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Enjolras is handing out tasks for the upcoming rally. At this point, it’s mostly talking to local businesses and handing out flyers (not every part of revolution can be glamorous, he reminds them).
“Oh,” says Marius, “I can’t do that day, sorry. Can I, um, take a different shift?”
The other members of Les Amis stare at him. Marius never, ever turns down a task. He might not be the most experienced of their group, but he’s consistently the most enthusiastic.
“What,” says Enjolras
Marius fidgets under his gaze. “I’m, um, already volunteering at the community centre with Grantaire, for their school holiday program? But I can do another day.”
“Wait, hold up,” says Courfeyrac, “Grantaire is volunteering. Grantaire.”
Marius frowns. “Uh, yeah? He usually does the school holiday program by himself, but there was a bigger group of kids this year, so he asked if I could help out.”
Enjolras shakes his head slightly. “We’re getting off track. What other day can you do?”
There’s so much to organise, and so many people to talk to, that Enjolras doesn’t really have time to dwell on Grantaire volunteering his time elsewhere.
He’s putting flyers up in local public areas with Cosette, Eponine, and Gavroche. Their last stop of the day is the community centre, to speak with a woman there about advertising through the centre’s newsletter (and when Enjolras is finished here, he has a planning meeting with Combeferre and Cosette, and then he has to report to the Dean about their on-campus recruiting, and then he has a conference call with some of the other off-campus protest organisers …).
“We should say hi to Marius and Grantaire while we’re here,” says Cosette.
“Why would Marius and Grantaire be here?” says Enjolras, not looking up from his meeting notes.
“Because this is where they’re volunteering? For the school holiday program?” Eponine sounds amused.
A woman in her mid-40s rushes in, looking harassed. A little girl, no more than five years old, trails after her.
“Hello! I’m Joanne, would you mind waiting here ten more minutes? I just have to quickly make a call, and then we’ll discuss the centre’s involvement.”
“That’s not a problem,” says Cosette.
She disappears into the office, leaving the little girl. The girl stares up at them.
“Um, hello there” says Enjolras.
Gavroche aside, Enjolras isn’t very good at talking to children. Cosette hides a smile behind her hand, and Eponine bites her lip to stop a laugh escaping.
“Elly? Elly, where are you?” The little girl wanders towards the door she’d come from. Marius appears, scooping her up and setting her on his hip. “Elly, there you are! You’re not supposed to just wander off, okay?”
Cosette smiles fully, walking towards Marius. “Hello! I thought I heard you.”
“Cosette! What are you – oh, the flyers and things. Sorry I couldn’t help out today.”
“That’s okay,” says Cosette, “it looks like you’ve got your hands full.”
Marius laughs. “We sure do. Elly,” he says, turning his face towards the little girl in his arms, “this is my girlfriend Cosette, and my friends Enjolras, Eponine, and Gavroche. Guys, this is Elly.”
Elly hides her face in Marius shoulder, whispering something. Marius smiles. “Cosette, Elly says you’re very pretty, like a princess.”
Cosette’s smile grows even brighter. “Well, that’s very lovely of you to say, Elly. You’re very pretty too. Are you a princess?”
The little girl shakes her head and then hides her face back in Marius’ shoulder. Marius shifts her weight slightly.
“I should probably be getting her back. Grantaire’s dealing with them all alone at the moment, and they’ll probably stage a takeover if I leave them too long. Do you guys want to come say hello?”
“Well, we –“ begins Enjolras.
“We’d love to,” says Cosette.
“We don’t really have time,” says Enjolras firmly, “we’re just waiting for Joanne to get off the phone so we can have the meeting.”
Marius’s face falls a little. “Oh, that’s okay.”
Eponine and Cosette exchange a look.
“I have an idea,” says Eponine, “I’ll wait here with Gav, and you guys can go say hi to Grantaire. When Joanne gets off the phone, Gav can come tell you.” She looks down at Gavroche. “Sound like a good plan?”
“Excellent!” says Cosette, plucking the files out of Enjolras’ hands and passing them to Eponine, “let’s go.”
The short corridor to the children’s area is covered in a mural. Farm animals, princesses, houses, astronauts, aliens, and stick-figure people crowd for wall space. Although the designs are child-like, the brushwork is steady and even.
“Grantaire painted it,” said Marius, gesturing to the walls with his free hand, “last year they got all the kids to submit drawings and things, and then Grantaire put them all together as one big painting. Apparently it was Grantaire’s idea,” says Marius, gaze flicking to Enjolras.
“Really?” Enjolras murmurs.
He’s slightly ashamed to have to re-evaluate his opinion on someone so much. Although he’s not much of a people person one-on-one, Enjolras likes to think he’s at least skilled at quick assessment. He wouldn’t have expected Grantaire to be the sort of person who volunteered (volunteered!) his time at the community centre, or as someone who was organised enough to plan out a mural.
Marius sets Elly down to push open a door on the far right of the corridor. “I found her!”
Grantaire is standing on a low balance beam, a trail of twenty or so children balanced behind him, arms out. “Great!”
“I found a couple of other people too,” says Marius, stepping aside to let Cosette and Enjolras into the room.
“Hey!” Grantaire grins at them, stepping off the balance beam and onto one of the foam mats that surrounded it, “you guys are talking to Joanne today, about the rally?”
Enjolras mentally adds ‘Grantaire remembers information about the rally planning’ to the list of new information about Grantaire.
“Yes, we’re just waiting for her to get off the phone,” says Cosette, “so we thought we’d come say hello, isn’t that right Enjolras?”
Enjolras doesn’t think he’d ever been stared at by so many children at once in his life. “Yes.”
Cosette looks like she’s trying not to laugh.
“I see you’ve already met Elly,” Grantaire ruffles her hair, and Elly immediately latches on to his leg, “why don’t I introduce you to the rest.”
He runs through the names of all the children, giving tiny bits of information about each one (“this is Thomas, he’s really into fire trucks right now”, and “this is Michelle, she just turned four yesterday and her mother made her a cake shaped like a butterfly”). Then he turns to back to them.
“Guys, I’d like you to meet some friends of mine. This is Enjolras, and this is Marius’ girlfriend Cosette.”
A few of the little girls approached Cosette, who crouches down to their level immediately, listening attentively. Marius crouches next to her, and they reach for each other’s hands. It seems to be almost an instinctive response with them now.
“So,” says Enjolras, feeling awkward, “this is why you’re too busy to help with the rally.”
Grantaire shrugs. “You know me; I probably wouldn’t be helping anyway. Besides, they kind of need me here.”
Enjolras never knows what to say when Grantaire is like this. Annoying he can deal with, and argumentative he can work with enthusiastically, but he doesn’t know what to do with Grantaire goes serious, his voice low and only for Enjolras’ ears.
“I never said we don’t need you,” says Enjolras.
Grantaire smiles a little, so Enjolras thinks he must have said the right thing.
“So,” adds Enjolras, “what do you actually do here?”
Grantaire laughs. “You’re really not very good with kids, are you?”
“I never said I was perfect.”
“Well,” says Grantaire, still smiling a little, “you do a very good impression of it.”
He turns before he sees Enjolras’ expression. Grantaire making flirtatious remarks to him might not be as rare as his seriousness, but Enjolras is still not able to come up with an appropriate response most of the time.
“There’s a woman coming by later to teach the kids some gymnastics, like somersaults and stuff. I mostly just try to stop them from destroying the room. And sometimes face-painting. Marius taught some kinds to juggle earlier.”
“I didn’t know Marius could juggle.”
Grantaire nods, watching the kids as they scramble over the balance beam. “Yeah, he’s pretty good at it too, he – Andrea! Stop that! Sorry, I have to go deal with this before a fight breaks out.”
Enjolras doesn’t know if Grantaire’s being serious or not, so he simply nods. Grantaire separates two children, who are standing on the beam and pushing at each other. He crouches to their level and talks softly to them and, miraculously, they listen to him, apparently coming to a truce. It’s strange to watch Grantaire like this, flitting around busily. Enjolras usually only sees him at meetings, slouched at the back sketching when he’s not arguing the point with Enjolras.
There’s a knock at the door, and Gavroche pokes his head in.
“Joanne’s ready for you guys now.” He waves a little. “Hey Grantaire, hey Marius.”
Grantaire grins. “Hey Gav.”
Cosette and Marius kiss goodbye, chastely, at the door. The children (and Grantaire) coo and yell about “girl germs” and “boy germs”.
Enjolras is quiet as they walk back down the corridor, the sounds of the children fading completely as they turn a corner.
“Enjolras?” Cosette is looking at him strangely, “are you ready?”
“Yes,” he exhales, “yes, of course.”
(The next time Enjolras and Grantaire argue, there’s a small voice at the back of Enjolras’ mind that says he does believe in something, he could believe in this too.
Enjolras asks him to design the posters.
“It would be my pleasure,” says Grantaire.)