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Enjolras wakes as the first rays of sun start filtering through the window. He verges on the monastic in his days, so he’s surprised to see that his clock blinks that it’s neuf heure moins quart. They’ve shifted at some point in the night; Grantaire’s migrated from his chin tucked above Enjolras’ head to both of them lying on their stomachs in a stack. Grantaire is warm and feels like a human blanket. Enjolras presses his smile into his pillow.
Trying to turn over is futile: his arm and legs are trapped under Grantaire’s dead weight, breathing deeply. He allows himself a (glorious) minute to bask in it, in the soft light creeping onto the bedclothes, in the feeling of Grantaire’s naked warmth pressed above him, in the quiet sounds of breath in his ear. It all feels- well, it all feels so good he could lie here forever. But he does not know when Combeferre will wake, and he wants to give Grantaire the option to leave undetected if he wants it. (Oh, he wants him to stay. He wants to eat Cosette’s leftover quiche with him for le petit déj and make them both coffee and maybe, maybe, once Combeferre has left on his errands, they will get to fuck the way both of them wanted to last night.)
“Grantaire,” he says softly, voice groggy with lingering sleep. Beside (above?) him, Grantaire makes a noise but no move to do anything else. “R,” he says again, with more force. Grantaire again makes a noise, but this time he seems more awake. Or at least, the way that his breath stills for a minute and then all comes out in a rush as he flops onto his side makes it seem so.
Sheets rustling, Enjolras too rolls onto his side to look at him. His eyes are as wide as his grogginess will permit, the same helpless smile from before, like he can’t believe his luck.
“Morning,” Enjolras says, shuffling forwards to kiss him. He lingers; there’s something very soft about this that he wants to savour. The kiss is the same. It’s all gentle lips and slight brushes of tongue against a lower lip, a barely there nip. When he disengages enough to look at Grantaire again, he’s looking at Enjolras with an expression that makes him feel like there’s a well of warmth spouting up inside him.
“Morning. I didn’t expect heavenly visions of a Botticelli angel when I woke up today,” he says, still grinning like a loon, and it only grows wider when Enjolras blushes.
“Don’t say things like that, Grantaire, for God’s sake.”
Grantaire wraps his arm around Enjolras and drags him closer, so their legs tangle. “You’re right, my apologies, fair Apollo. You’re far too vengeful to be a Botticelli, it’s Bernini or bust.” He pauses, considering. “Although, I don’t think either of them have such awful bedhead.” He sounds delighted.
“Yes, yes, j’en ai eu assez,” Enjolras says, although it’s belied by his fond smile. He takes the hand that Grantaire doesn’t have slung around him and presses a kiss to him knuckles. “It’s probably 9h00 by now, I’m not sure when Combeferre will be awake. Do you think you’ll stay for breakfast?”
The easiness that was surrounding them falls away. Grantaire’s shoulders pull in, just enough for Enjolras to worry.
“I…shit, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m going to pass this time.” The worry starting to gnaw on him again subsides when Grantaire presses into the hand Enjolras cards through his hair. “I’m just…this is a lot to take in all at once, and like, it’s a fucking amazing kind of a lot but I think-” Grantaire cuts himself with a huff of breath and inhales shakily into the kiss that Enjolras gives him. “I think I should convince myself first. That this is really gonna happen for me. I- I don’t think I want to deal with everyone else’s reactions at the same time.”
“My feelings aren’t going anywhere,” Enjolras reminds him gently. He’s never been this gentle with Grantaire, with anyone, and he likes it. It feels just as intense and focused as speaking at a rally, but. Different. Good different.
Grantaire smiles like it pains him. “Putain, if you keep professing your attraction to me, I wouldn’t complain.”
“Mais?”
“Mais…I just need a little time. Is that okay? Fuck, shit, I can’t believe this conversation, I mean, I’ve been in love with you for years,”– Enjolras plants a delighted kiss on his wrist- “and now I’m asking you to let me not be announcing this to everyone, like a fucking idiot.”
The sheets rustle again as Enjolras stretches up and kisses him again, languidly, whispering okay against his mouth. It slips out of his control when he shifts and his thigh ends up between Grantaire’s legs and one of them lets out a haggard noise. Enjolras yanks himself away, running a hand over his face. Beside him, he hears Grantaire flop onto his back, sucking in air like a bellows.
“Merde, merde, merde, R, putain de merde.” He kicks the bedclothes off his legs, shucks on a pair of boxers and his shirt from last night, undone. “If you want to go you have to go now, you’re not allowed to be naked in my bed any longer if I can’t do anything about it.” Naked in my bed, Enjolras thinks to himself faintly, Grantaire is naked in my bed and I’m kicking him out. “And I’m going to hold you to those promises you made last night,” he says, fighting to not flush when he thinks about Grantaire saying gonna bend you over my knee. Grantaire swallows, nodding.
Grantaire, to his credit, rolls himself out of bed with much more grace than Enjolras and tracks down his clothes with Enjolras’ help. Turning the handle as quietly as he can, Enjolras peeks out the hallway and sees that it’s clear. They tiptoe down the hallway, past Combeferre’s bedroom, past the kitchen, past the living room, until they reach the entryway. Enjolras tugs him in for one last lingering kiss before he’s shoving him out the door, whispering, “Text me when you’re home, d’accord?”
He closes the door as quietly as he can and breathes a sigh against it. There’s a smile fighting to break out on his face.
“So, I take it Grantaire’s not staying for breakfast?”
Enjolras whirls around and sees Combeferre smirking from the door of his room. He gapes.
“He was too drunk to go home last night so he slept here,” Enjolras fibs, clenched.
Combeferre rolls his eyes. “Please. Like we didn’t all hear you two going at it on Christmas Eve. Courf and Jehan’s flat is pretty small, sound carries.”
Enjolras’s surprised when he doesn’t spontaneously burst into flames, which is maybe the biggest Christmas miracle of all.