Summary: Enjolras gets into a fight, makes a friend, then gets into another fight.
At seventeen, Enjolras no longer has a permanent place of residence. His parents haven't kicked him out, not in so many words - that would be embarrassing - but they have been slowly removing his presence from their lives. The last night he spends in his parent's house, Enjolras sleeps on the floor of what used to be his bedroom, fully clothed, with two of his jackets for a pillow. The contents of his wardrobe have been strewn in every direction, but he can't find any of his books underneath the mess. He assumes he won't ever find them again.
His parents don't dare tell him to leave their house in fear of losing face with their neighbours. Sending him away to boarding school would only be admitting that they can not control him, and if anything happened to him, it would reflect badly on them. They do not tell him to leave, but it appears as if they have decided to make his stay in their home as uncomfortable as possible.
So Enjolras decides to leave.
Both Combeferre and Courfeyrac's parents offer him their houses to live in, but Enjolras doesn't feel right invading their homes, no matter that they insist he is not an imposition. Instead he alternates between the two, never spending more than three nights in a row at either. He's had his own bed in Combeferre's room since the both of them were maybe five or six - bought after the amount of times his parents would find him asleep on the floor instead of leaving - but he has to draw the line when Courfeyrac's father offers to buy him one for their house, too. He doesn't like the idea of them spending money on him, and instead tells him that he will buy himself an inflatable mattress and sleep on that instead.
All he can afford is the kind that only fills to about five centimetres thick, and his decision to sleep on that every night lasts two or three visits before Courfeyrac needles him into sharing the bed with him instead. Courfeyrac's bed is king sized, and comfortable beyond a doubt. Big enough for neither of them to be anywhere near each other sharing it, but in the morning they find that they have drifted towards each other in their sleep, as if seeking something solid. The next night Enjolras goes to lie down on the inflatable mattress again, and Courfeyrac gives a snort of annoyance, complaining that it's cold, and Enjolras is warm like the sun, or at the very least a hot water bottle, and would he please just get in the bed already. After that, it just becomes habit.
-00000-
After the debacle with the mattress, Enjolras decides he needs to get a job.
The problem inherent, however, that he has never had a job before, and has no idea where to start looking for one. He had asked Combeferre's father for advice to begin with, but he had simply waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and told him that he didn't have to worry about money while he was staying with them. Enjolras isn't comfortable with that arrangement, however; doesn't want his way paved through life as if he is something special and different, doesn't want people to give him anything when he has every opportunity to get it for himself. And so he goes on the job hunt alone, when everyone else is at school or at work.
Enjolras' first job at the library lasts all of four weeks. The librarian had hired him to work at the counter because she remembered Combeferre as a studious and hardworking boy, and Enjolras in association with him. He receives his first warning after he lectures a customer for five minutes straight on the poisons of the capitalist system. Eventually, the other boy had stammered out that he was only borrowing Milton Friedman's Freedom and Capitalism as reference material for an essay before he fled the library without his book. Enjolras had felt bad for scaring him off - bad, and also frustrated that people were running from the truth instead of listening - but his resolve to not do anything else that might cause him to lose his job lasts only until he he's dragged to the police station with a split lip and bruised knuckles after an incident at a protest
After that, Enjolras starts working at the local supermarket unpacking deliveries from the trucks that drop off stock; kept far away from customers.
With the money he makes from his job, Enjolras buys, and then cooks, dinner two nights a week at both Combeferre and Courfeyrac's houses, since none of their parents will accept rent.
Enjolras may not have a permanent place of residence, but it's definitely a step up from when he did.
-00000-
It's on his way to Courfeyrac's house after work that Enjolras meets Bahorel. Enjolras has groceries piled so high in his arms that he nearly walks straight into the small kid with blond curls like his own who comes sprinting out of the alley in front of him. He's putting down his packages to try and figure out a way to carry them so they won't obstruct his vision when he hears a grunt of pain coming from where the kid had been running from.
Enjolras rounds the corner into the alleyway and takes a quick stock of what is happening. The big man in the centre is holding his own, and he lashes out at one of his attackers with a grin through a split lip, but he's outnumbered five to one and surrounded. No matter how good you may be, you can't defend your front when you're watching your back, and Enjolras doesn't hesitate to throw himself bodily into the fight.
By the time the police arrive on the scene - drawn by the big man's whoop of joy as he lands a punch and then falls flat on his arse when one of the other's kicks his legs out from under him - they can't handcuff Enjolras because he's pretty sure he's broken two of his fingers on his left hand, and three of their opponents have bowed out and ran.
They don't talk in the back of the police car. The other man laughs quietly to himself the whole way to the station and Enjolras wonders briefly if he chose the wrong side in the fight. But he has never been able to see someone outnumbered and not step up to help.
The police put them in the same holding cell for conveniences sake. It's the second time Enjolras has been held in this station, and he sits down on the bed to wait until Combeferre or Courfeyrac finish school so he can call them to come bail him out.
Almost immediately the big man speaks, and Enjolras wonders if his voice is usually this horse, or if the fight - the laughing and the shouting - has paid a toll. "This isn't your first time in here, then?" He asks, and Enjolras meets his eyes steadily.
"No. Not your's either?" It's a statement, rather than a question.
The man grins and he doesn't even flinch as it opens the cut on his lip a little more. "I can tell. You didn't look around for the exits, you just settled in for the wait." He laughs again, and Enjolras finds himself smiling with him. "I'm Bahorel."
"Enjolras." Enjolras replies, and gets to his feet to shake Bahorel's hand, forgetting for a moment about his fingers and having to suck in a gasp when Bahorel claps it.
Bahorel drops his hand immediately and winces in sympathy. "You've got guts and you're quick, but you lack technique. You're lucky you didn't hurt yourself more with that left hook."
Enjolras is still running on adrenaline, fire pumping through his veins and screaming at him to take on the world. He feels himself setting his shoulders and taking a step forward before he even realises what he's doing.
"Prove it." He says, and Bahorel's grin turns into a knife.
-00000-
Enjolras is fast, and he's stronger than he looks from the heavy lifting he does with supermarket deliveries, but even so, he has to bow out after five minutes. The definitely-now-broken fingers don't help, of course, but more than that, Bahorel is simply made for this; with a frame to match his strength, and quicker than he has any right to be. And obviously trained, in a way that Enjolras tells him he would pay money to be. Bahorel agrees, but on the condition that Enjolras tell him why he stepped into a fight that had nothing to do with him.
By the time school finishes and Courfeyrac has raided the bag Enjolras left at his house for bail money, Enjolras has kicked off his shoes and is standing on the sole bed in the cell, talking about the necessity of people joining together in the fight against corruption and oppression, to never leave someone to stand alone when you have the ability to help. No matter the consequences to your own person. Bahorel sits on the floor, leaning back on his palms with his legs stretched out in front of him. He can't help the snorts of laughter that escape him every time Enjolras runs his broken fingers through his hair and flinches, but doesn't stumble over his words. But otherwise he sits and listens in solemn silence.
Enjolras leaves the police station with more bruises than he entered with, and Bahorel's phone number shoved into his back pocket. Bahorel leaves with a head full of ideas, new causes to fight for, and the address of the Musain scrawled hastily up his arm.