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Bahorel did not have crushes. Infatuations, perhaps, attractions, most definitely. But he didn’t pant after others like a virgin schoolboy. That was Marius’ thing, not his.
And yet... Jehan.
Bahorel was stunned by Jehan. By his appearance, most definitely; the only person he would claim even held a candle to Jehan’s beauty was Enjolras, for obvious reasons. The more Bahorel talked to the little poet, the more smitten he found himself. Men like Jean Prouvaire simply didn’t exist in reality, at least not Bahorel’s reality. Bahorel was bar fights and bloody knuckles, and Jehan was poetry tomes and soft pale skin.
The last thing Bahorel needs to be thinking of is Jehan’s soft pale skin. Especially with the poet sitting alone by the window, cravat loose and shirt unbuttoned to the breeze could blow in and cool his skin. The heat was oppressive in its damp clinginess, none would argue that, and yet still Bahorel wanted to storm across and button Jehan’s shirt closed again, to hide the flash of pale skin and the tiniest glimpse of golden hair on his chest.
‘You’re a man of action, Bahorel. No more moping around.’ Bahorel did storm across the room, but instead of towards Jehan he moved in the opposite direction, flying down the stairs and out of the cafe with a single minded intensity not often seen on the brawler.
He was after a flower.
Spring was Jehan’s most productive season. It shook off the bone rattling cold of winter, but staved off the lethargic heat of summer, the perfect weather for him to perch and write wherever he was contented to do so without argument from the heavens. However Spring was fickle this year, and even the cleansing rains that came too often in the Parisian Spring were not enough to dissipate the gluggy heat that had lasted throughout the week.
As such, Jehan had perched himself at a small table by an open window in the Musain, close enough to feel the lightest breeze but far enough into the room occupied by Les Amis de l’ABC that his various papers and pages weren’t tossed about. For the most part he’s forgone his small collection of poetry books for the day (he can justify bringing a volume of Keats with him in that it’s something he’s studying for a literature class, and not just because he loves the man) and has instead carried with him a volume on flowers.
He owns two, of course; Combeferre had gifted him a volume containing all sorts of scientific explanations of flowers and how they grow, and the other he had bought for himself, a more whimsical tome denoting the meaning behind each flower when it is given or displayed. He often amuses himself by carrying flowers to match his mood. He doesn’t much braid them in his hair anymore, since he had cut his hair far shorter than normal to stave off the heat, but he did tuck large enough blooms behind one ear, pleased with the contrast of the roundness of petals against the angles of his jaw. The rare occasions someone commented on his use of flowers as a language, he positively glowed with contentment for some time afterwards.
Today there were no flowers on his person, and for whatever reason Bahorel had taken it as some kind of affront to his person, from all Jehan could assume of his glances. He had flown out of the Musain some hours before, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and waistcoat unbuttoned in an attempt to cool down in the oppressive heat. Jehan couldn’t say how long he was gone – the quiet that followed the brawlers departure made it simple for him to delve into the land of beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all.
He was pulled out of that world by a sudden flash of white in his vision and the sweet scent of gardenia. Pulling his head back, he found that it in fact was a gardenia, held with surprising gentility in one of Bahorel’s massive hands.
“For you, sweet poet,” Bahorel beamed, twirling the flower between his fingers at an alarming speed before Jehan freed it, cradling it in his palms. If possible Bahorel grinned even wider, puffing out his chest with pride that his flower had been so well received.
Jehan blushed furiously; perhaps Bahorel was mocking him. No one at first glance would even dare to claim Jehan a woman, but it didn’t take long in his presence for one to see his more feminine qualities. He did have a soft face, for a man, and eyes to match, and his wistful sighing and bouts of poetic speech were taken all too often as signs of girlish weakness in him. Though he knew his closest friends said it in nothing more than jest, for it was one of the many things they loved about him, there were few he would expect more than Bahorel to take a chance to jab at his lack of manliness. Bahorel was the epitome, nay a paragon of manliness, should Jehan have a say in it.
“You were gone for some time, my friend,” Courfeyrac announced, sidling towards him and laying an arm across his shoulders (a difficult task seeing as Bahorel was at least a foot taller than the man himself). “Why not just take one of the flowers from the gardens outside?”
It was true that there was a small collection of flowering bushes out in the street, carefully cultivated by a shop owner with a persistent love of geraniums (stupidity, folly, gentility, peaceful mind)
“I needed a flower that spoke true of Jehan here,” Bahorel replied casually, twisting a hand through the air to punctuate his words. “I felt that this flower was it. Don’t you?” Courfeyrac made an approving sound, taking another sip of wine and promptly dragging Bahorel away to a separate corner table, a rabble of cries meeting their arrival. The brawler sent a final, burning look Jehan’s way, attempting to impart a message.
‘He wouldn’t... no,’ Jehan thought, grasping carefully for his book and flipping the pages with a shaky hand. Finally he settled on the proper page, leaning in and whispering the words to himself near silently as he usually did.
“Feminine grace, subtlety, artistry; purity, joy, secret love.” He mouthed the final words to himself again, a burning feeling rushing across his cheeks and down his neck. He snuck another glance to where Bahorel sat across the room, and was sent a cheeky wink in return.
Jehan nervously tucked the flower behind his ear, the softest hint of a smile reaching his face, before closing his book and laying both hands flat against its cover.
‘No. It can’t be.’
Despite what Jehan told himself to be true, he gave himself the mission of perusing as many florists in Paris as he could before his next venture to the Musain. The heat has finally died away along with the worst of the wet weather, leaving behind the dewy green grasses and golden sunlit streets Jehan could walk in forever.
Yet he found himself mostly unable to focus. He had kept his gardenia in as good condition as possible – even then it sat in a small glass of water on his windowsill – and cherished it as the only proof that the encounter had occurred at all. Despite what his defences told him something didn’t ring true about it as mockery; Bahorel was as quick to joke as he was quick to throw a punch, but everything he did was sincere. So too this flower must have been.
It also seemed he knew quite well what he was saying by gifting that flower. Whether he knew about Jehan’s feeling or not was another thing entirely.
For as much as Jehan wore his heart on his sleeve, he loved all things and expressed his love for all things, and this was perhaps what hid so well his affection for Bahorel. Even if his eyes followed the man a moment longer or he smiled a little sweeter for him, any of Les Amis would assume it was just one of those things Jehan did. It was his apparent transparency that made him unreadable.
Part of him wants to approach and simply shove his flower under Bahorel’s nose, but instead he wants, anxious and tapping his toe, sending Bahorel occasional glances trying to say ‘stay, stay for me’.
Bahorel lingers after most others are gone. Enjolras is always the last to leave, and only Combeferre and Courfeyrac wait with him, leaving over a map or a plan or some other thing of importance at the apex of the room.
Bahorel leaned back against the table he had occupied throughout the evening, smiling as softly as Jehan had even seen him and watching the poet approach. If Jehan shuffled a little more in his step, or his eyes wavered about the room more than usual, Bahorel didn’t comment.
Carefully, Jehan pulled a tall, red bloomed flower from his jacket, passing it to Bahorel with a fully outstretched arm. Bahorel grasped the stalk and carefully ran his fingers across the buds running up its stem.
“It’s a gladiolus,” Jehan breathed, staring pointedly at the flower and not at Bahorel’s face. Bahorel turned the flower to hold it in his fist, bearing it forward like a sword.
The Gladiator’s flower. Sincerity, strength, moral integrity. You pierce my heart with passion.
The tip of the gladiolus brushed the cloth of Jehan’s coat, right above his heart. Jehan looked up. Bahorel looked down, and grinned.
Bahorel grinned all the way home, hand strung gently in Jehan’s as if he were leading a lost child home. He grinned as Jehan pulled off his jacket and waistcoat and all of his clothing, softly and intensely.
He did not grin as Jehan sunk down around him, for that is not the shape one’s mouth makes as he moans so fiercely.
“You pierce my heart with passion,” Jehan groans into his neck, “you bruise it into my skin and I swallow it into my soul.”
Later, he writes it down in a poem no one will read. Much later, Bahorel has it inked onto his chest in a place no one will see. It is theirs, and no one else’s.
Jehan writes with the fevered intensity of a man possessed. He makes broad, sweeping strokes, quick and sharp, his pen struggling to keep up with his mind. He mutters and winces, crossing out lines when they become too illegible or nonsensical.
Jehan recites slowly, and pours his soul into every word; he will shout Sonnet to Chillon and pace about the apartment, which for Bahorel is fun in itself, but he finds himself liking best when Jehan will allow Bahorel to rest his head on the poet’s lap, will run soft fingers through course dark hair, and whisper Love’s Philosophy into the open air. He likes the still and the softness, the moments he can breathe Jehan in without the urge to swallow him whole, when he can live for a moment in Jehan’s world.
Inevitably, he will always return to his own world of adrenaline and bar fights. Luckily, his Jehan exists in that world too.
There is a voice in Jehan’s head (it is Joly’s voice) that worries whenever Bahorel appears at his door or in the Musain beaten and wrecked, a voice that whispers of broken bones and oozing sores, of the possibility that you could lose him this way, but for the most part it is a voice he can ignore.
There is also a secret part of him that is excited by the coppery taste of blood under Bahorel’s lip, of the hiss his brawler only makes when his fingernails scrape over a fresh bruise. Jehan knows Bahorel is strong, and has survived much more than he would ever worry Jehan with, and is happy to comply with Bahorel’s lifestyle. This is a part of Bahorel, and Jehan would have him in his entirety or not at all.
It does not hurt that, after Jehan has bandaged the bleeding wounds and spread kisses upon the slighter ones, Bahorel will insist on paying him for his work in sexual favours.
“You’re sweet, Jehan,” Courfeyrac says, “you and Bahorel.”
Jehan smiles. “Sweet? I’ve heard the same word used by you to describe Marius’ pining...”
Courfeyrac cups a hand around Jehan’s neck and presses their foreheads together to whisper conspiratorially.
“I retract that statement. You are sweet. Marius is swooning.”
Jehan lets out a guffaw, flicking the side of Courfeyrac’s head and pulling away. Not many of the other Amis venture to this particular library often; Jehan comes for the close shelves and the comfortable armchairs, while Courfeyrac comes to gossip with Jehan.
“Do promise me you won’t be stolen away by him,” Courfeyrac presses, “I shouldn’t wish to lose the both of you to a romantic world such as Marius’.” Courfeyrac is smiling, and his eyes flash, though Jehan can see his genuine worry that he will lose yet another friend to love. Courfeyrac feeds off companionship in the way Jehan feeds off good poetry, it sustains his life and he would surely wither without it.
“You needn’t worry, my brother. I can’t imagine a romantic world you weren’t already a part of.” This time it is Courfeyrac who laughs, and if he breathes a great sigh of relief Jehan is kind enough not to speak of it.
Bahorel treats Jehan like a king. He guards him fiercely, from those who would attack him in alleys on dark nights, or from those who would mock him maliciously. His eyes are drawn to Jehan in any room at any time; he gives him his love and devotion and offers his everything in service to his lord.
Jehan is much the same. But instead of his strength, he offers his soul; more and more often his words come for Bahorel, sonnets on his shoulders and ode’s on his back. His world becomes brighter in Bahorel’s presence, and so Jehan will stand beside him, hand within his, silently saying ‘whatever you choose to do, I will be there’.
They gift each other those same flowers, gardenias and gladioli, often. Their apartment – for when Bahorel stopped paying rent on his own it did become their apartment – smells of them constantly, between the scent of ink and dried blood, sweat and leather books. They shouldn’t work, but they do, and Jehan will look back on it all some days and thinks that things like this shouldn’t happen in reality, they seem saved only for novels and epic poems.
“If anyone were to have an epic romance, it would be you,” Bahorel would jibe.
Jehan would lean his head against Bahorel’s shoulder and grin.