Chapter Text
At some point, around four months before the Reaping, Enjolras stopped being able to sleep at night.
He doesn’t know what switch flicked in his head. All he knows is that, just over a month after meeting Lamarque in the forest between One and Seven, Enjolras would find himself lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling into the small hours of the morning, usually falling asleep around two hours before his alarm for school or the training academy would sound. He dragged himself through most days, bleary eyed and barely functional, and his parents asked him what was wrong at first, berated him for not looking after himself properly second, and finally, to Enjolras’ relief, ignored it completely.
The two of them had always been heavy sleepers- very convenient, given that Enjolras had been sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night for nearly two years at that point. So eventually, when he was so bored of tossing and turning in his bed all night that he thought he was going to go insane, Enjolras had started getting up, walking as quietly as he could through the dark house, folding himself into the corner of the family sofa, and watching footage of previous Games. They were always showing them on one channel or another. Even in the middle of the night, months after the closing ceremony and Victory Tour.
He expects it probably didn’t do any favours for his insomnia, sitting in the same spot and watching the gruesome deaths of tributes every night, knowing that he’d soon be going into his own arena. Maybe he’d hoped that the old videos would prepare him, somehow. Like watching it all play out on a tiny screen from the comfort of his family sofa would be at all comparable to being there.
Surprisingly, a grim sort of calmness had settled on him in the days immediately preceding and following the Reaping. He had slept so deeply the night before that his mother had had to shake him awake, and the day of the Reaping and the Opening Ceremony had been such a blur that he’d passed out the moment his head had hit the pillow.
So, when he wakes up on the night of his first day of training, and the glowing numbers of 02:46 stare back at him from the digital clock on the wall, he’s annoyed, to put it mildly. Maybe it’s the room- the too big, too soft Capitol bed, the sound of the city below the training centre, the feeling that he’s being watched at all times, because he is .
Enjolras huffs and throws back the bedsheets, gritting his teeth with frustration at the prospect of yet another sleepless night in a long, long series of sleepless nights.
You’ll have to fix your sleeping pattern while you’re in the Capitol, his mother had said, just before he’d gotten on the train. You’ll have enough to be thinking about while you’re in the arena; the last thing you need is to be exhausted too.
Enjolras changes out of his sleep clothes and into the soft sweater and trousers provided by the Capitol and pads into the common area as quietly as he can. It’s empty, obviously, and all the lights are off, the only glow coming from the lights of the city below the training centre. He walks over to the window and watches the streets beneath him for a few moments. There’s cars, lights, people falling drunk out of bars. The Capitol is excited about the Games, and it seems like the next month will be a twenty-four hour, inescapable party.
He turns away from the window in disgust, flinging himself down on the sofa. The screen in the apartment is much, much bigger than the one in his parent’s living room. Operating on auto-pilot, he picks the TV remote up and turns it on, flicking until he finds a menu section stored with the highlights of previous Game years. He selects one at random and settles back into the sofa, biting a bit of loose skin around his thumb nail. His stylists had yelled at him for the state of his hands when he’d arrived at the Capitol, and had primped and polished his nails until they shone. He’s ruining their work right now, and Enjolras really, really can’t bring himself to care.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there for before he hears a noise from the hallway and flinches, muting the TV and whipping around on the couch.
Grantaire stands in the doorway. He looks as tired as Enjolras feels, deep purple shadows under his eyes and his skin waxy pale, his dark hair sticking up in all sorts of directions like he’s been having a restless night, or perhaps running his hands through it. He’d been more or less sober all day, which Enjolras appreciates, but he can tell he’d struggled with it from the hollow look in his eyes, the way his hands had shaken.
Grantaire looks from Enjolras to the screen and frowns. “What the hell are you watching?”
“Uhhh…” Enjolras turns to face the screen again, feeling oddly embarrassed. The screen shows a young girl being chased through a rainforest by a bird-like mutt with deadly looking talons. She trips and falls out of sight, maybe down a ravine or something similar. Enjolras remembers watching these Games, three years ago now. They can’t hear it, with the TV on mute, but he knows there’s the boom of a cannon.
“Morbid,” Grantaire says wryly, but he seems almost amused. He walks into the living room, and takes a seat on the couch beside Enjolras. “Ever heard of counting sheep?”
Enjolras feels his cheeks heat. “I-”
“Hey, I’m not here to judge, just to mentor,” Grantaire says, holding a hand up placatingly. “It’s a good strategy. I mean, they’ll have created a new arena already, but it can’t hurt to know the kind of shit they like to pull.”
Enjolras doesn’t know what to say in response to that, so he doesn’t say anything, just turns back to the screen silently, and unmutes the TV. He hears Grantaire sigh, and feels him settle back against the couch, which is confusing. What interest would Grantaire have in watching old Games footage? He supposes it’s none of his business. If Grantaire is watching old Hunger Games footage with him in the middle of the night instead of drinking himself unconscious, that can only be a good thing, right?
He sinks heavier into the plush cushions, feeling his eyelids start to droop. He can’t tell if he’s more aware of the tributes on screen, their screams and terrible suffering, or of Grantaire, silent on the couch beside him, and the warmth of his body.
***
When Enjolras wakes up later, it’s to sunlight in his eyes, and something warm under his cheek. He blinks open his eyes blearily. He’s still in the Capitol, still in the training centre. The TV is still on, playing a loop of the Panem logo and the anthem. He’s slid sideways on the couch, and, embarrassingly, his cheek is pressed against Grantaire’s shoulder.
Hesitantly, Enjolras looks up, and realises that Grantaire hasn’t complained about Enjolras’ sleeping position because he too is asleep. He’s still sitting up against the back of his couch, his head resting against the back. His mouth is open, and he’s snoring so loudly Enjolras is surprised it hasn’t roused him from sleep before now.
Enjolras thinks of the heavy, ever-present bags under Grantaire’s eyes, and deliberately moves as slowly as possible as he sits up. Grantaire makes a snorting noise in his sleep, and Enjolras tenses, but relaxes when he doesn’t wake up.
Now sitting up on the couch again, Enjolras observes his mentor for a moment. Maybe it should be an amusing image, but Enjolras feels nothing more than a vague sort of pity, and guilt. He’s been deliberately trying to push down the memories of Grantaire on his family’s TV screen or the screens in District One’s square from the year before, because that doesn’t seem fair, now that Grantaire is here, and trying to help him. Enjolras wonders if Grantaire thinks about it, the fact that Enjolras and everyone else in Panem has seen him at his worst. Has seen him starving. Has seen him kill.
Enjolras sighs, resigned now to his lack of sleep, and stands up off the sofa. He might as well get dressed and ready for the day, maybe organise breakfast for him and Bossuet and Grantaire and Cosette.
Before he goes, he pulls the heavy, fur-lined throw off of the back of the couch, and wraps it around Grantaire securely, in the hope that he’ll sleep for a little bit longer.
***
Enjolras can’t decide if it’s funny or depressing that, while in their three days of training, the Capitol makes the tributes eat lunch together, like they’re in a school cafeteria.
He hesitates with his tray, observing the room, feeling a vague nausea in the pit of his stomach. Enjolras hasn’t been given any specific instructions for the Games other than Make an impression. Survive. The lives of his fellow tributes had not factored in in any way, but Enjolras doesn’t know if he could live with himself if he didn’t at least try to stop them from killing each other, as much as he could without giving away the plot.
The day before, the girl from Two had waved both he and Cosette over to her table, with the boy from Two and the two tributes from Four. Very much a Career table, but as good a place to start as any, he’d figured. But he’d known almost instantly it was a lost cause. These tributes seem to revel in the upcoming violence of the Games. They glance at the other tributes and discuss in loud voices the easy targets, the ones they have to watch out for, who else they could potentially recruit to their team.
It had made Enjolras’ skin crawl. He hopes the rebellion can get them all out of the arena, but these tributes are clearly going to play their games before that, and Enjolras cannot be a part of it.
It means that, on the second training day, he’s standing at the edge of the room with his stupid lunch tray, looking around for somewhere to sit. Many of the tributes are sitting alone, and every so often they glance up at Enjolras with a mute terror in their eyes. This is what he gets for sitting with the Careers.
Cosette sits alone, apparently having also decided against joining the Careers for a second day. Her eyes are carefully trained on her tray, but when there’s a burst of laughter from the table sitting Two and Four, her shoulders tense.
Enjolras approaches her table.
“Hi,” he says, for a start.
Cosette looks up, her eyes wide. Her shoulders tighten further when she sees Enjolras standing there, and she doesn’t say anything, just stares up at him with wide eyes, an apple segment clutched in her hand.
Enjolras tries to smile. “No one likes to eat lunch alone, right?” he tries.
Cosette’s lips twitch like she’s going to smile back, and she adjusts the position of her tray on the table, allowing Enjolras to slot in opposite her. He sits down and starts in on his own lunch. He’s not expecting conversation- he knows Cosette’s position in the run up to the Games is to ignore him completely, and he understands, even if he can’t deny the sting of hurt he feels at it.
He really, really hopes Cosette survives enough for the rebellion to get her out of the arena. Maybe they can talk properly then.
To his surprise, Enjolras and Cosette are soon joined by someone else. The tribute from Three, Gavroche, the twelve year old, stops with his tray at the edge of the room. He glares around the individual tables, and then locks eyes with Enjolras.
Enjolras tries to look approachable, if not openly friendly, and looks pointedly at the empty chairs at the end of his and Cosette’s table. The boy narrows his eyes, and then storms over and all but slams his tray down, pulling the seat back with an obnoxious scraping noise before sinking into it. He picks up his sandwich, glares at Cosette and Enjolras, and takes an aggressive bite before looking back to his tray.
Enjolras looks away from him to Cosette, and finds her looking back at him with a raised eyebrow.
“I recognise him,” she says in a low voice.
Enjolras frowns, and looks back at the boy from Three. As a rule, there’s no travel between the districts apart from on official business, so it’s unlikely that Cosette has ever seen this boy in her life. But something about him does look oddly familiar, casts Enjolras’ mind back to a few years ago.
The boy looks up and catches him staring. Instead of cowering, he raises his chin in the air and snaps “What?”, so loudly that the tributes from the surrounding tables look over at the three of them.
In response, Enjolras just raises an eyebrow coolly. But he can’t help but admire the kid’s bravery.
***
It had been interesting to discover that Enjolras, despite not having set foot in the arena yet, seems to be suffering from the same sleep issues as Grantaire. He’d assumed it had been a fluke, that first night when he walked into the common area and found Enjolras’ face lit up by the glow of the TV. But when Grantaire walks into the living area for the second night in a row, after tossing and turning for hours, unable to sleep, Enjolras is there once again. Once again, he’s watching an old rerun of a previous Games- Grantaire doesn’t understand that part at all, really.
“You know-” he starts. Enjolras flinches and whips around in his seat, but his shoulders relax slightly when he sees Grantaire. “This is not ideal for your training plan. You should be sleeping now. God knows you might not get the chance in the arena.”
Enjolras huffs something akin to a laugh, turning again and pulls his knees tighter into his chest. His hair is up in a haphazard little bun, slightly askew on his head like he’d been sleeping in it. Grantaire has to push down the ridiculous urge to offer to fix it.
“That’s what my mother said,” Enjolras says.
Grantaire can’t help but be intrigued by the idea of Enjolras’ family, the idea of who he was before he came to the Capitol. He thinks of the blonde woman crying into the handkerchief on the train platform, and knows it’s none of his business. But it doesn’t stop him from asking, “What did she say when you volunteered?”
Enjolras sighs, shrugging one shoulder half-heartedly.
“They’re worried about me, of course,” he says. His mouth twists. “But mostly they’re proud. They sent me to that training school for a reason. They want me to win, to,” He holds his hands up, putting air quotes around the words, “‘Bring pride to my district’.”
“Isn’t that why you volunteered? Isn’t that why anyone volunteers?” Grantaire can’t help but ask. “That and, of course, all the personal glory.”
Enjolras shoots him a look, somewhere between a glare and resignation. “If that’s what you want to believe,” he says tiredly.
Grantaire has no idea what that means.
“My mother,” he surprises himself by saying. “She was under no false illusions that I’d come back from the arena. Being reaped in Twelve- it’s a death sentence, and nothing else.”
Enjolras doesn’t respond, just gives Grantaire a slow nod, silently inviting him to continue.
“But I did come back,” he says. His voice is a quiet, wounded thing, barely there. “I came back, and I brought the glory, and the wealth, and the shiny new house in the Victor’s Village. But-” He swallows. “She treats me differently now. I don’t blame her. She saw what I did, to get back to Twelve. She doesn’t-” Sometimes, when we’re in the same room, she looks at me like she’s scared of me. Suddenly, it’s all too much, and he can’t talk about it anymore. He groans, pressing the heels of his hands hard against his forehead.
“It’s okay,” Enjolras says. His voice is quiet too, hushed in the quiet of the early morning. “You don’t have to- It’s okay. We can just sit here.”
Grantaire manages to look up from his hands for long enough to meet Enjolras’ eyes, and he gives him a close mouthed, hesitant smile. Grantaire hesitates too, and then nods, sinking back against the couch cushions, trying to turn his attention back to the TV screen.
It should make for unpleasant viewing, but once again, Grantaire falls asleep easier there on the couch beside Enjolras, than he has any other night since he got out of the arena.
***
Believe it or not, despite what has been said by his parents and teachers and other various authority figures throughout his life, Enjolras is not totally incapable of following instructions.
If that was true, he probably wouldn’t be in the Capitol right now.
And now, Grantaire has told him to work on his survival skills. And Enjolras really does not feel like surviving the bloodbath at the Cornucopia on the first day of the Games, just to freeze or starve or die of thirst a few hours later. So he’s in the section of the training centre devoted to survival skills, and he is utterly lost.
Enjolras can throw a knife and hit the target every time. He can shoot an arrow at a running figure and hit it. He is decent at throwing a spear.
He is absolutely going to die if he can’t work out which berries are poisonous and which are not.
He’s currently staring down at a plain steel table, on it two piles of holographic berries. They can be picked up, touched, examined, but not truly eaten. They both look the same- like everyday blackberries. Enjolras has absolutely no idea how to tell the difference. His hand hovers uncertainly over one of the piles, where the berries are larger in size, and maybe just slightly darker, when he feels the back of his neck prickle.
Slowly, he turns his head. All of the tributes are busy with something or other. Most of the Careers at the weapons, a lot at the physical training area. Cosette is there, halfway up the climbing wall. A couple of stragglers from other districts are also milling around the survival skills area, but none of them are paying attention to him.
Enjolras looks up, towards the observation platform.
For a moment, he almost expects to see Grantaire’s eyes on him, the way they often are. But Grantaire is out of sight, possibly busy with something else. Instead, Enjolras locks eyes with one of the Gamemakers. He’s young, possibly only a few years older than Enjolras himself, and dressed in the same immaculate outfit that the other Gamemakers wear. His hands are clasped behind his back, and he meets Enjolras’ eyes coolly.
Enjolras’ automatic reaction is to glare at him; it’s all well and good for him, watching Enjolras behind glass like he’s an animal in a zoo, while he thinks of ways to kill him. How he can even bring himself to make eye contact with him-
The Gamemaker doesn’t seem perturbed by the withering look Enjolras is giving him. He looks away from his eyes, and to Enjolras’ hand, where it still hovers over one of the piles of berries.
Slowly, so subtly that Enjolras isn’t sure it’s actually real or just a trick of the light, the Gamemaker shakes his head.
Enjolras blinks, unsure what to do. He pulls his eyes away from the Gamemaker and scans the rest of the viewing platform, but Grantaire is nowhere to be seen.
What had Lamarque said? When he’d first told Enjolras of the rebellion? Our members have already infiltrated the Games.
His hand, hovering over the berries, hesitates, and then he moves it to the right, to the second pile.
The Gamemaker’s eyes seem to glint behind his glasses. He looks up from Enjolras’ hand to his face, and nods slightly, a ghost of a smile on his face.
Enjolras narrows his eyes in a challenge, and then presses the button adjacent to the pile. The screen on the table turns green, indicating that he’s made the right choice, that these would be safe to eat.
Enjolras looks away from the table towards the observation platform again, but by this point the Gamemaker has moved on, out of Enjolras’ line of vision.
Enjolras has no idea if he’d just had an interaction with a member of the rebellion, or just some weird, well-meaning Gamemaker. He wonders if that’s the kind of thing he’s supposed to care about, or if Lamarque would tell him just to focus on survival.
At this point, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like there’s anyone Enjolras can ask.
He goes back to training.
***
That night, Grantaire isn’t woken up by any nightmares; this is because no matter how hard he tries, he can’t sleep. He’s had a bottle of wine, which is the most he trusts himself with without breaking his promise to Enjolras that he would cut down. Still, he’s haunted by a fear that sits deep in his bones, the feeling that if he closes his eyes, he’s not going to wake up again.
When the clock on the wall ticks past three am, he pulls his covers back and gets up, heading to the living area.
He’s not surprised when he walks into the living area to find Enjolras already awake. What’s surprising, though, is that the TV isn’t on. Enjolras isn’t watching old footage of the Games tonight. Instead, he’s standing in front of the smooth glass wall looking over the city. One of his hands is wrapped around the end of a few strands of his hair. His brow is furrowed, like he’s deep in thought.
“Everything okay?” Grantaire asks into the silence.
Enjolras doesn’t start or flinch, simply looks over his shoulder, seemingly unsurprised by Grantaire’s presence in the living area in the middle of the night. It’s only been two nights, but apparently this is their routine now.
“Everything’s fine,” he says calmly. He turns back to the window. “Why do you ask?”
Grantaire walks to the window to join him, meeting his reflection’s eyes. “The fact you’re not watching the TV, for one thing,” he says wryly. “I thought the screams of tributes was your lullaby.” Their lullaby, since Grantaire has also been falling asleep beside Enjolras to these videos. That seems too meaningful though, so he keeps that thought to himself.
Enjolras snorts. He blinks at his own reflection in the glass, and then settles on a half-hearted shrug, which provides Grantaire with no information whatsoever.
“C’mon,” he pushes. “I’m your mentor. You have to tell me. It’s in the rules.”
“I don’t know that it is,” Enjolras says, his voice dry. Grantaire is expecting to have to prompt him more, but to his surprise he continues. “I want to cut my hair.”
The answer pulls Grantaire up short. He hadn't been expecting it. “You want to what?”
“I want to cut my hair,” Enjolras repeats. He lets go of the strand he’d been holding, gathering it in his hands into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck. “I don’t want it this length for the arena. It could get caught in something.” There’s a moment of hesitation. “Someone could grab it.”
Grantaire frowns, nodding thoughtfully. It's a fair point, but he doesn't know why Enjolras is being so hesitant about it.
“You have a full team of stylists at your beck and call,” he reminds Enjolras, who grimaces at his reflection.
“I know,” he says. “But-” He trails off, and Grantaire watches him bite his lower lip like he's hesitating about finishing the sentence.
“But?” Grantaire prompts, to help him out.
Their reflection’s eyes meet. “I don't like the way they touch me.”
“Yeah,” Grantaire sighs. “I know what you mean.” The stylists are all from the Capitol, and it shows in the way they touch the tributes, the way they speak about them, the looks they give each other and the loud whispers behind cupped palms. Especially someone like Enjolras, who has the unfortunate combination of being both from a Career district and undeniably beautiful.
An impressive specimen, they’d called him.
There’s a flare of protectiveness in Grantaire’s chest, and he realised he’s unconsciously started glaring.
“Do you need me to speak to them?” he asks Enjolras sharply. He has no idea if mentors have any influence over the Capitol stylists, but he’s willing to find out if it means taking the mildly tortured look off Enjolras’ face.
Enjolras blinks, like he’s surprised Grantaire has offered. Then he shakes his head slightly, gives Grantaire a sad little sigh, and steps away from the window.
“You and I both know it wouldn’t make a difference,” he says. He walks to the couch, sinking onto it and settling back against the cushions, closing his eyes. “Thank you for offering though. But you’re right- I’ll ask them tomorrow.”
Something about that doesn’t sit right with Grantaire, not after what Enjolras has confided in him about. He watches him slump further into the couch, the way his shoulders have fallen, and it’s out before he can even think of stopping himself.
“I can cut hair.”
Enjolras’ eyes blink open, and he levels Grantaire with a skeptical look. “You can?”
Grantaire shrugs. “I mean, kind of? I cut my mom and my sister's and my own hair, back in Twelve. I can't promise it'll be as good as whatever the Capitol stylists can do, but-”
“No,” Enjolras says firmly, his mouth now in a determined line. “The less it looks like the Capitol had anything to do with it, the better.”
Grantaire stares at him for a moment, and then shakes his head slightly.
“I don’t understand you at all,” he tells Enjolras, and then before he can think better of it and before Enjolras can say anything else, he walks across the room and holds out his hand for Enjolras to take. “Come to my humble abode, and we’ll see what havoc we can wreck on your poor hair.”
That’s how he finds himself in his bathroom, along with one of the chairs from the kitchen table dragged in by Enjolras, staring down at the crown of his head. He’s taken it out of the small ponytail he usually keeps it in at night, and now it flows gently down to the top of his shoulders.
It feels sacreligious to cut it, but that, apparently, is what Enjolras wants.
Enjolras meets his eyes in the mirror, and raises an eyebrow, eying the closed scissors in Grantaire’s hand.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asks skeptically.
“Uh,” Grantaire says, instead of a real answer. Slowly he reaches out and lifts a lock of blond, holding it gently in his palm. He hesitates, and then opens the scissors, and cuts it off.
And immediately says, “Shit.”
“What?” Already Enjolras is craning his neck, trying to turn the back of his head towards the mirror. “What did you do?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Before he can think better of it, Grantaire grabs Enjolras’ head forcibly in both hands and turns him straight again. “Stop fidgeting or I’m going to fuck it up.”
“It sounds like you’ve already fucked it up,” Enjolras says, but he actually does stop fidgeting, turning back to face the mirror and managing to only wince a little bit when he sees Grantaire cut more hair off at the back.
For a while, the room is silent apart from the sound of scissors opening and closing. Grantaire briefly looks away from what he’s doing to look at Enjolras in the mirror. His face is calm, almost serene, and if he pretends not to notice the clean, sterile, perfect design of the bathroom, it’s easy for Grantaire to pretend he’s back in Twelve.
But he’s not, so he clears his throat to break their silence, and says, “I’ve been thinking a lot about your strategy. For the arena.”
Enjolras meets his eyes in the mirror. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Grantaire swallows. He has no idea how Enjolras is going to take this. He chops off another piece of hair. “I think you should try for the Cornucopia.” The Cornucopia, with its wealth of treasures and weapons. With its high body count on the first day. Every day, really.
Enjolras, surprisingly, seems amused more than anything.
“And I thought you were just starting to like me,” he says wryly.
Grantaire, to his own surprise as much as anyone’s, snorts a laugh.
“Not starting. I’ve always liked you.” It’s too honest, but here, in the quiet of the middle of the night, with his hands in Enjolras’ hair, he has a feeling they’re way past that. “I just think you’re an idiot.”
“Hm,” Enjolras hums in response. He meets Grantaire’s eyes coolly in the mirror, and says in a wry voice, “Going to the Cornucopia does seem like something an idiot would do.”
“I know,” Grantaire sighs, angles Enjolras’ head slightly so he can get a better view of the side of his head. “But hear me out. I’ve been watching all the tributes, not just you. You’re fast. Faster than the rest of them. If you get a good starting sprint, you could be in and out and running in the opposite direction, weapon in hand, before the rest of them have even stepped off their podiums.”
Enjolras’ mouth tightens. He tries to turn his head to look at Grantaire, who makes a noise of protest and pushes his head back into place again.
“Did you go to the Cornucopia?” he asks.
Grantaire sighs. “You know the answer to that question.”
“Yes, but I want you to tell me.”
“I didn’t,” he admits. “But I had a reason for that. I couldn’t handle a weapon like you can. I couldn’t run like you can. If I’d gone there, I would have died. I knew it, my mentor knew it. So I didn’t.”
Enjolras frowns, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “So why do you want me to go there?”
“Because-” Grantaire clenches his teeth, and considers not saying it. But the fear he feels for Enjolras ultimately wins out, and he says, “Because I need you to be safe.”
Enjolras’ eyes, blue like the sky, flash up to meet his in the mirror again. Grantaire looks down at the crown of his head, deliberately avoiding eye contact.
“I know how it sounds,” he says as he continues cutting. “But you clearly have no intention of joining the Careers. But you’ll score high in the training, if you still plan on showing your knives. Once you do that, you’re a target. You need to be able to protect yourself. To fight. You need a knife in your hand for that.”
There’s a short pause, and then Enjolras says, his voice small, “I don’t want to kill anyone.”
The statement is so baffling that Grantaire sends up a silent prayer of thanks that his hands don’t slip on the scissors and accidentally chop off Enjolras’ ear.
“You don’t want to kill anyone? ” he repeats incredulously. His mind is whirling, and the original anger he’d felt from Enjolras’ volunteering is threatening to resurface. “Enjolras, what do you think you’re doing here? What do you think the point is?”
Enjolras, in contrast to Grantaire’s annoyance, seems perfectly calm. He blinks slowly at Grantaire in the mirror, and says, “I really hope you get to see what the point is. I really, really do.”
“What does that mean?” Grantaire asks, swinging from anger to confusion whip-fast. The point of the Hunger Games is that tributes kill tributes, children kill children. That’s the only point. That’s all there will ever be.
“Grantaire,” Enjolras’ voice breaks through his thoughts, and he comes back to himself, realising he’s been standing statue-still in front of Enjolras, the scissors frozen in mid-air.
Enjolras smiles, a small, crooked thing. A dimple appears in his left cheek. Fuck.
“Please don’t leave my hair half finished, or I’ll be very embarrassed at breakfast,” he says drily.
Grantaire frowns at him, and Enjolras looks back calmly. After a moment, Grantaire shakes his head, and starts back with the scissors again. There’s a feeling of foreboding making the back of his neck prickle, but whatever Enjolras is up to, it’s not for Grantaire to know.
“I’ll go to the Cornucopia,” Enjolras says. “If that’s what you want me to do.”
“You’d do that?” Grantaire asks. Enjolras’ hair is mostly finished, and he circles him slowly, looking for stray hairs, kneeling down in front of him so he can cut the hair in front of his eyes. Face to face with Enjolras feels intimate to the point of pain, and Grantaire pointedly keeps his eyes on his own hand, refusing to make eye contact. “Just because I asked?”
“Well, yes,” Enjolras says. “Firstly, because you’re my mentor. But also…I trust you.”
Grantaire leans back on his knees, lowering his scissors. Enjolras’ hair is finished, and now there’s nothing else to do but make eye contact. “You do?” he asks, and he can’t stop the surprise from slipping into his voice. The thought of Enjolras trusting him, when only a few short days ago he seemed to be under the impression that Grantaire was nothing more than a useless drunk-
Enjolras frowns, looking pensive. He’s the one to drop the eye contact this time, as he says in a soft voice, “I do. I really do.”
Grantaire doesn’t know what else he can say to that, so he clears his throat awkwardly and gets to his feet again, walking behind Enjolras’ chair and turning him to face the mirror. “There. You’re done.”
It’s a good haircut, he has to admit. Now, Enjolras’ hair barely brushes the back of his neck, neatly trimmed at the back and sides, just slightly longer at the top. He looks different, older. Grantaire can admit to himself that he’s maybe put slightly more effort into it than he did his sister and mother’s hair. And much more than his own.
“I like it,” Enjolras says, a soft smile on his face. He reaches up with his hands and pulls them through it, ruffling the longer curls Grantaire had kept on top and removing any loose hairs.
“Your stylists are going to kill me,” Grantaire says faintly.
Enjolras shrugs. “I won’t let them,” he says, like it’s that easy, like he has a say. He blinks, and then stifles a yawn into the back of his hand.
“It’s late,” he says, like the two of them haven’t regularly been meeting in the middle of the night since they arrived in the Capitol. “I might try to go to bed again for a while.”
It’s weirdly abrupt, but Grantaire looks at the shadows under Enjolras’ eyes, how pale he looks, and figures he probably is just that tired. He’s clearly been struggling with sleep for a while, and he doesn’t have long to catch up before the arena, where a restful night’s sleep is few and far between.
Enjolras stands from the seat Grantaire had put him in for his haircut, brushing the last of the loose hairs off his shoulders.
“Goodnight, Grantaire,” he says, his voice soft, more gentle than Grantaire has ever heard it before.
He’s so busy watching Enjolras leave the room, that he only remembers to say goodnight after the door has already shut softly behind him.
***
The next morning, Enjolras’ stylists scream like someone is being murdered in front of them when they see Enjolras’ hair. Enjolras doesn’t say anything in response, just turns and gives Grantaire a pleased look. It takes everything in his power not to smile back.