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“I want to get out of here.”
And Grantaire says, “Okay.”
* * *
They drive until the city goes, until there’s nothing behind them, until they’re too far to turn back and then more. They don’t use maps or guides or directions; Enjolras lets Grantaire find the way, changing with the wind.
Their phones are busy for the first hour, two, if it’s not one then it’s the other. Enjolras switches his off, puts it on the dash and turns his head to the window, watches the landscape slide by instead, smudged like a painting. Featureless, indistinct.
He wonders who’s calling Grantaire, who noticed first, what they said.
He’s surprised they figured it out so quickly, that Grantaire was even an option for them, when Enjolras disappeared. But then, they all know that Grantaire cannot say no him.
Grantaire’s thumb taps on the steering wheel as he drives, off-beat. His hand rests on the gearstick, firm and sure. Maybe they knew that, that he would say yes, that he wouldn’t try to talk Enjolras into staying, into talking, into reconciliation. Grantaire doesn’t apologise, doesn’t feel remorse for things that are in the past, doesn’t have strong links and responsibilities to keep him tied to one place.
Enjolras thinks of what the others will say, what they are saying, what else they truly think about him. Too cold, too cruel, too focused, too determined.
“Not everything is a battle to be fought,” Courfeyrac says in his mind, “Chill out.”
Enjolras’s hands curve into fists on his lap. Grantaire looks over from the driver’s seat, and reaches out to turn the radio onto another channel, turns the volume up.
* * *
They eat packaged sandwiches from a 24 hour service station, crinkle the wrappings and cartons into a brown bag. Grantaire types away at the screen on his phone, a stray curl of dark hair falls in front of his face.
Enjolras stretches his legs with a walk across the parking lot, watches the different cars and vans come and go. There are people everywhere, heading in different directions; they’re just another nameless pair on the road. He’s not used to being aimless, to standing somewhere with no purpose or direction.
He thinks bitterly of whether anyone believed he would do this - whether they thought he could drop it all and let go. He thinks of their view of him, hard-working and focused, driven sometimes beyond the point of caring. Unfeeling, unemotional.
The feeling that’s been building inside him for some time, the way it had broken out of him through the cracks. The wounded look on Joly’s face.
The way they had just assumed he wouldn’t mind, he wouldn’t care.
When he turns back around, Grantaire has put his phone away, stands watching him from a distance. The car keys are in his hand, jingling restlessly as he moves, stretching his dextrous fingers. He’ll go anywhere Enjolras tells him.
His is a friendship that is unhealthy, one based on some ideal of Enjolras that he isn’t sure he can ever be. On a closeness that won’t ever be.
Enjolras isn’t blind, he knows what Grantaire feels towards him. It would be impossible not to; the jokes and the teasing and the comments, made so offhand and casual that they can’t be anything but real. The way Grantaire looks at him, sometimes, when he doesn’t think Enjolras is watching. The softness in his smile, when Enjolras is talking about something he cares about.
Sometimes Enjolras wants to take advantage, wonders what it would be like, to go home with Grantaire and know that it won’t be complicated, that he can have whatever he wants. That Grantaire won’t say no, would give him whatever he wants.
He thinks they would enjoy it, he thinks they would work.
Grantaire looks at him, sometimes, as if to say, why not?
Enjolras thinks of other commitments, other excuses, things he should be doing instead. Life is for being productive, for achievement - and Combeferre telling him that he’s working too hard, that he’s going to work himself to the bone, that he’ll self-destruct under the pressure.
(Combeferre saying, “It’s too much.”)
He opens the car door and Grantaire slides into the driver’s seat. They don’t talk as Grantaire starts the engine, takes them away from the service station and further from home.
* * *
Grantaire looks peaceful, when he sleeps.
His jacket is off and pulled up to his neck, like a blanket. In sleep, he’s no longer sardonic, can’t be self-deprecating. He frowns slightly, like he still doesn’t quite agree with his dreams, but the relaxed expression says he enjoys them. His feet rest on the dashboard, next to the take-out cups of coffee and half-empty packet of cigarettes.
Enjolras is stretched across the back seat, his head pillowed on Grantaire’s extra hoodie. His long legs don’t quite fit in the cramped space, and there’s a crick in his neck. The yellowed light from the service station filters in through the window as he gets his phone out of his pocket.
The background is impersonal, the unread message notification reads: 24.
He swipes his thumb across the screen to unlock it, dismissing the notification which tells him his battery is close to dying. His thumb hovers over the message button, he thinks about what will be there.
His phone book tells him he has 8 missed calls. There are 2 voicemails.
Grantaire shifts in the front seat, turning further into the collar of his jacket. His phone is flung carelessly on the driver’s seat, turned off. Enjolras’s fingers itch to know what’s hidden there, what their friends have said. He’s more willing to read Grantaire’s texts, than his own.
He looks back at the phone in his hand and turns the screen off, putting it in the pocket of the door before pulling Grantaire’s spare hoodie closer around his body. It smells faintly of alcohol, and cigarettes. Familiar, if not comforting.
Enjolras’s fingers play with a frayed piece of string unravelling from one of the hems as he falls asleep.
* * *
Driving at night is when he feels it, when the weight of what he’s left behind presses down on him. When he thinks of the others, where they’ll be, what they’re doing. The heaviness of their expectations, the way they look at him.
He doesn’t even know how the argument started, or how it ended up as bad as it did. He’s dealt with this feeling before, has coped under the pressure and the strain, has understood their teasing jokes about his lack of a life, their comments that he’s inhuman. He has weathered Courfeyrac’s laughter and ability to divert any topic, to make it seem trivial, when Enjolras is working on three hours sleep and a pounding headache and just wants them all to shut up.
He thinks of Marius, and his new girlfriend, running into the Musain and disrupting a meeting Enjolras had spent hours preparing. He thinks of Bossuet, breaking his ankle during a protest, and Enjolras spending six hours with him in A&E whilst he got it checked out. Hours spent with Feuilly making signs and banners when he has a deadline looming. He thinks of nights spent up with Combeferre, helping him to study, learning medical terminology to test him with flashcards; being twenty minutes late to one of his lectures one morning because Joly’s leg was acting up, and he’d driven him across town to his placement.
He never begrudges his friends their needs and wants, still doesn’t, is always there when they need him. Juggles it all with his own studies and the running of their club, and it’s all just so expected and they rely on him, trust him to be there, to be capable.
It’s just — exhausting.
He’s not as infallible as they think him, isn’t as God-like as Grantaire is always telling him he is.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” Grantaire says, on an empty stretch of road with no lights. They haven’t seen another car for a while. “Not all the time. Not with me.”
“You’re perfect,” Grantaire had said, smile wide and pupils blown with alcohol, when they’d met.
The radio hums a soft tune, something Enjolras thinks he recognises, but can’t place. The world around them is muted, it feels like they’re the only two people awake. The only light comes from the car’s headlights and the cigarette Grantaire holds between his index and middle finger as he taps ash out of the window and says, “Everyone makes mistakes.”
Enjolras thinks of the mistake of letting his friends down, of disappointing them, of not living up to their expectations. Of being fallible and breakable, of shouting at them and saying things that he regrets. Of the hurt and anger that comes, with falling out with the people that you love.
* * *
Grantaire takes him to the sea, to a beach filled with pebbles and lit by moonlight. The night air is cold, they stand with their hands in their pockets and watch the waves rush their way up the shore. It’s calming and quiet, and Enjolras’s hair whips around his face as he listens to Grantaire tell him about constellations, mostly made up.
“That’s not true,” Enjolras says, when Grantaire tells him a story about a girl whose tears formed the stars they can see, glittering faintly. A broken heart over a boy she could never have, left alone in the rain. She didn’t really love him, just the idea.
“So?” says Grantaire, and leans back on his heels. “It’s a good story.”
Enjolras supposes it is, thinks of Greek and Roman history, their explanations for things they didn’t quite understand, but knowing each one is a planet stops his suspension of belief. Instead, he thinks about what is out there, what’s beyond, how far out the universe really stretches around them. In the face of the endless stretch of time they feel so small, and yet the sadness in his chest is so heavy he feels like he can’t breathe.
“Tell me another,” he says, and Grantaire glances across at him, surprised. There’s a wry smile tugging at his lips, then he tilts his head back to look up at the sky again and tells him of a toad looking up to the sky to see a bird in flight.
* * *
They travel further out than Enjolras has gone in years, further than he’s ever thought of going. Both their phones lie silent now, Enjolras’s out of battery, and Grantaire’s charging in the dock. His messages remain unread, their number unchanging.
He doesn’t know how far they need to go until he can escape the cloying feel of everyone’s expectations. Until he can breathe without feeling like he’s coming up from under water.
He thought he could cope, he thought he could be the person they wanted - needed him to be. He thought they all respected him for what he did. He didn’t expect their jokes, about his lack of a life, their thoughtlessly cruel comments, clearly said often, when he’s not around.
His hands clench and unclench into fists on his lap as the song on the radio blurs into another.
Grantaire doesn’t comment, just keeps them on the road, watching civilisation pass by with the hours. He’s silent in a way Enjolras never expected; content and calming. Some people are restless in silence, seek always for some way to break it. Grantaire relaxes into it like it’s his normal state, even when Enjolras knows that it isn’t.
He wonders what else he doesn’t know about Grantaire, their friends. What else do they think about him? What do they say? When there’s no one else around, what’s the truth?
* * *
Enjolras wakes up one night and Grantaire is gone.
Panic seizes in his chest. He’s alone, the one person he thought wouldn’t has gone and he’s alone. The car is claustrophobic, keeping him in, he can’t breathe. He fights his way out of Grantaire’s two hoodies to reach for the handle and it takes him too many tries to pull up the lock.
He stumbles out into fresh night air with his hands on his knees and just tries to breathe.
“You alright?”
He turns sharply at the voice, sees Grantaire sat on the bonnet of the car, legs crossed. He’s still here, he didn’t leave, and the first thing that comes out of Enjolras’s mouth is, “Why the hell are you out here without a jacket?”
Grantaire blinks and looks down, like he’s genuinely surprised to find himself in only a t-shirt in the middle of the night. He shrugs and his expression is hard to read in the darkness when he says, “You looked cold.”
“I was inside the car,” Enjolras says, angry at the tightness of fear in his chest. He steps forwards, back towards the car, and climbs up to sit next to Grantaire. Grantaire shifts to make room for him, holds out the packet of cigarettes as an offer.
Enjolras scrunches up his nose, shakes his head no. He doesn’t smoke often, only when social, and he’s really not feeling social right now. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs.
Grantaire puts the packet back down and takes a drag of his own cigarette, already lit. The tip flares orange in the night. His leg just touches Enjolras’s calf, warm even through his jeans.
Slowly, Enjolras’s heart starts to calm.
* * *
He calls Courfeyrac a few nights later, when Grantaire heads into the station to pay for their petrol. He always gets distracted by the magazines and the chocolates, spends far longer in there than he should, chatting to the night staff.
“You’re okay?” Courfeyrac asks when he answers the phone, gentle. He sounds tired, worn away at the edges. His worry is a physical thing, Enjolras can almost feel it.
“I’m fine,” Enjolras says, watching his feet as he walks back to the road. A woman and a daughter glare at him from their car, for being on his phone. A harried-looking husband watches the numbers tick over on the dial and bites his bottom lip.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Courfeyrac says, and he means it. But it’s not enough, it’s not enough. “We’ve been taking you for granted.”
Enjolras makes a noise to say he’s heard, but no more. It feels a little too late, for words like that. Courfeyrac was one of the worst, his teasing hitting the closest to home, but he’s also the one who hurts the most, who hates the idea of people sad.
Over half of the missed calls on Enjolras’s phone are from him.
“We miss you,” Courfeyrac says, hesitant.
Enjolras closes his eyes. “I know.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you coming back?”
Enjolras doesn’t answer, isn’t sure how to. Courfeyrac holds out longer than he thought possible, is quiet on the other end of the line. It’s reassuring, in a way, just to hear his breathing, to know he’s there. Enjolras is still mad, but it’s muted now, less jagged.
“Just look after yourself,” Courfeyrac says, and then, still hesitant: “And Grantaire.”
Enjolras glances back over his shoulder to where he can see Grantaire through the windows of the service station. True to form, he’s holding two different chocolate bars up to the girl behind the counter, apparently asking her opinion on which is best.
“Do you think I’m in the wrong,” Enjolras asks, “For taking him?”
“I don’t think Grantaire would go anywhere he didn’t want to,” Courfeyrac says, which isn’t quite an answer. “Not without you.” The words hit closer to home, closer to Enjolras’s recent thoughts, than he’s comfortable with.
“I have to go,” he says.
“Stay safe,” Courfeyrac says. It’s clear he wants to say more, but he’s the most perceptive of their friends, the one most aware of of how people feel. Perhaps that’s why Enjolras called him first. “Combeferre—” he stops himself, before he says more.
“I know,” Enjolras replies, thinking of the unread messages, missed calls. “I will.”
When he cancels the call, Grantaire is already back in the car. He smiles brightly when Enjolras gets in, throws one of the chocolate bars to him. “I have it on good authority that this will change your life.”
It doesn’t, but Enjolras enjoys it anyway.
* * *
A week out and Enjolras accesses the account his parents set up for him for emergencies, a safety net for while he’s at University. It’s a point of pride, that he’s never touched it, can survive without their handouts, but he watches Grantaire attempt to stretch one morning, arms high in the air above before dropping to rub at a muscle in the back of his neck, and knows that they need a decent sleep.
He thinks of it as a small rebellion, using his parent’s money to skip out on his courses, on his lectures, to travel and avoid his responsibilities. He should be furthering his career, getting good grades. Not throwing it all away to remember how to breathe.
Grantaire’s eyes widen, when he sees the figure on the screen. He’s never seen that many zeroes before.
“Not a word,” says Enjolras, and punches in the number for an absurd amount, enough to see them through.
Grantaire watches him collect the notes and says nothing, but Enjolras can tell from his expression what he’s thinking. He makes it a point to nudge Grantaire’s shoulder with his own as he turns to walk back to the car, a physical, “Fuck off.”
Grantaire steps back in surprise, then almost has to run to catch up with him again.
Enjolras catches sight of his own smile in the wing mirror, as he opens the door.
* * *
They use the money to book into their first hotel, a budget place on the edge of a sleepy town. The clerk gives them a double room, with one bed, the only thing available. Enjolras takes the key and doesn’t look at Grantaire as they make their way towards the stairs. The lift is out of order, the out of service sign old, like it’s been there for a while.
The stairs creak, the wallpaper is faded.
He emails his lecturers on old and stuttering wifi, tells them he’s ill and won’t be in for a while. His grades until now are perfect, his attendance almost stellar. He thinks of his assignments, and the sense of urgency just isn’t there. It all feels so trivial, suddenly.
There’s an email in his inbox which looks to be from Feuilly, with attachments. Lecture notes and slides. Enjolras archives them.
Their room overlooks the road. Enjolras listens to cars driving past in the dark, their headlights illuminating the ceiling in waves. A dog barks in the distance, a door slams. Someone laughs and there’s the sound of a group talking together. He thinks of the Musain and closes his eyes, trying forcefully to keep the thoughts out.
They’ll be at a meeting now, talking animatedly with each other. Marius will be telling anyone who listens about Cosette, Joly and Bossuet will be teasing him gently from the bar. Feuilly won’t have arrived from his shift yet, Bahorel will be on his way to pick him up.
There will be an empty table, where Grantaire normally sits. Enjolras won’t be there to chair, fighting to keep them all on topic. The frustration still crawls up his spine.
In the silence between sounds he hears Grantaire’s breathing, steady and even, his body a shadow on the other side of the bed, face turned away. He’d fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, proof enough that they needed the break from the car.
Enjolras turns his phone off and plugs it in to charge overnight. Another car goes past as he turns over in the bed to face Grantaire, fast asleep and peaceful. He doesn’t take up much of the bed, just enough, the thin sheet pulled up to his chin like his jacket.
For the first time in his life Enjolras falls asleep with a warm body next to him, and when he wakes up in the morning, Grantaire has used some of his parent’s money to get them croissants and steaming hot coffee from the bakery down the street.
* * *
“You’ve never fought before, have you?” Grantaire asks, as he makes a playlist from old songs Enjolras has never heard of, whiskey and woodsmoke, guitars with stories of their own.
“We have,” Enjolras replies, “But not like this.” In the past it was small things, inconsequential. This feels like so much more. The further away he gets, the more he wonders if maybe it wasn’t, maybe he went a step too far.
“I think I always expected them to know,” he says later, when they’re driving through the burnt orange of dusk. “To understand where I was coming from.”
Grantaire taps his thumbs to the music. “They probably did - they probably do. They wouldn’t call you and send texts if they thought they were right and you were in the wrong.”
“They want to know where I am.”
“They’re worried. You left without a word.”
Being worried and being apologetic are two different things, however. A spiteful part of Enjolras wonders if maybe they just want to get in touch so he will come back and take charge again, return to running everything for them. He bites down on the words, which are below him. His friends are well-meaning.
Grantaire turns to glance at him and says, “You know they’re sorry, don’t you?”
Not for the first time, Enjolras wonders what the contents of Grantaire’s texts have been, what the others have said to him, when it became clear that they were together. He thinks of the kind of good-natured jokes Bossuet and Joly are so fond of, what they might be hinting at, as he and Grantaire drive through nowhere.
He knows what it looks like; in the past he would have just pulled away. Now he’s glad, to have someone else there. He’s not made for being alone.
It’s probably the longest he and Grantaire have looked at each other, without speaking. It feels significant, somehow. Enjolras is the first to look away, turns his head so he can see out of the window instead as he says, “Keep your eyes on the road.”
* * *
Sometimes, Enjolras wakes in the night and Grantaire isn’t there.
Grantaire doesn’t always sleep, can be restless. He leaves the car to go for walks, or sits on the bonnet whilst he thinks, like the time Enjolras thought he had left him alone.
Sometimes Enjolras joins him outside, stands in silence with him as Grantaire works his way through several cigarettes and his thoughts, whatever they are. Other times he just turns over and goes back to sleep, wrapped up in Grantaire’s hoodie. The next morning there will be faint shadows under Grantaire’s eyes, but he won’t mention it, and neither will Enjolras.
Enjolras wonders if he’s running from something, himself.
* * *
When they stop at the next hotel, the clerk again gives them a double room, this time on an assumption. Grantaire looks across at him, waiting for his reaction, expecting his correction, but Enjolras just shrugs. They’ve spent enough nights in the car, in a smaller, more confined spaces. Sharing a bed doesn’t feel different. It worked fine last time.
This time feels different, as Enjolras strips and Grantaire brushes his teeth in the bathroom. He recognises the flutter of nerves in his wrists, but doesn’t understand why. He gets into the bed first and Grantaire turns off the lights when he comes back in from the bathroom. Without his glasses, Enjolras can’t quite make him out in the darkness, just an indistinct shape moving closer.
The bed dips as Grantaire gets in, he turns again to face away from Enjolras.
Enjolras thinks, just maybe, he’s being selfish. A true friend would have asked Grantaire if he was okay with this, if he didn’t mind sharing a bed. An empathetic one would have said no, knowing the truth of Grantaire’s feelings.
But there’s that selfish part of him again, the part that just wants.
His fingers curl in the space between them, reaching out but not touching.
In the morning Grantaire has turned to face him, sleeps with his body curved towards Enjolras’s, like a question. There’s still space between them, but it’s not as big as it started out. Enjolras thinks about closing it, what Grantaire would do, if he bridged the distance, then sits up to rub sleep out of his eyes.
This time he buys breakfast, gets to see Grantaire’s surprised expression, when he blinks blue eyes awake and finds the bagels waiting.
They stop acting like they don’t want to share a bed, after that.
* * *
“So do you want to talk about it?” Grantaire asks, over burnt coffee in styrofoam cups.
Enjolras pauses in typing out a text to Combeferre, his third draft. They’re pulled into a layby, a place mostly just used by truckers on long hauls. A burger van is nearby, sizzling with fat and grease. He takes a drink from his coffee, and says, “I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning is usually good,” says Grantaire. Their shoulders are pressed together, down to their sides. Enjolras thinks he can feel every movement of Grantaire’s body.
He looks down into his bitter coffee, then saves his text to Combeferre in his drafts and starts talking.
Grantaire’s a good audience, for all the times he likes to interrupt Enjolras during Les Amis meetings. He’s quiet when he needs to be, nodding along when he agrees, and his questions are only to further clarify a point, not press an opinion. Enjolras finds himself talking more than he expects, going into detail, all the things he’s not even told Combeferre, or Courfeyrac. The insecurities, the doubts, the pressure.
Grantaire lets him talk until he runs out of words, lets him say everything that’s been building up for the last few months - the last year.
When Enjolras finishes, his throat is dry and his coffee is cooling. He finishes it quickly with a grimace, presses his nails into the styrofoam, creating little crescent moons. He doesn’t know what he expects from Grantaire, hadn’t planned to talk for so long, or in such depth. He’s almost afraid of what he will see, when he turns to look, but then not looking seems so much worse than looking, and so he turns his head to find Grantaire already looking at him.
There’s a fondness there, one Enjolras isn’t accustomed to, not in such close proximity. It makes something jump in his chest.
“Feel better?” Grantaire asks.
Enjolras blinks, tries to find the anger that had pushed him to leave. It’s still there, but it’s nothing like before. He explores the edges, testing; they’re not as sharp. “I think so.”
Grantaire smiles, and pushes himself up from the curb into a standing position. Enjolras follows, after a beat. On impulse, he holds his hand out. “I’ll drive.” He’s not done any of the driving, so far. He hadn’t felt like he was in the right headspace for it, and Grantaire had seemed happy to take the wheel.
Now Grantaire hands the keys over with something close to amusement. They’re cold, when they land in Enjolras’s palm. He curls his fingers around the keys, and looks up at Grantaire. “Where do you want to go?”
It’s the first time they’ve actually talked about destinations. He’s sure Grantaire has had an idea in mind, otherwise they never would have reached the towns, right when they needed them. He thinks back to the beach, the rush of the sea across pebbles.
Grantaire shrugs. He throws his cup, along with Enjolras’s, into the bin by the burger van. “Anywhere with you.”
Enjolras doesn’t get how he can just say things like that. It’s too honest, too open.
“No pressure, then,” he replies, and Grantaire grins.
* * *
Enjolras takes them to a little village he visited when he was younger.
They arrive in the early hours of the next morning, Enjolras yawning into his hand as they get out of the car. It feels good to pull up somewhere and know that they won’t be getting back in the car for a while. It’s a sleepy town, up in the hills, and the stone beneath their feet is warm with the rising sun.
They spend the morning following the winding streets, between narrow buildings that look like they’ve stepped out of time. They grab breakfast at a tiny tucked away cafe, eat pastries whilst sat on the edge of a fountain. The village is only small, but it feels warm, and cosy. Enjolras feels like he could stay here a while.
They climb up higher into the hills, look out on the landscape below. Grantaire points out the vineyards and grins, and asks if Enjolras’s parents have enough money to fund them going wine-tasting. Enjolras doesn’t tell him about their wine cellar, but he does buy Grantaire a bottle of wine, later that night, when they sit down for a meal at a restaurant.
Grantaire brings the bottle with them as they leave, taking swigs as they make their way back to the car. They sit and watch as the sky grows dark, as the sun sets in the distance. A couple walk past them, their hands joined, eyes only for each other.
Grantaire passes him the bottle, and Enjolras takes it. Their hands brush.
The wine is surprisingly good, if slightly warm. He knows his father would say it’s rich, and full-bodied, with a hint of summer fruits. To him, it’s just alcohol; he’s never been a big drinker, but he powers through.
Grantaire is a warm weight at his side, sat on the boot of the car. His feet don’t quite touch the floor. Enjolras’s shoulder presses against his leg where he stands, closing the distance.
He’s used to a brash Grantaire, when he’s drunk, one that can get too handsy for his own good, who likes to wax lyrical about the colour of Enjolras’s eyes and carry out stupid dares simply because someone suggested them. This Grantaire is more pensive; no longer putting on a show, now there’s no one around to see it.
They book into a little apartment overlooking terracotta roofs, leave the windows wide open as they sleep. The distance between them on the bed shrinks, Enjolras wakes to a hand only inches from his own.
In the morning they explore the ruins of a nearby castle, Grantaire regaling him with stories of knights and lords and Kings that are all bullshit. Enjolras rolls his eyes at the worst of them, but listens anyway, thinking that maybe Grantaire is in the wrong area of study. There are some real facts hidden under all of the bluster, he knows there is, but his imagination is much broader.
After the castle, they check out the rest of the town, find the markets open in one of the squares. Grantaire has a talent for bartering, all that bravado doing him some good. They eat fresh strawberries and watch the world go by, their fingers sticky with the juice.
The break from driving is welcome, but they still have an urge to travel, to keep moving. They follow the winding streets up higher into the mountains, till it feels like there’s no one else in the world and they can see out for miles in all directions.
Enjolras stands looking out across the olive groves dotting the landscape when his phone buzzes in his pocket.
A new text from Combeferre reads simply: I’m sorry.
* * *
They stop to get supplies at a little shop just on the edge of the town, before leaving. Grantaire gets talking to the cashier, discusses places that are nearby and where they should visit. They’re familiar faces in the sleepy village now, accepted by the locals. Enjolras ducks out to get some fresh air, pulls his phone out of his pocket.
Combeferre answers the phone with silence, for a few seconds, before he says, “Enjolras.”
It feels good, to hear his voice. Enjolras closes his eyes at the familiar warmth which rushes through his body. “Hi,” he says.
He thinks he can hear the smile in Combeferre’s voice, when he says, “Hello.”
Enjolras doesn’t know what to say, there’s too much left unsaid between them. He thinks of all the things he should have said, could have said, wonders if maybe that would have only prolonged the inevitable. In the end, he says, “How are things?”
If Combeferre hears the tightness in his voice, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he talks about his latest lectures, his experiences in the hospital itself, a story involving a needle, a wheelchair and an x-ray machine. Enjolras smiles, and leans back against the wall of the shop, letting Combeferre’s voice wash over him.
Grantaire arches an eyebrow at him when he finally leaves the store, carrying a paper bag stuffed full and almost overflowing. Enjolras mouths Combeferre’s name and Grantaire nods, heading past him to the car.
“I have to go,” Enjolras tells Combeferre, “We’re heading out.”
Combeferre doesn’t ask who he’s with, or where. “How’s that going?” he asks instead, perceptive as always. Enjolras isn’t sure he can ask those kinds of questions, not when things still feel so raw.
“It’s — something,” he says, unable to find the word, and Combeferre makes a thoughtful noise like he understands.
There’s a small pause, where Combeferre seems to work himself up to what he says next. “Tell me that things will be okay.”
Enjolras watches as Grantaire puts the paper bag of supplies onto the back seat. His hair falls down into his eyes as he moves, he shakes his head to get it out. He needs a hair cut. They both do. It’s not really been something on Enjolras’s mind.
“I’m getting there,” he says, to Combeferre. Then: “We’re about to leave.”
“Take care,” Combeferre says. “Stay in touch.” Come back when you’re ready.
Grantaire throws a chocolate bar to him when Enjolras gets into the car, along with a questioning look.
“He apologised,” Enjolras says, and tears open the packaging.
Grantaire makes a surprised sound. When Enjolras looks across at him, he shrugs and says, “Didn’t think he was the type to apologise. Always seems so stern, so upright. Unforgiving.”
It’s true Combeferre is steadfast in his beliefs - his reaction to Marius when he first turned up at their meetings and they disagreed over something was evidence enough of that - but he’s also not incapable of realising when he has made a mistake.
Enjolras thinks of what it must have taken from him, to send that text message. He hasn’t read all of the other ones filling up his inbox, hasn’t managed to work his way through them, but Combeferre hadn’t been apologetic, at first, just we need to talk.
“Maybe that’s because you usually only get his attention when you’re interrupting meetings, and demanding that he source all of his arguments,” Enjolras points out, breaking off pieces of chocolate to eat individually.
“Very true,” Grantaire accepts, biting into his own bar. He swallows, and says, “So did you forgive him?”
Enjolras looks out on the road spread out in front of them, folds and unfolds the chocolate wrapper in his fingers. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Hitting the road again is nice. They’re less aimless, no longer focused on just getting as far away as possible. It was good, to stop for a while, but being around people just reminds him of the people they’ve both left behind.
Grantaire lets him make a playlist, mostly just songs taken from Grantaire’s own choices, rearranged into an order of his own. Grantaire tries not to smile when he realises, but Enjolras sees it.
The weather gets hotter as they reach the middle of summer, they sleep with the windows edged down and drive with them wide open. Enjolras leans his arm on the door and watches the landscape slide by as Grantaire drives, trying to make out the mountains in the distance. They stock up on bottles of water which crinkle in Enjolras’s hand, when Grantaire upends his over his head, at the side of the road, water streaming and clothes sticking.
They aim for the coast, where it’s cooler, taste salt on the wind as they get nearer. At night Enjolras takes a cigarette when Grantaire offers, talks to him about small things, inconsequential, feels himself starting to stitch back together.
They get ice cream in a parlour that’s apparently world-famous. Grantaire chooses as many unusual and adventurous flavours as he can, (“Hey, if your parents are paying,”) covers it all with sherbet topping, sharp on the tongue. He tries each one thoughtfully, like a tester, then steals from Enjolras’s much more normal selection instead.
Enjolras rolls his eyes and lets him.
* * *
They’ve been getting along too well, it’s only inevitable that something goes wrong.
The car breaks down on the outskirts of a town, a burst tyre which is so loud Enjolras jumps in his seat. Grantaire pulls them across sharply onto the side of the road, gets out to investigate. Enjolras unfastens his seatbelt and follows, stares down at the mess that was their back right tyre.
It quickly transpires that Grantaire doesn’t have a spare, that it was taken out to create more room for alcohol when stocking up for Bahorel’s birthday party, three months ago, and never replaced. Neither of their phones have signal.
“It’s fine,” Grantaire says, “I’ll just walk back to the town.”
“You didn’t bring a spare?” Enjolras demands, and it’s the heat and the stress that’s making him angry, but he can’t seem to stop. He hates feeling useless, like he can’t do anything.
“I didn’t exactly have time, when you just called and asked me to go. It wasn’t really on my mind.”
“How could you be so irresponsible—”
“Don’t, Enjolras,” Grantaire cuts him off. He sounds as exhausted as Enjolras feels. They’re not used to this sort of weather, high summer.
“What if we were literally in the middle of nowhere, with no town nearby?”
“Well we’re not, alright?”
“I can’t believe—”
“Stop it, Enjolras!”
Grantaire sounds furious, he glares at Enjolras with a heat he’s not used to seeing. Enjolras knows he should back down, knows that he’s only making the situation worse, but he can’t seem to stop.
“Just because I said I needed to leave doesn’t mean you should just drop everything, to do whatever I say.”
“But you don’t get it,” Grantaire sounds pained. “Yes, it does.”
Enjolras is stunned. “That’s not healthy, Grantaire!”
“I know that,” Grantaire snaps, “But last time I checked, you weren’t exactly complaining, were you? You’re happy to use my feelings when it suits you, when you want someone to leave and go on a road trip with you, when you want me to make flyers for the cause, when you need an extra body at a protest. But then when they inconvenience you, heaven forbid I have them. You don’t get to dictate how and when my feelings exist.”
Grantaire stomps a few paces away from the car, then turns around sharply. “I’m going back to the town. You stay here.” His tone brokers no negotiation, he doesn’t wait for a reply.
Enjolras watches him until he disappears at the end of the road, then he turns and rubs at his eyes, under his glasses.
* * *
Things are still frosty between them that evening, as they stay the night in another hotel, this time on single beds. The car has a new tyre, but by the time it was done it was too late to get back on the road, to make up the time that they’d lost.
Enjolras lies in his bed and stares at the ceiling and thinks about the distance between them. Thinks of how Grantaire had looked, right before he’d stormed away.
He turns his head to look across the room to where Grantaire sleeps, wrapped up in a thin sheet. His hair is a riot of ink black curls on the pillow. They always look like a bird’s nest in the morning, tangled and knotted until Grantaire pulls his fingers through them. Grantaire’s eyes are closed.
He looks as peaceful as ever when he sleeps, despite their argument, despite what he said. His words to Enjolras had been short, once he’d returned to the car with a mechanic and a spare tyre. He’d talked to the mechanic rather than Enjolras as he’d fitted the spare tyre, good enough to get them back to the town to get a real replacement.
They’d had dinner in silence; Enjolras had spent the time trying to come up with things to say, but everything had sounded inadequate in his head. He didn’t know what to say, how to apologise. He just wanted things to go back to how they were.
“I know you’re watching me, you creep,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras jumps.
Grantaire opens his eyes, and in the darkness they’re shadowed midnight blue. They just look at each other for a few seconds, and then Grantaire sighs, and lifts up his cover, making room for Enjolras too.
Enjolras hesitates.
“I’m not going to do anything untoward, don’t worry,” Grantaire says, and his voice is tired and thick with sleep. “Get over here.”
Enjolras’s body moves almost without his permission, he crosses the room quickly and lowers himself down into Grantaire’s bed. It’s smaller than all the ones they’ve shared before, there’s no illusion of space. Grantaire drops the sheet back down over him and brings his arm with it, curving around Enjolras’s body, the only thing stopping him from falling back out of the bed.
Grantaire closes his eyes again. It’s to his eyelids Enjolras says, “Are you sure?”
Grantaire lets out a sigh, says, “Yes, Enjolras, I’m sure.”
Enjolras lifts his hands tentatively, reaches out, finally curves them in the fabric of Grantaire’s shirt at the chest, like he’s holding on. He tries to will Grantaire to understand how he feels. “I’m sorry,” he says, the words feel heavy in the darkness.
“I know,” Grantaire replies, still without opening his eyes. His thumb traces patterns between Enjolras’s shoulder blades. “Go the fuck to sleep.”
* * *
“So are you going to keep doing it?” Grantaire asks.
They haven’t talked about going back, what will happen when they do - if they do.
Enjolras leans back on his hands on the roof of the car, looking up at the constellations Grantaire pretended he knew the stories of. Grantaire exhales smoke from his cigarette into the sky and taps ash into one of the empty water bottles.
The running of the club needs to be shared, Enjolras knows that; he can’t keep doing it alone. He’s already sent a few tentative texts out to Courfeyrac and Combeferre, to that end. They seem to be coping in his absence, if struggling with the idea that he’s still not there. It’s nearing on two months, and Enjolras isn’t sure the last time they were apart for this long.
“I wouldn’t be able, to give it up completely,” he says, and leans forwards, tugging at the loose string on the hem of Grantaire’s hoodie. It’s too warm to wear it, but it makes sitting on the roof of the car more bearable.
Grantaire laughs softly, and takes another drag of his cigarette. “I never thought you would.”
Enjolras tilts his head to look at him, says, “So why did you ask?”
Grantaire shrugs. In the darkness of night his jaw is shadowed, stubble already starting to form. Enjolras wants to run his knuckles over it.
“Figured it was worth asking,” Grantaire says. “You can be surprising.”
Enjolras supposes he can; just up and leaving in a car without any warning or destination, isn’t exactly something people expect of him. Grantaire, yes, but the fact he’s still here, after so long, and hasn’t pressed, hasn’t grown sharp, hasn’t set fire to the foundations, is surprising too. “So are you.”
Grantaire smiles across at him, and nudges Enjolras’s ankle with his foot. “I’m glad. You wouldn’t be you, without your causes and your ideals. The world would be a strange place indeed, without you fighting to make it better.”
Something warms in Enjolras’s heart, hearing that, especially from Grantaire. “Yeah,” he says, “I suppose someone has to give you something to believe in.”
Grantaire laughs, and leaves his foot resting against Enjolras’s.
* * *
One night, Enjolras falls asleep on Grantaire’s shoulder.
They’re in the back of the car, trying to find Grantaire’s watch. The clasp is loose and doesn’t hold; it fell off when he was settling down to sleep. Enjolras climbs into the back to help him find it, on his knees on the floor to look under the chairs.
It once belonged to Grantaire’s father, a man he doesn’t talk about.
“He wasn’t very impressed,” Grantaire says, and doesn’t quite meet Enjolras’s eyes. “With anything, really.”
Enjolras sits back, looks up at him. He knows what it feels like to not meet expectations.
“He figured I’d be a mathematician,” Grantaire says, his face turned away as he searches in the sides of the doors. “Earn lots of money.”
Enjolras’s parents had wanted him to follow in their footsteps, take on their name. He tells Grantaire so, about their ideas, what they’d done when he’d told them what he was really interested in. It’s rare, he thinks, to find common ground with Grantaire. They’re usually so far apart.
When he does find the watch, stuck down between the door and the driver’s seat, it’s almost secondary.
He moves up to sit next to Grantaire as he hands it over, watches as Grantaire wraps it around his wrist again, and pushes the clasp into place. He thinks of the things he does, the ties he has to his friends, those who believe so much in him, and what he can do. Their expectations are different to his parents’, an extension of his own. They want what he does, think him capable.
They believe in him.
He tells Grantaire that he thinks he can do anything he puts his mind to, that sometimes found family is much better than the real thing.
Grantaire has an arm around him, where Enjolras leans against his side, his fingers dotted against Grantaire’s father’s watch. His head fits into the crook of Grantaire’s neck, just so. Enjolras can hear his voice through his chest, when he talks. Grantaire is the most present person he’s ever known, the only one without expectations, without conditions.
“Sometimes you just have to figure it out as you go,” Enjolras says, “And know that your friends believe in what you can do, even if you can’t always see it yourself.”
* * *
Joly and Bossuet’s faces are beaming, when they answer the call. Enjolras holds the phone up so they can see Grantaire too, just behind him, leaning back against the car and smoking.
“You’re alive!” Joly says, and Bossuet elbows him sharply.
“You’re not supposed to joke about that sort of thing, it’s bad luck.”
“Oh,” says Joly, “Well. It’s good to see you?”
It’s good to see them too. They’re busy with the freedom of summer, filling up their time with trips to different places they couldn’t quite get to, whilst they were studying. They tell him about a new wine bar they’ve found, and a wonderful girl who works there. They describe everything with the eagerness of wanting to please, of trying to patch things between them through sheer joy.
Enjolras isn’t mad anymore, not really. He thinks the sting won’t ever quite go away, but now it’s numb and he can ignore it, in the face of Joly and Bossuet’s bright grins and their friendship.
He hands the phone over to Grantaire when he’s finished, watches as Grantaire walks a few steps away to have his own conversation. He smiles in a way Enjolras hasn’t seen, not for a while, and talks animatedly with gestures of his free hand.
* * *
“Do you miss them?” Enjolras asks.
Grantaire has started collecting postcards from the different locations they visit, photographs of landmarks and scenery. He doesn’t post them, but each choice is careful, like he’s thinking about who it’s for.
Grantaire doesn’t look up from the stand of postcards as he asks, “Who?”
“Our friends.”
Grantaire’s fingers still on a card showing the same tree through different seasons, blues to greens to browns to golds. He looks across at Enjolras as if weighing his words, thinking them through before speaking. “Sometimes.”
Enjolras misses them; more than he thought.
He’s used to always being surrounded, to having someone there to listen to his ideas, to offer their own. A laugh to be heard, a story to tell. It can be chaotic, when they’re all in one place and talking over each other to be heard, but there’s a sense of belonging with them that’s just not possible, anywhere else.
He’s still mad about what happened, what they said, but that doesn’t detract from how much he cares for them.
Grantaire always seemed a little out on the edges, brought in with encouragements and coaxing by Joly and Bossuet, who can always conduct him back to cheerfulness. Out on the road with Enjolras, there’s no group for him to be on the border of.
Grantaire spins the stand, trails his finger over the different postcards. “Sometimes I’m not good with people,” he says, more to himself than Enjolras. “I don’t always say the right thing, even when I know what I want.”
Combeferre and Courfeyrac always know what Enjolras means - even, sometimes, when he doesn’t himself. But he has never, he realises, understood what Grantaire meant. His contributions were always criticisms, felt like personal attacks, but then he’d been the one to see through it all, when Enjolras had needed to get away.
Grantaire sees what Enjolras doesn’t.
“You’re not doing too bad,” he says, and nudges Grantaire with his shoulder. “Or maybe I’ve just got better at listening.”
Grantaire’s fingers curl around one of the postcards as he looks up and says, “About time.”
Enjolras elbows him in the side, and Grantaire laughs.
* * *
He’s leaning against the car, talking about possible places for them to head next, when Grantaire just leans over and kisses him, like it’s as easy as that.
And maybe it is, because when Enjolras kisses him back it feels as easy as breathing. It feels like coming home. It’s a kiss he never knew he wanted, until he left in a car in the dead of night, on a road with no destination and with someone who just understood.
Enjolras lifts a hand to curl around the back of Grantaire’s neck, under the dark curls of his hair. His other hand rests on Grantaire’s side, holding him close. He’s not sure how long they stand there for, just exploring the feel of each other’s lips, like they have all the time in the world and nothing else at all matters.
His glasses dig into the bridge of his nose painfully.
“Fuck,” says Enjolras, pulling back.
Grantaire has one hand resting on the car next to Enjolras’s side for balance. With the other, he reaches up, tentatively, almost as if he thinks Enjolras is going to push him away, now they’re no longer kissing. Enjolras feels himself go cross-eyed as he watches Grantaire’s hand come closer, then his fingers are curling around the frames of his glasses and he’s pulling them away.
Enjolras blinks a few times to readjust his vision. Without the lenses, Grantaire is softer, blurred. He wishes he had his contacts.
Grantaire places his glasses on the roof of the car behind him, and spends a moment just looking at Enjolras. Enjolras feels awkward under the scrutiny, without his glasses, he doesn’t know where to look. He thinks he looks younger without them, feels vulnerable.
Grantaire smiles, and his nose brushes Enjolras as he leans in to kiss him again.
* * *
The distance between them on the bed goes entirely, Enjolras curls into a body that’s always been there, just waiting. Grantaire curls an arm around him to hold him close, and tucks his head against the back of Enjolras’s neck, his nose a cold point at the top of Enjolras’s spine.
They take it in turns to get breakfast, always awake and up before the other one stirs. Enjolras likes the sleepy mornings the best, when Grantaire is soft around the edges, and takes a while to really come around. When he kisses Enjolras on the shoulder, just above his collarbone, a splash of freckles that come out with the sun.
Their journey starts to turn, to come back in a circle.
Tentatively, their friends start to text again, to call and ask how they are. Sometimes they answer and sometimes — they’re distracted. Grantaire’s smiles show his dimple, he tells Enjolras stories he’s never heard before, ones without made-up elements and bluster. The truth of someone he held at arm’s length for years, not quite ready to know.
When they’re driving, Enjolras leaves his hand in the middle of their seats. Occasionally, Grantaire will reach over and slide their fingers together.
* * *
September is dawning, when Enjolras says, “It’s time to go back.”