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The paint wouldn’t come out from under his fingernails. It never did, no matter how hard he scrubbed. R finally admitted defeat and turned the hot water off. He stepped out of the shower and back into his sweatpants.
He wiped away the condensation from the bathroom mirror and ran a towel through his black curls. It resembled a bird’s nest, but R was putting off getting it cut. Enjolras liked it longer. R himself was hardly complaining when his long fingers gripped it as he thrust into him from behind…
His cock gave an interested twitch. Grantaire mentally told it to ‘behave, he’ll be home tonight.’ It gave a more interested twitch.
“Oh, stop it,” he muttered. “I haven’t got the time to deal with you.” And then, still aloud, “Grantaire, for God’s sake, stop talking to your own dick.”
There were days his sheer craziness astonished even himself.
He glanced at the clock. Three hours until Enjolras returned and he could regain some kind of sanity. His partner had been away for two weeks in Marseilles and while their relationship could be anything but smooth – the fights often grew too big for their one-bedroom Parisian flat - alone it felt strange. The flat was too spacious. Grantaire kept expecting Enjolras to appear, in the doorway of the bedroom, in the kitchen making coffee, on the sofa reading Voltaire or whoever was the philosopher of the month.
He glanced at the clock again. Two minutes past the last time he checked.
Grantaire hated feeling twitchy like this. He’d spent a good portion of the day painting and his hands still itched for something to do. Coffee was a terrible idea. He was going nowhere wearing nothing but paint-stained joggers and a tatty t-shirt but he needed to take his mind off the fact the Enjolras was not here.
If Enjolras had taken his advice and caught a flight as opposed to taking the train he’d be back by now.
“It’s too expensive, R,” he’d said. “Besides, imagine the pollution. The train suits me just fine.”
Grantaire had found this slightly hilarious, since Enjolras disliked long journeys even more than he did.
He cracked open a beer from the fridge, turned on the TV to something scarily boring, and for lack of anything better to do, let the drone lull him asleep.
***
The room was lit by the streetlamp through the curtains and the blue glow of the meaningless garbage on the TV screen when he woke. It reflected creepily off his latest painting. It was for a gallery opening in a couple of weeks. The low light made the lines and blocks look vaguely threatening.
The lock on the front door was rattling.
R glanced at the digital clock on the side. Enjolras wasn’t due for another hour. So who...?
Grantaire was suddenly wide awake.
The beer bottle toppled off the coffee table and onto the floor as he scrambled off the sofa in an ungainly twist of limbs. Images of burglars and murderers and Courfeyrac’s practical jokes swam to the front of his mind.
He tripped over his own feet looking for the light switch, but before he reached it the lock clicked open and light from the hall outside their apartment spilled in.
“R? Why is it so dark in here?”
The light snapped on and Enjolras stood in the main doorway, looking bemused at Grantaire’s position half leant against the wall.
For a second all R could do was stare at the blonde in the doorway, curls tousled, wheeled suitcase sat patiently beside him. Then he sprang up with more grace than he’d shown since his dancing days and threw his arms around his partners’ neck.
“Oof…surprise, I guess,” said a rather breathless voice in his ear, but arms wound around his waist and held him there, secure and safe. “Hi there.”
“You’re early.” Grantaire’s voice was muffled by the shoulder he was buried in.
“I caught the earlier train. I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, it worked.” He leaned back slightly to survey him. Enjolras looked exhausted, shadows under his eyes deepening their colour. “How was the train, anyway?” he asked cheekily.
Enjolras glared at him. “I am never taking one again.” He looked totally serious about it as well.
R sniggered. “I told you. You have less patience for long journeys than I do.”
“For once you may have been right.” He leaned in for a deep kiss.
“Mmm…” R broke away. “Can I get that in writing?”
“Don’t push it.”
They snorted in unison and reluctantly disentangled themselves. R dragged Enjolras’ suitcase into the hallway as his partner divested himself of his scarf and coat. He also went for the remote and turned off the TV.
Strong arms clasped him from behind. A voice hummed in his ear and sacré bleu, he’d missed that voice. “I know you were hoping for ‘welcome home’ sex, but can we save it for the morning? I’m shattered.”
R would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed, but he understood. He brought his arms up to cover Enjolras’. “Sure. One condition.”
“What?”
Grantaire answered by flipping the light switch off and tipping them sideways over the arm of the sofa.
Enjolras gave a shout of surprise but with a bit of wriggling, Grantaire had then arranged with Enjolras on his back and rested against the seat cushions and Grantaire on his side, head pillowed between his chest and clavicle.
“Welcome back,” he murmured into the fabric of Enjolras’ shirt.
“It’s good to be home,” was the sleepy response. A hand slid up Grantaire’s back as the other came across to grip his waist.
Grantaire lifted himself on one elbow and regarded the relaxed man below him. He carded a hand through gold curls, traced cheekbones and lips, ran a gentle finger over closed eyelids. Seeing Enjolras naturally relaxed as opposed to limp in post-coital bliss was a rare event. He was usually a ball of energy.
The couple had lived together for a year, and had been together for three. Their ideologies (specifically Grantaire’s lack of one) had clashed at first, to the point that Courfeyrac regretted introducing them, but three months of heated arguments prompted by healthy debate had installed a grudging respect for Grantaire in the blonde activist and an irrevocable crush in Grantaire himself.
Everything had rather snowballed from there. Three years later, Enjolras had his own not-for-profit company, and Grantaire was bringing in his half of the rent as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer with the occasional exhibition piece. They had a flat in a respectable area of Paris and a life together.
Sometimes Grantaire caught himself in the mirror and wondered how the hell somebody like him had captured somebody like Enjolras; the cynic in him would never quite shut up. He’d spent almost a year looking for the catch. It had never arrived. He allowed himself to consider now, looking down on the love of his life, than it might never come.
Grantaire leaned down and kissed his mouth, ever so gently. Enjolras opened his lips under Grantaire’s ministrations. His long fingers trailed up and down R’s spine, counting the vertebrae, taking their time. Grantaire’s hand found Enjolras’ face, smooth neck, downy curls where his ear met his head. They kissed, lazily, for a long while.
“Miss me at all?” asked the blonde sleepily when they came up for air.
“You have no idea.”
“I missed you.” Tired blue eyes half opened and full lips smiled. “Having to flatter all those slimy fat cats for donations was so boring. I wish you’d been there. You would have made up a different scandal for everyone in the room, and then pretended spilling your drink down somebody’s disgustingly expensive suit was an accident.” Enjolras nuzzled into the hand cupping his cheek.
“You would have chewed me out for that.”
“And laughed my head off the whole way back to the hotel.”
Grantaire chuckled. “It was that bad?”
Enjolras’ arms tightened around him. “It went well; now shut up about it.”
Grantaire conceded and lay his head back on his partner’s chest. He felt totally relaxed, he realised, for the first time in two weeks, since Enjolras had gone away. Now his arm was going dead from being trapped beneath the other mans’ weight, warm air was tickling the curls on his forehead and an overly pointy clavicle was in danger of bruising the side of his head. Grantaire never wanted to move again.
Enjolras had other ideas. “Dead arm,” was the only warning he got.
Grantaire found him pulled more on top of the skinny blonde and both arms went around him. They fitted into the dip of his back, just above his buttocks, like they were custom-made to be there.
R chuckled and tucked one arm behind the blonde’s neck. “Less complaining, more cuddling.”
“Now there’s an idea,” was the sleep-slurred response. “You’re warmer than any duvet.”
“Night, Enjolras…” said Grantaire quietly.
But he couldn’t resist reaching up and pressing just one more kiss to his partner’s lips. “Love you,” he whispered.
And, through the dark, the glorious answer. “Love you, too.”
Wrapped in each other’s arms, they slept.