Work Text:
Enjolras stumbled into the yarn store completely accidentally. Well. Sort of. He had intended to walk in, to get some yarn for Jehan. He had a printed color palette and everything. He had researched how much yarn it took to knit a sweater (Depends on the weight of the yarn, which apparently has nothing to do with how heavy it was? He didn’t really get it, but he had printed a chart.) And then he had taken a step into the cozy looking store and promptly fell over his feet at the sight of the most gorgeous ass he had ever seen.
The man was bending over, picking up some knitting needles that had been knocked out of the basket in front of him, presumably by the young child who had been laughing maniacally as he had sprinted out the door past Enjolras as he’d been walking in. Enjolras felt his face heat and turned left and walked into the aisle. The shelves were divided into squares, filled with neatly stacked twists of soft and squishy yarn.
Enjolras looked at the color chart in his hand and sighed slightly. Where to begin?
He wandered around the store for a bit, aimlessly. He was staring down at his notes hopelessly, completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, when the man who had been bent over by the entrance walked up to him in the quiet store.
He was holding a small basket of yarn, and he paused to stock one right by Enjolras, who was taking in the sight of him.
The man looked cozy, wearing, above his tight, black jeans, a white tank top underneath a massive sweater, presumably hand-made. The neck of the sweater drooped off his shoulder, exposing his shoulder and the watercolor of gorgeous tattoos on it.
Enjolras knew a thing or two about tattoos. It would be hard for him not to know much about tattoos, what with the amount of his skin his took up, and the ones he saw on the man’s shoulder weren’t just good, they were incredible. Everything about them, the composition, the color, the linework—he had to know who the artist is.
It took him a moment to tear his eyes from the gorgeous tattoo to the man, who was— oh fuck, he was speaking to him.
“—know if there’s anything I can do to help you, okay?”
Enjolras nodded, his throat suddenly dry. “Yeah, thanks.”
The man turned to look at him with a smile, after reaching up on his tiptoes to put a skein of yarn on the top shelf, and seemed to notice the paper in his hands.
“Oh! If you know what you’re looking for, and it’s something specific, I’m sure I can help you find it.” He flushed, faintly. “There’s no real organisation system in here—at least, not one anyone but the owner himself can figure out.”
Enjolras numbly handed over his page of notes when it was gestured for. He felt himself blush as the man squinted at his messy handwriting. He whistled lowly. “You’ve really got everything worked out here—is the sweater for you?”
Enjolras felt his eyes widen. He had no fucking clue how to knit. “No, no, it’s for a friend. They uh. We have very different aesthetics.” He looks down at his scuffed combat boots, done up with rainbow laces. He shuffled, feeling a bit out of place in the cute, cozy little store.
“I rather like yours,” the man offered, setting off to the opposite side of the store. “I love working here, it’s a daily reminder that all sorts of people you wouldn’t expect do all sorts of things you wouldn’t expect them to.”
Enjolras tried to say he doesn’t knit, he really did, but what came out of his mouth was “My roommate asked me to teach him to knit, what would you recommend I get for him?”
The man smiled brightly. “Is he as punk as you? You know, just last week…” He set out on a tangent, pulling four skeins of yarn in a deep burgundy and royal blue down. They were beautiful, and when he put them in Enjolras’s hands, he was awed by how soft they were.
He also grabbed a skein in a deep forest green, and handed it to him. “That one should be easy to work with. Do you have needles you can lend him, or do you want to pick up a pair of those, too?”
Enjolras grinned, thinking about the state of Combeferre’s room, and shook his head. “If I lend him my knitting needles, I’ll never get them back.”
He laughed, and Enjolras felt his heart stutter in his chest. “You two should come by our next Stichin’ and Bitchin’ night! All skill levels are welcome, so you don’t need to worry about your roommate feeling like he shouldn’t be there. It’s usually every Thursday night, but this week is cancelled for Rosh Hashana, then Yom Kippur, and then both Ép and I will be out of town for some friends’ wedding, so it’s a shame you didn’t come by yesterday, actually, because the next one is a month away, but you should come by anyway.”
Enjolras agreed, smiling, and paid for his things.
When Enjolras made it back to his car, his arms full and his wallet empty, the first thing he did was sit down in his passenger seat, half out of the car, and phoned Jehan.
“Hello, my lovely wild rose, did you make it out to Grantaire’s?”
“You mean yaRns? Yeah. Listen, Jehan, I need a favor. I need you to teach me how to knit. Preferably really well. And in the next three weeks.”