked his head, seemingly considering it. “If you asked nicely, maybe.”
As Joly punched him in the arm, Enjolras decided it really was well past time that he left, and he gathered his things together and shoving them in his bag before standing, hoisting his bag on one shoulder. He hesitated before casually walking over to their table and pausing by Grantaire. “I heard what happened,” he said quietly, “and I’m sorry.”
Grantaire looked up at him. “Are you?” he asked bluntly.
“Sorry that you’re hurting, yes,” Enjolras told him honestly.
“Only hurting I will be is when the hangover hits tomorrow,” Grantaire told him, with a crooked half-smile. “But thank you.”
Enjolras considered patting him on the shoulder but decided against it, instead just nodding at Joly and Bossuet before leaving. As he stepped outside of the Musain, he checked his watch to see if he had time to make one quick stop before heading home.
There were a number of things that Grantaire considered himself an expert at, but pretty much anyone would agree that he was an expert at be at being drunk.
Which was good, because it took all of his expertise to make it back to his place without stumbling into the street and getting hit by a car or, worse, passing out on the sidewalk.
Joly and Bossuet had insisted he take an Uber – at least, Grantaire was pretty sure that’s what they meant, Joly kept calling it a ‘super’ and Bossuet, giggling, kept interjecting, “Pooper!” in a sing-song voice – but Grantaire didn’t mind the walk. It cleared his head and helped sober him up enough that he hopefully wouldn’t wind up passed out in his bathtub.
Again.
“Home sweet home,” he sighed as he finally reached the doorway to his apartment building, and he only dropped his keys four times on the way from the doorway to his apartment door.
The fifth time he dropped them was in surprise, because propped against his door was a bouquet of beautiful red roses. He did something like a quadruple-take, glancing both ways up and down the hallway to see if maybe there’d been some kind of mistake before he bent and picked the bouquet up.
He noticed a note tucked amongst the flowers and plucked it out, squinting to read it, though his eyes widened when he noticed the very familiar handwriting:
For all the flowers he never gave you.
—E
“Well I’ll be goddamned,” Grantaire said, a slow grin spreading across his face, and it didn’t fade as he let himself into his apartment.
He barely even noticed that he didn’t feel alone anymore.