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“A fair warning,” Grantaire's voice comes from the hallway only seconds after Enjolras hears the door to their apartment close, “the next person to say the words 'practical' or 'effects' in my presence is going to fall victim to –” He's arrived in the kitchen and waves an arm, helpless. “Something.”
“That's a shame,” Enjolras says with a glance at him. His hands are red from where he's scrubbed the clay off; Enjolras aches in sympathy just looking at them. “I was about to suggest that just for effect, I should consider the aesthetics of my dishes more when I cook rather than just sticking with practicality; what do you think?”
He doesn't need to see Grantaire to know the expression that's on his face, but Grantaire still confirms it when he walks up to Enjolras and takes his face into both hands, carefully turning it so they're looking at each other. Just as assumed, Grantaire is frowning. “What's wrong?”
Enjolras would be offended – he's capable of being funny no matter his mood and his friends don't acknowledge that nearly enough – but right now, he can't be bothered. Grantaire isn't completely wrong. Enjolras makes jokes most frequently when he's happy, or when he's stressed. He also cooks when he's stressed, and he's currently surrounded by several tupperware containers filled with amounts of soup they'll never be able to eat. Plus, there's a pot with more soup on the stove, and he currently has bread and an egg sizzling away in a frying pan.
“Jesus, Enjolras,” Grantaire murmurs, only properly taking in the sight now. “Is that onion soup? Do you have – are you trying to create the ultimate comfort food or something? Just how shitty was your day?”
“You don't happen to have any friends who are in desperate need of a meal, do you,” Enjolras mutters dryly. “If you don't, it'll be onion soup for both of us every day for the rest of the week.” The food bank won't accept anything cooked, no matter how well they know Enjolras, and from what he imagines, approaching someone in the street who looks to be in need of soup won't go over well.
Grantaire peers over Enjolras' shoulder, then gently puts a hand to his side to steer him away from the stove. “I've got this,” he says quietly. Enjolras lets it happen, stepping aside and dropping into one of the chairs by the kitchen table. He's tired, and annoyed, and dead on his feet, and he planned to finish cooking and cleaning all this away before Grantaire came home. So much for that.
There's no specific reason for the breakdown, that's what makes it so annoying. It's everything at once: deadlines, interviews, Skype conferences, barely seeing Grantaire because they never seem to be home at the same time. It's taken its toll over the past month. Enjolras can handle stress, he can juggle a job and his degree, he can write three exams in a day and still be mentally present when he meets up with an interviewee at eight, but he needs the energy that this takes, and in his case, energy comes equally from time spent alone and with people he loves.
Grantaire flips the egg, practised at it now. He was disaster at cooking when they moved here (in his defence, so was Enjolras), and he's gradually improved over the past year, as he claims mostly by spending too much time on YouTube. That's one of the things Enjolras was, at first, surprised to find they had in common: they were good at picking up skills simply by watching and looking out for patterns, by imitating and understanding overarching rules through observing. It's made a lot of things easier, knowing that.
“I'm sorry, I didn't ask how your day was,” Enjolras says, lifting his head from where he'd been resting it on his crossed arms. “Apart from the clay.”
“It was all clay,” Grantaire says. “Seriously, don't even think about it. There's nothing to think about, there's only modelling. And here I was, naively assuming I'd leave everything sculpture-related behind as an animation student. Instead I just swapped papier-maché-hell for fictile hell.”
“But you won't have to do it again after this semester, right?”
“God willing, never.” Grantaire smiles at him over his shoulder. “More than can be said for you, I'm assuming?”
“It doesn't feel right to complain,” Enjolras says. It doesn't, especially not when Grantaire only has half the truth, and he isn't going to whine to Grantaire about how little they get to see of each other. Grantaire knows. Grantaire is likely just as strained by it, if not more.
That's what makes him feel reluctant to bring it up: Enjolras needs closeness as much as he needs distance, he needs to withdraw a little less than half the time he has for himself. Grantaire is different. Grantaire, in another situation, would happily sleep in one bed with his partner every night rather than just most of them, would have no problem sharing every waking moment with someone else. Grantaire, at his best as well as at his worst, craves company. It's not the first time Enjolras has worried about this, and Grantaire has reassured him every time, but much as Enjolras believes it doesn't have an effect on their relationship at all, he often can't shake the feeling that Grantaire would be happier if things were different.
The lucky thing, pessimistic as that may seem, is that Grantaire feels the same way about other issues. They both struggle to understand, sometimes, how the other is so consistently willing to put up with them.
“I chose to get a Masters degree and I chose to get a job, it'd feel wrong to complain about getting exactly what I wanted. In two weeks time, at least the editorial will be off my back,” Enjolras goes on. “Things are bound to quiet down a little then.”
Grantaire has topped the bread with cheese, set the egg down on it and puts the finished product in front of Enjolras. “He said, already drafting an article on today's relevance of the ideological critique in Karl Mannheim's works in his mind,” he jokes. “At this point I'm not sure you're alive when you're not working on a story. It's fine!” He raises both hands when Enjolras opens his mouth to protest. “It's all you, it's all great. Plus, I'm sort of never not drawing when I'm home these days, so.”
Enjolras isn't feeling hungry, but he knows that he technically should feel hungry, so he eats. “You know,” he says after a few bites, when Grantaire has sat down next to him with a bowl of soup, “the worst thing about this is that I can hear Courfeyrac's voice in my head every time we spend a day practically without seeing each other.”
Grantaire laughs. “Courfeyrac is a fucking hypocrite. As if any of the others are doing any better with their busy, busy lives and important law degrees, come on. He can give us his Worst Couple prize a thousand times over, I'll wear it as a badge of honour.”
“I know it's not true,” Enjolras says. “It just bothers me that he does it at all, and it's bothered me from the beginning. Remember when he called us roommates?”
“Like I could forget.”
That is a fair point. When they started looking for places to live, Grantaire agreed to two bedrooms with no problem, but they received their fair share of scorn from that part of their friends that liked to jeer sometimes. It was all in good fun, officially, and Enjolras doesn't tend to take jokes from his friends too personally, but the idea of anyone confusing him and Grantaire for friends hit a little close to home. With Grantaire's permission, he went the extra length every time to make sure any possible landlords knew what the nature of their relationship was.
“I haven't forgiven that.” He sighs quietly. “I doubt I will, at this point.”
Grantaire has been watching him, and carefully leans in to kiss his temple, fingers curling in his hair for a moment. Enjolras's eyes slip closed.
“Are you working on the storyboard later?” he asks when Grantaire withdraws. “I could go on editing in your room.”
“Sure.” Grantaire smiles. “Just like old times.”
They really don't have a lot of conventional things to be sentimental about, Enjolras realises. Their idea of “old times” is when they'd only just met and practically all the time they spent with just the two of them had been when they were working on something late into the night, preparing for exams or editing the ABC paper. It went on like that even after they got together, now that he thinks about it.
Enjolras takes two of the tupperware dishes down to their neighbours, the elderly lady on the second floor and the three students who share the apartment on the fourth, and freezes the rest, confident that they'll soon be grateful it's there when neither of them has time to cook. He finds Grantaire in his room later, where he's set up his laptop and tablet on the couch table. It's far more inconvenient for him than the desk would be, and Enjolras clicks his tongue in reprimand when he sees it. Grantaire just shrugs.
“I said old times, I mean old times. You like the couch better anyway. Admit it.”
“I don't like the couch better than I like you being free of back pains and cramps. Go to the desk.”
Grantaire looks down at his tablet, then glances at Enjolras and says, “It's possible that I, selfishly, prefer the couch from the desk when you're in here. No particular reason.”
There's a pang in Enjolras' chest, a brief, fluttering feeling. He used to wait for this to stop happening somewhere along the line, for the strange flickering sensation to stop coming back, and it's done nothing of the sort. Three years, and the nervous tremor that used to make it so much more intense is gone, but the thing itself hasn't changed.
“Move over,” Enjolras says quietly. Grantaire does, dragging his tablet with him to make enough room for Enjolras to stretch out next to him, his back against Grantaire's side and his laptop on his knees. It's a little uncomfortable for both of them, but they need this whenever they do find time together, they both need to know the other is there and solid and warm as always. And easy as it would probably make working if Enjolras moved to his own room where he has a neatly organised workspace and a rather comfortable bed, he also thinks that the dimmed light, the clicking of Grantaire's stylus on the smooth surface, the way his curls brush the back of Enjolras' neck, are far too soothing to swap out for neatness and the ideal creative space.
They work mostly in silence, interrupted only by the occasional “Do you think this panel is too crammed” or “A better word for pernicious, but nothing too overblown.” Eventually, Enjolras' typing slows, and he leans back to rest his head on Grantaire's shoulder with his eyes closed. He almost whispers the question. “How did it go this morning?”
Grantaire doesn't respond immediately, and when he speaks, it's just as quietly. “Well, I think,” he says. The movement of his hand on the tablet has stopped. “A little awkward. There's so much scrutiny involved in this kind of thing, and both people have to pretend it isn't there.”
“What was your impression of him?”
“Nice guy, bit weird. In a likeable way. He's ancient, it was kind of like talking to a nice grandpa. I think the weirdest thing is that he told me all about the school of thought he's in, and it seemed pretty far removed from psychoanalysis, but then he gives me this biography questionnaire and all the questions are like, 'Have you ever been beaten and did you enjoy it,' 'List three ways in which your father let you down,' 'Do you remember your own birth' –”
“Not that bad, surely.”
“Nah, not quite there, but it comes close. I'll show it to you later.” He hesitates again, the shake of his head abrupt where Enjolras feels it. “I'm going to be okay there, I think.”
“I'm glad,” Enjolras says, and seeks Grantaire's hand with his to carefully bring it to his lips. Grantaire says nothing else, but he turns his head just slightly, resting like that for a moment with his breath warm on Enjolras' neck.
Enjolras isn't sure when he fell asleep. He knows that he put his laptop away with the intention of getting up and making tea, he knows that Grantaire quietly demanded chamomile, and after that – nothing. He also knows that what woke him up was his phone vibrating in his pocket; that might be important, but it's significantly darker now, and Grantaire next to him isn't working anymore, either, but has pulled is legs in on the couch and is resting against Enjolras, his breath steady.
He fumbles for his phone, trying not to jostle his sleeping boyfriend. As he pulls it out of his pocket, he notices the soft light from the coffee table, just where Grantaire's phone is lying – if someone texted both of them, it can really only be the group chat, but that's relatively quiet these days, always blowing up when a lot of them are in the same place for a day or two and otherwise only sporadically active. He has to blink a few times to even unlock his phone; the light hurts his eyes. Grantaire moves behind him, sleepily reaching over to the table. “What kind of monster,” he mutters, somehow managing to lace his voice even as it's still thick with sleep with a dose of exaggerated dramatics, “what kind of heartless bastard would do this to us, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the week –”
“It's Cosette,” Enjolras notes. “Also, half past ten on a Friday.”
He's still not fully awake, so it takes him at least ten seconds to make sense of the message on his screen. The moment he understands it is the moment that Grantaire, still leaning against him, breaks into laughter, softly at first and soon bordering on hysterical. Enjolras doesn't feel like laughing – he stares at his phone, reads the message over, and suddenly it's hard to find any words at all.
Been meaning to text you all day, so glad I remembered to before midnight – Happy Anniversary to you two!! ♥
“R,” he says, and Grantaire's laughing fit has reached a stage of giggling with pauses in which he tries to catch his breath, but there's a cold feeling in Enjolras' stomach and a flurry of panicked thoughts in his mind that refuse to come together to form something coherent. “R – I'm so sorry, I barely looked at the calendar today, I hardly even realised it was April –”
“Enjolras,” Grantaire shakes his head, he's sobered up as soon as he heard the genuine terror in Enjolras' voice, “Enjolras, no, this is fucking hilarious. You didn't let me down, we both missed out on it. We literally both forgot our own anniversary.”
Enjolras is still half caught-up in his mind, how could he forget, he has an excellent mind for numbers, he can reliably think eight months ahead and tell you whether he'll be busy between Christmas and New Year's, and this is Grantaire and him, this is what matters most, and he forgot, the way you'd forget about a distant relative's birthday, how could he?
Grantaire is holding onto his wrists, squeezing lightly to ground him. “I'll level with you here, I've given zero thought to it this year, I've – I mean, I've not just forgotten about it today, I've totally blocked out the fact that it – exists?” He laughs again. “I'm such an asshole, oh my God.”
“We both forgot,” Enjolras repeats flatly. “We both – Cosette was the only one to remember our anniversary.” His thoughts come together now; his conclusion stands. “Courfeyrac was right.”
Grantaire rolls his eyes. “Please.”
“No, I don't –” Enjolras frowns, looking back at his phone again. “Of course he's not right. But I'm starting to see what he means, it's not about the room thing at all, and it's not about sex –” Grantaire huffs, but Enjolras continues, undeterred. “I think what he means is that most people pay more attention to this kind of thing. If only one of us had forgotten, that would be disappointing, but we both did, which means we've both decided it's not important. And if we've both decided something doesn't matter, then – well, then it doesn't matter. We're the only ones who get to define that.”
Grantaire squints at him. “Uhm. It's impossible to discern right now whether you think that's a good or a bad realisation.”
“I don't know,” Enjolras says. “A lot of things just started to make sense to me.”
“Enjolras,” Grantaire is still frowning, “did you think, so far, that a friend was making fun of our relationship because we don't have sex?”
“No, I thought that contributed to it.” Enjolras sorts things in his mind, brings them into a proper order. Some of the tension that's quite insistently had him in its claws for the past day dissolves. “Not significantly, I do know him better than that. I'm just starting to realise that it had nothing to do with that at all.”
Grantaire is staring. He opens his mouth, then thinks better of whatever he was about to say and looks down at his phone. They've had conversations like this, a lot of them. Enjolras knows Grantaire isn't going to get tired of repeating the same words as often as Enjolras needs to hear them, but that's not what this is about, not really, and Grantaire is aware of that. He's quiet for a long time. “Still one hour and a half left of the day,” he says eventually. “Not a massive amount of time, but enough to celebrate this three-year-thing.” A smile, barely there and careful. “If we wanted to.”
There it is again, that thing in his chest. Back so soon, Enjolras thinks, and leans in to kiss Grantaire slowly and soundly, drawing him close with arms around his shoulders. When he pulls back, Grantaire's cheeks have darkened and there's something in his eyes, wonder and softness, so Enjolras kisses him again, and again, and again. This happens sometimes – it's a vicious cycle, bent into shape by the fact that Grantaire always looks lovely, but loveliest when he's just been kissed.
“So,” Grantaire whispers after a long time, just as Enjolras grants them enough air to speak, “is this your idea of celebrating, because that's cool with me, totally cool, but if you did want to do something more conventional we've now only got an hour left, which is –” He breathes deeply. Enjolras smiles. The rest of the sentence comes out stumbling, helpless. “Less. Than before.”
“We'd need flowers,” Enjolras says. “Chocolate, if possible. A very bad romantic comedy, too, if we're being serious.”
“I think we've established just how serious this is,” Grantaire says, inching back a little. “White elephant anniversary supplies, what do you say? There's so much stuff in this apartment, we'll put together a celebration worthy of the Gods.”
When he's like this, not even Grantaire's sarcasm holds up properly; it melts in his mouth and leaves a softness in the words he never really allows otherwise.
“I'll track for decorations, you for food,” Enjolras decides. He puts a hand to Grantaire's shoulder. “We'll meet in my room. I have faith in you.”
Grantaire salutes and, while Enjolras drags himself off the couch and over to the kitchen, disappears in the bathroom.
Scraping together some of the tealights Enjolras knows they keep around for the tea warmer and then lining them up on the shelf above his desk, as if they had ever intentionally gone to the length of lighting candles for nothing but the mood before, it strikes Enjolras that he can't remember the last time he let himself feel this way – unconcerned, silly, even, and a little younger than he is. When Grantaire's mental health plays along, he's up for mischief in any form. It's not always easy to keep up with.
He texts Cosette back when he's set up the room in the most ridiculous, makeshift-romantic way he knows how, because she probably deserves their thanks. It's annoying, anyway, how little time he's found to talk to her lately. Thank you. Your ability to keep up with everyone's relationships next to your own is amazing as always.
It's a gift, she texts back. Any chance you'll be up here for a day or so in the break? I'm lonely; the two people I love most are neglecting me to do important work together.
Enjolras bites back a smile. Cosette pretends to complain about this whenever they talk, but it's impossible to take seriously, because she never stops smiling even as she complains. Her father started setting up a charity supporting children's education a year ago, and Éponine has a side job running its music program. And you're proud and happy, because you're a good person, he texts her. I'm not sure when we'll be back. Things are kind of tense, R has a project & I'll be abroad for a week, but we'll make time if there isn't any.
Cosette takes a little longer to reply this time. You both forgot the anniversary, didn't you, she finally texts, and Enjolras wonders how he ever thought she wouldn't guess. Don't tell Courfeyrac, he replies. Cosette responds with a smug-looking emoji. Your secret's safe.
“Okay,” Grantaire marches in, “I found these caramels in the pantry and they're the closest thing to chocolates that we have in this whole place, but they're like, ten years old –”
“Impressive, considering we've barely lived here for a year.”
“Oh, look who knows everything about the length of a year suddenly. You know, just earlier today –”
“Please stop,” Enjolras says. “We're going to make and hear jokes about this for decades to come, you'll regret it if you burn yourself out now.”
Something in that sentence has caught Grantaire off guard. He looks at Enjolras quietly for a moment, then shakes himself out of the trance and drops onto the bed next to him. Grantaire has the larger room and Enjolras the bigger bed; they're not entirely sure how that arrangement happened, but it's mainly led to them spending their nights in one room and their days in another, and it's been working out well.
“Cosette knows?” Grantaire assumes, rolling on his side to face Enjolras.
“She guessed. It's eerie. And with her knowing...”
“Maybe she'll keep it to herself. Remember how she knew you liked me before you did, and no one ever found out?”
“That information was slightly more delicate,” Enjolras says. “It's just to warn you – we might have to get our counter-attack ready before the next time we see Courfeyrac.”
“Already in the works,” Grantaire promises. He glances about the room, at the tiny candles barely giving off any light and the three dandelions, calyces closed, that Enjolras found on the balcony and haphazardly put into a drinking cup. They've never had a reason to buy vases. “Maybe you should reconsider the whole journalism thing and go into interior design. This is breathtaking.”
“You're about to be even more impressed,” Enjolras says flatly. He's carried his laptop over from Grantaire's room and pulls it from the bedside table. “Netflix selection of cheesy movies; your pick. I haven't seen any of them.”
Grantaire rolls onto his stomach and starts scrolling. “None?” he asks, incredulous. “Pretty Woman? Never?”
Enjolras shrugs. “My love for the genre wasn't strong enough for me to seize any of the countless opportunities where I could have seen it,” he says. “I'd be happy to educate myself now.”
“Hah.” Grantaire nudges him. “The only question we'd be educated on if we watched one of these is which one of us is more sleep deprived and falls asleep first.”
“Seems worth exploring.”
Again, Grantaire looks at him, examining. “I've never said this to you,” he says, and it sounds a bit like a realisation, “because I'm an idiot who thought he didn't have to, but. I really am completely and one hundred per cent on board with never doing any of the stuff couples are supposed to be doing according to the world and our terrible friends.”
Enjolras, still on his back, stares up at the ceiling. He wants to say that he knows, that he's reassured in this practically every day, even if Grantaire doesn't say it out loud, but the response lodges in his throat; it's not completely honest. One of the reasons it took Enjolras so long to figure out what he was feeling and what to do about it was that while he completely understood the concept of dating, he didn't understand the appeal. The appeal of being in a relationship, to him, made perfect sense, but everything surrounding the beginnings of it looked unnecessarily stressful when he watched his friends go through it – the rules of conduct, the way some people in new relationships barely seemed to be friends with each other, the tensions this inevitably led to. It alienated him, and Grantaire, as they noticed quickly, was indifferent to it, so they skipped the whole ordeal and simply went on as usual, only with more kissing, less fighting, and practically all their free time spent together either on campus or at home. This led to Cosette joking that they'd fast-forwarded on their relationship at least a year, and the others, well.
“I didn't think I needed to hear that,” Enjolras says honestly. “I thought I knew.”
“I'm sorry I didn't notice,” Grantaire says. When Enjolras glances at him, he looks unhappy, and, all right, that's unacceptable. “I have no idea what I'd do if you were the kind of person who wants to go on dates that actually classify as dates, I wouldn't last two days. I'm completely unsuited for cliché-dating, I thought you knew that, seriously – being a horrible couple by Courfeyrac's standards helps me as much as it does you.”
Enjolras spends some more moments staring at the ceiling, just as much time as it takes him to gather his thoughts. Then he turns around, kisses Grantaire quickly, and draws the laptop over to himself.
Grantaire clears his throat. “So. That's all on the topic, or...?”
Enjolras pulls the bedside table into a different position, then places the laptop where they'll both be able to see it well. “All we need to know,” he confirms. Grantaire draws himself up to rest against the headboard. “I've found us a movie to watch.”
Leaning forward, Grantaire peers at the screen. He grins. “You know, for someone who claims to have a complicated relationship with romance, you're pretty sentimental.”
“Two very different things,” Enjolras says. “Today had sort of a nostalgic theme, I thought it was fitting.”
“Oh, definitely. That was a historical event. Treasure Planet – the first movie we mutually agreed was good. Truly one for the history books.”
“I'm afraid I didn't note down the exact date we watched it on,” Enjolras says. The prologue is playing. “This is going to have to do.”
“How neglectful of you.” Grantaire offers him the bag of caramels. “Better watch out before someone revokes our licence as a couple.”
“That's going to become a thing, isn't it.”
“It can't not. Please let me have this.”
“Permitted. Try to keep it to one joke a day.”
Enjolras falls asleep halfway through the movie, despite all the best intentions. The lack of sleep from the week, the dim light from the candles, being curled up in bed, warm and comfortable – it had been so easy. He wakes up as the credits roll to find Grantaire asleep as well, and closes his laptop as quietly as possible before slipping out of bed and making his way through the half-dark to the bathroom.
There's a presentation waiting for him at nine tomorrow morning, and Grantaire has to be up for work even earlier. The weekend isn't one. Enjolras treasures every hour of sleep he can get, normally, because he's not at his best on less than seven hours, but if the nights are the only untouched place where he and Grantaire can carve out their spaces and find time together, they will. It's more than worth it, on nights like this.
Grantaire still appears to be asleep when he comes back, so he's quiet as he blows out the remaining tealights, and tries not to move too much as he slips under the sheets and carefully drapes them over Grantaire as well. “Thanks,” Grantaire whispers, sleep in his voice, and turns so that they're lying face to face, parentheses with the smallest space between them. Their hands lock, fingers intertwined, in what almost comes as an automatism. “Three years,” Grantaire murmurs, “and you use the word decades looking forward.”
“Hm?”
“Earlier. 'Jokes for decades to come.' I pay attention.” Enjolras hears him swallow. “You have no idea what it's like when you just casually say things like that.”
Enjolras squeezes his hand, too tired to open his eyes again. “No point in making any plans if you don't assume the future is going to go according to them.”
It's quiet for a while. Grantaire's thumb traces circles on Enjolras' skin. “E?”
“Hmm.”
“Since it's dark and you're half asleep and I'm being honest anyway, now's probably a good time to say I have no idea where I'd have ended up if I hadn't met you and the others.”
“Doesn't matter,” Enjolras whispers, as observed, half asleep. “We're here.”
The silence lasts longer this time. Then, “Enjolras?”
“Hm.”
A smile in his voice. “Happy anniversary.”