Work Text:
When Marius gets home from his first date with Cosette, he’s smiling so wide it looks like it must hurt. He slams through the front door, and practically bounces into the living room.
Grantaire has been sketching on the couch, waiting, since he got home. He laughs, because Marius’ absolute joy is nothing if not infectious.
“So I guess the date went well then?”
“She gave me her number! She said we should do it again soon!” Marius waves the phone around.
“So have you messaged her yet?”
Marius stops. “No. I,” he pauses, and flops down on a corner of the couch, “I don’t know what to say.”
Grantaire pushes his pencil through his hair (he ties his hair back when he’s sketching sometimes, to keep it out of his eyes), and pulls his feet back so Marius has room to sit properly. “Didn’t you just spend like three hours with her?”
“Three and a half,” says Marius quickly.
“Well, what did you talk about for three and a half hours?”
“Our courses, her father, Les Amis,” Marius’ smiles goes dreamy and far away, “art, history, poetry …”
“Well, then say something about that, continue the conversation.”
“I can’t just repeat myself! And this is the first text, it’s important.”
“Don’t overthink it, just say what you would say if she was here right now.” Marius looks slightly panicked. Grantaire pokes Marius’ side with his feet. “What do you want to say to her?”
Marius pauses for a moment, thinking, then says, “that it was really great to talk to her, and I want to do it again, and then keep doing it for the rest of our lives.”
If he wasn’t 100% sincere, Grantaire would probably make fun of him. “So say that. And then ask her what she’s doing tomorrow afternoon, take her for coffee and cake at that fair trade place she’s always talking about.”
“I can’t,” Marius fidgets, hands fluttering, “I don’t, I mean, I don’t have any money left over from rent this week. I can’t just ask her out and then expect her to pay.”
They don’t usually talk about money. It’s not so much because it’s a sore subject; it’s just that they’d both rather not think about how they spend most of the time trying to get ends to meet. Marius’ has his job on campus, but he can only work half-day shifts because of classes, Grantaire bartends sporadically and sometimes gets odd jobs helping on art projects at the local community centre, and usually they have enough collectively to pay rent and buy food with some left over. But there are still times when they don’t have as much left over as they’d like.
Grantaire thinks about the cheque from the last work he did (part of an after-school initiative - a mural for the community centre, he did the outlines and then the kids painted it), and the extra painting supplies he was going to use it on. And then he looks at Marius, absolutely dejected, and he mentally cuts the art supply list in half.
“I’ve got some spare cash from that thing last week.”
“What?” Marius is fiddling with the phone in his hand, turning it over and over. “I can’t ask you to pay for my date, that’s not fair. I should just be better with my money. I’ll just do something else.”
Which isn’t Marius’ problem at all. Grantaire’s seen the fancy spreadsheets Marius uses, so he can plan out this stuff in advance. It’s not Marius’ fault that Grantaire sprang the perfect ask-Cosette-out scenario today (although, seriously, he did need the push).
Grantaire waves a hand. “Nah, it’s okay. I don’t need anything urgently right now, and unless their prices are, like, absolutely ridiculous you won’t use all of it.” Marius is staring at him. “Seriously, Marius, it’s fine, it’s –“
Marius tackle hugs him, crushing the sketchpad between them. “You are the best friend in the entire world.”
Grantaire brushes some of Marius’ hair out of the way of his mouth before he answers. “If you say so. Now, are you going to message her or what?”
Marius stays lying on top of Grantaire, and taps out his message to Cosette sideways. Her reply is almost instantaneous.
“She said yes! She’s going to meet me after class tomorrow!”
Marius pushes himself up a little, and Grantaire takes the opportunity to move the sketchpad from where it had been digging into his chest.
“Grantaire, thank you, I just –“
“It’s fine.” Grantaire pulls the pencil out of his hair and flips to a blank page of his sketchbook. “So, tell me about the date.”
Grantaire sketches as Marius talks, excited and so happy. It’s a quick work of the Cosette Marius describes to him, and he draws Marius opposite her, absolutely enraptured.
(Cosette finds it, months later. It’s been folded, and carried in Marius’ pocket, and crushed a little between the pages of books, but Grantiare’s lines are still clear. There’s a date at the bottom of it too, and Marius’ handwriting - ‘the best first date’.
She doesn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.)
-
When Grantaire gets home on Valentine’s Day, he spends ten minutes leaning against the door trying to get his grin under control.
Marius pokes his head up from the couch. “So, how’d it go?”
Grantaire comes closer to lean on the back of the couch. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Marius grins. “So there was kissing!”
Grantaire laughs. He looks more relaxed than Marius has seen him in weeks. “Well, maybe there was, and maybe there wasn’t, and maybe he put his number in my phone.”
“And when are you going to use the number?”
Grantaire balances on the back of the couch for a moment, before sliding next to Marius. “I think it’s a bit soon for that. I mean, he just gave it to me. I should wait at least like a day, right?”
“I think you’ve waited long enough already,” says Marius.
Grantaire looks at him for a moment, and then gets out his phone. They both just sit like that for a while. Marius makes an annoyed noise, and shoves Grantaire a little.
“Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“I message him and he says no, and I have to look at him every day for the rest of my life knowing for sure that he never wants to date me. Or he says yes, and I have to go on what is sure to be the most disastrous date in the history of mankind.”
“Or he says yes, you guys both have a great time, and you keep having a great time for the rest of your lives.”
“You don’t think maybe you’re being a little optimistic?”
“No. I mean, it happened for me, why shouldn’t it happen for you too?”
Grantaire sighs. “I don’t know if it’s that simple.”
“Well, just start out simple and text him.”
Grantaire brings up Enjolras’ number, and then moves so Marius can’t see the screen.
“Oh, real mature.”
Grantaire sticks his tongue out, and Marius mimics the gesture.
“There, done.”
Enjolras takes a couple of minutes to respond, which Grantaire spends rapidly flicking through the tv channels (a nervous habit). Grantaire won’t let Marius sees Enjolras’ response either, but he looks pleased.
“There, we’re going out tomorrow night, happy?”
Grantaire’s tone would probably hold more weight if he wasn’t grinning so hard.
(And, for the record, Grantaire and Enjolras’ first date is not actually a complete disaster. And they have another, and another, and another …)