Work Text:
When Feuilly walked into the flat to find Bahorel lying on his back on the floor with a bag of frozen peas on his face, the carpenter’s first thought was that he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten a vegetable. He wondered where Bahorel had managed to find frozen peas; Feuilly knew for a fact that the only food in their flat was a box of no-brand cornflakes, half a packet of oreos, and a large tub of awful tasting protein powder that Bahorel insisted was necessary to his survival.
“Where’d you get the peas?”
“’Chetta.”
“You get carried away sparring at the gym again?”
“Bar fight.”
Feuilly sighed heavily, “It’s three in the afternoon on a Sunday.”
“It was the after church crowd.”
“Fair enough.”
Feuilly toed off his shoes, automatically grabbed two beers from the fridge and flopped down onto the battered couch, which groaned under his weight. Bahorel echoed the couch’s sentiment as Feuilly placed one of the beers beside his head, and he scrabbled blindly for it until his thick, bruised fingers closed on the cool tin. He exchanged the beer for the rapidly warming peas against his face, which Feuilly now saw was a constellation of purples, reds, and blacks all across the right side.
Feuilly whistled lowly, “He got you good.”
Bahorel took a swig of beer then pressed it back against his battered cheek, muttering indistinctly.
“What? Speak up. He didn’t break your jaw too did he?” Feuilly teased.
“She,” grunted the boxer stiffly.
“What was that?”
“She.”
Feuilly chuckled and propped his bare feet on Bahorel’s stomach, using the larger man as a footrest, “Can’t leave you unsupervised for two lousy hours. What are you gonna do when I’m out of town?”
“Eh? You lighting out on me again?” Bahorel cracked one swollen eyelid open and peered up at his flatmate.
“Yeah. Itchy feet, man. I’ll only be gone a week, it’s all I could get off work and I need to keep this job.”
“Where you going?”
“Wherever.”
“Just a week, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll put up posters if you aren’t home by Christmas.”
“Cheers.”
Bahorel was used to Feuilly’s periodic absences. The ginger-haired carpenter had grown up on the road, shunted from foster home to foster home and frequently running away. He was a natural rover, a wanderer, who was never lost as long as he had the ground beneath his feet, the sky over his head, and a cigarette between his lips.
He had a faultless sense of direction and a way with people that Bahorel distinctly lacked; Feuilly could walk into a pub anywhere in the world and within ten minutes he could have talked his way into a hot meal and roof over his head for the night. He walked and hitchhiked, jumped on trains and flatbed trucks. He slept in doorways, ate when he could, traded his skills and stories, shivered and sweated, didn’t shower or change his clothes for weeks, and came home skinny and filthy, covered in dark, new freckles and positively beaming with the simple joy of freedom. But he always came home.
Bahorel appreciated this about Feuilly; sometimes he would say he’d be gone for two weeks and come back after three months, sometimes he’d say he’d be away for a month and come back after a few days, but he always came back. Bahorel appreciated that.
Two days later Feuilly was out of town and Grantaire’s phone shrieked in the early morning darkness. Éponine sat bolt upright in bed, swearing extensively, as Grantaire groped blindly for the source of the sudden noise, knocking over a number of empty bottles and adding to the din.
“’lo?” he answered blearily.
“Oh good, you’re awake. Listen, I need a favour.”
Grantaire groaned; Bahorel’s 3am favours usually did not end well.
“I’m gonna be detained for a while- ”
“Detained how?” asked Grantaire, although he knew exactly how.
“Let’s just say this is my phone call, yeah? Anyway, Feuilly’s out of town and I don’t know anyone else who can pay my bail so I need you to housesit for a few days. If you do I’ll tell you where that ginger bastard hides all his emergency smokes.”
Grantaire groaned again, his brain too sluggish to process exactly what was being asked of him.
Bahorel’s voice barked through the darkness, “Dude, you there? I haven’t got all night!”
“Yeah… Yeah, sure. Where’s the spare key?”
“Legend. It’s in the exhaust pipe of Feuilly’s old car round the back of the block. The smokes are stashed on top of the ceiling fan in his room, plus one deck inside the empty paint tin that holds up the coffee table, and another two duct-taped to the underside of the kitchen sink. You can help yourself to those but if you drink all my beer without replacing it I’ll break your goddamn nose again. Love you man, thanks for this.”
And with a click he was gone, dragged off to his usual holding cell until the cops could decide which of his many previous convictions or outstanding warrants to hold him under this time.
“What the fuck, ‘Aire?” moaned Éponine, thwacking him in the face with her pillow as soon as he dropped the phone.
“Bahorel’s in lock down again.”
“Wanker,” snorted Éponine, rolling over and dragging most of the duvet with her.
“Pretty much,” muttered Grantaire, and fell back into sleep within seconds.
The next afternoon, once Grantaire had called the local police station and ascertained that Bahorel was indeed being held there, and wasn’t likely to be released until his bail was paid, he had an idea. An idea of staggeringly terrible proportions, an idea that might just end his relationship, but an idea nonetheless.
When Grantaire reached the student house, he knocked once out of politeness then let himself in with the key that Enjolras had given him. Stepping into the living room he was confronted with the sight of extremely graphic pornography playing loudly from the wall mounted plasma TV. Courfeyrac was sprawled across the monstrous L-shaped couch, eating popcorn while casually watching the X-rated film with the same level of interest that most people would give to reruns of an old sitcom.
At the other end of the couch sat Combeferre, laptop open over his crossed legs and apparently unperturbed by Courfeyrac’s viewing choices as he quietly annihilated his computer’s AI in a chess match.
“Uh, hey guys,” Grantaire looked bemusedly at the writhing bodies on screen, “Is Enjolras around?”
“In his room,” nodded Combeferre with a friendly smile of greeting.
“Thanks.”
“Call me if you’re going to be getting up to anything more exciting than this rubbish!” yelled Courfeyrac, as Grantaire disappeared down the hall to his boyfriend’s bedroom.
As he raised his hand to knock on Enjolras’ closed bedroom door Grantaire felt a sudden rush of anxiety, fresh doubts and questions bubbling to the surface of his mind and halting his hand mid-knock. When Enjolras opened the door before Grantaire’s fist even connected with the wood, the artist was equal parts disconcerted and grateful.
“I heard you come in,” said Enjolras by way of explanation for his sudden appearance, and though Grantaire was greeted by one of his favourite thousand-watt I’m-actually-genuinely-pleased-to-see-you Enjolras smiles it somehow didn’t help his nerves at all.
When Enjolras said, “Give me two minutes, okay?”, strode back to his book-strewn desk and threw himself down into his chair Grantaire felt about ready to back out entirely, slink back to Feuilly and Bahorel’s flat, and smoke every damn cigarette he could find until his hands stopped shaking.
Instead, he said in a breaking voice, “Look, um, I still feel bad about last week, so about the whole living together thing… Can we just take it slow?” and gingerly he placed a shiny silver key on the keyboard of Enjolras’ open laptop. He’d had the key copied from Feuilly and Bahorel’s spare that morning, foregoing a week’s worth of coffee to do so.
Enjolras looked up at him, blue eyes meeting green, and the studious concentration of a moment before dissolved.
“Is this the key to your flat?”
Grantaire felt his stomach clench in anxiety, and he forced himself to push out the next words before he could swallow them, “It’s to Bahorel and Feuilly’s flat. They’re both away and they asked me to housesit for a week or so, and I thought we could, maybe, have a trial period, or something… Like, for the whole ‘living together’ thing… Would that be okay?”
Enjolras’ face softened entirely as he turned the key over in his hands, “I’d love to. And again, I’m sorry I pushed so hard for this, I didn’t realise it was such a big deal for you…”
Grantaire ran a hand through his hair nervously, still unconvinced that winning Enjolras over could be so simple.
“Uh yeah, well, my arguments still stand, I’m a nightmare to live with; I drink, I smoke, I keep strange hours, never do housework, can’t cook, forget to shower, get paint absolutely everywhere, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum… I’m just badly housetrained in general. I do always close the toilet seat, Éponine managed to beat that into me. Although I suppose with a house full of boys that doesn’t really count for much…”
Enjolras stood from his chair and pulled Grantaire into a brief, sweet kiss, brushing a hand down his stubbled cheek and whispering softly, “It’ll be fine.”
But Grantaire was on a self-sabotaging roll and while the kiss slowed him down it didn’t stop him as he continued, “Did I mention that Bahorel and Feuilly live in a really bad part of town? Not as bad as where me and ‘Ponine live to be fair, but still pretty bad. That’s why they need a housesitter, the first time they left the flat unguarded for a couple of days a gang of squatters moved in. Nice guys, but it was a hell of a job to get them out again, and they infested the place with bedbugs. Have you ever had to get rid of bedbugs? I assume you haven’t. It’s damn near impossible, and- ”
Enjolras cut him off with another kiss, but Grantaire was persistent, pulling away and continuing, “And the whole place stinks of cigarettes. I mean it, you think I’m bad, Feuilly’s much worse. The whole block smells like smoke because of him- ”
Another kiss, more demanding this time, the sweetness disappearing as Enjolras lost patience with Grantaire’s monologue of self-doubt.
“- The water pressure’s pretty dodgy too. And those two aren’t especially reliable when it comes to paying bills, so we may or may not have electricity or heating, it’s touch and go to be honest- ”
“Okay, I won’t come then. You’re right, it sounds like a nightmare.”
Grantaire’s eyes widened dramatically and he looked at Enjolras with desperation, knowing that he’d just talked himself into a hole and needing to be told how to disinter himself from it.
“Unless,” smiled Enjolras, with a commanding look, “You can give me one positive reason that I should come.”
Grantaire looked confused; positivity was not his forte, but it was something that Enjolras was determined to force on his cynical boyfriend, if only once in a while.
“Um… Well, there’s two bedrooms so you could have your own space, and like, sleep on your own… If you wanted…”
“That sounds terrible,” whispered Enjolras, so close to the artist that their lips brushed as he spoke and Grantaire made a tiny whimpering noise that thrilled Enjolras more than he would ever admit; he loved the power that he could wield over Grantaire with mere words and proximity.
“Try again,” he commanded, still not quite kissing his boyfriend but neither moving away.
“Well,” stuttered Grantaire, unable to tear his eyes away from Enjolras’ slightly parted lips, “The heating issue would encourage bed sharing…”
“Better,” Enjolras nodded, curling one hand around Grantaire’s waist and tracing light, lazy circles over his lower back, “I’ll give you one more try. Why should I come and live in a bedbug-ridden, powerless, unheated flat that reeks of cigarette smoke?”
“To be with me,” whispered Grantaire, closing his eyes and bowing his head as he uttered the words that he knew Enjolras wanted to hear but which he himself was so loathe to believe.
“Now that is an offer I can’t refuse,” purred Enjolras, tilting Grantaire’s chin up until the artist was forced to look at him, “And do you remember what I said I’d like to do when we had some time alone together?”
Enjolras actually saw Grantaire’s pupils dilate slightly at those words. The artist licked his lips hungrily – his tongue millimetres from brushing Enjolras – and he whispered huskily, “You said - you promised - that you would fuck me…”
“Right. Into. The mattress,” Enjolras breathed, enunciating each syllable with perfect clarity, “I’ll let you choose whether you want to defile Feuilly’s or Bahorel’s bed first, but I’m sure we’ll end up doing it on both. And on the floor, on the kitchen counter, against the wall, in the shower…”
Grantaire shuddered as the law student slid curious fingertips under the hem of his t-shirt, their lips still a breath apart.
This was Enjolras’ favourite part of sex with Grantaire, not the nudity, not the coming, not even the closeness, all of those things were fantastic and better than Enjolras had ever imagined they would be, but this… The build up, the teasing, the foreplay all confirmed Grantaire’s devotion to Enjolras, and Enjolras’ erotic power over Grantaire. It had taken a very long time for Enjolras to admit this to himself, and he’d only been able to after a mutual acknowledgement of deep underlying feelings for one another, and an awful lot of reassurance from Grantaire that sex was sex and you liked what you liked.
After a few seconds of tension Grantaire gave in and surged into Enjolras’ lips in a needful kiss, immediately licking into Enjolras’ open mouth as the student pulled the artist in closer with the hand at his back. Grantaire’s hands gripped Enjolras’ hips, desperately anchoring his boyfriend to him in turn. Enjolras’ free hand tangled itself in Grantaire’s curls, stroking and tugging gently as he sucked lightly on the other boy’s tongue, making him groan and press their bodies closer together. Chuckling, Enjolras pulled gently away from the kiss, using the hand in Grantaire’s hair to prise his whining boyfriend off his lips and keep a small distance between them.
Grantaire still, after months together, after all their kisses and every sex act they had so far crossed off their extensive to-do list, still was so eager to touch Enjolras as if it were the last time, so easily aroused by his boyfriend’s lightest touch, his merest suggestion; the ease of it went straight to Enjolras’ cock. Grantaire’s pupils were blown wide and his breathing short as he ground his hips against Enjolras, seeking friction for the growing hardness in his trousers. He looked at the student with sultry eyes and murmured, “You know, we’re alone together right now…”
“Cheeky,” admonished Enjolras with a raised eyebrow, “You know my definition of alone.”
“And you know my definition of being a fucking tease!” groaned Grantaire as Enjolras ghosted light fingertips over his rutting hips.
“I know that you like it when I tease you,” smirked Enjolras, withdrawing his fingers and stepping away.
“God help me, I do,” conceded Grantaire, rubbing himself ruefully and without a trace of self-consciousness through his jeans as Enjolras returned to his books.
“When are you moving into Bahorel and Feuilly’s?” asked Enjolras as he once again picked up the shiny new key Grantaire had brought him.
“Tonight,” answered Grantaire immediately, hope written all over his stubbled features.
“I’ll need the address then.”
“Really? I mean, sure- ” Grantaire leapt to grab a spare sheet of paper and jot down the address, “Really? Tonight?”
“We’ll see,” smiled Enjolras, suddenly more nervous than he was willing to let on, “Just wait. I’ve promised to give you what you want and have you ever known me to break my word?”
“No, sir,” grinned Grantaire, still casually and shamelessly rubbing his erection through his trousers.
“I’ll see you tonight then. I love you.”
Grantaire’s grin widened beautifully as he replied, “I love you too.”