Anonymous asked: oooooh, i would love a exr shortie where e has to teach r how to dance and it's very frustrating and they feel thINGS, please?
*hides face* Oh my God, it’s been like a MONTH, I am so sorry, but HERE. There is dancing and feelings and kissing and Enjolras actually having a social life because Courfeyrac forces him to. Also, I seem to have a tendency to write ‘getting their shit together’ ficlets so if you want…not that, feel free to ask. And if you want the reverse of this where Grantaire teaches Enjolras to dance, it is here.
Enjolras goes to clubs. It’s not especially common knowledge, because he’s usually too busy, but whenever Courfeyrac feels like it’s necessary, he’ll drag Enjolras out to a nightclub, pour a few shots into him, and turn him loose for a few hours with instructions to not think too much. This time, it’s a group outing, all of Les Amis laughing and tactile with alcohol, hands on arms and cheeks flushed with the triumph of their latest protest.
Joly, giggly with his second rum and coke, is the one to start the dancing, pushing Musichetta and Bousset onto the dance floor ahead of him. The three of them fit together like puzzle pieces, Musichetta’s petite body pressed back against Joly’s chest and Bousset’s broad shoulders behind the pair of them. They’ve clearly done this before, because Bousset and Musichetta know just how to move so that Joly can dance without aggravating his limp. It’s fluid and sensual, Musichetta’s head tipped back on Joly’s shoulder and her smile dazzling up at her boys, and Enjolras feels the brief pause around him, the rest of them caught up in the trio’s giddy joy.
“Aw, they’re cute,” Cosette says, and Éponine smirks, finishes her scotch, and pinches Marius hard in the side. He yelps and flails—not a graceful man at the best of times, and less so with alcohol—but gets the hint, shyly offering his hand to Cosette and letting her tug him onto the floor. Éponine is still snickering when she darts out herself, bouncing and coiling like a ribbon in the dim club lights.
“I don’t dance,” Feuilly says in a preemptive tone, and Bahorel laughs, booming and happy.
“We’ll see about that once you’ve had a couple more,” he says, a glint in his eye, and Feuilly drains the rest of his beer with a shake of his head.
Enjolras watches the dancing for another few minutes—Jehan is dancing with Éponine now, their hands clasped and a complicated sort of twirling motion underway, like children playing a spinning game. Courfeyrac, possibly through blackmail or bribery, has managed to drag his boyfriend onto the floor, and Combeferre proves willing to dance as long as Courfeyrac does most of the work.
Enjolras is passing buzzed and nearing drunk by the time Courfeyrac, glistening with a light sheen of sweat on his cheeks and hair wild from Combeferre’s fingers, pounces on him and snatches him by the collar.
“You’re going to dance,” Courfeyrac says, and doesn’t so much as give Enjolras a chance to reply, plucking his drink from his fingers and dragging him onto the dance floor.
Now, here is another thing that often surprises people: Enjolras can dance. He knows how to let his brain turn off and his muscles move to the heavy bass of the music. On the dance floor, he’s all long limbs and golden hair and liquid sinews, and he loves it, the freedom of it—he doesn’t need to think or plan or fight, he can just be. He shuts his eyes and tosses his head back and lets the beat of the music snatch him up and pull him away.
By the time he opens his eyes, it’s been…a while. He can’t judge how long exactly, feeling almost as intoxicated by the pulse of the crowd as by the alcohol, but it’s been long enough that Bahorel has managed to herd Feuilly onto the dance floor. Feuilly looks exasperated, but his hand is up around the back of Bahorel’s neck and he isn’t putting up a fight—if he really wanted to, Feuilly could probably take Bahorel in a scuffle, so Enjolras figures that the exasperation is entirely for show. In fact, Enjolras notes, all of his friends are on the dance floor, except…
Grantaire is still at the bar, watching them with an absently fond expression and a glass of brandy dangling from paint-stained fingers. There’s a flush high on his cheeks, above the line of his stubble, and Enjolras wonders how much he must have had to drink to manage it.
It bothers Enjolras more than he’d expected, to see Grantaire sitting alone surrounded by the abandoned drinks and detritus of their group. To see Grantaire apart, without the laughing grin Joly and Bousset put on his face, or the steady, wry affection he directs at Éponine and her brother, or the glint in his eye when he argues with Enjolras.
“Why isn’t Grantaire dancing?” Enjolras asks Courfeyrac, wriggling through the crowd so that he can speak without shouting himself hoarse.
Courfeyrac peels himself away from where he was draped over Combeferre and looks back at Grantaire with a dissatisfied sort of expression, the one he gets when he feels like he should be able to do something. “He said,” he tells Enjolras in frustration, “that he doesn’t know how to dance like this. I tried to tell him it didn’t matter—look at Marius for a second—but he said he was fine just watching.”
Enjolras frowns. He might be drunker than he thought, because he normally doesn’t let silences drag on, but it takes him a moment to clap Courfeyrac on the shoulder and say, “Right.”
He’s almost certainly drunker than he thought, he revises as his feet carry him toward the dark-haired man at the edge of the floor. Because if he wasn’t drunk, he’d remember that he and Grantaire fight almost incessantly and that Grantaire seems to do it just to fight and that Grantaire is probably going to stare at him like he’s lost his mind. He marches up to him anyway and catches Grantaire’s wrist (strong-boned and steady, Enjolras notes, and he licks his lips because his mouth is dry with exertion).
“Apollo,” Grantaire says, startled.
“Come dance,” Enjolras says—he means to say something more eloquent, but it seems impractical to sidle around his goal. And, yes, there’s the stare, Grantaire’s changeable blue-green eyes wide under his lashes and flickering from Enjolras’ face to his hand as if he doesn’t understand what’s being said to him.
“I don’t know how,” Grantaire says, and that…seems off somehow, to Enjolras, but he ignores it and plucks the glass of brandy out of Grantaire’s fingers, pulling on his wrist firmly. “Enjolras.”
“I can show you. Come on, R, dance with me,” Enjolras says, holding Grantaire’s gaze and giving another tug on his arm.
Grantaire’s eyes flicker, wild, over Enjolras’ face and shoulders, past him to the others, and finally he says—whispers, really, as if Enjolras has electrocuted him and he can’t quite breathe, “Okay.”
He lets Enjolras pull him onto the dance floor—Enjolras is long and lanky, but Grantaire has several inches on him and broad-shouldered, strong enough that Enjolras knows he’s letting him—and manhandle him around until Grantaire is standing behind him, hands resting compliantly on Enjolras’ hips. Grantaire’s hands are broad and warm through Enjolras’ clothes, resting feather-light on his hips as if to let Enjolras pull away at any moment. There’s space between them, but not much, the warmth of Grantaire’s chest tangible at Enjolras’ back.
“Good,” Enjolras says, and he’s…breathless, he realizes. He’s danced like this with his other friends before, with strangers, but never with Grantaire, and somehow this is different. But if he backs out now, Grantaire, who is an intelligent man without the self-esteem God gave a teacup, will give that smile that looks sad and completely understanding, and Enjolras is too drunk to deal with that right now. So he settles his hands over Grantaire’s and swings his hips slowly and says, “Just move to the music.”
Grantaire is stiff as stone for a moment, and then he seems to relax all at once, tentatively moving in an imitation of Enjolras.
They fit together like this, Enjolras realizes with a start. Grantaire has an apparently inherent gift for matching tempo, and when Enjolras takes a step backward, he finds himself pressed against the length of Grantaire’s chest. It’s good, Grantaire warm and broad behind him and the music shuddering between them, even better than dancing alone. One of Grantaire’s hand brushes up the side of Enjolras’ ribs, absentminded, and Enjolras reaches up with one hand to wind his fingers into Grantaire’s wild curls.
The distracted tug he gives earns a hiss, Grantaire’s breath warm on the back of Enjolras’ neck, and he turns, so that they’re face to face. They’re closer than he thought—no, that’s ridiculous, he knew they were pressed together, but there’s something about being faced with Grantaire’s eyes, wide and slightly dazed, that makes it feel immediate. His pupils are blown, hypnotic and dark, and Enjolras means to say something like ‘you can stop if you’re uncomfortable,’ but instead he finds himself saying, accusatory, “You said you couldn’t dance.”
Grantaire looks startled, then huffs out a laugh. He sounds almost as dizzily breathless as Enjolras feels. “I teach ballroom dance,” he says, wry. “Club dancing is a lot less complicated than a tango. I just…I’m not good at this.”
“Obviously you are,” Enjolras insists, and realizes that his hand has slid down from Grantaire’s hair to his shoulder. “Wait, good at what?”
“You, Apollo, are drunk,” Grantaire observes with another smile. Enjolras is distracted from his question by the way Grantaire’s eyes glitter in the club lights, the way they gleam off his white teeth.
“You’re perfectly good at this,” Enjolras says, opting to ignore Grantaire’s remark. “So why do you sit alone? Anyone here would dance with you if you asked.”
Grantaire sighs and starts to pull back and fuck, that’s not okay, that is officially not allowed, he has to stay here. Enjolras’ grip tightens until Grantaire stops, possibly for fear that Enjolras is going to damage the seams of his green t-shirt.
“Look, Enjolras,” Grantaire says, “I appreciate you not wanting me to be lonely, but you’ve done something about it now, and I’m really not looking for a pity dance, so–”
“R, shut up,” Enjolras says, and he has to prove that he wants Grantaire here, apparently, so he does the first thing that comes to mind.
He drags him down and kisses him full on the lips. There’s a beat of unresponsiveness—like when they started dancing, a small part of Enjolras’ brain says—before Grantaire kisses him back and Enjolras’ brain fizzles out in its entirety. He can’t think beyond the steady drag of Grantaire’s lips against his, the hands on his back and the shoulder under his palm, and maybe it’s that, or the alcohol, or the dancing, but things click together crisp and clear. I want this, Enjolras realizes, and then Grantaire nips at his lip and even that trace of coherency is gone. There’s a distant sound, like someone whooping ecstatically, but for all Enjolras cares it could be someone screaming as the roof falls in.
“I want you to dance with me,” Enjolras breathes shakily once they part, and Grantaire looks even more dazed than before. “I’m not so drunk I don’t know that.”
“All right,” Grantaire says, helpless, and Enjolras presses another kiss to his lips.
