Chapter Text
Grantaire has always thought that Courfeyrac looks vaguely hilarious in a suit. In college the suits were deliberately and ironically awful; in law school they were just slightly ill-fitting. Grantaire had fallen out of regular contact with Courfeyrac by the time he was an associate and the suits were becoming flashy and fashionable, so Courfeyrac the established lawyer and named partner is a revelation and a fracture in the established narrative: he looks good.
Great, really, and his suit jacket does things to his shoulders that should probably be illegal under the strictest definition of the law. Grantaire tells Courfeyrac this and Courfeyrac leans back in his chair and grins at him tolerantly.
The tolerance is another difference. Grantaire has been in his office for five minutes, catching up over whiskey, and he noticed the differences right away. In the intervening time, he's pretended to roll the whiskey around his palate like a regular nez, but instead he's been cataloguing the changes in Courfeyrac. Grantaire doesn't give a shit about single malt quality as long as it burns going down, but people interest him.
It's not as simple as Courfeyrac having grown up. He's as charming and witty as ever, but the impression of energy he broadcasts is different; less kinetic, and more latent. The difference is between the boy, alive and swept up in the process of becoming, and the man who has become, all his bright potential turned into banked power.
“I'm happy you like my suit,” Courfeyrac says, and he does sound amused, “but I don't think my tailoring is the reason you ambushed my secretary and claimed my one o'clock. I don't think it was simply to renew acquaintances, either.”
“You don't know that,” Grantaire argues out of sheer contrarian habit. “Maybe I was walking down the street and I happened to pass your building, and, seeing that very fine brass plate reading Enjolras, Combeferre et Courfeyrac, was overcome with nostalgic longing for the friends of my youth – nostos algos, from the Greek, sickness for home, the state of absolutely physiological illness caused by separation from the once-familiar–”
“Take a breath, Grantaire–”
“-and plunged madly into the lobby, seeking the elevator to your floor like a salmon blindly swimming upstream, ready to spawn, like a, a narwhal wailing for its virgin–”
Courfeyrac cracks up. The chair tilts back upright and the tailoring of the suit suffers some crumpling. When he catches his breath he's grinning again, not tolerant but delighted. “I can't – there are so many jokes I could make right now, so many, but Enjolras would find out, and he'd actually have my balls, they'd be gone, I'd be shopping for neuticles. I missed your rants, R, you don't even know.”
Freud is a bitch, because when Grantaire was casting about wildly for similes, he didn't mean to say anything that could be construed the way Courfeyrac has construed it, even if making him choke on his Glenfiddich was almost worth it.
He's not here to build bridges or catch up. And he's definitely not here for Enjolras. He puts the glass of whiskey down carefully, and his hand only shakes a little. “I need a lawyer.”
-
Combeferre looks at him over the wire rims of his glasses, and unlike Courfeyrac, Combeferre is exactly the man Grantaire remembers. Older, of course, a little more worn, but himself: intelligent and kind in equal measure.
Combeferre's office is smaller than Courfeyrac's, although that could be an illusion; Courfeyrac's is open to the sky, all glass, while Combeferre's walls are lined with bookshelves, stacked with leather-bound tomes of legal journals and case records. It's cosy and dark and old-fashioned, and Courfeyrac's insouciant seat on the corner of the desk seems more than usually disrespectful.
“It's not precisely the type of case we usually handle,” Combeferre says finally, and tidies the sheaf of paper Grantaire had handed him into a semblance of order. “I can offer you an opinion, with the caveat that I'm not your lawyer of record, but you'd be better off approaching a firm who specialises in intellectual property if you're serious about pursuing this case.”
“What Combeferre is too polite to say,” Courfeyrac breaks in, “is that we can't afford to take on any more pro bono work right now, because we're always over percentage anyway, and we need billable hours to keep us afloat in order to keep up with our pro bono. And our pro bono clients are ranked in order of need, and if you were, I don't know, on the hook for murder, we'd try and figure something out, but while your case is interesting, it's not–”
“Oh, I have money,” Grantaire says. “Money's not a problem.” He blinks. “You thought I came in here to scam you for free legal advice?”
Combeferre winces slightly, but Courfeyrac shrugs. “It's been a long time, R,” he says, “but back in college you were kind of a master when it came to scamming free anything. Alcohol, sure, first and foremost, but weed, food, rent, heat–”
He ticks the items off on his fingertips, and Grantaire tries not to get pissed off. He knows he was a sponge back in those days, in both senses of the word. He had nothing and wasn't willing to work for anything; he'd given up, and only cared about subsisting, and about drinking enough to stop caring about even that. He thinks he's still, largely, the same person, but he's not eighteen or twenty-two anymore, thank fuck, and he doesn't want to remember what it was like. He doesn't want to remember what he was like.
Coming into Enjolras, Combeferre et Courfeyrac had seemed like a good idea when he started looking for independent counsel, and seeing Courfeyrac and Combeferre again had been warming, something he'd missed and was glad to find again, but it was stupid to hope that they remembered him with the same fondness that he remembered the ABC days. They'd been good, decent human beings who'd undoubtedly gone on to lead good, decent lives; he was a shambles who had somehow lucked his way into a strange sort of success, hoping that he could show up on their doorstep and let the gap between present and past blur out his past mistakes.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, digging his hands into his pockets. Fuck, he needs a cigarette. “You're not wrong at all, Courf, it's fine. Thanks for the advice, Combeferre, I'll look into some other firms, it's all good. Nice seeing you again, and all –”
Combeferre grabs his wrist when he reaches across the desk for his papers. Not roughly, but firmly. His neat hands look out of place against Grantaire's fraying coat sleeve, and okay, in retrospect, possibly he should have dressed up before coming into EC&C. It's just not what Grantaire does, to the despair of his agents and the chagrin of his handlers, but fuck them, seriously, they're the reason he's even here, squirming in Combeferre's grasp.
“We're not doing so well that we can afford to let a paying client walk out our door,” Combeferre says, and the admission soothes Grantaire's embarrassment like milk after capsaicin. “Sit down, and if you're comfortable talking about finances, we'll consider taking your case.”
Grantaire thinks about asking whether Enjolras needs to be here for that decision – there are three named partners, surely they need a consensus? - but Combeferre and Courfeyrac don't mention him, so apparently a simple majority is enough, and anyway, it's not actually any of Grantaire's business: he's not here for Enjolras.
-
Grantaire's in his hotel room when Combeferre finally calls him back. It's bitterly cold and occasionally drizzling, but he's out on the balcony anywhere, smoking cigarette after cigarette and watching ash fall from his filter and flake off into the wind. He's smoking because otherwise he just doesn't know what the fuck to do with his hands; his fingers twitch incessantly with restlessness. Normally he'd have a paintbrush, a stick of charcoal, a pencil. But he's felt sick about painting for the last few weeks. He hasn't even been able to sketch without feeling ill. It's all a tangled knot of disgust that makes him feel like shit, but going into EC&C has helped him breathe, a little. He's started to cut through that tangle, just acknowledging that something's wrong.
“'allo,” he says, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder. He doesn't recognise the number, and while he's been ignoring calls lately, he's feeling reckless.
“Grantaire? It's Combeferre calling.”
“Mm.” He should probably say something more. “Everything okay?”
“We're taking your case,” Combeferre says, and he sounds warily positive. “After some research, we think there's significant merit to it, and it's entirely within probability that we could negotiate a reasonable settlement.”
Grantaire's cynical enough that he translates 'research' into 'looked into your personal liquidity', but whatever. This is what he wanted. It wasn't only quixotism that led him to walk through the doors of EC&C instead of any other law firm in the country; he'd done some research of his own, and they're good. That they're not as profitable as they could be is a matter of principle, not ability. In anyone else, Grantaire would scoff at that excuse, but he knows them, and he's not surprised – or at least, he's only surprised they take on any paying clients, instead of operating purely as a non-profit. It's simply evidence of the slow corruption of idealism that he's been preaching since the ABC days: those living in a capitalist society will never succeed in freeing themselves from their context.
They're doing better than most at adhering to their principles. That's enough.
“I don't want a settlement,” Grantaire begins, and Combeferre clears his throat.
“Don't dismiss anything out of hand,” he says. “In any event, this is something you need to discuss with the lawyer handling your case. We've discussed it, and–” He pauses. “We did consider assigning you to one of our associates, but after looking into the Patron-Minette consortium, I felt that your case required the clout and personal attention of one of the named partners. Courfeyrac and I have already taken on as many paying clients as we can manage, so–”
“You're not saying what I think you're saying,” Grantaire says in horror. “Combeferre – look, I swear, I'm grateful you're taking the case, I am, but that's a horrifically bad idea. You're clever, you can't seriously think – if you think you're doing me a favour, you're not.”
“It's not a personal decision.” Combeferre says, and if it was Courfeyrac, Grantaire would never, ever accept that, but because it's Combeferre, he has to believe him. “It's not a favour or a punishment, it's an allocation that makes the most sense for us. Frankly, any new paying client would be allocated to Enjolras. His pro bono caseload is heavy, but his contribution to the bread-and-butter work that keeps us afloat is significantly – less.”
It's a punishment, all right, but it's not Grantaire who's being punished.
“I hate you,” he tells Combeferre sincerely.
“That's all right,” Combeferre says, mild as milk again. “I'm not your lawyer.”
It's completely possible that Grantaire has burnished the friends of his youth into icons of goodness in his memory that they never actually were. He doesn't remember Combeferre being such a dick.
-
Grantaire smokes another two packs of cigarettes in the day and a half between Combeferre's call and his first appointment with Enjolras. On the morning of the appointment, he takes an incredibly thorough shower to try and shift the nicotine fug, and then has to face the quandary of what to wear.
Grantaire's not a total barbarian, so he does actually own a suit – well, he owns a blazer, and he owns a shirt, and his black jeans don't look too informal. He thinks. He feeds both the blazer and the shirt to the hotel room trouser-press, curses when they emerge from its maw with heavy rectangular creases, and tries to smooth them out with the weight of the cheap hotel bible.
Then he decides that since he didn't dress up for Courfeyrac and Combeferre, there's no fucking reason he should dress up for Enjolras, so he loses the shirt in favour of a t-shirt that reads collect moments not things, bought in a burst of black humour.
Then he thinks better of that, and puts the shirt and blazer back on. They've suffered from their time on the floor, but there's nothing Grantaire can do to fix it, and if he hovers in his room much longer, he'll never fucking manage to leave.
He leaves two buttons unfastened as a final protest; they all fight the man in their own way, and this is Grantaire's.
-
Enjolras, Combeferre et Courfeyrac really need better security. Just like a few days before, Grantaire manages to make it through the building lobby, up the elevator, and into their reception without challenge, and the front desk is empty, although a passing woman he pegs as a secretary, or possibly an associate, gives him a funny look. He’s not sure whether it’s due to a) incompetence, b) socialist idealism in action, or c) simple poverty.
Occam’s razor suggests a), but he knows them well enough to bet on b), or at least c) making a virtue out of necessity.
It turns out that it isn’t only the named partners he knows. He’s hit by a human projectile while attempting to find Enjolras' office.
“Oh my god!” the projectile exclaims, helping Grantaire back to his feet and attempting to brush non-existent dust off his shoulder. “I'm so sorry, sir, can I hel– Oh my god!”
“Not knocking me over would be super, thanks,” Grantaire grouses, and then gets a good look as his assailant. He's not the type of person who yelps oh my god, himself, but he can understand the impulse. “Pontmercy? What the fuck is this, the one law firm to catch them all?”
Marius laughs. He's still freckled and handsome and floppy-haired, absurdly boyish-looking even though he must be over thirty now. Looking at him makes Grantaire feel as old and cynical as it ever has. How on earth does Marius convince people to take him seriously as an attorney?
“Oh, I haven't been here that long! Not since the beginning, I've only been here six months – this is amazing, does Courfeyrac know you're here? Does Enjolras?”
“I have an appointment with him right now, actually,” Grantaire says. “Lovely to see you, must catch up later – How's Cosette?”
Grantaire had been invited to the Pontmercy-Fauchelevent nuptials, and he'd sent his apologies and a crystal punchbowl he picked off their registry because it was the silliest and most useless item listed, and that had seemed to summarise his feelings on matrimony, wedding registries, and true love. He hadn't been in the best mood that summer.
Marius has always had an open face, and his stricken expression leaves Grantaire in no doubt that he's put his foot in it. “That's, um, complicated. Do you need me to show you to Enjolras's office? It can be a bit confusing back here, and we don't have many staff – oh, look, here it is. Enjolras?”
Grantaire’s not ready, but Marius opens the door anyway without pausing to knock.
“He's not here,” Marius says, and checks his watch. “Was your appointment for two? He's not usually late, that's weird – Please, take a seat, and I'll go and find him.”
He's gone before Grantaire can demur, which leaves him debating whether Marius's sudden burst of helpfulness is due to the same puppy-like, eager-to-please nature that he'd had back in college, or the desire to escape a conversation about Cosette.
It also leaves Grantaire alone in Enjolras's office.
It's just a room, somewhere on the spectrum between the glassy expanse of Courfeyrac's office and the library-like dim of Combeferre's. It's also a puzzle holding the answers to who Enjolras is now, the bookshelves and files holding the imprint of his mind, and the desk – surely? - some key to his personality.
Grantaire would have to be a saint in order to quash his curiosity, and no one's ever accused him of that.
It's all boringly conventional and achingly virtuous – no whiskey stash in Enjolras' office – and surprisingly neat. He's briefly amused by the bust of Robespierre in pride of place on the desk surface, and doesn't know how to feel about the one, solitary framed photo. It shows an Enjolras looking no older than Grantaire last remembers him, looking scrubbed clean and delighted, shaking hands with some politician and giving one of his true, rare smiles. It can't have been taken long after he left for law school, or even before, back in college – Grantaire almost feels that if he tried, if his memory of that last year hadn't blurred like a watercolour held under a faucet, wasn't full of gaps and blackouts, he could probably place that occasion, remember why it had been so important to Enjolras.
He leaves the photo alone. There's little else on display for his amusement unless he decides to rummage in the desk drawers, which is where he has to draw the line, so he distracts himself with a rubber stamp. Pressed to the inkpad and then the back of his hand, it leaves the imprint of a perfect circle, a cartouche enclosing the words
I certify this to be a true copy of the document shown and reported to me as the original
__/___/___,
Citoyen et Avocat
Enjolras, Combeferre & Courfeyrac
He’s busy trying to rub it off and mostly just smudging it into a formless blue blur when the door clicks open. Grantaire whirls around, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, a jumpy cat, something stupid and skittish and incredibly guilty, and freezes.