#assorted drabbles

He watches his boyfriend's face as he tries to pick out the right note in the harmony (it's impossible; the layers meld together too well, but he likes to pretend he's got it figured out). He already knows how much singing means to him, and even if he didn't, it's written all over his face. There's a light there, a spark in his eyes, a radiant glow that could light a room; this is where he is most at home.

There's only one other time he's seen that look: with moonlight filtering in through the open window to spill onto white sheets, the only shadow on his face coming from the hand stroking his cheek. The memory smiles and leans in to kiss him, skin warm against skin.

He can't join the chorus, but that doesn't really matter, not in the long run. Because what he can do is hold his boyfriend's hand, make his boyfriend laugh, fit his body into the curves and spaces of his boyfriend's.

Grantaire was lost. He'd been lost for a long time.

His parents had had a very precise path drawn for him, of course. He was to have all of his father's brilliance with numbers, was set out to be a mathematician or an engineer of the finest caliber; he was going to leave as lasting an impression on the world of mathematics as his father had. Then he was going to settle down with a pretty girl--probably blonde--from a white upper-middle class family like their own. They'd have beautiful, intelligent children who would carry on the family tradition of excellence.

When Grantaire was in second grade, he was placed in the lowest math class. When he was in third, he couldn't remember his times tables. By the time he hit high school, he was almost remedial.

Grantaire's father gave up on him, but that didn't make his attitude toward his son any friendlier. His boy did not understand mathematics, so he would never be what his father wanted him to be, but he was still expected to be great.

There wasn't a single part of Grantaire that believed he was capable of meeting those expectations. Moreover, the older he got, the less he wanted to meet them. At the age of twelve he fancied growing up to be a glorious failure in his father's eyes, dreamed of getting kicked out of the house at sixteen, left without saying a word at midnight on his eighteenth birthday.

It didn't help that this image they always fed him of his pretty wife--blonde hair, blue eyes, pretty face, whatever--it didn't do anything for him. Around middle school, he thought he might have an idea of why. By the time he entered high school, he knew he was gay.

He did his research, read whatever crap material there was available at the time, doing everything he could to be sure before ever thinking of speaking to another person about it.

He let a comment slip one night at dinner and spent the rest of the meal listening to his father talk about how "fucking fags are ruining the country." His was the kind of house where fear and silence ruled together. As much as Grantaire wished he could say "You know, I think I'd be great at sucking cock," cowardice weighed down his tongue and stitched his lips together. He took to rebelling in much more physical ways.

He was fourteen and a freshman, but shockingly good at befriending older students who knew where to get booze and cigarettes and were perfectly happy to share--especially since he gave them cash lifted from his father's wallet in exchange.

Sophomore year, he came home one day drunk in the middle of the afternoon and stinking of tobacco, and his father didn't even notice. So he gave up.

He went from drinking occasionally with friends to drinking often with strangers--there were a lot of people in sketchy parts of town who were happy to help a teenager out when his fake ID wasn't cutting it. He went to every party he heard about--and god did he hear about the parties--drinking himself past memory during most of them. He celebrated his fifteenth birthday by getting trashed and losing his virginity to someone he'd never met and whose name he doesn't know; he just remembers dark hair, a jawline that could cut glass, a smile that made his stupid teenaged knees buckle, and a tongue that made his stupid teenaged dick hard as a rock.

He doesn't remember the sex, but he certainly felt it the next day.

He barely graduated high school. It's funny--he aced every assignment he turned in, could have aced every test if he'd bothered to show up. There were English classes where he got the top grade on essays the others struggled with, art history classes where he got every question right without staying awake through a single class of the chapter, but he just couldn't be bothered to spend his days in school.

He spent them wandering the streets with a cigarette in his mouth instead.

He still doesn't really know how he spent the year after he left home, after he graduated, because he certainly wasn't in college. He was homeless, he was unemployed; he was resourceful, he called in favors, he stole, he sold, and he got by.

When he was nineteen, he got checked into the emergency room with a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, and two cracked ribs. He'd asked for one favor too many, and no one could ever say he wasn't a fighter, but four against one isn't anything like a fair fight.

He sent the bill to his rich father, read off the credit card number from memory, and decided it might be time to make a change.

He took out loans, got a job at the only shitty cafe that would take him (christ they had a high employee turnaround, but it was money, and he could take the owners' shit as long as he needed to), and signed up for classes at the community college.

He went for art history and English literature for the most part, because he'd always done well with them, and because he didn't hate them. He figured he'd take one with him to university as a major, he if got in.

A couple of years later, he was transferring into university on a scholarship of all things, one that paid for most of his classes and which he's still sure was meant for someone else.

He was short a few GEs, so he walked into an upper division poli-sci class and made his first real friend.

He was startled by the authenticity with which they spoke to him; it wasn't something he'd encountered very often from the crowd he used to spend time with. But all of a sudden he had friends who not only tolerated him, but welcomed him with open arms and open hearts, who made him one of them without hesitation.

Courfeyrac had a smile that warmed him in a very different way than the nameless, faceless guy who'd fucked him into a mattress all those years back; this felt good and natural, like coming home to a lit fireplace after a cold winter afternoon.

There was Bahorel, who would match him drink for drink before having a good-natured round of sparring with him; there was Jehan, who refused to let a day go by without speaking to every one of his friends at least once; there was Combeferre, who let him borrow as many books from the library as he wanted, even when they had no bearing on the classes Grantaire was taking; there was Feuilly, who understood perfectly Grantaire's enthusiasm for learning outside the classroom because it was how he'd learned everything he knows.

And then there was Enjolras, Enjolras who breathed light into everyone around him, Enjolras who stood like a warrior, Enjolras who said stupid things and had stupid plans that Grantaire would never in his life agree with, but which he goes along with because he knows it's how best he can keep them all--his friends and, to a lesser extent, himself--safe.

Grantaire was lost.