Mistle-No!
“You know, I’d like to say that I am personally offended that Courfeyrac didn’t build in a safe word for this piece of shit mistletoe mistake.” Grantaire hated pacing. His father was a pacer and most days Grantaire couldn’t stand being in close proximity to his father.
“It’s really not as bad as all that,” Enjolras said. He wasn’t a pacer, for which Grantaire was eternally grateful. There wasn’t enough room in this bubble for the both of them to be pacing. “There are a lot of worse things that Courfeyrac could have done to us.”
“Trapping us under enchanted mistletoe isn’t enough?” Grantaire raised an eyebrow. There were so many words that he had to say about that. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like this situation calls for at least a small bit of justified anger.”
Enjolras stared at him for a moment with an odd look on his face that Grantaire took special care not reading into. If he read into every strange look Enjolras had given him recently, he would be busy for months.
“I don’t know.” Enjolras shrugged. “I think there’s a pretty simple solution to mistletoe.”
“Seriously?” he asked incredulously. What the fuck was wrong with Enjolras lately? “We’ve been trapped under this stupid ass shrinking bubble for literally hours. There isn’t a simple way out of here for us.”
Enjolras smiled slyly. “We have the same options we did three hours ago,” he said.
“That’s technically correct,” Grantaire allowed. God, moments like these made him so glad he wasn’t claustrophobic.
“Technically correct?” Enjolras asked. His face screwed up with unspoken confusion. “How am I only technically correct?”
Grantaire smiled pleasantly. “We have the same zero options that we did three hours ago.”
Enjolras frowned, curling into himself almost unconsciously. Shit. What had Grantaire done now?
Whatever he’d done, it’d made Enjolras quieter than he’d been the entire time they’d been trapped together. Normally, Enjolras wasn’t exceptionally talkative, but he enjoyed talking to his friends. For whatever reason, Grantaire had found himself among his ranks of friends.
But now, they were trapped in awkward silence as well as Courfeyrac’s damn force field.
Grantaire wasn’t sure what was worse, his compulsive need to pace, or this unsettling quiet. He’d never seen Enjolras look so upset before. With reason, really. They weren’t very close and Grantaire was a giant fucking ass.
Of course, because Grantaire is such a massive ass, he decides that the best course of action to Avoid The Awkward is to ignore Enjolras entirely. There was no way that anything he said it did at this point would make Enjolras feel any better, and he wasn’t even sure what he did, so it was probably better if he just pretended that it didn’t happen and avoid Enjolras for a while. Of course, the avoidance would have to wait until Courfeyrac deigned to release them.
What the hell was he going to do?
Joly, as ever, was the most correct about Grantaire as anyone could ever be. That is to say that Joly had complained loudly that Grantaire was the most impatient, fidgety, cock-sucking fucker on the planet not even three days prior to this mess and Grantaire was proving him very correct.
“Could you please just sit the fuck down for, like, ten minutes,” Enjolras groaned. He’d looked so aggravated with everything since that almost-but-not argument that Grantaire was more surprised that it’s taken him this long to snap at him than the fact that he had snapped.
“My apologies, dear Apollo,” Grantaire drawled, bowing low.
“And would you fucking quit that already?” he snapped. The frown he was sporting could have brought empires to their knees if he wanted. “I am sick to fucking death of you acting like I’m some sort of god or something.” Sparks flickered off from his hair and stung at Grantaire.
Grantaire eyed him cautiously. What the hell was going on with him? He’d never seen him like this before.
“I don’t understand you,” Grantaire said. He walked marginally closer, but there was only so much closer he could walk in such a small bubble.
Enjolras scoffed. “Yeah, because I’m the one that’s difficult to understand.” He jumped up to take Grantaire’s place pacing but didn’t think to make sure that Grantaire was actually going to sit down instead of just gaping at him. And of course, since Enjolras is the most stubborn man in the world, he refused to just move a tiny, little bit so that Grantaire could sit and try thinking over this, the weirdest conversation he’d had since Bahorel and the goldfinch. Instead, they were stuck exactly where they were standing.
Seconds struck by like hours with Enjolras glaring at him and fuming. Grantaire wanted to kick himself so fucking badly. Why couldn’t he have just back up a few steps to sit down?
He attempted that now but ran into that cock of an opportunistic barrier.
“Fuck,” he whispered. He didn’t dare speak any louder so close to Enjolras. He already acted like an idiot around him, no need to be a loud, blundering fool right in his face. His eyes bounce between Enjolras’, resolutely avoiding his lips. “Fuck,” he repeated.
If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn that Enjolras’ breathed hitched at their proximity, but…
Grantaire had known Enjolras long enough to know that he didn’t show interest in anyone, especially not him. He’d spent enough time mooning after Enjolras that he’d have noticed if something changed.
A micro vision flashed before his eyes only seconds before it started happening in real time.
Enjolras blinking, eyes tracking down before jerking back up. Enjolras starting to say something before the thought gets lost in his mind. Then, Enjolras leaning forward like he was going to-
Enjolras blinked up at Grantaire, eyes flickering down so quickly that he almost didn’t make the connection.
“What’re you doing?” Grantaire asked, leaning back as subtly as he could manage.
Something sour twitched across Enjolras’ face. “Getting us out of here,” he replied grimly.
“Can’t you find a magical loophole?” Grantaire really, really couldn’t kiss Enjolras right now. Or ever. Ever worked better for him.
“Can’t you?” Gold sparks snapped out at Grantaire.
He frown at Enjolras. Was that a fucking joke? “No, I can’t.” Enjolras flinched, but Grantaire kind of didn’t give a fuck at this point. “Don’t you remember, Apollo? I’m just a glorified, cynical, circus seer.” Oh God oh God oh God oh God. “Any prediction of mine should be taken with a disclaimer saying not to trust my warnings 100% because ‘cynics don’t have clear eyes’, right, Chief?” Why wasn’t his mouth fucking stopping?
Enjolras stood stock still, breathing heavy for long moments while Grantaire silently freaked out about that blow-up. Because how the hell didn’t he see that coming? He saw a kiss that didn’t even happen, but not that immense fuck up?
“You still think about that?” Enjolras finally spoke.
“About what? Your views on what little magic I have?” What the fuck was going on with the day? When had the gods found time to fuck with his life like this?
Enjolras looked stricken. “You have to know that’s not true.”
“Sounded pretty true when you said it-”
“Yeah, nine years ago!” he exploded. “When I didn’t know you! When I thought you were faking it for laughs!” Enjolras sucked in a hard breath. He puffed his cheeks out in an obvious attempt to not yell before letting the air out as slowly as he could physically manage. “Before I saw you protect Bossuet from himself from things nobody but a seer could’ve seen coming. Before I saw you try to stop a riot from forming days beforehand. Before so many things, R.” He winced so hard, Grantaire was almost afraid that he’d fall right through the force field. But Courfeyrac was an amazing barrier maker and Enjolras only bounced off of it and straight into him.
Grantaire raised an eyebrow, more because he knew Enjolras couldn’t and it would irritate him than about any sort of surprise- though there was plenty of that, too. It was becoming a real problem, him going out of his way to bother Enjolras, honestly.
He smiled the best he could with how confused he was. None of this was making any sense. Why the fuck didn’t Enjolras make any sense anymore?
When had he stopped making sense?
“Grantaire?” Enjolras whispered. He ducked down to try meeting Grantaire’s eyes. “Will you look at me, please?” If their arms weren’t pinned to their sides by Courfeyrac’s horrible, shrinking mistletoe-bubble, Enjolras probably would have been holding Grantaire’s face so that he couldn’t look away. “Look at me,” he repeated.
Grantaire shook his head. He really didn’t want to talk about this. If he had a list of all the topics he didn’t want to talk about, his opinion of himself would be right underneath his feelings for Enjolras.
“Please?” Enjolras asked. And that was un-fucking-fair, how was Grantaire supposed to be a surly, drunken seer when Enjolras started acting like this?
Slowly, Grantaire looked up, trying to make sure that Enjolras realized exactly how grudgingly this was.
Gaea’s great tits, why was Enjolras asking so many questions today? There was absolutely zero reason for them to be having this conversation. Grantaire knew exactly how irritating he was, he didn’t need the man he was in love with telling him exactly how much he couldn’t stand him.
Was it getting hotter in there? Grantaire looked around them, hoping for some sort of distraction. Hoping for someone to come walking up the steps and into the backroom. Hoping for something. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be realizing, Enjolras,” he admitted, hoping vainly that it would shut the conversation down quickly. His fingers were twitching vainly against his thighs and he really, really wanted to just melt into a puddle, but he didn’t see that happening anytime in the near-ish future.
Enjolras stepped closer, pressing them chest-to-chest himself before the barrier had a chance to shove them. He dipped his head low to look into Grantaire’s face and when the hell did his eyes become so blue? That wasn’t fair at all.
“Are you sure you’re alright? You’re, uh, you…” Grantaire trailed off when he noticed where Enjolras’ eyes were focused.
“I thought that you were ignoring my feelings for the sake of friendship, or something,” Enjolras said. He shifted somehow closer, which, again, not fair.
“Feelings?” What the fuck was even happening? “What feelings?”
“My feelings,” Enjolras said. He licked his lips slowly, drawing his bottom lip into his mouth a bit and Grantaire was dying a little bit.
“Nope.” Grantaire turned his head away. This was fucking cruel.
“’Nope’?” Enjolras asked. There was an inexplicable hitch in the words that Grantaire didn’t know how to place. “‘Nope’ what?”
Grantaire sucked in as large a breath as he could hold before even attempting to answer.
“Nope to this,” he attempted to gesture to everything happening but was abruptly reminded that Courfeyrac was a fucking bastard. “I cannot deal with you pretending to be interested in me so we can get out of here.” Grantaire’s voice did not crack like a fucking pre-teen. He was a fucking grown up; he could handle his damn emotions. “I’d really you rather do this as clinically as possible and just fucking spare me that humiliation.” Oh, god, his fucking feelings were spilling all over the place. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“Prete- what?” Enjolras’ eyes bugged out. “Why the hell would I pretend to be in love with you?”
“Why the hell would you actually be in love with me?” Grantaire’s thighs twitched painfully, in some sort of failed attempt to get free from this hellish situation. His insides were quivering from the stress, but somehow he miraculously hadn’t vomited. That would really make this awkward.
“Do I need a reason to be in love with you?”
“It doesn’t matter if you have good reasons to be in love, Enjolras, that doesn’t mean that you are,” he snapped. He was so fucking done. There was no way that Enjolras was actually attracted to him, let alone in love. Being in love means that you actually enjoy spending time with someone and that you, presumably, want to spend a lot of time in the future with them. Enjolras didn’t even want him around during the one-hour ABC meetings.
“You don’t get to tell me how I feel Grantaire,” Enjolras growled. His eyes were bolts of lightning, lashing out against their human cage; they were ice chips, reaching out to freeze Grantaire; they were so beautiful that for a moment Grantaire forgot that he needed to keep fighting with Enjolras.
“No, but I can tell when you’re lying.” Grantaire bit his tongue. “I’d rather you didn’t lie to me about this, thanks.”
Enjolras closed his eyes for a few seconds and just breathed.
“Why would I lie to you?” he asked finally. “I have no reason to.”
“To get out of here? For a bet? There are probably dozens of reasons.” Well, maybe not, but Grantaire had dozens of reasons to want out of this situation fucking now.
“If I just wanted out, I could just kiss you, without doing anything else. And do you really think I’d do something to deliberately hurt you?” His lower lip wobbled dangerously.
Shit. “No.” Motherfucking- “No, I don’t think that. I’m sorry.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. Why was Enjolras so much taller than him? It made unobstructed ceiling watching very difficult. “I’ve never thought that and it was wrong of me to say it.”
“I wouldn’t lie about this,” Enjolras whispered. His breath fanned out over Grantaire’s face just enough for him to feel vaguely faint with it. God, he was so gone over him. “I’m sorry to be doing this when you can’t run away, but you’ve been running away from me for months and I need to tell you.”
Everything inside of Grantaire was made of pudding. That was the only way that they could be shaking this much. Organs and muscles didn’t shake like this, only pudding did, as far as Grantaire knew.
“Tell me what?” he asked. His breath was almost visible from how intimate this felt. Everything felt more electric, somehow, more alive than before.
“That I’ve been in love with you for the better part of six years,” Enjolras breathed.
A small infinity must have passed in the time it took for Grantaire to absorb that information. He stood as still as he could manage, taking the time to just… process. Something twitched in his back semi-painfully, enough to grab his attention and pull it back out of his head.
If it wasn’t for the hazy glow around the moment Grantaire wouldn’t have caught the vision.
“May I kiss you?” vision-Enjolras asked, because he was probably the most considerate person on the planet. He didn’t even lean in until Grantaire nodded his okay. The first touch of their lips was so gentle that he almost didn’t feel it.
He did feel it, though, when a muscle in his back spasmed abruptly and yanked him out of the vision to Enjolras staring at him like he was the most precious thing in the world.
“May I kiss you?” he asked. He didn’t move forward, but his hands somehow managed to curl around Grantaire’s. That was probably the sweetest thing Grantaire had ever been a part of.
Squeezing softly on Enjolras’ hands, Grantaire nodded.