Rated for cursing because it's too late for me to fucking censor myself or my writing.
Also, when re-reading I noticed that I forgot about Feuilly. Fuck.
If anyone deserves the blame, it's Enjolras.
But since Enjolras is Enjolras, of course everyone ends up staring at Combeferre instead.
He sighs, standing. "Fine. I'll pay for the pizza."
"Bless you," Grantaire says sweetly as he walks by.
"Yeah, yeah."
The entire group had gathered at Combeferre and Enjolras's shared apartment for a study session of epic proportions, everyone arriving loaded down with textbooks, notes, and any mixes they might need for their caffeinated pleasure later in the evening. But when it became clear to them that no one had thought to bring any food, they en masse abused Combeferre to make the call to the local pizzeria and then pay for the five extra-large circles of cheese, grease, and sausage.
Armed with pizza, coffee, and the will of a group of staring down the barrel of their grades for the semester, they set to work, sprawled across the floor, couch, and kitchen table of the apartment, hunched over their books and scribbling in their notes. Eponine propped her feet up on the coffee table that Cosette had her notes spread out on, Marius sitting cross-legged beside her and occasionally running a hand along her leg, making her smile. Combeferre, Enjolras, Grantaire, and Joly sit around the kitchen table, and Bahorel leans his back against the cool door of the refrigerator earbuds in and by the banging of his head over his English notes, is blasting something from the 80s.
Several hours pass, only interrupted by strained looks and multiple trips to the coffee machine.
Eventually Marius drops his book with an audible sound of despair. "I can't do this anymore," he says before standing, swaying, and then sitting down again. His head gets buried under his arms and where there would usually be comforting looks and pats there is only the horror of a group of undergrads looking their own demise in the cold, leather-bound face.
After a moment of silence Courfeyrac props his chin in one hand and sings a horrifyingly upbeat voice, "If you're fucked and you know it, clap your hands!"
The only sound in response is the sound of Jehan throwing a pillow at Courfeyrac's head with a loud slap.
Bull's-eye.
They lose Joly sometime around midnight.
He stands up from his study session, announces that he's going home, and then walks into Enjolras's bedroom, collapsing onto the bed with a loud sob. The owner of the bed currently occupied looks like he wants to put Joly on the right track (namely, away from the pillow he is currently drooling on), but instead he sighs and pours himself another cup of coffee.
After that, no one is ever really aware of what time it is. It's better not to ask, and none of them want to know anyway.
The rest of the night is measured by the outstanding incidents that they can still remember come morning: Bahorel started laughing like a lunatic and had to be herded into the hallway for a half an hour before letting himself back in with the serene expression of a man returned from the brink. Grantaire made everyone look up from their books and blush as he found his coffee cup empty and made a noise that no man should ever make in public.
"My eye. Won't stop. Twitching." Courfeyrac clamped one hand over the eye in question and looked to the nearest authority figure, since Joly the medic was out of commission for advice. "'Ferre, what should I do?"
"Shut the fuck up?" Combeferre offers kindly, squinting slightly through the blur on his glasses.
Courfeyrac is far too tired to deal with this shit, and he turns to Enjolras hoping for some better advice (Lord knows that Enjolras had problems with his eye twitching most times Grantaire spoke up at meetings with some contrary comment or another) but all he gets is a level stare from beneath a layer of loose yellow curls.
Courfeyrac wises chooses not to speak.
Bossuet stands up, cracking his back loudly, before trundling into Enjolras's bedroom and collapsing next to Joly.
Jehan wakes up at Combeferre's insistence, one cheek dented with the shape of the calculator he had fallen asleep clutching. The number 18 had been pressed enough times for the calculator to call ERROR.
Cosette falls asleep leaning on Marius. Marius falls asleep leaning on Eponine. Eponine falls asleep halfway between the kitchen and the living room. Combeferre tries his hardest to stay awake, but the next thing he knows it's nine in the morning and his neck hurts like hell because he fell asleep with his head hanging backwards over his chair.
Grantaire and Enjolras remain awake past the others.
Enjolras can't help but groan loudly as he drags his hands down his face, trying to stay awake.
Grantaire smirks. "Need another cup, Apollo?" he asks, slurping loudly at his coffee-everyone had eventually stopped around their fifth cup, but R was still going strong somewhere in the early teens-and Enjolras shoots him a glare that is marred by how ridiculously debauched his hair looks.
Grantaire can't help but snort and although he is almost completely sure that he'll regret it later, Enjolras snaps out "What's so funny?"
"Your hair," Grantaire chuckles, pointing, "It looks like you just got laid."
Enjolras opens his mouth to answer but nothing comes out because what kind of fucking observation is that how could he respond to it without looking stupid?
Grantaire shakes his head a little and goes back to his history textbook, clamping down the cap of a highlighter in his teeth as he scrawls lines across the page. Then he spits it out (nearly misses the precariously sleeping Combeferre) and decides to just read. As he does so, he silently mouthed the words, and Enjolras finds himself looking up more and more from his Government textbook to watch. He could make out that Grantaire was somewhere in the French Revolution by how often he formed the word "guillotine".
Eventually Grantaire looks up and asks, "What?"
"What?" Enjolras echoes, giving himself a small shake.
"You said something."
"No I didn't," Enjolras says, before remembering that yes, yes he did, and asks, "Can you stop that?"
"Stop what?"
"That," Enjolras motions towards him. "The mouthing thing."
"As you command, Fearless Leader," Grantaire smirks a little and positions himself so that the top of his textbook blocks the lower half of his face from Enjolras's view. "Better?" he asks in a tone full of amusement.
Even though he knows that he'll get ribbed endlessly for being so petty tomorrow, he nods. "Yes."
Grantaire rumbles a laugh before going back to studying. Enjolras tries to do so as well, but Grantaire's eyes are a really strange shade of blue-green and they don't move from side to side when he reads-they hover, swoop down and then up, hover, forming small circles, before looking to the next word.
"What?" Grantaire demands, slamming down his book with an incredulous expression, "You want me to do what?"
"What?" Enjolras echoes, grinding his hands into his eyes in an attempt to make them less heavy. "I didn't say anything."
"You told me to close my eyes?" Grantaire positions his hands in a pose that shows his confusion. "Are you high?"
"Are you?" Enjolras snaps back. God, it's unholy how Grantaire still managed to keep his brain working at this unholy time of night.
"I'm not high," Grantaire challenges, "And I'm not sure that four in the morning counts as 'unholy'."
Oh. Enjolras wasn't aware that he had spoken aloud.
He groans once as he sets his forehead on the table in front of him. He groans a second time, louder and more keening, as he remembers that his bed is currently being occupied by an undetermined over-aged undergrad and his pre-med boyfriend.
Enough was obviously enough.
With a loud sigh Grantaire sets his book down and stands, walking over to Enjolras. "You are as close to drunk as I've ever seen you," he announces.
Enjolras says something vague about Grantaire being as close to sober as he's ever seen him, but it doesn't quite make it out of his mouth because Grantaire is helping him up and down the hallway towards Combeferre's currently open room. Inside, there is a truly horrifying amount of French Opera CDs and one half of his period weapons collection. The other half had been claimed by Javert from campus security last year on account of being against school policy.
"C'mon, Apollo," Grantaire urges as he half-drags, half-carries him to the bed. "Christ, how much do you weigh."
Enjolras snaps something about Grantaire being sober as he hits the mattress with a strained noise of relief. Grantaire remains standing, an amused smirk on his lips.
"And then there was one," he muttered to himself, dragging a hand through his dark curls as he walks back out to the living room, to either study more or to hit the lights over the other sleeping students still marooned there.
"Your eyes," Enjolras calls out in a thick voice as Grantaire reaches the door, "What color are they?"
Grantaire pauses in the doorway, opens his mouth, and closes it, looking down. "Get some rest," he says. "It won't matter in the morning, anyway."
The morning is chaos.
Bahorel is missing both his shoes and one of his socks, Jehan's hair is a bird's nest and he can't find his favorite green ribbon, Marius still can't move his legs after an hour of pins and needles, Eponine somehow maneuvered out of her bra and now it's gone, Combeferre is grilling Joly on whether he can overdose on advil because his neck is killing him, Grantaire has the text of page 358 (The Revolution of 1832 was often overlooked for the history of France for many years following it...) mirrored on his cheek from using it as a pillow, and Cosette has 30 missed calls from her panicked father.
Enjolras can't stop thinking about Grantaire's eyes.
But, finally, everything starts to go right. Bahorel finds his shoes inside the oven, Jehan shyly gives Eponine her bra back in exchange for the green ribbon tucked underneath her shirt, Joly gives Combeferre an icepack and a stern warning, and Cosette manages to get a hold of her father before he alerts Javert to her "disappearance".
Enjolras keeps thinking about Grantaire's eyes.
They all disperse for the day to their various finals and exams and one by one collect back at Enjolras and Combeferre's apartment to find the living area, wall to wall, covered in a thick padding of blankets, comforters, and unzipped sleeping bags. The coffee table, pushed up against one wall, is filled with cheap baked goods and greasy chips. Grantaire arrives after everyone else had already collapsed in various positions of relief with a six-pack, two cheap bottles of wine, and his much coveted DVD copy of The Breakfast Club.
They fall upon him in a way he would later swear was not unlike a pack of starved jackals, but then again, as Courfeyrac would point out, he had never actually been near a jackal before and thus didn't have a basis for comparison. In a moment, he is stripped of booze and movie, and the lights are dimmed for the movie to start; half of the room is asleep almost at once.
Grantaire settles back, leaning against the couch with a content sigh, until he notices Enjolras looking at him through the gloom.
"Not that I'm not thrilled to hold the grand orator's attention," he said, and Enjolras flinched a bit, "but what the hell is your problem, Enjolras?"
It seems for a moment that he's not going to answer, but eventually he just says, "Blue or green?"
Grantaire flushes and looks away as he remembers the conversation from the night before. "Both. I'm not sure."
Enjolras nodded and looked back to the movie. An empty ten minutes passed, and by then everyone else was asleep, heads pillowed on arms and each other.
Just as Grantaire was feeling himself drift off as well, eyes sliding shut, Enjolras murmured two words that ran through his body like lightning.
"Suits you," he said, and Grantaire feels like he'll never need sleep again.
The irony of this is that I stayed up the night before a test to do it. I was chatting with my friend about her similar situation, and I randomly said, "If your English grade is fucked and you know it clap your hands," prompting this catastrophe.
Review, please?