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Courfeyrac walks into the Cafe Musain with the same hurried pace that he always did. That is to say, he sauntered very slowly in the general direction of the Musain. Cafe Musain was placed so that the fastest way to get to it from campus was through the Arts Annex. This meant that more often than not the walk was full of ridiculous and random insights into the comings and goings of the arts students. This was one of Courfeyrac’s favorite things. He loved to watch people. He particularly loved to people watch at the Arts Annex. Something ridiculous was always bound to be happening.
For example, today, a large group of students appeared to be heavily invested in creating a larger than life card deck, judging by the massive 10 of hearts being propped up and painted on the side of the road. The art students look ridiculous in their pastel shirts and bright pants with black gas masks and their buckets and spray cans of red paint. Courfeyrac resists the urge to look for a shock of long blonde hair even though he knows Jehan is already at the Musain.
Jehan is not even an art major, he’s a creative writing major and quite possibly a dance minor. This doesn’t seem to stop him from showing up everywhere with paint splatters all over. Courfeyrac resolves to ask him about that and is in the process of getting out his phone when he is cut off by a yell.
“WATCH OUT!”
Courfeyrac jerks his head up and stutters to a stop. Ultimately, this is good because it stops him from being brained with a surprisingly fast moving can of red paint. Currently, Courfeyrac is busy being upset about the rivers of red at his feet. These are new shoes. These are nice pants. If they were going to spill paint all over his teal skinny jeans, the least they could have done is matched it to his scarf.
Courfeyrac sighs and reaches down to pick up the can of paint. He rights it so that what little remains of the paint stays in the can and then he tries fruitlessly to wipe the paint off. The art students look horrified, and one of them won’t stop yelling apologies at him from off a ladder and all Courfeyrac can think is:
This had better not be an omen.
-
The rest of the walk to Musain is both short and uneventful.
Courfeyrac tries to put it behind him, but he keeps seeing red in the edge of his vision and he can’t stop shaking and oh my god he almost died from a paint can-- how incredibly lame would that be. It’s like a bad joke. A bad paint pun joke.
At least his eulogy will have a lot of mentions to how he colored peoples lives.
The thought of his friends trying to say that with a straight face make Courfeyrac smile. He pauses in the doorway to see if he can think of any other good puns to give them in case of a paint related death.
This proves to be surprisingly difficult.
The cafe is basically exactly how it is every other day. Enjolras and Combeferre are sitting together at a table debating charter schools and the lottery system. While Courfeyrac watches from his place in the door, Enjolras gestures to Marius, beckoning him to the table and into the conversation. Bahorel stands by the cash registers and has his arm slung over Bossuet while they needle Musichetta and Eponine for more coffee. Musichetta, to her credit, stands behind bar resolutely.
“No Bossuet, I don’t care if you lost your ID card again. Pay in cash or foodpoint or no more coffee for you.”
Courfeyrac would be more concerned about that coming to blows if he wasn’t so busy thinking good paint puns to lead into his story with.
Courfeyrac has been called a diva. To that Courfeyrac would like to say enjoy the nair in your shampoo, Bousette. (Courfeyrac is still a diva, we just don’t say it to his face now).
Eponine takes her apron off, throws it under the bar, and crosses to where Grantaire is sitting in a corner armchair pouring rum into coffee and talking animatedly to Jehan. She sits on the arm, laughing and yelling something to Marius. Combeferre smiles softly and Enjolras does that head tilt thing that means ‘I am trying very hard to be serious, but secretly you are hilarious.’ Marius sticks out his tongue.
Courfeyrac is hit with a sudden overwhelming sense of affection. These are his friends, this is his college, this is his life.
It is with this sense of camaraderie that he opens the door. He’s thinking of how to somehow work ‘paint with all the colors of the wind’ into his opening but is distracted by the incredible hush that fell over the cafe as soon as he walked in.
Jehan is white as a sheet. Joly let a out a startled yelp. Enjolras stood up so quickly that the chair he was in clatters onto the floor.
It is the only noise in the cafe.
“Uh... hello?”
Suddenly, Enjolras is by his side. Bahorel is half grabbing by the shoulders half shaking him. They’ve all started to start towards him. Even Grantaire has gotten out of his chair. Jehan stands in front of him with a look of pure terror.
Combeferre yells for Joly and a chair, which makes no sense because Joly is already right there and why does Combeferre need Joly with such urgency and Courfeyrac is sitting before he can even process what's happened.
“Who did this!?” Bahorel yells, already rolling up his sleeves as if he’s ready for a fight. This is not strange, Bahorel is always ready for a fight. The rest of it is strange. “Who did this to you!? I’ll fucking kill them!”
“The .. uh.. the art kids?” Courfeyrac volunteers, slightly bewildered at the strong reaction but then again they were really nice pants.
Grantaire snorts and raises and eyebrow.
“The art kids jumped you? Really, Courf? You didn’t manage to think of a better story?”
Enjolras sends Grantaire a sharp look that could mean anything from ‘hey. no fucking victim blaming, you swine’ to ‘your breath offends me.’ Neither of these are things that Enjolras would actually say, but Courfeyrac figures he gets a little dramatic license.
“No? what?” The entire situation suddenly becomes clear. “NO! It’s paint! They dumped paint on me!” Bahorel pauses for a second, as though considering, shrugs, and then continues rolling up his sleeve “by accident! The whole thing was an accident!”
A couple seconds of silence pass.
“Guys! I’m fine!”
Enjolras thwacks him on the back of the head, and Combeferre squeezes him gently on the shoulder. Everyone slowly walks back to their original spot. Grantaire sinks gratefully back into his armchair. Courfeyrac tries to stop the big goofy grin from taking over his face because they are men, goddamit. But, it was sweet to see how rapidly they had all responded. It’s one thing to know that your friends care, it’s different to see it in action.
Still, he gives Jehan a tentative smile and a clasp on the shoulder.
"I worried" He admits in a soft voice and Courfeyrac can’t stop himself, his heart soars and the edge of his lips pull his mouth into a wide smile and he thinks red, the whole universe is made of red. But, since he is Courfeyrac he responds with
“Rightfully so. Without me, who would paint your days? Who would color your lives?”
“Who would track red paint into Muschiette’s cafe?” Jehan retorts.
Courfeyrac would like to point out that he did not cringe at the thought of being on the wrong side of a Muschiette grudge. He didn’t. And even if he did, she controls the coffee, It’s would be totally reasonable.
“Oh no. I ruined it!” Jehan blinked in response to the seemingly complete non-sequiter, before Courfeyrac gestured towards his shirt. There, on the shoulder of Jehan’s blue shirt covered in tiny flowers and birds, was a bright red handprint.
Jehan smiles. “I like it! It’s very... artistic. It’s like a Marcus Harvey“
Jehan’s smile makes Courfeyrac smile. He wiggles the fingers of his red right hand experimentally.
“Four dollars says I can get paint handprint on Combeferre ass by the end of the night.” Jehan giggles.
“Not a chance, Courfeyrac. Stay the hell away from my ass.”
“You are a demon, Combeferre. I hear no such protestations from anyone else.
To this, about half of the patrons in the cafe start issuing similar warnings. Courfeyrac clutches a hand dramatically to his chest.
“You wound me!” When he moves his hand, there is a bright red hand print blooming over his heart. The room prepares themselves for either a dramatic rendition of how his heart bleeds/you have to let me touch butts or for Courfeyrac to start singing ‘What is love?’ Both are equally probable.
Luckily, Enjolras cuts in
“Since we’ve determined that Courfeyrac is neither dead nor dying, and that he is to stay away from people’s butts,” Courfeyrac pouts but doesn’t say anything “then I propose that we start with the meeting.”
Combeferre pulls out a his laptop and starts tapping away.
People always get confused when they come to their first ABC meeting. Firstly, because the group was formally called Students for Education Reform. But, since their first big policy push was student literacy, and all of their flyers decorated with alphabets, people jokingly called them the friends of the ABC and somehow that was the name that stuck. Secondly, people always see Combeferre sitting to Enjolras right, carefully taking notes and assume that he’s the group's secretary. This could not be more wrong.
Combeferre and Enjolras are co-presidents. Courfeyrac is their vice-president. The closest thing they have to a secretary is Cosette, who was brought on after the whole ABC debacle to oversee message and image. Basically, Cosette is the combination of a communications director and a press secretary.
The meeting is short. They run a few logistical thing. Grantaire and Eponine watch from the armchair, keeping some sort of tally on a sketchpad. Courfeyrac can’t figure out what it is that they are counting because he can’t look both at the group and the armchair so eventually he gives up and just sticks a tongue out at the pair of them.
Eponine just winks back, because she’s a saucy minx and also because she’s sort of awesome. Grantaire adds another tally.
Still, the meeting moves quickly and is adjourned in under an hour. They’ve just come off a big event, so this meeting was mostly to check that nothing major had happened since.
Combeferre thanks everyone for coming, and ends the meeting
This basically changes nothing except for the fact that Combeferre tabs over from the agenda to his paper on the origins of speech.
People settle in to do work (Enjolras, Combeferre, Marius, Joly), or just hang around and talk. Courfeyrac pulls out his laptop and has basically only managed to write the title for his paper (What the fuckall is this shit? an integrated look into harassment law) when a chat window pops up.
Joly: you should really wash off that paint.
Me: … really. you think.
Joly: I’m pretty sure that it’s carcinogenic.
Courfeyrac shoots a long suffering glare at Joly across the room that is meant to communicate ‘If I had any way of getting this paint off, I would be.’ But Joly, ever the dedicated pre-med student has his laser focus split only between his computer and his organic chemistry textbook. He misses the look completely.
Courfeyrac rolls his eyes and gets out his phone. He intends to play Cut The Rope or something easy and ridiculous like that, but somehow he ends up texting Bousette about his “mystery girl.” Courfeyrac likes to make fun of Bousette, mostly because there is just so much material (the guy is so very unlucky) and because Bousette is always good natured about thing.
C → B: I’m surprised that this bald thing worked for her. Maybe you should thank me for the whole nair thing :P
B → C: I got nair in my EYE courf. Thta’s never going to happen.
Courf smiles and starts tapping out a response, flakes and tiny bits of red paint fly off his fingers.
C → B: But hey! you got laid, while bald. Somebody digs bald.
C → B: You did get lucky? Right? That’s the dopey smile of “I got lucky” not I think fondly of nair times.
B → C: We just kissed.
C → B: You disgust me.
B → C: I really like this okay. I don’t want you to mess it up.
C → B: I still want to know who.
C → B: Oh come on! Give me a hiinnt.
Bossuet ignores him.
C → B: hiiiinnntttt.
C → B: hiiiinnnnnnntttt.
C → B: I can do this all day
Courfeyrac starts throwing wadded up pieces of paper at the back of his head.
Joly has apparently stopped laser focusing enough to message back
Joly: Muschiette’s got one of those detachable shower heads upstairs. If you ask her maybe you can use it.
This sparks his interest. Although fo Joly, there is a 1001 reasons why he would have begged Muschiette for an opportunity to shower, Courferyac only thinks of one.
Me: Oh my god!
OH MY GOD!
YOU HAD SEX WITH MUSI?!
YOU HAD SHOWER SEX WITH MUSI OH MY GOD WHAT YES DETAILS!?
Joly: No!
Courfeyrac is staring at Joly, who is blushing. Joly’s fingers fly furiously across the screen. Courferyac can hear them from here.
Joly: I didn’t SLEEP with her! god. Not everyone jumps into bed at the first moment.
Me: OHMYGOD YOU MADE OUT WITH MUSI IN HER APARTMENT AND YOU DIDN--
OHGOD THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER! YOU HAVE FEELINGS FOR HER? YOU HAVE FEELINGS FOR HER AND HER HYPOALLERGENIC SHOWER
Joly: Showers can’t be hypoallergenic
Courferyac: I’m sure that haunts you at night.
whatever. JOLY AND MUSI
SITTING IN A TREE
K
I
S
S
Joly: Oh shut up.
Me: I
N
G
Joly: I really like her.
Me: Oh.
Cool then.
You two dating?
Joly looks over to the bar and smiles.
Joly: something like that.
and. for your information. she happens to have a very nice hypoallergenic hyacinth soap.
Me: True love at last.
Courfeyrac and Joly make eye-contact across the room. Joly gives him a grateful smile. Courfeyrac make an over-exaggerated gagging noise. Joly laughs. Courfeyrac wants nothing more than to start making lewd gestures, but perhaps unfortunately, he really likes Joly. So he’s trying to be nice.
Jehan pauses in braiding Cosette’s hair to give him a confused look. Courfeyrac makes a face that he hopes somehow communicates ‘Feelings are gross’ and also ‘I really love all of our friends’ and maybe a little ‘I’m not a poet so all I can think when I see you is red’
Jehan’s face morphs into one of absolute confusion. So, Courfeyrac figures that it probably didn’t work as well as he wanted. He offers a sheepish shrug and a wink instead.
Somewhere in this exchange, someone had asked Enjolras something that had ended with Enjolras ranting about Vouchers. Courfeyrac was mostly unaffected, because he had heard it all before (side benefit of living with Enjolras and Combeferre. He got to come home from parties and rant about education equity problems. This sounds negative, but Courfeyrac lives for these 4 a.m chats. He loves how they always take him seriously, even drunk late at night) but he still stops for a moment to listen.
Enjolras comes alive when he talks. He’s exudes a light that makes it almost hard to watch, but you are drawn in by the passion and the drive. Enjolras is objectively beautiful, but when he speaks, when he lets out his passions, he becomes something else entirely.
His accents cuts through the din of the cafe and one by one people quiet and listen. He hasn’t even raised his voice. He’s just talking. But it can be hard to not to listen. He glows.
Grantaire cuts in from his armchair with a snort and a lewd comment and the light just flows out of Enjolras. Suddenly, he’s human again.
Courfeyrac has witnessed this a thousand times. Often times Grantaire will interrupt with a well time innuendo, but sometimes he’ll make fun of Enjolras’s over-idealized notions. He’ll cut through all of Enjolras’s rhetoric and attack the very heart of the issue that Enjolras hold dear with a well placed, and yes often lewd, remark. Courfeyrac has seen it, and Courfeyrac has seen how it make Enjolras pause for a second and how it make him think and how Enjolras always walks out of these exchanges with a more full comprehension and a more powerful argument.
Courfeyrac is not even sure that Enjolras realizes how he’s being genuinely challenged by Grantaire. When faced with it, Enjolras will responded to the cynic’s humor and confront any attacks on his person, but it’s like every conversation that the two of them have is happening on 10 levels at once.
Enjolras can be difficult to fathom at the best of times, but stick him in a room with Grantaire and he becomes a beautiful poem written in another language. Beautiful, meaningful, but ultimately incapable of being understood. Courfeyrac always laughs when he thinks about how Enjolras could easily face down an entire auditorium of people who think he’s wrong, but trying to get him to admit, in words, that he considers someone his friend is like pulling teeth.
Bossuet had been the first to notice. Enjolras will show affection in passing reference. He does it in a code of how he talks about you to others, and how he’ll smile at you from across a room, or nudge shoulders with you.
Courfeyrac never doubts that Enjolras loves his friends. He just thinks it’s funny how someone so eloquent in his communication could be so incapable of speech
But, Courfeyrac has way more important things to think about. Namely, Bossuet.
C → B: Do you really want to insight my wrath.
C → B: one hint!
B → C: Ugh! Fine.
Courfeyrac waits patiently, knowing that Bossuet is trying to think of something both true, and uninformative. This lag in time, and the reluctance to tell, let’s him know that it’s someone he know.
C → B: huuurrryyy uupppp.
B → C: FINE. God you are annoying.
B → C:The hint is Hyacinths.
Courfeyrac tries really hard not to jump to conclusions about that. Really, he does. But he looks over to Bossuet leaning over the counter, eyes tracking Muschiette’s every movement and thinks.
fuuuuccckkk.
This is not the first time something like this happens. With a group of friends this large, it’s almost impossible to avoid drama and miscommunication. Double with a groups that includes Bahorel.
Still, Courfeyrac is at an impass. He could tell Joly or Bossuet. He could inform them that they appear to be dating the same girl, but he just-- ugh. Too many variables. Maybe they already know. Maybe they are happy not knowing.
Courfeyrac puts his phone down on the table. Kind of closes his eyes and thinks fuuucckk. and then also: I vote we deal with this tomorrow. or... never.
And then he leans back into the couch and naps. Because there are two answers for everything: Alcohol and sleeping.
--
When he wakes up, the cafe is darker. Most have already left. Muschiette is wiping down the counter. Joly and Bossuet are nowhere to be found. Bahorel is fidgiting with the sound system while Feuilly tries in vain to ignore him. Jehan has his head bowed over, arguing softly with Grantaire. It is, as yet, unclear as to whether or not Grantaire ever left the armchair at all this evening.
Tiny bits of the conversation float towards Courfeyrac while he sits up and stretches.
“If we do this, it can’t be half-assed. I’m not fucking around with this, Jehan.”
“I know. I -”
“No. You don’t. I can’t. I don’t want to have to deal with this when it goes bad. I can’t deal with your -
“I still-”
“I don’t fucking work like other people, it becomes -”
Jehan appears to lose patience with him at this point.
“Grantaire. I don’t care. I want it to be you.”
Grantaires mouth snaps shut.
“Fine. Whatever. Your loss.”
And Courfeyrac looks at how the light flirts with Jehan, basking him in a soft glow. He thinks about the red handprint on Jehan’s shirt. He thinks about Jehan’s smile, and Jehan’s scribbling lines of poetry on the insides of his wrist, and he thinks of the color red.
He thinks maybe it’s appropriate. Grantaire could ground Jehan. Jehan could talk Grantaire out of his more vicious dark circles. Grantaire would treat Jehan like he was something beautiful and delicate, and Jehan would kiss laughter into those lips. Jehan could whisper poetry to him in the dark, and Grantaire wouldn’t have to go home and look it up later. They’d make beautiful art together.
A cynic he may be, but Grantaire has an artist's heart.
Courfeyrac stands abruptly, filled with a unplaceable anger. They’d be perfect, probably, but it’d be wrong. Jehan doesn’t need someone to treat him delicately. Jehan doesn't need to be grounded, he needs to be free. Jehan isn’t a wilting flower. Jehan is muted grace, and poetry, and the color red. Jehan is floral prints, and unironic sweaters and horrible clashing clothes. Jehan is ribbons in your hair.
Jehan is laughter.
Courfeyrac would reason that this was a really inopportune time to realize he was unapologetically, irrevocably and unequivocally in love with Jehan Prouvaire.
“Courfeyrac!”
His sudden stance had drawn attention.
“Courfeyrac, are you alright?” Jehan stands and approaches him.
Grantaire stays in his stupid lumpy green armchair. His stupid face is quizzical and he looks concerned because he’s stupid and god. Courfeyrac wants nothing more than to hate him. He want to hate him so bad. But, he remembers Grantaire with his stupid hat and his stupid face staying up with him until 3 in the morning when Courfeyrac’s dad died. He remembers crying on Grantaire’s floor for hours and he remembers how Grantaire never once made fun of him for sobbing like a child for a man that he didn’t know. He remembered how Grantaire never pretended to understand and how Grantaire had stuck with him all of freshman year. He remembered how Grantaire never said that it was going to get better, never offered any false comfort. He remembered how Grantaire had just pour him a shot, and said “I am here for you”.
Mostly, he remembers that Grantaire is one of his best friends. So he lies.
“I am fine, I just remembered that-” God dammit Courfeyrac, think of something. “that... that I have to read a chapter from my psych book and I left it at the apartment!” Courfeyrac mentally pats himself on the back. He’s so smoothed. He should be a spy. Or maybe like... a pirate. He would make a great pirate.
He turns to Jehan, who's still looking quizzically at him and asks.
“Hey. Would I be a better spy or pirate?”
Jehan, to his credit, takes this turn of conversation in stride. He thinks seriously for a moment before answering.
“I think that the right choice would be for you would be a double-agent pirate spy.”
Coufeyrac doesn’t say ‘that’s why I love you’ because that’s not why he loves Jehan. Instead he says:
“This is why you are my favorite.”
Jehan blushes and smiles.
“And you are mine”
“Except for Grantaire, right?”
Grantaire actually laughs out loud at that.
“Except for no one.” Jehan leans forward and gives him a chaste little kiss on the cheek. Then he casually grabs his bag and saunters out of the cafe. Coufeyrac stares after him dumbstruck for a couple of seconds. Then, he scrambles to pack his bag and runs to the door.
He pauses in the doorway, hand pressed against it, to turn back to Grantaire.
“So. just for clarity. You two are not dating, right?”
Grantaire’s laughter follows him out the door.
Courfeyrac chases after Jehan, all other thoughts forgotten. His phone lays forgotten on the table.
When he catches up to Jehan, he’s breathless. Still, he falls into step besides him as though it was just another day. He wants to do something dramatic, like push Jehan against the wall and take him. He wants to leave red handprints all over his body. He wants to tug the ribbons out of Jehan’s hair and wrap them around his delicate bone wrists. But, more than anything, he wants Jehan’s lips on his lips. He wants to kiss Jehan now, today, tomorrow, every moment for the rest of his life. He wants to kiss Jehan and know that that’s okay.
So, he smiles, and crowds Jehan into the wall. He leans into his space and says.
“I’m going to kiss you now.”
Jehan smiles and says.
“Good.”
And Courfeyrac sees red, thinks red and kisses red.
--
The next day, when Courfeyrac is on the main quad fretting about the potential ramifications of what's just happened. Courfeyrac is thinking what ifs and oh gods, Grantaire throws him his phone and calls him a dumbass.
He doesn’t go through his texts like he normally would, because immediately upon getting his phone he realizes the time. He runs to lecture, skidding into his seat moments before the professor starts. He doesn’t see the texts.
E → C: ‘Ferre insist that I am being relentless on the voucher issue. I want your opinions.
C → E: Courfeyrac forgot his phone at the Cafe. I’ll get it to him. -R
a couple of seconds later
C → E: And you probably are being unnecessarily stubborn about vouchers -R
E → C: No, I am not. Vouchers divert money away from public schools that need them
C → E: I know, I heard your speech in the cafe. But if you're all about education, shouldn’t saving even one kid placate your bleeding heart -R
E → C: Who are you?
a couple of seconds later
E → C: handing out vouchers for private schools sends the message that public schools can’t be fixed.
C → E: Maybe they can’t be fixed. -R
E → C: Surely you can’t believe that.
C → E: Voucher are a lifeline. Sure, they are only a lifeline for a few, but you’re the one that believe in the power of education. Why not save one kid, even if it’s only one kid? -R
E → C: Because we could save so much more than one kid.
C → E: But why put kids through a broken system while you try to fix it? -R
E → C: The system is broken. But, vouchers are a band aid, our public school system is a gaping wound.
C → E: when was the last time bandaids hurt anyone? I think you are just being needlessly stubborn. - R
E → C: Perhaps.
E → C: Who are you?
Courfeyrac doesn’t see these texts. He doesn’t see the flecks of red paint that pepper Grantaire’s fingers.