#eeponine

***

“Who as they sung, would take the prisoned soul, and lap it in Elysium, Scylla wept and…”

A pause.

“Scylla wept and…fell?” Courfeyrac opens his eyes and squints up at the book he’s holding above his head, shading his eyes with the other hand. “What did that minx do?”

“It’s sill-uh.”

“What?”

“Sill-uh, not skill-uh,” Jehan says again, without looking up from the book of poems open on the grass in front of him. He’s resting on his elbows, chin propped on one hand. “You don’t pronounce the ‘c.’”

“Then why is it there?” Courfeyrac asks in a put-upon sort of way, making a note in the margin of his battered paperback. He’s lying on his back next to Jehan, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. His jeans are cuffed, revealing bright blue socks.

“Because it’s Greek,” the poet answers, and Courfeyrac huffs a sigh.

The two boys are lying half-in the shadow of a branching oak tree on one of the rare, coveted stretches of grass outside the Classics department. It’s ten o’clock on a Monday, and neither of them have class but Courfeyrac had coaxed Jehan out of his dorm room an hour earlier with the promise of doing homework together outside, since the day was so nice.

(Really, it was two-thirds desire to see Jehan and one-third needing to stay away from his dorm room because after the Enjolras debacle two days ago Grantaire is still threatening him with bodily harm at every available opportunity.)

Only, Courf’s been spending a lot more time trying to sneak surreptitious glances over at Jehan, and picking tiny white daisies to tuck into the other boy’s braided hair, and trying to read what he’s writing all over the pages of his book, than actually practicing his monologue for Theater 98.

Jehan is on his stomach on the dew-wet grass, wearing lavender plaid pants, a t-shirt with Totoro’s face printed across it, and an enormous floppy straw hat to shield his freckled neck and shoulders from the aggressive morning sun. He’s reading T.S. Eliot for his American Poetry course.

Or at least, he’s trying: Jehan is having trouble focusing on The Wasteland because he keeps getting distracted by the sound of Courfeyrac’s voice as he reads aloud.

Courfeyrac has one of the nicest reading voices Jehan’s ever heard, even when he’s mangling 17th-century poetry.

“She chid,” Courfeyrac says now, peering up at the text. “Don’t let me forget that. Chid. She chid her barking waves. Did anyone ever think to ask Milton what crack he was on?”

Jehan can see the other boy’s disgruntled expression from the corner of his eye, but he’s more interested in the way the dappled sunlight spills over his face in a play of light and shadow, turning his eyelashes golden.

He writes ‘incandescent’ in the corner of the page he’s on, because it seems appropriate.

“Okay,” Courfeyrac announces. “Starting over.” He flops one arm over his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Can any mortal mixture of Earth’s mold breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?” he proclaims. “Surely something holy lodges in that breast, and moves the vocal—no, and with raptures—with these raptures? With these raptures, moves the vocal air…fuck.”

He uncovers his eyes and looks over at Jehan mournfully. “I’m doomed, aren’t I?”

“You have a whole week.”

“It wouldn’t matter if I had a year,” Courfeyrac laments, and Jehan thinks (not without fondness) that if he just put as much energy into his schoolwork as he does into being dramatic, he’d be fine. “School has defeated me utterly. My professor will kill me on the spot. I will die a failure. At least make sure my eulogy is glowing.”

“I’ll have Grantaire write it,” Jehan informs him, and Courfeyrac assumes a deeply betrayed expression. “Unfeeling vixen,” he mutters. “So cruel to a man on his deathbed.”

Jehan smiles to himself and shifts his weight so he can reach over and pull the book from Courfeyrac’s hands. He sets Eliot aside and examines the lines the other boy is meant to be memorizing.

“Try again,” he prompts. “From the beginning.”

There’s a yellow ribbon threaded through his hair today, which means it’s a good day. It’s yellow or pink when he’s happy. It’s green when he’s annoyed about something. If he’s upset, he doesn’t always bother with a ribbon at all. Courfeyrac has noticed, even if Jehan himself probably hasn’t.

Courfeyrac had realized earlier this same week that his life is slowly starting to center around little things like Jehan’s ribbons and moods and likes and dislikes, and the way he had smiled sleepily at Courfeyrac this morning like he was the best thing in the world when the taller boy had appeared at his dormitory door with coffee and pink-iced doughnuts with sprinkles.

He realizes this, and recognizes that it is probably a problem.

Courfeyrac groans at the instruction, but obediently begins reciting again, with Jehan interjecting every now and then to correct a word’s pronunciation or to remind him that he’s missed a line. It’s not the smoothest thing in the world, maybe, but Courfeyrac is getting it.

A few lines in, the taller boy takes his hand where it’s resting in the grass and twines their fingers together, continuing on with the recitation as if nothing has happened, and Jehan flushes and tries to pretend like the simple touch hasn’t sent a delightful jolt of electricity through his skin.

“But such a sacred delight, such sober certainty of waking bliss, I never heard ’til now.”

Jehan frowns, tugging at a strand of hair which has slipped from his braid. “Courf, you’ve skipped seven lines. It’s the bit about Charybdis next, remember?” he asks, even though he’s hopelessly distracted by the way Courfeyrac is tracing his thumb over Jehan’s palm in light circles.

“I’ll speak to him and he shall be my prince,” Courfeyrac goes on, as if Jehan hadn’t said anything, and Jehan, who is fairly exasperated now, cries, “Courfeyrac! You’ve skipped seven lines and you’re changing the words.”

When he glances up from the text, Courfeyrac blinks at him innocently. “Am I?”

His face is much closer than it had been, because at some point during the past few minutes the taller boy has shifted so he’s lying on his side, propped up on one elbow.

“Dreadfully,” Jehan says, holding the text out so that Courf can see for himself that he’s confused the first pronoun, that it’s meant to be “queen” and not “prince,” but Courfeyrac doesn’t so much as glance at the proffered book.

Instead, his eyes travel slowly over Jehan’s face as though memorizing it, and Jehan forgets what he was saying.

“Will you?” Courfeyrac asks in a softer voice. He’s still holding Jehan’s hand in his.

“Will I what?” Jehan asks. He thinks his heartbeat must be awfully loud. He couldn’t explain why, but all of a sudden he’s filled with the most terrible, precarious sort of hope.

“Be my prince?” Courfeyrac replies simply, and Jehan’s breath catches in his throat.

It’s a ridiculous thing to say. People don’t just say things like that, not in real life, not on Monday mornings on grass by the bike racks.

It’s a ridiculous thing to say, but somehow Courfeyrac doesn’t make it sound the least bit ridiculous.

“Oh,” Jehan breathes, because oh. The hope is so strong now he thinks he might burst because of it. He looks back at the other boy, at his very green eyes and the spill of his chestnut hair and the hopeful curve of his lips.

Then, thoughtfully, he asks, “May I be a knight instead?”

Courfeyrac’s smile deepens, his eyes crinkling. Because Jehan is rapidly becoming his everything. Because whatever label the other boy wants to put on that is just fine by him. "May I kiss you?" is his response.

Jehan considers this for another achingly long moment, and then says with a deceptively sweet smile, "After you memorize your lines."

And Courfeyrac, as expected, makes a sound in his throat and knocks the book away and takes Jehan’s face in his hands and kisses him anyway.