AU where Grantaire is a hugely famous and successful fashion designer aged thirty (like, Alexander McQueen famous), who owns this international multi-billion dollar fashion house, but is also hugely famous for the fact that he’s anonymous, like, only ten trusted people at the top know his real name (one of them is probably Eponine, no, its definitely Eponine, she is his PA), everyone else knows him just as R, most of the people working for him have never even seen him. Outside of his fashion house he lives with Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta (he also owns their building which is why the rent is so low but shush they don’t know), who just think he’s their little cynic artist, like, they have no clue what he does because he’s just so vague when asked, ‘sell art shit’ is his usual response. And they keep asking him to come to Les Amis meetings but he just refuses every time.
And so one day he’s working on this really big collection that’s based on the Greek Gods and Eponine rings him one day and is like ‘we’ve found Apollo’, and texts him pictures of Enjolras (whose parents cut him off as usually happens in fanfic, and who Courfeyrac pushed into modelling part time because ‘you are the most beautiful human to exist you’ll make enough doing a week to retire for life’) and Grantaire’s just like ‘Eponine how much photoshop was used no one is that beautiful’ ‘Well see if he lives up to the photos yourself he’s over to your office’ ‘I’m not even at my office’ ‘well get the fuck over there’. And of course Enjolras doesn’t really want to be there because, even though R’s house is really famously progressive and actually does plus-sized stuff it’s still the fashion industry, it’s still a steaming pile of elitist shit. So they get arguing and it gets incredibly heated and after half an hour of outright yelling Grantaire just plays a klaxon noise on his computer and shouts ‘you are hired’, pressing the intercom ‘Eponine I’ve hired the guy, go show him the ropes’.
So begins a month of sexual tension, incredibly argumentative flirting, or flirty arguing, clothes designing and angst. (Grantaire also just keeps gifting Enjolras clothes and Courfeyrac just whines that its not fair that Enjolras gets all that couture when he doesn’t even appreciate it ‘look at this leather jacket Enj, it is one of a kind, it has been perfectly tailored for you, this is the bespoke of bespoke, we do not leave it on the floor!’)
And finally one day after the Joly-Bossuet-Musichetta trio have wheedled and whined and poked and prodded Grantaire for a week he finally throws up his hands and says ‘if it’s at a bar and I can drink I will come to your stupid activist meeting’. So they head off and its all nice and the leader isn’t there yet so they introduce him to everyone and they all chat and make friends and Grantaire thinks ‘this isn’t bad, I may enjoy myself’. Then Courfeyrac looks towards the door and says brightly ‘ah here comes our fearless leader’. And Grantaire looks over as well and the fearless leader is, of course, Enjolras and Grantaire just thinks ‘of all the activist groups in France my friends frequent the same one that my crush and employee who I argue with on a daily basis runs, of course’. And Enjolras comes over and stops still, Combeferre starts to introduce him and Enjolras just stops him and is like ‘R what are you doing here!?’ and everyone’s like ‘you know each other?’ and Enjolras turns to Combeferre and Courfeyrac and says ‘this is my boss’.
Everything goes to shit for an hour.
The meeting never actually happens.
They’re too busy interrogating Grantaire.
‘You own R? You’re R! We’ve lived with you since college and you never told us!’
‘You’re R! Your clothes are works of art I am not worthy!’
‘How did you keep this secret for ten years!’
‘I am going to kill Eponine I can’t believe she never told us!’
*Courfeyrac is cannot evening*
‘Grantaire I am legitimately impressed by your ability to maintain a double life, have you ever considered fighting crime?’
‘How did you not know I ran this activist group! How!’
‘You own our fucking building! You give us rent money every month! You pay yourself to live in your own flat!’
Eventually things calm down. Eponine is not allowed to live down the fact that she knew everything and never told anyone.
Everyone begins operation ‘get E and R together’. Chaos ensues, Enjolras and Grantaire get together, life is good.
Grantaire ends up hooking Courf up with clothing that hasn’t even reached the stores yet.
Courf also models part time because Of course Courf always puts on his best clothes and practically poses whenever Grantaire comes in a room and eventually he just sighs and is just
“If I let you model my new line, will you please stop acting like a tool?”
*excited Courf noises*
Chetta convinces R to make a sexy sleep wear for both men and woman AND OF COURSE HE HAS THE TRUSTY POLY TRIO MODEL DOWN THE RUNWAY IN IT BECAUSE FUCK IT
//Enjolras also models, but he ends up not wearing it long after he gets off the catwalk//He gifts feuilly so many different kinds of comfortable and stylish work clothes.
He also makes Bahorel fitted and high quality work out gear
Marius gets socks as an inside joke, but does end up giving him the occasional suit for dates
Cosette gets dresses. All the dresses.
Entertainingly someone asked me for more headcanons (yours are awesome btw) when I originally made this post, so I came up with the story of how Cosette managed to blackmail Grantaire into designing her a wedding dress for free.
And this is like, the most beautiful Disney princess dress.
It is something along these lines:
But definitely once Grantaire is outed as the fashion designer R he just throws clothes at everyone.
Especially Jehan.
He has been holding back on it for so long but Jehan needs someone who can actually fashion to do his clothes.
Grantaire doesn’t particularly care that Jehan dresses in an outlandish, loud and ridiculously flamboyant manner, he just cares that Jehan has the fashion sense of a blind raccoon, so designs an extensive, coherent wardrobe of snazzy, flowy, loud and flamboyant clothes.
It also explains several things, such as ‘I knew the van Gogh in the hall was real! Grantaire you little shit you convinced me it was a copy for four years!’ for the trusty poly trio.
Life with them is just ridiculous for R for several weeks after the big reveal.
Because they keep just asking him shit ‘what else didn’t we know!’ ‘Do you have a long lost twin?’ ‘Are you married?’ ‘Is Grantaire even your real name?’ ‘If you own the building why don’t we live in one of the biggest flats, Mrs. Simplice from No. 55 has a motherfucking ballroom, why can’t we have a ballroom!’ ‘What do you even do with all your money!’ You lied to us for ten years, how can we ever trust you again!’ *Joly looks at his coffee* ‘I don’t even know if this is actually decaf, I don’t know anything anymore, my best friend has been lying to me for all these years!’
They are so melodramatic and R is so done with their shit.
