Chapter Text
Enjolras and Grantaire walk to Enjolras’s apartment in silence.
Well, almost silence – “What are these?” “They’re flowers, Enjolras.” “Why?” “They’re a gift.” Enjolras scowls. “I would have preferred chocolates.”
After Grantaire had asked him if they could talk, Enjolras had gone to Combeferre, who was talking to some of the new members, to ask if he could go back to Courfeyrac’s place for a while instead of coming home. Combeferre had agreed.
Now, the two of them are walking into Enjolras’s apartment, Enjolras flipping on the light then rounding on Grantaire.
“What do you want to talk about?” His voice comes out sharper than he intended, but maybe that’s a good thing. Grantaire should know that he hurt him.
Grantaire looks down at his feet. “You stopped coming to the library.”
Enjolras is at a loss.
“I stopped coming?!” he says incredulously. “You stopped coming!”
“Not forever,” Grantaire says. “Only for two nights, because something came up. And I had no way to reach you to let you know.”
Enjolras considers this. “I stopped going after two nights of you not showing up,” he says.
“I promise I had a good reason,” Grantaire says. “My roommate, her brother still lives at home with their parents, and they’re pretty messed up. He comes and stays with her sometimes when it’s dangerous to be at home. And he came for those two nights, but she had to work really late at the bar, so I stayed at the apartment with him.”
Enjolras nods slowly. “That is a good reason,” he acknowledges.
“I would have let you know, if I could have,” Grantaire says. Enjolras nods again.
But there’s still something bothering Enjolras. “It’s not just that, though” he says finally. “Courfeyrac told me what he said to you, about me really liking you.” Enjolras grits his teeth; it’s not easy for him to say this. “And then you were… you were acting like you didn’t want me anymore after you heard that. Like you didn’t feel the same way.”
Grantaire exhales loudly. It’s clear that he knew this topic was going to come up. “That’s not what that was,” he says. “When Courfeyrac told me that, it did scare me, which was why I was acting differently. But it didn’t scare me because I don’t feel the same way. It scared me because… well, I’m not used to anyone ‘really liking me.’ I was worried that, I don’t know, you would change your mind, or something…”
Enjolras can feel Grantaire’s eyes on him, but he keeps his head down, fiddling with the petals on the flowers.
“…which you probably have at this point,” Grantaire finishes. “I’m sorry. I know I screwed things up.”
Enjolras just keeps picking at the flowers.
“Do you want me to go?” Grantaire asks.
Enjolras sighs. “No,” he says, finally looking up and putting the flowers down. “Not unless you want to.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay,” Enjolras says indifferently, before going to sit on the couch. Grantaire follows him, taking off his coat and hanging it by the door, looking unsure of himself in these unfamiliar surroundings.
“Nice apartment,” Grantaire says pointlessly.
“So do you want me or not?” Enjolras demands out of nowhere. He’s spent the entire last week thinking that Grantaire was done with him, but now... “Because I want you. I think I’ve made that abundantly clear by spending all my free time with you since we met.”
Grantaire just stares for a moment. “Enjolras,” he finally says, his voice raspy, “Of course I want you. I have wanted you since you walked into the library for the first time. How could I not?”
Enjolras looks down at his hands, smiling. Then he shoots up, launching himself at Grantaire and kissing him.
Grantaire hesitates beneath him, then opens his arms and pulls Enjolras close. They slide down on the couch as they kiss, Enjolras falling on top of Grantaire. He’s hyper-aware of every part of his body that’s pressed up against Grantaire. Grantaire is being careful with his hands this time, so Enjolras grabs them and places them on his hips to show that it’s okay for Grantaire to touch him.
It would be nice to stay like this for hours, Enjolras thinks, and just kiss. But not today. Not after he’s just gotten Grantaire back. Not with the heat that he can feel pooling in his stomach.
“Want to go to my room?” Enjolras mumbles against Grantaire’s lips. Grantaire smiles and nods, and Enjolras can see how red his lips are from the kiss.
Enjolras breaks away from Grantaire just long enough to send a text to Combeferre – DO NOT COME HOME – and then he takes Grantaire’s hand and leads him into the bedroom.
“Can I ask you something?” Grantaire says once they’re lying face to face on the bed, their shoes kicked off on the floor.
“Sure.”
“Does being touched make you uncomfortable?”
Enjolras shakes his head. “No.”
“Does me touching you make you uncomfortable?”
“Definitely not.”
“Are you sure? You can tell me if it does, I promise it won’t change anything—”
“No, Grantaire, it’s not that,” Enjolras interrupts. “I mean, thank you, it’s really good to hear that you would still want me without the physical stuff, but that’s not why I kept freaking out when you touched me. I was panicking because it felt so good that I didn’t know what to do. I haven’t really… I haven’t had sex in almost three years and I just forgot how good it felt to be touched.”
He doesn’t add that he’s pretty sure it never felt that good before Grantaire. Or that the reason he made Grantaire stop in the library was because he thought he was going to come right then just from Grantaire touching him over his pants.
Grantaire looks like that wasn’t the answer he was expecting. “You seem surprised,” Enjolras says.
“I guess I am, a little bit,” Grantaire admits. “I mean… look at you.”
“What?”
Grantaire snorts. “Enjolras, you know you’re gorgeous, right? You’re like the hottest person I’ve ever seen in real life.”
“I don’t know,” Enjolras says awkwardly, hiding his face in his hands. He has been told, of course, that he is good-looking, but it’s one thing to hear it, and another to internalize it.
What he really wants is to tell Grantaire just how attractive he finds him, but he knows it will seem disingenuous if he says it now. He’ll find a way to let him know later.
“Does it bother you?” Enjolras says, still through his hands. “That I haven’t done it in so long?”
Grantaire smirks, and rolls so that he’s on top of Enjolras. “Not at all,” he says, trailing kisses down Enjolras’s neck.
“Good,” Enjolras whispers. “Because I want you now.”
Grantaire groans then, and grinds his hips down against Enjolras’s. Enjolras is pleased to find that Grantaire is just as hard as he is.
“Can I take your shirt off?” Grantaire asks between kisses. Enjolras whines out a ‘yes, please,’ and within minutes both of them are down to their boxers.
Grantaire takes his time, making a point to remind Enjolras of every nerve ending, every ticklish or sensitive piece of skin, using his mouth or his fingers or both. By the time he pulls off both of their boxers and takes Enjolras’s cock in hand, Enjolras is panting and writhing underneath him.
“Do you have lube and condoms?” Grantaire asks matter-of-factly, still stroking him.
“Yes, ah—” Enjolras can’t seem to remember how words work. “In the drawer.” He points to the nightstand.
Grantaire, thankfully, reaches over and grabs them, because Enjolras’s limbs are feeling a little too shaky. Grantaire’s cock rubs up against Enjolras’s thigh when he moves, and Enjolras thinks he might faint. Grantaire tears the packages open.
“You should roll over,” Grantaire says from between Enjolras’s thighs. “It’ll hurt more this way.”
“I don’t care,” Enjolras says. “I want to see your face.”
Grantaire responds by hiking Enjolras’s legs up and pressing a kiss onto the inside of his knee.
“You ready?” Grantaire asks, once he’s lubed up his fingers.
“Yes,” Enjolras answers, pushing himself closer to Grantaire to prove his point.
Grantaire’s finger is cool as it enters him, and Enjolras feels the stretch that comes with not having done this in so long. The pleasure outweighs the pain, though, and before long Enjolras is fucking back onto Grantaire’s finger, begging for more. Grantaire adds a second, than a third when Enjolras is ready. And then he’s rolling on a condom and lubing himself up and pressing himself slowly into Enjolras and—
“Oh, fuck!” Enjolras yells – really yells, thank god the apartment’s walls are thick – when Grantaire enters him.
“Are you okay?” Grantaire asks immediately.
“Yes, I’m okay, you feel fucking incredible,” Enjolras breathes out. “Move.”
Grantaire obeys, moving slowly at first, then speeding up when Enjolras starts digging his nails into Grantaire’s shoulders.
Grantaire leans over to whisper in Enjolras’s ear. “Does that feel good?” He’s teasing now, his lips curled into a smirk as he pulls back and continues thrusting into Enjolras.
“Yes, it feels good, it feels amazing,” Enjolras babbles. “It’s perfect, you’re perfect, Grantaire—ah!” Enjolras breaks off as Grantaire rams his prostate. “Fuck, please touch me, Grantaire, I need it—”
Grantaire reaches a hand down to stroke Enjolras’s cock, and it only takes four strokes before Enjolras is coming, repeating Grantaire’s name over and over as his spills over his stomach and Grantaire’s hand. His face must be a sight to see, because Grantaire’s eyes widen as Enjolras comes, and then he’s shuddering and shaking between Enjolras’s legs, fucking into him as he finishes.
Grantaire collapses against Enjolras’s chest, and they stay together like that for a minute of two. Then Grantaire pulls out to remove the condom, Enjolras grabbing an old t-shirt from the dresser to wipe them off with. Once they’re clean, they slip under the covers, Grantaire pulling Enjolras in for a long, lazy kiss.
“So was that okay?” Grantaire asks. “Was it a good enough first time after three years?”
“That was the best sex I’ve ever had,” Enjolras says bluntly. “Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because it was with you.” At that, Grantaire buries his head in Enjolras’s chest, unable to contain his grin.
***
“My doctor said that I wasn’t going to live past forty,” Grantaire says out of the blue, as they’re cuddled together in the bed.
“What?!” Enjolras is already working himself into a panic.
“You asked me, a while ago, why I quit drinking,” Grantaire explains. “That was why. I went to the doctor for a check-up, and that was what he told me. That alcohol was ruining my body and that I would be lucky if I lived another twenty years. And I was horribly depressed, and I felt like shit all of the time, but I just… even with all of that, I didn’t want to die. So I quit.”
“Oh,” Enjolras says softly.
“It wasn’t as easy as I just made it sound,” Grantaire says, laughing lightly. “It was really hard, and it’s still really hard every day. But I know that I want to live.”
Enjolras cuddles closer to him, if that’s even possible. “I’m really glad,” Enjolras says. “Because I have no plans of letting you go anytime soon, not to dying or anything else.”
***
Enjolras pulls back and untangles one arm from its place around Grantaire to lift up his clock from the nightstand. It’s almost midnight; they’ve been in bed together for over three hours.
Enjolras thinks now would be a pretty good time to repay Grantaire’s compliments about his appearance, to tell Grantaire that he thinks that he is pretty gorgeous, too. There are other things that he wants to tell Grantaire as well, particularly in reference to what Grantaire had said about not being used to anyone liking him. Enjolras can’t wait to destroy that stereotype.
But when Enjolras turns back to Grantaire and opens his mouth to say this, he finds that Grantaire is fast asleep.
That’s okay, Enjolras thinks. He has all the time in the world to tell him now.