The first time Enjolras realises just how deep the relationship between Cosette and Grantaire burns, it is during the aftermath of a party at Courfeyrac and Marius's flat. Everyone had long-since passed out on sofas, patches of carpet, armchairs… and the coffee table (Joly). Enjolras however, had woken up at the crack of dawn like he did habitually, and was finding it hard to get back to sleep - even though the rest of the house was completely silent. Instead of tossing and turning on the futon next to Éponine (who had already kicked him and hissed at him to go the fuck to sleep because he was disturbing her), Enjolras decided to get up and stagger to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, feeling his way blindly in the semi-darkness.
He stopped short in the doorway when he noticed Cosette and Grantaire lying asleep on the floor together on a blow-up bed, their bodies curled into each other like the light and dark sides of yin and yang.
At this point, Enjolras didn't understand anything about the friendship between Grantaire and Cosette. His comprehension of human relationships was incredibly basic: either you were friends, lovers, acquaintances or enemies. Nine times out of ten, he had more important things to worry about than how being friends-with-benefits worked, and for the life of him he couldn't work out why anyone would go through the emotional stress of forming an unrequited crush. He didn't see them as something unavoidable, to him it was simple: don't let yourself get attached in the first place.
Especially at this early hour, he couldn't even begin to try and pin a label on the bond Cosette and Grantaire shared. The snuggling and constant touching baffled him. Grantaire would constantly draw little caricatures of her on every single bit of paper in his possession (and, on more than one occasion, anything Enjolras was trying his hardest to keep free of vandalism. Like his Politics essays, tax forms, and books he had checked out from the library) and she would pull him roughly out of his chair and make him dance with her in the middle of the Musain, even when there wasn't any music playing. The thing that scared him most of all was when they would sit and have entire conversations seemingly telepathically, only communicating in the barest of touches and the most meaningful of looks – which would all entirely escape Enjolras' notice until Grantaire would let out a loud bark-like laugh that would make him jump ten feet in the air, or they'd suddenly burst into song without so much as a count-in.
But they weren't like Cosette and Marius, with their glancing when the other wasn't, the blushing, tentative hand holding and so on. If Cosette and Grantaire wanted to look at each other, they'd look. Intense staring contests, right in each other's faces, until Grantaire would cross his eyes and stick out his tongue and they'd both spontaneously fall about laughing. Grantaire would stare at Cosette in some sense of artistic awe, Cosette smiling back as she watched him paint her out of the corner of her eye … they never tried to hide it, never shot each other coquettish looks across a crowded room, willing the other to make the first move. In any room they occupied, crowded or not, Cosette and Grantaire were together in the centre, laughing and hugging and play-fighting and dancing.
The only thing he had managed to pin down was that they weren't having a sexual relationship, and when he'd loudly announced this in the middle of the Musain everyone had laughed hysterically, Courfeyrac had patted him on the back and Cosette had punched him in the arm. Courfeyrac often joked that they were 'platonic life partners' and that pretty soon they'd be moving into a bungalow together with Marius as their little pet. Everyone found this hysterical, and on a beer mat Grantaire had drawn him and Cosette as an old couple with Marius kneeling in front of them with cat ears and whiskers. Jehan – with more than enough liquor in his system – had then loudly asked where Enjolras would fit into that picture, which made everyone go silent and Grantaire go bright red. This confused Enjolras further. What did he have to do with this epic relationship that Grantaire and Cosette shared? He voiced this much to Éponine later that night and she resorted with 'Bloody hell Enjy, if you were any denser you'd be a fucking plank' before walking off, shaking her head. He had not pursued this question since, even though it still niggled at him.
Marius seemed to take it all in his stride, too. He didn't appear to be jealous or resentful of Grantaire, even though everyone knew that he and Cosette harboured crushes on each other larger than the entire French Republic (Éponine may have accused him of being dense, but he wasn't blind). Enjolras had the peace of mind that at least he wasn't the only one to find this odd, as last night Grantaire had spent the entire time with his head in Cosette's lap while she ran her fingers through his curls to rid them of knots, Éponine - probably a little more than halfway to pissed - had asked why Marius didn't seem to mind. She knew why, of course she knew, she was the only one who actually had any kind of clue, but drunken Éponine had a habit of torturing herself with constant reminders of Marius and Cosette's 'true love'. Marius opened his mouth with a fond look at the two, but before he could get a word in Grantaire had immediately perked up, jumping into the conversation with an extremely sarcastic "Don't you know he's in love with our fearless leader?"
At this everyone had snorted loudly, Jehan giggling so hard he'd have slid off the couch had not Courfeyrac wrapped an arm around his waist, and Enjolras had just shot Grantaire the most indignant look as Marius spluttered 'But I thought that was y-' before being cut off by Bahorel, who covered his mouth with one large palm and hissed something into his ear.
An uncomfortable silence followed as Enjolras looked around at everyone, nobody quite meeting his eye. Marius, realising that he had somehow put his foot in it, attempted to salvage the situation, coming up with "Well it's not like it means anything!"
Cosette's shoulders stiffened as Grantaire sat up and Marius backtracked, his face turning into one whole freckled blush, "I didn't mean it like that, you know I didn't! It's like… it's like me and 'Ponine! Or- or Jehan and everybody!" There was a pause in which Éponine took a long pull at a bottle of absinthe, and then the room settled again. Some conclusion had been come to, some consensus reached… and Enjolras still didn't get what was going on with everyone. He shook his head at them all, laughing their arses off and leaning on each other, and went to sit by Combferre.
Plato had this interesting idea that human beings were originally created with eight limbs and two faces, and that Zeus had split them in half after becoming fearful of their power, condemning each half to search for their soul mate for the rest of their lives. This was even too idealistic for Enjolras, but he decided then that this theory was the only way for it to make sense to him. Grantaire and Cosette had found their other halves, and were subsequently now whole. They were two separate entities that simply worked better together than they did apart.
"Stop fucking watching us and get your coffee, you weirdo," came a distinctly male-sounding mumble from the floor, and Enjolras was knocked out of his reverie, realising that he had been staring at the two on the floor for longer than he had intended to.
A.N: I hope you liked this, I knocked it out pretty quickly. If you're interested, I have a Les Mis centric blog which is .com. Don't forget to review and all that.