Chapter Text
The first snow their first year was great. It was the sort of thing they hadn't seen since they were kids, with a foot of powder that accumulated in a matter of hours and no icy patches or real wind to speak of. They were giddy, little boys again and the snowball fight had been hilarious because it simply was not the sort of snow that wanted to hold itself together. That year, they still had roommates who weren't terrible and one of those roommates had a dog and the dog was too short and kept disappearing and digging tunnels and ruined their forts but they couldn't stay angry.
Grantaire drew everything into a series of sketches and paintings and Bahorel described it all to their friends like a winter wonderland and snow two that first year, aside from a couple of wind storms, came and went in much the same way.
The next year, things were icier and they both had places they had to be during the worst of what the winter had to offer. Bahorel had taken a short term bar back and bouncer position in town to keep the bills paid and Grantaire was commissioned for some murals at a preschool and they only had one car between them. So B went to work with R in the mornings and they always ran later than planned due to traffic and R dropped B off during his lunch break and then joined B at the bar between the end of his own work day and the time the bar finally closed. Part way through the winter, the roommate with the dog moved away and they never came home to smiling faces or dinner on the stove from then on out.
Grantaire barely had time to make art for himself and Bahorel mostly tried not to complain, lest their friends thing they regretted their decisions.
Year three they weren't too worried about what their friends were thinking. They admitted quite readily that their situation was far from ideal. The ex-roomie with the dog stayed in touch but also moved down to Georgia. Bahorel gave the guy's name and number to Feuilly when the Pole made his own move south and that was about all the good that came out of it. There was an invitation down to Savannah during the holidays and they almost went for it but then there was a blizzard and R's car got hit by a plow and they couldn't afford to dream of vacations when they couldn't half afford to keep fed.
Grantaire sold a lot of very rage-filled paintings and Bahorel got their Internet fixed in time for a New Year's Eve Skype date that got cut off when the ice pulled down a power line half an hour before they reached midnight.
Every year after that was pretty similar. It started snowing in mid-autumn and didn't often stop between December and March. The joys of winter, much like the novelty of living their own lives, had long since worn off and they both hated it. Sometimes they talked about packing up and moving out, heading back south but, well, what good would that do them? Most places they'd have had to find real jobs and the economy was hardly built for those as indecisive and incapable of normal, long term, social function as the two of them seemed to be. Courfeyrac would mention a new bar that was opening but it was always when one or both of them was in the midst of some obligation. Combeferre would suggest a non-profit position that was opening but they couldn't afford the pay and neither of them ever felt appropriately qualified anyway. Joly and Bossuet offered their spare room but they didn't feel right planning on squatting who knew how long in their friends' house for free.
Grantaire took some of the most ridiculous commissions he'd ever let himself stoop to drawing and Bahorel found himself working a circuit of bouncing and bar tending at every mediocre club scene and shitty pub in town.
The minute the first snow hit that winter after the road trip, they discussed the idea of packing the camper back up and just leaving. Grantaire would rather have been closer to Enjolras anyway and Bahorel was just missing D.C. They didn't do it, of course, but they came close before reality and responsibilities stopped them. In fact, heading home after going down to Washington for the new year was, they agreed, one of the worst mistakes they'd ever made.
Grantaire started packing that next winter, the instant the first reports of possible snow hit TV and radio, and they hit the road without a second thought the moment Bahorel got home to the sight of whiteness falling.