Chapter Text
Grantaire sank into his chair in English Composition. He wasn’t hung over, and he was proud of that, but exhaustion didn’t feel much better. He was too early, and he toed the floorboards through the hole in his worn shoes while waiting for the lecture to start.
A girl walked in, dressed smartly in nice clothes that had clearly never seen a stain or patch. Graintare, acutely aware of the dirt under his fingernails, hated her. She gave him a shy, gapless, smile and offered him a soft hand to shake. He started to hate himself for his insecurities, she was clearly lovely.
"I'm Cosette," she introduced herself softly.
"Grantaire." He was envious. Jealous not of her status or charm but her weightlessness.
They got along well, surprisingly so, and conversation flowed easily. She told him that she was studying psychology, and he supplied that he was only taking classes, not working towards a degree. She said she lived with her father, though she quickly changed the subject and seemed to understand too well when he admitted his parents were dead. Grantaire even told her that he draws sometimes. He was rewarded with a pestering to show her sometime.
When the lecture started, Grantaire ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook and put it between them. This intro course was one they could both probably ace in their sleep, so they wrote notes to each other and punctuated the margins with doodles.
Cosette couldn’t draw to save her life, but she managed to write funny, insightful lines to him and take detailed notes at the same time.
He thought maybe she was flirting, but before he had to turn her down and make it awkward, she confided in a stage whisper that she was in love with a law student in one of her classes who didn’t know she existed.
Grantaire thought he must be a prat not to see her.
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The rest of his classes went quickly. Even though it was the first day of the spring quarter, his teachers weren’t stingy in their assigned reading and he resigned himself to another long night of studying. He was holed up in the library for warmth, his books spread out on the table and his chair tipped back on two legs, reading.
Another man bowled into the study nook, throwing himself into an open chair.
“Bahorel!” Grantaire exclaimed, delighted. His boxing friend had enrolled last year, and had spent much of the intervening time convincing Grantaire to join. “How goes the business degree?”
“Keep up!” Bahorel exclaimed. “I’m on to teaching! More stable job in this economy y’know.”
Grantaire nodded, unconvinced. He knew Bahorel had a secret soft spot for kids.
“Has it helped you teach urchins self-defense yet?” he teased.
The other man flapped a hand, banishing the topic.
Bahorel pivoted quickly, asking, “Meet any pretty women?” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “or men?”
Grantaire gaped theatrically. He stage whispered, “How dare you assume I could attract anyone of any gender!”
He hadn’t told anyone but Eponine his sexuality. He knew he would be safe with Bahorel, but with his luck it would never even be relevant.
“What about a handsome man like you?” he rejoined. “Met any dames? Lads?”
Bahorel tapped the side of his nose with a grin. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
Their conversation drifted, books forgotten until the lights turned out and they had to gather everything up and run to the doors to avoid being locked in.
Once safely outside they parted ways, Bahorel walking along the lakeshore to the new Montlake Bridge and Grantaire heading inland for dinner.
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Grantaire walked into the church near the college, loosening the cord in his hair. He took a place in the bread and soup line behind a young boy. The boy immediately spun around and stuck out a dirty hand.
“I’m Gavroche!” he grinned, gesturing towards where Grantaire lived. “I own the shantytown about two streets that-a-way!” Grantaire could see the kid’s tongue through his gap-toothed smile.
“I guess that makes you my landlord, then,” the man teased. Gavroche nodded so seriously that Grantaire couldn’t help but love him. The line inched forwards, and soon Grantaire was watching Gavroche cheerfully receive a bowl of soup and some bread from a blond man.
The man was gorgeous, with soft hair and a sharp jaw. Infuriatingly handsome in a way that gave Grantaire butterflies and a fight or flight response. As he took an empty bowl, Grantaire snarked, “How much are you spending on shampoo for those curls nowadays?”
Shit. Talk about biting the hand that feeds. The man looked straight at Grantaire, and he felt like a butterfly pinned to a board.
The man spoke levelly, “That was a weak excuse for small talk.” He gestured for the bowl and Grantaire’s hand drifted forward automatically. Their fingers brushed as the bowl changed hands and Grantaire could swear his brain shorted out. At least that would be a good excuse for the next words out of his mouth.
“Soft hands too, rich boy, I bet you moisturize.”
The man arched an eyebrow, seemingly unimpressed, and turned to the next person in line, dismissing him, but Grantaire saw the man’s lips tighten and knew he had struck home.
Why couldn’t Grantaire flirt like a normal person, or better yet just keep his mouth shut?
He walked out the door into the evening street, keeping his eyes on the ground. Instead of finding somewhere to sit and eat, Grantaire fell upon his meager dinner while walking. He was hungry, but he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the handsome blond as he could.
He walked fast and quickly reached his ‘home-sweet-home.’ A joke– the burnt out shell of a car, long since missing its wheels, was barely a shield from the wind.
Grantaire sprawled across the bench seat and opened his books. He began to take notes on the assigned chapter, but his heart wasn’t in it.
He sighed and rummaged for a mostly blank piece of paper. He wasted precious ink scratching out an eye, a nose, soft curls framing a jaw set in determination or annoyance. Suddenly Grantaire was staring down at the man from the breadline. The stranger he had borderline ridiculed. The gorgeous angel he would never see again. God he had it bad.