#courfiusweek

“Come now. Someone might want to steal that nice backpack of yours. You know, the one with your name appliqued on it.” he elbowed his friend, trying to get him to laugh. “I’ve heard the name Marius is very trendy now. Everyone would want to have an item that granted them that wonderful name.”

“Do you really think my name is wonderful?” Marius looked up at him with such hope in his eyes it practically glowed. It was as if he was a plant that someone had forgotten to water for weeks, and survived only on the tiniest bit of rainfall. Who had given this handsome young man so few compliments in his life?

“I think you’re wonderful,” Courfeyrac blurted out, and hastened to add “at being my roommate. You’re quite good at it. Most aren’t, I’ll have you know.”

“I can’t imagine why…” Marius said, but lightly, as he surveyed the disaster of an apartment. There were an assortment of abandoned coffee mugs on the table, wine bottles of dubious origin waiting for next week’s party in a row, a pile of dirty laundry Courfeyrac had meant to get to… yesterday.

It wasn’t that he meant to be messy, and in fact, he quite liked when his apartment was spotless. It was just… lately he’d been distracted. Unable to focus. He found himself staring aimlessly at the wall in class, or meandering down hallways he had no reason to go down, or worse yet, forgetting to go to the gym, and instead sitting home, watching Great British Bakeoff.

Courfeyrac, in short, was due for a romantic entanglement.

It was either that or run off to England to try and impress Mary Berry with his only functionally recipe: Rice Krispie Treats, but made with Lucky Charms, for extra marshmallow action.

No, surely, a rendezvous with an amorous person was a far better idea, and not just because he’d burned through the only mixing bowl they had when he’d tried to make pancakes for himself and Marius last sunday.

Which was why he’d skipped class to perch on the couch and swipe through candidates on Tinder. A task he should get back to.

A task he needed to get back to, instead of watching as Marius sang to the cat-with-the-disputed-name as he poured her a helping of kibble. The one thing more pathetic than him had been that bedraggled cat he’d brought home last week, tucked safe in his soaked-beyond-repair coat.

But the little scamp had blossomed into queen of the home, happy, healthy, and quite delighted to take up space anywhere she chose.

Maybe Marius could learn a thing or two from that cat.

The next day, Marius came back from class to find Courfeyrac sitting in one of his usual positions on the couch, legs up in the air, back against the place most people sat. He’d never quite figured out why the russet haired man preferred to sit in a thousand unusual ways, but he found it rather charming. But also, like so much about Courf, baffling.

And then, he sniffed the air.

“You cleaned!”

The apartment was now spotless. All coffee mugs had vanished, the carpet appeared a few shades lighter, and even Madame Gris, where she sat on the window, watching birds outside, looked rather cleaner.  Though, seeing as she washed her paws more than either of her roommates washed the dishes, that was probably her doing.

“Ah, yes. I did.” Courfeyrac said. “Does it look nice? And smell nice? There’s this new lavender spray I found.”

“It does.” Marius said. “What’s the occasion?”

“I’ve got a date. Or rather, I have five dates, and I just have to make up my mind which fine person I shall bring back here.”

“Five dates? In a day?” Marius found himself staggering backward. “How?”

“It’s called tinder!” Courfeyrac neatly tumbled off the couch, and bounced over to Marius. “Check it out. You see people’s faces, and you swipe them right if you like them?”

“Swipe. Them?” Marius stared down at the screen. A rather familiar young man stared up at him, his chiseled jaw seemingly made out of marble. “Oh, I’m in French 201 with him.”

“Ah, no! That won’t do.” Courfeyrac quickly swiped his thumb to the left on the screen. “I banish thee, friend of Marius! I shall never match with you as surely, we shall kiss, and you shall pine for me forever, ruining your friendship with dear Marius.”

“I don’t think he’s the pining type…” Marius started, but he felt a smile pulling at his face. Courf’s antics always had a way of making him forget his courseload, his own lack of love, and well, everything that made him, according to Grantaire, a bit of an Eeyore. (when, really, it was rather hypocritical for that scruffy six-year-senior to be calling out anyone else’s lovelorn moping around.) “and um, we’re not friends, I mean, if you did want to kiss him…”

“Nonsense. I shall not impinge upon your friendship with the golden haired Hercules of Corinth College.”

Madame Gris bounded over to Marius, mewing, and he picked up the young kitten, scratching her under her chin just like she liked. “So, this Tinder. You can use it to… meet people?”

“Well, yes, meeting is sometimes an end game. Me? I find it fun! It’s like... “ Courfeyrac threw out his hands. “It’s like making a collection! Of people! Who are attracted to me, and I to them! What could be better?”

Marius thought perhaps a long walk on the beach under a moonlight sky with just one person might be a little better.

He also thought Courfeyrac might not appreciate it. “Well, good luck, um, finding your soulmate.”

“Soul mate? Pffft.” Courfeyrac leaned in to pet Madame Gris’s back. Unlike most cats, she seemed to thrive on the attention, and started to purr.

“You don’t believe in soul mates?”

“I don’t believe they’re found on Tinder, that’s for sure.” Courfeyrac replied. “Isn’t that right, Smaug?”

“Madame Gris.”

“Smaug.”

Courfeyrac looked directly at Marius, challenging him to a staring contest. And Marius stared back, finding those green eyes unexpectedly deep, with little flecks of gold in them that sparkled like summer sun. Courfeyrac’s smile grew. “You’ve blinked a bunch, my dear monk-like roommate.”

“I… have?” he wet his lips, finding them suddenly dry. “Um. Teach me to use Tinder?”

Anything to distract from how those eyes made him feel.

Courfeyrac was delighted to share with his roommate, who usually asked so little of him, even though Courfeyrac had much to spare. In fact, Marius’s own phone was Courfeyrac’s own. He’d claimed that he was due for an upgrade, and no longer needed it, but that wasn’t… exactly true.

But it only had cost seventy dollars to break his contract, and Marius didn’t need to know that. It was more important that his friend had a way of being reached that wasn’t the ancient flip phone he’d bought with the last of his work study pay check. Marius’s work as a tutor was dependent on just how many students needed translating help, which seemed to rise and fall with the proximity to midterms and finals.

Other than that, Marius had nothing.

Courfeyrac had noticed cards marked “return to sender,” that were certainly that oblong rectangle shape of the weirdly-specific gift cards that older folks used to mail checks in. But whoever sent the money, Marius did not like.

And not dislike in the way Courfeyrac felt terribly embarrassed by his own fathers, who decided to “embrace the old country” by adding some obscure participle back onto their name. Courf was quite sure that the participle was utterly made up, and therefore utterly embarrassing. As embarrassing as those “google your own family crest” things, or socks with sandals or Hawaiian print shirts worn unironically… or any other fashion his fathers sported.

Two dads meant twice as many pairs of Dad Jeans in the house.

Which was why he rebelled with carefully selected outfits. Tailored trousers, perfectly fitting jackets, crisp shirts, and soft sweaters in just the right shade of green. Even his workout clothes were ensembles, with tees carefully selected to match various pairs of tennis shoes.

Marius had, as far as he could tell, three shirts, one pair of black jeans, and one pair of blue. Not that he’d cataloged what his roommate wore, of course.

Not that he’d notice how sharp Marius looked in that white tee that clung to surprisingly well-sculpted shoulders, before he’d pull on an ancient green sweater that Courfeyrac had insisted he take to not freeze in the November air.

“Have you taken a selfie yet? You know you can add more. It’s not supposed to be a work of art” Courfeyrac leaned over Marius’s shoulder, feeling his roommate's stubble brush against his own smooth cheek. He cleared his throat, unexpectedly “I mean. Unless you want it to be. You could be a work of art, you know.”

“Why? Because this sweater is old enough to be in a museum?”

“Hah. Hah.” Courfeyrac rolled his eyes, but blushed, glad Marius hadn’t heard the compliment that slipped out. “Right. So you’ve got your selfies, you've got--- goodness, Pontmercy, did you have to write a textbook for your bio?”

“I wanted to share my political beliefs.”

“It begins “Live, Laugh, Love.”

“Those are very political things! The pursuit of happiness!”

“Yes, sure.” He tousled Mariu’s hair, feeling the soft inky curls glid over his fingers. It was more an excuse to play with his hair than anything else. “Now, all you have to do is this: swipe left on the people you don’t like, and right on the people you do.”

“Then what?”

Then, he’d met some new love of his life, some shiny new soulmate, and never shut up about her, probably. Courfeyrac used the generic people, but he’d never heard of Marius being interested in anyone other than Cosette, who dumped him for his friend Eponine

Maybe this was a terrible idea.

Oh, why did he never think before he did things?

“Um, well, you can’t message them unless they’ve already swiped right on you too.”

“Ah. So we have to mutually like each other before we can speak.”

“Yup. have fun!” Courfeyrac said, and even to his own ears, he sounded false cheerful. He sprang up from the couch, scooped up Smaug, and headed to the other side of the room, intent on studying so he didn’t have to watch the roommate-he-was-certainly-not-crushing-on pursue a new soulmate.