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Chapter Text

Feuilly and Bossuet helped boost Prouvaire up and over a rusting chainlink fence that rattled and swayed against his dismount into the chemical factory's yard. Prouvaire's feet on wet grass squealed and Bahorel, watching him run, turned to Enjolras and said, "Sorry, sorry," which was uncharacteristically apologetic enough it woke Enjolras up.

Grantaire's hand was on his shoulder.

"Sorry," Grantaire repeated, "I called from the doorway and that did not seem to work." He removed his hand.

Enjolras scowled, squinted, and twisted up into a sitting position. "Hello?" His legs were tangled in the blanket; his head felt muzzy.

Grantaire smiled and tried to help him unwind the blanket from around his calf. "Wow, you are a seriously heavy sleeper."

"Yes," Enjolras huffed, "sometimes."

Grantaire, wearing plaid pajama pants, did not seem to have been asleep recently. In the dim light of Enjolras's bedroom were the darker shadows under Grantaire's eyes indicative of emotional turmoil?

A good friend would inquire. It would be polite and distracting, and to this end Enjolras did not ask, Why aren't you wearing a shirt? but rather the all-encompassing, "What's up?"

"The puppy," Grantaire started, and Enjolras groaned.

(If he closed his eyes again he would not in any way be confronted with The Puppy. Or Grantaire's...bare chest.)

"The puppy had milk and a bit of mush at eleven," Enjolras said. "We did the whole tummy rub-cotton ball combo, he eliminated normally, and then he fell asleep in his pillow barricade with the toy kitten. I swear he's been sleeping through the night," he insisted, keeping a hand flung over his eyes.

"Occasionally puppies wander," Grantaire said in a patient tone of voice that made Enjolras want to slug him.

Enjolras made sure his line of sight would be the ceiling and opened his eyes. "Meaning?"

"Listen."

Enjolras listened and didn't hear anything but the distant hum of the refrigerator.

"I don't--"

"Shh," Grantaire said.

Enjolras took a breath for willpower and as he was exhaling ten counts, he heard the slightest, faintest howl of distress.

A vicious chill washed over him so quickly he almost pushed Grantaire to the floor in scrambling out of the bed.

When he snapped on the couch-side floor lamp, the living room appeared untouched by any obvious chaos, with no regrettable fluids dribbled along the rugs. The purple kitten remained watchful, but the barricade in the corner had nevertheless been structurally undermined: two toppled pillows created a puppy-sized hole.

The tiny howling grew louder.

Enjolras dropped to his knees and started searching under all the furniture. He was aware of Grantaire behind him, stifling a laugh.

"Help me," he said, not bothering to pretend it wasn't a mandate.

"Here, here," Grantaire said, sounding amused as hell for someone possibly exhausted, "he's under here." He knelt down in front of an old credenza of Combeferre's that Enjolras had turned into a file cabinet. He extended a hand, caught Enjolras's wrist and tugged him sideways.

The puppy yipped. He isn't even big enough yet for barking, Enjolras thought. He probably doesn't recognize the sound of his own voice.

"Why didn't you pull him out?" Enjolras asked Grantaire. He reached a hand as far under the credenza as he could and didn't touch anything furry except a dust bunny (gross). Maybe if he laid down flat...?

"You asked me to help you, not the puppy," Grantaire said.

Enjolras straightened up and glared at him. "You're being kinda pedantic."

The puppy was scrambling around, wimpering.

"No, listen, he needs to learn how to find his way out from under there."

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. "He's only a baby. He's scared."

Grantaire took another outwardly tolerant breath and Enjolras wondered where the fuck this calm, conscientious person was when he was asked to do useful things for more important causes than 3-week-old puppies. Things that would require shirts.

Like Grantaire knew what Enjolras was thinking, he smirked; then he seemed to think better of it. "He's not hurt, he's quasi-lost. All you have to do is lead him out by your scent."

He reached up and from off the couch produced the wrinkled sweater Enjolras had worn yesterday, which Enjolras distinctly remembered putting in the laundry basket.

He must have grimaced because Grantaire grinned. "Don't worry, I'm not going to make a habit of rummaging through your dirty duds."

"Then why?"

"Gonna put this right here," Grantaire said, spreading out the sweater in front of the credenza, "and then we're going to back up."

He crawled backward to the middle of the living room floor. Enjolras crawled back to sit beside him. No wonder Grantaire didn't bother with shirts in the dead of night in wintertime -- he must have been giving off the heat of three furnaces. Enjolras was not intrigued by this unexpected knowledge in the slightest.

In a minute, a wet little nose began to sniff the sleeve of the sweater. The puppy sniffed his way out from beneath the credenza and gave the sweater a thorough going over. When he saw Enjolras he did his funny crooked half-wobble half-shamble over to him; Enjolras couldn't determine if the puppy's actions were evidence of relief, or if he was just happy to see him, his harrowing misadventure mere seconds ago already forgotten.

Enjolras scooped up the puppy, having resolved, and failed, not to make cooing noises at him. "Hi, hi, hi," he told the puppy, who squirmed and yipped and tried to crawl onto his neck.

Grantaire said, "Success." He stroked a hand over the puppy's back -- the puppy would fit in one of Grantaire's palms, Enjolras thought -- and the puppy wiggled around to lick his fingers.

The puppy, in fact, alternated between enthusiastic finger licking and nipping at Enjolras's hair. Enjolras resigned himself to the fact that this puppy was now definitively wide awake. Grantaire leaned over to boop the puppy's nose with his own; the puppy vibrated with glee.

"He likes you," Enjolras said.

"Wow, no need to sound so shocked that someone likes me," Grantaire said.

"No, that's..."

Enjolras watched Grantaire watching the puppy, the smile playing on his mouth. Enjolras imagined tracing the outline of that mouth with his thumb.

"That's not what I meant," he said, blinking away the unintended image.

Grantaire glanced at him, some rueful sympathy in his expression Enjolras couldn't quite place. "You're tired, it's okay."

Enjolras said, "You must be tired too. It's late. Or early, I guess."

The puppy sneezed, both adorably and disgustingly, and began a campaign to live on Enjolras's head.

"Okay, easy there, buddy," Grantaire said, helping Enjolras keep the puppy at ground level. The two of them gave up simultaneously, and the puppy lurched away towards his barricade.

Grantaire scrubbed a hand over his face; he was still trying not to laugh.

"Should we... Do you think we should sleep in here with him?" Enjolras asked, feeling as out of his depth as he'd ever felt while, for instance, being wrestled to the ground by cops.

Grantaire said, "He likes the heating pad you're using. But if he's going to get nosey every night." He stopped, scratched his elbow. "Despite the absence of my lawyer, I'm going to admit at this stage I'm not exactly sure what else you should be doing for him. I don't think it's safe for him to sleep in your bed yet."

"I'm not keeping him," Enjolras said for the 900th time. "So that's not a habit we should encourage anyway."

Grantaire looked at him again. Enjolras looked away.

"Maybe we sleep in here tonight, just in case," Grantaire said finally.

Enjolras got up and rummaged through the hallway closet for the two quilts he'd inherited from his grandmothers. Grantaire left to grab bed pillows.

Upon returning, he said, "I'll take the floor."

"You're the guest, take the couch."

"Don't you have that meeting first thing? Take the couch."

"I'm not going to argue about this."

"I'm sleeping right here," Grantaire said, plopping beside the barricade, the quilt he'd taken flaring out dramatically. The puppy waddled over to sniff him.

While Grantaire arranged his pallet Enjolras wrapped himself in his quilt, turned off the lamp, and with a complete lack of elegance threw himself nearby on the floor. The puppy yipped and yipped and wobbled back and forth between the two quilt cocoons.

"Shh," Enjolras crooned at him. "Go get your kitty."

Grantaire snickered.

"Shut up," Enjolras said. The puppy disobeyed him, regardless. "He's never going to go back to sleep, is he?"

"You can go to sleep. I'll stay awake." Grantaire yawned, though. The puppy took the opportunity to lick Grantaire's chin.

"Why don't we," Enjolras said, trailing off as he scooted closer to Grantaire. He grabbed the edge of the heating pad, thankful for its long puppy-proof cord, and laid it between himself and Grantaire.

The puppy stomped around on it and basked in being petted -- by Grantaire, though Enjolras found himself doing it as well, his fingers brushing against Grantaire's by accident -- and abruptly, like a robot dog with an on-off switch, plunked down on the pad and fell sound asleep.

"You are a genius," Grantaire said. "A veritable puppy whisperer."

"Hrm," Enjolras said to disguise how pleased he felt.

Grantaire curled down into his quilt; his eyelashes were inky against his cheeks. Enjolras watched him breathe, aware that he shouldn't.

"You have to name him," Grantaire said, at the exact moment Enjolras had decided he was sleeping.

"He's not mine," Enjolras said.

Grantaire opened his eyes, pinned Enjolras with a look. "He really is," he said quietly.

When Enjolras didn't respond, Grantaire's eyes drifted shut. The puppy snored.

Enjolras lay awake, attempting to think of an answer that would suffice, one where it wouldn't be quite as clear they had and had not been talking about a very small beagle.

Chapter Text

"If the fever isn't lower, or if it spikes again, I want you to strongly consider going to an immediate care clinic as soon as the nearest one opens." Joly paused. "Even though that chain down the street from you is a hate-filled capitalist-fascist corporation beholden to its most crooked investors."

Enjolras agreed with him about the drugstore, whose CEO had recently been indicted for many millions in insurance fraud, but on the other hand the drugstore was open 24/7, and at midnight Enjolras had spent $32.71 there on fractionally useful pharmaceuticals.

"I think he's finally sleeping," he said. On the other end of the line Joly cleared his throat.

"He won't mind," Joly said.

"He really won't," Bossuet agreed, who seemed to be in a cave when Enjolras was reasonably sure he was just somewhere on the other side of Joly.

Enjolras had what were to his mind very clear rules about unasked-for touching, but after hanging up the phone he was nevertheless tiptoeing into his own guest bedroom at 2 a.m., thermometer at the ready. He sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed Grantaire's curls away from his right ear.

Grantaire gave a small whine and pressed his face further into the pillow.

"Sorry," Enjolras whispered, "but Joly was insistent I take your temperature again and make sure the ibuprofen's working."

Grantaire hadn't opened his eyes. Enjolras laid his palm gently on the side of his neck. Definitely still feverish.

"Mmrph," Grantaire said.

Enjolras used the ear thermometer with as much accuracy as he could -- it was a nice thermometer, part of a first aid kit Christmas present from Combeferre, who'd since learned to give less paranoid gifts, but any device that required this many bells and whistles to take someone's temperature made Enjolras feel strangely inadequate.

The thermometer beeped: 103.4F.

"You're a degree cooler," Enjolras said. "That's probably good."

"Probably," Grantaire croaked. His voice had deteriorated with the onset of the head cold or flu or whatever mutant germ had attacked him.

"Do you want another blanket? If you're cold I'll turn the heat further up." Enjolras didn't know if that would help, but chills could be awful.

"'m fine, don't worry with the heat." Grantaire's voice was scratchy and watery, like he was on the verge of tears.

"Are you?" Enjolras asked, concerned.

Grantaire rolled over and wiped his eyes without looking at Enjolras.

"Just a bad dream," he mumbled.

"Oh." Enjolras waited.

"Someone had run off us the road; we were tied up in a cabin, you were bleeding, I was bleeding, there was a masked guy with a rusty pocketknife… It's stupid," Grantaire trailed off, some bleakness in his eyes as though he were reliving an actual abduction.

Earlier Enjolras had been so involved in his own work at the kitchen counter he'd tuned the television out entirely -- and hadn't noticed the puppy gnawing at a pair of socks he'd left on the couch -- and Bossuet's text of "do not let R watch the scary movie!!!!" made more sense now.

He could hear the puppy snuffling in the living room, making the unhappy little trills that indicated he was about to start howling.

"Just a moment," Enjolras told Grantaire.

From the hallway he clapped for the puppy, who came shuffling over with his crooked gait. "Here we go," he said to the puppy while scooping him up, because he was, he had discovered of late, exactly the sort of person who talked to puppies in zippy and embarrassing clown voices like a weirdo.

"We'll stay in here with you," Enjolras said, avoiding the question on Grantaire's face when they came in. If he dwelled on how often during the last two weeks his life had revolved around odd sleeping arrangements he would not be able to function at all.

He deposited the puppy beside Grantaire. Judging by the puppy's whole tiny body wagging this was the single best thing that had ever happened to him.

To the puppy Grantaire said, "We gotta get you a name sometime," as though Grantaire were someone who could read Enjolras's thoughts, which was too terrifying to think about.

The puppy burrowed down at Grantaire's shoulder, and Grantaire laughed, raspily; the puppy popped out of the blankets again to root around between the pillows and Grantaire scratched his ears.

In place of studying the two of them forever, his stomach going warm, Enjolras busied himself. He left briefly, fetching a box of tissues, a couple of glasses of tap water, the puppy's green kitten (given to him by Prouvaire), a lip balm, nasal spray, eye drops, three ABC files and a notepad and pen, more ibuprofen, a book about land mines, and supposedly just-as-good-as-the-ones-you-can-make-meth-from decongestants the pharmacist had recommended. He put drugs and water on the small table on Grantaire's side of the bed, his own glass of water on the floor on his side, and all paper products and the kitten in the middle of the mattress.

After about five seconds he picked up the books and files and sat them on the floor. He pulled back the comforter and settled in.

Grantaire tried to whistle but couldn't.

"You're going to get sick too," he said instead, sounding simultaneously apologetic and impressed. But he also no longer sounded tortured, plague notwithstanding.

"If I do, I do," Enjolras said. The puppy flopped over to nose his cheek. "Nothing to be done for it." Everyone was quiet for a minute. "I hope we don't get kidnapped again."

Grantaire smiled into his pillow. He found Enjolras's hand under the blanket. Enjolras thought they would fall asleep quickly, though only the puppy did. Enjolras drifted, kept awake by the rhythm of Grantaire's thumb stroking his wrist over and over like a metronome, like a pulse.

Chapter Text

At 3:37 a.m. Tuesday Enjolras discovered he owned a faulty alarm clock. When he swam out of a dream about eating jelly beans in the chamber where SCOTUS heard oral arguments his trusty old Big Ben was ticking away on his bedside table, waiting for the altogether more appropriate hour of 6 to send its wee hammer flailing away at bells. In contrast, his less trusty new timepiece was somewhere in the hallway, running its wee nails down the metal doorframe and trying to rally all to the hunt with breaking bays.

Enjolras supposed if nothing else it was very effective.

He opened his bedroom door to find the puppy flagged over on the floor and scratching at his ear, and Grantaire pulling on sweats and stumbling into the hallway from the living room. The puppy ran to Grantaire with delight, and Grantaire sat down in Enjolras's doorway to let the puppy lick his chin for a second.

"Sorry," he said to Enjolras. "He was sleeping so soundly a couple of hours ago."

"You taught him to howl?" Enjolras asked, sliding down to sit next to Grantaire.

"Bahorel," Grantaire explained. "Though to be fair puppies already know how to howl. He's getting better at it."

That note of pride in his voice made Enjolras feel about nine unhelpful things. The puppy crawled into his lap and started gnawing on his pajama pants.

"When will my full night's sleep return from the war," Enjolras mused. Petting the puppy was so weirdly comforting, even as he sort of wanted to leave the puppy on a hillside to find his pack and n'er come again.

He might've been a little tired.

"Up, up," Grantaire said. He was standing and tugging at Enjolras's hand. Enjolras hoisted the puppy up with him and fuzzedly marveled at their collective coordination: Grantaire a lever, Enjolras somehow balanced into motion, the puppy with his small paws anchored just so on Enjolras's chest.

"No more howling," Enjolras yawned at both his roommates as Grantaire steered them toward the bed.

"No fun," Grantaire said, climbing onto the mattress like it was his. He took the puppy from Enjolras, and Enjolras climbed in too, because it really was his bed. The puppy mooched around behind the pillows.

Grantaire yawned belatedly. He'd been looking less peaked the last couple of days.

"Hey, I'm glad you're feeling better," Enjolras said. "Sorry you're still pulling puppy duty, though."

Even in the dim light Enjolras could tell Grantaire was giving him a look he'd have no inkling how to interpret. "Thank you and it's still not a problem."

"All right," Enjolras said. He did not want to seem ungrateful for Grantaire's help, such as it was. Except for his attempts to dig beneath the headboard the puppy did not seem to be going anywhere, but maybe once Grantaire was fully back up to speed The Discussion About the Puppy's Future could happen.

The puppy knew he was being dwelled on, somehow, and whined for Enjolras to pet him, which Enjolras did because he was weak and whipped. The puppy wedged himself between Enjolras and Grantaire's pillows and proceeded to pretend to be a mummy puppy -- experience had taught Enjolras this -- one who would later rouse from the tomb to munch on anything nearby that tasted good.

Enjolras corrected the thought in his head: both of these pillows are mine. Grantaire was continuing to give him a look, but it did not, Enjolras noted, feel like a pressure or an intrusion or anything but a question too delicate to be spoken aloud.

In answer, Enjolras stretched out in a way that would make it impossible for Grantaire to get up without dislodging Enjolras's leg but also like Enjolras had maybe done it by accident, having misjudged how far over from his side he was. If Grantaire minded, he refrained from complaint.

A minute later, the puppy chewing on Enjolras's hair was exactly as disgusting as he'd known it would be, but on the plus side Grantaire's mouth was exactly as soft as Enjolras had hoped it would be.

Chapter Text

"Is talking on a phone during a storm dangerous?" Enjolras asked. Or, rather, shouted, having raised his volume to be heard over deafening thunder.

"Are you on a landline?" Combeferre was a continent away and sounded intrigued.

"No, I'm sitting in my car in my apartment parking lot waiting for the lightning to let up so I can get to the lobby."

"I feel like there are multiple ways you could in fact be struck by lightning in this scenario, but through your smartphone probably isn't one of them," Combeferre mused. "Are you wearing rubber soled shoes?"

"Yes?" Enjolras thought he remembered his shoes were made of recycled tires or something. Gifts from Courfeyrac tended to be from companies with philosophies and mission statements, a concept which often made Enjolras itch.

"There are apps for lightning strikes," Combeferre continued, "but I guess that'd be irrelevant for your purposes. I did hear a couple of years ago that Konia or one of those was working on using lightning to power smartphones, using a variant of wireless recharging."

Enjolras could see the lights in the lobby flicker, flicker, flicker, in time with three loud claps of thunder. "I am running low on juice but I've decided it would be unwise to roll down my windows and wave my phone around in the air, since it's going to start raining any second and I still don't want to die."

"Seems prudent," Combeferre said. Enjolras could hear his wry grin. "Were we done talking about the draft to Governor Sanders?"

Enjolras didn't answer. The incessant lightning had ceased, and there was no breeze at all. He wrenched open his door, grabbed up his bags, and made a mad dash for the building. The cold air of the lobby splashed over him like a bucket of ice water; he turned to look outside again just as a thick white-blue lightning bolt divided the horizon. The lobby lights blinked. The sky was an angry, heaving gray hue.

"Enjolras?" Coming from the phone Enjolras had tossed in his bag Combeferre's voice sounded as far away as he actually was.

Enjolras fished around for the phone. "Sorry, I made a break for it. Everything's fine. And yes, we're done with the draft for tonight." He paused at the elevators. The lights blinked again. He opened the stairwell door.

"Football!" Feuilly said from somewhere on Combeferre's end. "The video finally downloaded. Game's starting in ten. Hi, Enjolras!" Then he made a noise like he'd been stepped on by a dinosaur but was very pleased about it.

Combeferre told Enjolras, "I'll call Prouvaire in the morning and we'll conference you in."

"Great. Tell Feuilly hi for me. Happy football," Enjolras said, jogging up the first of four flights of steps.

By the time he was at the door to his floor he wished he'd been struck by lightning. By the time he was inside his apartment he was glad he hadn't been. A warm chocolatey aroma permeated everything. Chucking his bags in the hall closet he took one deep breath and another, trying simultaneously to calm his heart rate, keep from fainting from lack of oxygen, and put more of that perfect scent in his nose.

He found the source: a pan of brownies cooling on the stove top. They appeared to have been conjured from the ether. Enjolras walked back through the apartment, searching for signs of life.

Another nearby lightning strike made him jump. Goosebumps broke out on his arms. A single tiny yip echoed from the most interior room, the bathroom.

Grantaire was sitting in the dark on the floor between the toilet and the tub and holding the puppy, who was wrapped in a striped hand towel. Enjolras sat down beside them and stroked the puppy's wet little nose with one fingertip.

"Is sitting here sanitary?" Enjolras asked Grantaire lightly.

"Compared to what?" Grantaire countered. "Something like 750 million people worldwide don't have access to clean water. Yet here we are waiting for an ark, for a despot overlord to deliver us from the floods he himself sent. Experts -- learned, unbiased experts! rarer than unicorns! -- say 200 to 2000 species permanently disappear from planet earth each year, and we think ourselves safe from being numbered among those doomed treasures, but one man's trash, you know, and we're nothing if not sanitation engineers, movers and hoarders of huge piles of crap, one mountain to another until we can blow off the tops and let the slurry choke our streams. Is not history a dung heap, a lost city drowned under ocean riptides or buried in volcanic ash?"

Enjolras inhaled to interrupt but not quickly enough.

Grantaire's tone was ragged; he would not look at Enjolras. "I cleaned this bathroom myself just yesterday with a no doubt fine product manufactured by a company that, depending on who you ask, still owes an entire nation restitution for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people -- another company's wickedness, they say, except when you've bought that company and benefitted grossly from that company's assets and advantages, you may be a sin eater but you have not been absolved. But all is fair in love and war and corporate M&A."

Thunder boomed as if in accord and the apartment rattled with it.

The puppy made what Enjolras thought of as his snurgling noises and Grantaire gathered him up on his chest.

It had been a week or more since Grantaire's last, usual, not-entirely-coherent diatribe; Enjolras had almost missed the arguments. He agreed with Grantaire about JG Chemical, but he also did not think JG Chemical was the biggest problem brewing at present. (And it was probably not the best idea, for Enjolras's sanity, to agree often with Grantaire anyway.) The puppy did not like the thunderstorm, but Grantaire hated the thunderstorm. Even in no more light than the hallway provided his complexion was pale, and his large hands around the puppy burrito were those of someone trying not to clutch something fragile too tightly.

Enjolras scooted over until he could put his arm around Grantaire's lower back. He waited a moment, and Grantaire's slowly put one arm around him in return. The puppy wanted to sniff Enjolras, so they unwound his towel and let him tromp around and lick their fingers and be fussed over like the most spoiled creature nature had ever deigned to design. Puppies, at least, would not be extinct any time soon, and Enjolras discovered he was glad of it.

Thunder, thunder, thunder. Enjolras could hear rain hammering the windows out in the living room. The electricity blinked two or three more times but survived, and eventually the storm's rage was less intense, moving off.

He scooted away to climb off the cold tile floor; his butt was numb. Standing up was a chore his legs were peeved about, having not yet forgiven him for taking the stairs.

Grantaire gave him the puppy. "There are fresh brownies," he said, standing as well, his voice only a bit shaky.

"We should have them for dinner," Enjolras said, putting the puppy down in the hallway, where he wobbled off towards his water dish. Enjolras put his hand around Grantaire's wrist and they headed to the kitchen. "And we can discuss what's wrong with your whole 'the planet is doomed' scenario."

"Do tell," Grantaire said, threading his fingers through Enjolras's. "Though the actual physical planet might be fine, you know, until a giant asteroid comes knocking" -- in Belgium, Enjolras thought, Combeferre was suddenly developing a terrible headache for no apparent reason -- "so maybe it's your whole 'humans are gonna save the world for humans and everyone else' scenario that's bonkers."

Enjolras squeezed Grantaire's hand, placed a kiss beside his eye. "Nope," he said, smiling.

Chapter Text

"I will pay you a hundred dollars to do this."

Grantaire seemed to be considering the offer. He took a drink of wine, sat his glass down, and looked at Enjolras with as serious an expression as Enjolras had ever seen him wear.

"Is that your final offer?" Grantaire asked.

Enjolras scoffed, "One hundred dollars is too low?"

"It is."

"Bah."

"Oh ho ho, you have gone Dickensian, which means I am winning the argument."

"'Bah' is a perfectly acceptable response to nonsense."

"So's 'fuck off.'"

"See here."

"'See here,'" Grantaire mimicked, although he didn't get the pitch of Enjolras's voice correct at all.

"Okay, fine," Enjolras said, "two hundred."

Grantaire squinted. "Do you have two hundred dollars cash here?"

Enjolras knew he should not have been insulted and worked to contain his response to, "I do."

"Two hundred for the first time. But four hundred for the second."

"An outrage!" Enjolras said, slamming his own glass down on the coffee table with some force -- not enough to break anything, but enough to make the ice in the glass tinkle.

"Take it, or do it yourself," Grantaire said, crossing his arms.

Enjolras thought about this counteroffer. He decided to attempt another tactic.

"What if. What if we did this together?"

Grantaire had put his Serious Expression back on. It made him appear enigmatic and somewhat roguish. His was not a striking face, or at any rate had not been, most of the time, more the type one's eye sped past, but Enjolras found he could hardly stand to look away from it now. He should have been used to Grantaire's face, having seen it so often of late, and yet here again tonight some part of his mind was marveling at Grantaire's unshaven jaw, dark eyebrows, eyes richly brown as fresh coffee.

At some point in the long pause Grantaire became aware of Enjolras's examination and his Serious Expression changed to something almost shy, the faintest blush sweeping over his cheeks, which added to the appeal.

Uh oh, Enjolras thought.

"Deal," Grantaire said, extending a hand.

Enjolras shook it firmly, and convinced himself to let go after an appropriate interval.

"Tonight, do you think?" Grantaire asked.

Enjolras stood, determined to see this task through. "If you're not busy."

Grantaire stood as well. "It's settled." He broke into a huge grin and almost immediately bit his lip, clearly trying not to make fun of whatever was on Enjolras's face. "It's gonna be fine, I swear."

"You say that," Enjolras said, feeling queasy, "but what if it hurts him?"

"It won't."

"He's still very little."

"It's not like you're going to throw him in the deep end of a pool and let him sink or swim. You were right when you said he needs to get used to b-a-t-h-s."

Grantaire drained his wine glass and tossed it over his shoulder. Realizing the lack of wisdom in the act, he scrambled to catch it before hit the ground. The stem bounced off his hand and the glass flipped onto the carpet, landing unharmed with a thump. The puppy waddled over to investigate.

"Careful," Enjolras whispered, as Grantaire bent to pick up the puppy. "Don't spook him."

Grantaire blew a raspberry in Enjolras's direction. The puppy, all blissful squirming, tried to lick Grantaire's chin. An image of soapy foam covering all surfaces of the bathroom, blinked into Enjolras's mind: he imagined himself laughing and Grantaire laughing and the puppy barking his tiny squeaking bark, though merrily, and Enjolras smiled.

Then the phone rang; the evening became something else.

The puppy hadn't been filthy, thankfully, since the 72 hours following the fateful handshake turned out to be frantic and exhausting, and the most Enjolras accomplished at home while awake were his own brief, perfunctory routines of toilette and nourishment. He looked over at the garbage can, which was full to the brim. On top was an empty box of Frosted Cocoa Crunchbombs. He didn't remember eating those but he did remember Grantaire pushing a bowl and spoon towards him the prior morning, so.

Enjolras took another bite of toast and watched the reflection of the sunset on the side of his old chrome toaster, averting his eyes every couple of seconds because he felt like somewhere, both Joly and Combeferre knew he was potentially risking blindness. He shouldn't have left after court was dismissed without telling anyone where he was going, not when the group would want to meet and plan tomorrow's strategy. He'd needed some time to think, though, and Grantaire, according to the text he'd sent, was out buying groceries. Save the puppy's snorfling noises, the apartment was peaceful.

Two things happened: Grantaire threw open the back door, and Enjolras dropped his half-slice of toast. The door let in a whoosh of cold air; the toast landed jam-side-down on the puppy's head. The puppy had begun pawing at it before Enjolras could react.

"A casualty!" Grantaire said, squatting down. When he rubbed the puppy's nose his fingers came away raspberry red. "'Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, blood and revenge are hammering in my head.'"

"'Out, damned spot' feels slightly more relevant."

"Does it?" Grantaire cocked an eyebrow.

"No," Enjolras said, "not really."

Grantaire stood up and leaned over the sink to grab a paper towel from the roll Enjolras kept on the windowsill. "Have you slept?"

The puppy's snorfling noises had morphed into tiny whines. Enjolras squatted down and tried to rub off the rest of the jam, but this only made the puppy stickier.

"Six hours last night, in fact."

"Here, here," Grantaire said, kneeling down beside him, "give me the puppy, you're grinding toast into the floorboards."

"Sorry," Enjolras said, feeling the crumbs beneath his foot. That he hadn't noticed them before was probably not the best sign.

"Time for a b-a-t-h," Grantaire said. He jiggled the puppy and made him bark his squeaky bark. "Go to bed," he told Enjolras.

"I should help."

"Nah, we're cool." As if in agreement, the puppy barked again, a real bark almost like a real dog might accomplish. "Whoa," Grantaire said, "our baby is growing up."

"I can help," Enjolras said, standing up. He forced himself to not stomp his foot since, for one thing, crumbs. And for another, being annoyed -- which he was -- was stupid, pointless, and immature.

"You can put away the foodstuffs, but afterwards hit the hay." Grantaire was already headed down the hall.

Enjolras, pretending to be calm, shoved cans of soup and tuna, bags of chips and frozen vegetables, and pints of half-n-half and sour cream into their respective storage spaces. The noise of running water washed in from the back of the apartment. He wadded up the sacks into another sack and left them hanging on the back door's knob. He wiped up floor crumbs with a wet paper towel, and snapped off the kitchen light.

In the bathroom Grantaire had worked out a system: puppy in empty tub; clean bucket full of clean warm water, also sat inside the tub; baby shampoo, at the ready; and a half dozen towels stacked on the toilet.

The puppy looked tinier than usual, compared to the overall size of the tub, the bucket, the tower of towels. He also didn't seem to know what was happening, and was gingerly knocking something around -- a Busy Buddy Kibble Nibble toy. Not that he was quite keen on kibble yet. The toy's motions reminded Enjolras of a Weeble.

"What else do we need?" he asked Grantaire, who looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes. "We agreed to do this together, right?"

Grantaire harrumphed. "I forgot to get one of those big plastic cups from the closet out there."

That he'd been staying in Enjolras's apartment long enough to know there was a picnic basket in the hall closet -- because Bossuet had once gone through a phase -- portended discussions Enjolras didn't have the energy to engage in yet. The basket came with plastic plates, bowls, sporks, steak knives, and cloth napkins the unfortunate color of contagious phlegm. Also tumblers, one of which Enjolras grabbed.

Grantaire took the green tumbler from Enjolras, dipped it in the bucket, and slowly poured it over the puppy. "Can you come hold him?" he asked, shifting toward the faucet end of the tub.

The puppy barely startled from the warm water and Enjolras's hand on his tiny back. Enjolras helped Grantaire smooth the water over the puppy, soaking him entirely except for his jammy little head. The puppy was quiet and motionless under their hands. It was somehow worse than if he were freaking out.

"There you go," Grantaire said, rubbing shampoo into the puppy's fur, "it's okay."

"He hates this," Enjolras whispered.

Grantaire looked over at him. "He's doing really well. This won't take long at all. Wanna grab another cup of water and we'll do the first rinse cycle?"

This was when the whimpering began. It made Enjolras feel wretched. He dribbled water as gently as he could on the puppy's head and with the tiniest spot of shampoo worked out the raspberry remnants. After a stressful five minutes Enjolras lifted the clean, drenched, thoroughly unhappy puppy out of the tub into a towel Grantaire was holding.

"That wasn't so bad, no it wasn't," Grantaire was telling the puppy in a soothing voice while he dried him off. The puppy barked again, a definitive dissent, but allowed Enjolras to continue drying him off with another towel.

"Shake it off," Grantaire said, and at first Enjolras didn't know which of them he was saying it to. The puppy took the advice and an amazing amount of water flew into Enjolras's face.

"There we go." Grantaire handed Enjolras yet another towel. "I hear today's defendant made bail," he said.

Enjolras finished wiping off his face and gave the puppy a final rub down. "The defendant has a lot of supporters," he said, hoping he didn't sound like the sorest loser on earth even though, of course, that was exactly how he felt. Barney Holstein, clerk and local bigot, had raised the entirety of $25,000 in less than two hours.

"He's a zealot moron. He'll probably get elected governor next year."

"Please don't even joke about that."

"You know, some people would say you don't have a lot of ground to stand on, philosophically if not legally, considering how often you yourself have encouraged people to stridently ignore laws you find unjust. Barney Holstein is merely following his own conscience."

Enjolras squared his jaw. "Are you one of those people?"

"Maaaaybe," Grantaire said, drawing out the word obnoxiously, and leaning over to boop the puppy's nose with his own as he did so.

Enjolras took a deep breath, and just as he was about to launch into a five-part treatise on the absolute fucking idiocy of Grantaire's position defending the so-called philosophical rights of a bullshit asshole who was under orders, apparently, from God on high, to actively deny citizens their own Constitutionally protected civil rights, Grantaire grinned.

"You were going a bit pale," he said, "but look at that, you're all better now."

Enjolras's cheeks were hot. He let out his breath and stood up, not trusting himself to speak.

Grantaire followed, slinging the wet towels over the shower rod. He tipped the last of the water in the bucket down the drain and gathered up the damp puppy and the plastic cup. Enjolras stood aside and weighed his options.

He surprised himself with what he settled on. "I forget, sometimes, how many people still don't think there's anything wrong with being racist," he started quietly, "or misogynistic, or homophobic, transphobic, ageist or ableist." He had Grantaire's attention now, his eyes on him strangely tender. "Not to mention how many people would close our borders, cut funding for women's healthcare or children's education, increase funding for war. Who think the minimum wage should be even lower and money equals free speech and those who disagree are traitors who'll burn for eternity."

What seemed like 4,000 of those types of protesters had lined the streets into and out of the courthouse; Enjolras didn't think he was naive or isolated, and there were plenty of anti-Holstein protesters out there too, he knew this, plenty of foot soldiers striving for progress, but the ugly vehemence he'd encountered in the last few days was disheartening.

And that, perhaps, was the most disconcerting part: that he was upset, when he was used to being able to stay diligent and prepared. Never silly or unaware, never looking to pick a fight, but always ready for one when it came.

Grantaire was watching him, and seemed to be weighing his own decision.

"C'mon," he said, tugging Enjolras's sleeve and steering them both out of the bathroom and into the living room. Grantaire flopped onto the couch -- puppy bouncing in his arms -- and arranged himself so that his legs were stretched out the length of the cushions. The puppy squirmed onto the back cushions, and Grantaire pulled Enjolras down, so that he wound up sitting with his back to Grantaire's chest. The puppy slipped onto Enjolras's lap and attacked his knees with renewed fervor. Grantaire, rather inelegantly, managed to toss a plaid blanket over everyone.

Save their collective breathing and the puppy chewing on an edge of the blanket, the darkened apartment was cool and silent, a counterpoint to the warmth and weight of Grantaire's arms around Enjolras.

"I should check in with Courfeyrac and Feuilly," Enjolras said after a few minutes.

"We gotta train this puppy to fetch things, like beer and phones," Grantaire said, sounding drowsy, his fingertips scritching the puppy's jaw.

Enjolras sighed. He turned his head and Grantaire's heartbeat was suddenly a steady thud under his ear.

"Maybe you should take a vacation day tomorrow," Grantaire suggested.

"No."

"Maybe you should show up covered in rainbow glitter and make out with someone in the lobby -- you know Joly would be game. Give the news teams and protesters a sexier floor show."

Enjolras snorted. "No."

"Well, I'm fresh outta ideas." Grantaire yawned; the puppy yawned. Enjolras spent a solid thirty seconds trying not to yawn and gave up.

"'Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life,'" Grantaire intoned, solemn as a made-for-TV-movie priest.

Enjolras thought for a moment. "NASB?"
 
"New International. Bahorel's got that copy wedged behind the toilet in the guest bath."

"I thought that was a book of fart jokes."

"There's one of those too."

"The irony of you quoting Proverbs, though," Enjolras said.

"Excuse you. I enjoy preachy platitude-poetry as much as the next fellow."

"Presuming the next fellow is Prouvaire."

"Well, yeah." Grantaire's fingers had trailed across Enjolras's shoulder and were kneading the back of his neck. "But let's be fair, if there's anyone here who's less likely than me to know Biblical translations, it's you, o godless one."

Enjolras snorted. "Thanks, I think."

"You're entirely welcome. See you in hell," Grantaire said. There was more fondness than sarcasm in his sleepy voice. He gave Enjolras's neck a soft squeeze. "Enjolras."

"Hmm?"

"I was wrong earlier."

Enjolras sat up straighter and turned enough to be able to look at Grantaire. "Yes. I mean, by sheer odds." Grantaire smirked. "What are we talking about?" Enjolras asked.

"You're not well suited for eight or ten hours of sleep."

"I'm not?"

"Nah, you run best on adrenaline and caffeine and highly tempered, devastatingly intelligent rage."

"Is this your version of flattery?"

Grantaire cocked his head. "Is it working?"

"Maybe." Enjolras let his gaze wander to Grantaire's mouth, long enough for Grantaire's gaze to wander to his. "I really should call Feuilly and Courfeyrac."

"Yes," Grantaire nodded, fingers toying with a curl at Enjolras's ear. "Good plan."

"But later," Enjolras said, nodding too, because that added up to a great idea. Grantaire's thumb was gentle stroking the fleshiest part of Enjolras's lower lip; his mouth, following, was even gentler. We'll be awake for hours, Enjolras thought, and then we will go to work.

Chapter Text

"Hershel," Bahorel suggested. He tied a knot in one end of the garland Feuilly had finished.

"Virgil," Feuilly countered, before sneaking a bite of popcorn.

"Dobby," Courfeyrac chimed in, "as in, 'Dobby is a free elf!'"

"Freedom," Combeferre said, nodding. "Always a fine choice."

"He could have a name like a race horse," Feuilly suggested. "Hoofin' It, or Pawin' It. Or 'Poland Has Not Yet Perished.'"

"Burnt Biscuit Bottom," Prouvaire said, tapping the end of his giant needle against his temple.

"Ooh," Bossuet said, "that's a good one. Topical, and also sounds vaguely southern."

"I still don't think we should have fed him all those crusts," Joly said. "Carcinogens!"

Combeferre tossed a piece of popcorn at him. "Is that the name you'd choose?" he asked Joly.

"No, no," Joly said, "I'm saying burned food is a hotbed of potential toxicity."

"Aren't canned fridge biscuits already potentially unhealthy? In the great, er, small scheme of things?" Courfeyrac asked.

"Exactly!" Joly said.

"All things in moderation," Prouvaire said in a thoughtful tone. "It isn't like we topped them with raw sewage."

"Other ideas, then?" Combeferre asked. He opened another bag of cranberries and a few loose ones bounced across the table.

"Snickerdoodle," Bahorel said. "Or is refined sugar considered too poisonous to contemplate?" Joly stuck out his tongue at him.

"He could have one of my 19 names," Bossuet offered. He stabbed a cranberry with his own giant needle.

"Or mine," Prouvaire said.

Everyone looked at Enjolras then. They were not, as a group, naturally adept at collectivity. It was part of why he loved them: their differing perspectives, experiences, interests, and desires, all converging, every so often, on a few key points of commonality. Enjolras's friends were, perhaps above everything else, the most well-intentioned people he knew. And for whatever reason, they were currently taking the formal naming of a tiny beagle very unseriously-yet-seriously.

The puppy in question was asleep in Enjolras's lap, looking tiny, rolly-polly, and not at all like something that had apparently hoovered up a bunch of biscuit remnants or, more verifiably, tried to lick his eyeballs at 4 a.m. that morning.

Enjolras's lack of verbal response prompted Feuilly to say, "One of my coworkers said once that she named her daughter Melanie because the first time she saw her -- like, post uterus -- it was just clear to her, my coworker, that her daughter was a Melanie." He snuck his hand toward the popcorn bowl and Bahorel flicked at it. "So what's your gut instinct about this noble dog's appellation?"

Enjolras breathed out a small laugh. "That I am too highly underqualified to name him."

"You'll think of something," Prouvaire said.

"Or Grantaire will," Bossuet said. A thump like someone's shoe connecting with someone's shin occurred, and Enjolras looked over to see Joly's face making some kind of urgent entreaty to Bossuet's.

Courfeyrac cleared his throat. "So!" he said, all brightness. "Who wants some wassail?"

The puppy was awake and the guys were dispersed by the time Grantaire came in later that evening. He took in the sight of a merrily festooned Christmas tree and Enjolras in the middle of the living room floor, wrestling with a roll of wrapping paper printed with Santa squirrels.

"This is festive," Grantaire said. "What happened to 'I don't have time to decorate, I'm too busy getting the newly elected governor impeached?'"

"The gang was here," Enjolras said. The wrapping paper was not going to win this round. Grantaire sat down beside him. "Cosette still freaking out about the solstice dinner?"

"She's...calibrating," Grantaire said. He pulled off his shoes and tucked his feet up. "I think she feels less crazed than she did when Eponine and I arrived. At least, by the time we were pulling cow out of the broiler she'd stopped laughing in a demented way. The test run went well enough. Servers' families are nice, of course, since you're feeding them for free, but the point is for them to be honest, and a few wrinkles got ironed out. She should be in pretty good shape for Tuesday."

The puppy waddled over and helpfully stood in the middle of the wrapping paper Enjolras had just unrolled.

"That's where you should put the box," Grantaire said, pointing with equal helpfulness.

"Thank you," Enjolras said with sarcasm, though Grantaire did pick up the puppy, who squirmed with pleasure. Enjolras centered Prouvaire's antique magnifying glass and letter opener -- presented in a walnut case -- and began to fold the wrapping paper around it. The paper was heavy enough to make satisfyingly crisp creases.

"So," he said, taping down a fold, "as I understand it we should either name the puppy Hershel or Carcinogens."

The puppy was nipping at a plaid ribbon Grantaire was tickling his nose with. Grantaire said, "Did you hold a vote?"

"I fielded suggestions."

"The way a king might inquire of his court?"

"No."

"You should hold a vote. Democracy in all things, right? Campaigning, live debates, straw polls, the whole donkey manger." The puppy fell backwards and snagged the ribbon in the effort. His tummy was too small and round to resist and Enjolras watched Grantaire's entire hand cover it while the puppy vibrated with happiness.

"Since when do you think voting solves anything?" Enjolras asked it with as little heat as he could muster.

"Not every election is as futile as the ones you normally play a part in," Grantaire said, wise to his game. "Let it be noted I have been a responsible constituent when a truly vital decision was at stake -- for example, I enjoyed Joly's special referendum last weekend: bourbon or brandy?"

Enjolras began looping the rest of the plaid ribbon around the wrapped present. "Have you told anyone," he said, before cutting himself off.

"About the liquor throw down?" Grantaire tried to tie his ribbon loosely around the puppy's neck, and the puppy would have none of it. "Nothing but winners there, really. A true spirit of cooperation imbued the event and whatnot."

Enjolras took a breath. "About us."

Grantaire gathered up the puppy and looked at Enjolras with a careful expression. "No," he said after a beat.

His eyes, Enjolras decided, were kind. Grantaire would let him off the hook. He would obfuscate. He would deny, politely, whatever Enjolras wanted him to deny. Grantaire expected Enjolras to leave, or, rather, to ask him to leave, if not tonight, then one day. Soon, or later. But eventually. That realization made Enjolras's lungs feel too tight.

"This isn't-- I think." Enjolras stopped. "We should tell people. I mean, I'm pretty certain Bossuet and Joly already know. Courfeyrac knows. Not that it's been a secret. But we could...maybe be less discreet." Grantaire had cocked his head, and was looking at Enjolras like he was speaking in tongues. "Not that I was... For my part, anyway, I just don't always talk about...stuff. I wasn't trying to hide you, or anything."

He stopped talking again, hoping Grantaire would do something that would somehow involve quantum mechanics and/or theoretical physics, so that the sheer awkwardness of this moment could be replaced in the space-time continuum.

The puppy whined and Grantaire let him down, only to have the puppy push his face into Grantaire's palms. Grantaire scratched the puppy's ears and watched Enjolras, the faintest smile on his mouth.

Enjolras prepared himself for a monologue of gargantuan proportions and sketchy politics.

Instead, Grantaire leaned over and kissed him. The softness of his mouth continued to vex Enjolras. "We don't have to tell anybody tonight, do we?" Grantaire said.

"Other plans?" Enjolras asked, shifting closer as Grantaire's thankfully-puppy-spit-free hand lifted to the back of his neck.

Grantaire might have said something, but Enjolras would never remember what. It wasn't important. The puppy, still unnamed, snorfled over to the Christmas tree with its cranberry-popcorn garlands and twinkle lights and fell asleep beneath it. His owners were otherwise quietly, intensely occupied.

Chapter Text

Feuilly's new stripy kitten was named Marvelous and she enjoyed climbing up the backs of chairs and swiping at the backs of peoples' heads with her needle-like claws which she was too young to voluntarily retract. Or at least she was pretending to be too young; Enjolras wasn't convinced her strikes weren't thoroughly devised. She'd attacked the front page of yesterday's newspaper with a vehemence that bordered on Trumpesque, and if she thought you had food she might like, like a bite of cheddar or tuna-flavored CatzYum or your own uncooked human flesh, she would meow a squeaky incessant meow with increasing rage until you either gave in or fled the house.

The puppy loved her more than life itself. On their second play date it took an hour of heavy romping around and under and, briefly and terrifyingly, in Feuilly's Christmas tree before the two of them were starting to wind down. Enjolras watched Grantaire pull a long length of fat red yarn in a squiggling motion across the floor; Marvelous pounced at it in slower motion, and the puppy fell over trying to swat at her tail. She twitched away with a trilling noise, her front right paw flirting with the puppy's nose.

"She has a little sister named Bugaboo," Feuilly said, sitting down beside Grantaire with a sack of scarves, socks, and gloves that were to become care packages for the Elf Exchange.

Marvelous took this as her cue to begin attacking anything dangling over the sack's edge -- a tag, a receipt. "Bahorel's niece was going to keep her with the momma cat but might be persuaded to part with her for the right family." Feuilly's voice had taken on a sing-song quality.

The puppy crawled onto Grantaire's leg and pawed at Marvelous's side while she sniffed at a sock she'd fished out.

Grantaire looked at Enjolras; Enjolras got the distinct impression Grantaire was working to keep his expression neutral. The puppy's expression, in contrast, was one of heartsickness and bliss as he watched Marvelous take up space on Grantaire's other leg. She was purring as she bit Grantaire's wrist.

Enjolras wondered how much kitty litter would add to his monthly budget.

____________________________

Though he owned a number of nice sturdy coats, scarves, hats, and pairs of gloves, heavy wooly socks and boots rated for climbing mountains in subarctic terrain, Enjolras would've preferred sleeping through the coldest months of any year the way nature intended.

"It's very disconcerting," he said, pulling his toboggan down over his ears.

"What is?" Grantaire was fiddling with the puppy's leash, which was kinked up at the clasp for the tiny collar. The puppy was doing his air swimming pantomime, legs akimbo as he tried to wiggle out of Grantaire's hold.

"Snow," Enjolras said.

Grantaire laughed as if surprised. "I'm not sure 'snow' has ever been so close to 'motherfucker' from anyone else's mouth."

"Listen to it sizzle," Enjolras said. "Nothing this cold should make that noise."

Grantaire smiled and shook his head. A few fat snowflakes had landed on his eyebrows and eyelashes. They were quite tempting but Enjolras didn't want to take his hands out of his pockets. He was only barely managing to maintain a level of warmth that kept his teeth from rattling out of his head.

The puppy barked once, and Grantaire placed him gingerly on the half-plowed sidewalk. In three short seconds the puppy had scratched off the collar, thrown himself into the white yard, and vanished.

Grantaire, still gripping the ill-fated leash, made a sound not unlike the puppy's most anxious yelp. He scrambled forward to pluck the pup from the frozen nothingness 6" of fresh powder constituted. The puppy barked again, snowily. Grantaire plopped him wriggling into the crook of one arm.

"Well, thank god he'd already peed," he said.

"We'll try the leash again when it's spring," Enjolras said. Having experienced his puppy's brief, terrible disappearance in super slow motion, he felt no other option was left to him: he grabbed Grantaire by the elbow and everyone was back in the apartment so quickly Enjolras's brain registered none of it. Teleportation would not have been faster.

Grantaire was still shaking his head and smiling, pulling off his boots on the floor while the puppy nipped at his bootstrings.

"What?" Enjolras asked. His scarf was hung up in the coat zipper, and he'd forgotten to take off his gloves. Doing so with more force than necessary sent one of them aloft before landing beside the puppy, who promptly pounced on it.

"Here." Grantaire stood up to help with the zipper. "Maybe we could just, ah-ha," and with a flourish the scarf was unstuck. "You're safe from the elements," he said, as though anticipating a protest from Enjolras.

Enjolras shrugged out of his coat but kept his tone doleful. "I'm still cold," he said, brushing the last unmelted snowflake off Grantaire's eyebrow.

Grantaire's eyes were very bright and his voice very sincere. "There must be a way to solve this most unfortunate predicament," he said. His hands were somehow amazingly hot on Enjolras's lower back, up under his sweater.

"Surely," Enjolras agreed, tucking his face against Grantaire's throat.

The puppy had already eaten a hole in the glove by the time Enjolras looked down again.

____________________________

"I don't think you need to worry," Grantaire said, in a placating tone of voice. "This puppy only moves in the first place when you go into the kitchen."

"We're still not putting him in a cage, ever," Enjolras said, aware he was overreacting to the video Courfeyrac had forwarded and nevertheless unable to calm down until the facts were stated.

Grantaire stroked the puppy's back, and the puppy made his little happy grunts while trying to burrow further into Enjolras's chest.

"You know, smaller crates are both useful and humane when used properly," Grantaire said, "but you don't have to get him one if you don't want to. Not for a while anyway."

"Okay," Enjolras said, feeling saner. He put both his hands on the puppy and felt the warm little body breathing.

Grantaire had a thoughtful look on his face. Danger.

"The real problem," he started, while Enjolras groaned inwardly, "are those pesky radioactive spiders. That's how you get SpiderBeagles in the first place, and you just know it wouldn't matter how secure the roof was, once a SpiderBeagle sets its mind to escape nothing short of a full scale Green Goblin initiative is going to stop him."

"Please go away."

"Never," Grantaire said gleefully, slumping against Enjolras on the couch as the puppy motored into his lap. As it turned out the puppy moved for two things: snacks, and chewing on Grantaire. Enjolras couldn't blame him, really.

____________________________

Grantaire ticked off the horrors: "Transformer blew, water main burst, interstate was shut down, muffler fell off, server crashed, bus crashed, mail returned to sender."

Enjolras thought about the list; something was missing.

"Puppy puked," Grantaire said, remembering with a grossed-out expression. Under Enjolras's dining room table, the Blueberry Salad Incident had left a lasting mark, where the carpet, in one spot, now looked like someone had stepped on a smurf.

"I do not like this week," Grantaire said, frowning a muppety frown. "I do not understand why you are smiling." Enjolras was smiling because he'd recently discovered that if he kissed Grantaire, Grantaire would kiss him back. He leaned over and took the opportunity to demonstrate this to...well, to the puppy, since there were no other witnesses in the room.

The puppy, watching from his spot near the window, where he was sprawled on a Yoda-shaped pillow, maintained an unimpressed, or perhaps sweetly baffled, expression. Grantaire, however, looked positively enchanted, as though life had never been grander.

Enjolras, all munificence, kept his own smile doting instead of smug. "Why don't you crawl in bed?"

"Sounds promising."

"And I'll bring you dinner in a few minutes."

"Sounds..." Grantaire trailed off to eyeball the pot of soup on the stove. "....Promising?"

The soup didn't smell bad. The potatoes and small amount of onion, carrot, and celery had cooked up fragrantly. The broth, to be blunt, was the exact shade Joly had once told him you always wanted your urine to be, when one was achieving maximum hydration. On the other hand, it was flecked with specks of black, which as far as Enjolras knew was something to avoid in one's, ahem, output. All in all, a pleasant scent did not overcome the visual the soup, at present, presented.

"I have a plan," Enjolras explained.

Grantaire began to shuffle backwards out of the kitchen. "Okay. You heard about the governor trying to fire the whole university board of trustees, right?"

Enjolras picked up his slotted spoon and stirred the soup with deliberate concentration. "Yes."

He had not meant for his tone to give everything away on one syllable, but he knew it had when Grantaire's smile widened. "Just checking you hadn't been replaced by a pod person."

Enjolras shut down the urge to run back to this office and resume work on the last draft Bossuet had forwarded, or see if anyone had been successful contacting either the lieutenant governor's office or the board's blindsided spokeswoman. He pressed his heels into the floor: everything could wait until tomorrow, or until he work up at dark o' thirty with an idea promising enough to legitimately contemplate at dark o' thirty. For now, the soup needed his help.

The recipe had implied there would be, after a period of time wherein all raw ingredients lost their innocence, a stage where the starch from the potatoes and the small amount of flour included would meld into a creamy status, sans actual cream. There wasn't any cream, nor milk, in the fridge -- there was plain Greek yogurt, but Enjolras didn't know what would happen to it if it were added to anything boiling -- so dairy-enhanced thickness was right out. And despite a reasonable thirty minutes, the soup was the opposite of thick and creamy: it was, alternately, watery and chunky.

In the bedroom the puppy squeaked once. Enjolras heard Grantaire say something and laugh and the puppy squeaked again. One day, the puppy would be old enough to bark a full-throated dog's bark on a consistent basis. Enjolras didn't know how to feel about that, and he didn't know how to feel about Grantaire in his bed waiting for soup, and he was getting used to not knowing how to feel about things -- and he didn't know how to feel about that either.

His stance on the soup was less murky. He turned off the burner and carefully lifted the pan onto a hot pad on the counter. He struggled Combeferre's old blender out from behind a tangle of cookie sheets, mixing bowls, and cutting boards beneath the sink. Ladling the hot mess into the glass pitcher took a kind of patient coordination Enjolras had little practice with; a plop of potato landed on top of his foot and he choked back a swear.

The soup seemed to appreciate being buzzed. In four batches he had returned to the pan a suddenly thick substance that, he was almost proud to say, looked like real food. He spooned some into a cereal bowl and sprinkled a few chives on top. Voila. Posh.

Several minutes later, Grantaire disentangled the puppy from his hair and sat up with his back against the headboard. Enjolras held his breath while Grantaire tried the soup.

"Fresh cracked pepper," Grantaire said, smiling. "And the little bit of sweetness from the carrot is a really nice contrast to that earthy savory thing the potatoes have going on."

"Thanks," Enjolras said. He sat down on the edge of the mattress and smiled down at his hands.

"You made soup!" Grantaire said. He sounded so happy Enjolras looked up again.

"Yep." Enjolras shrugged like it was no big deal because, of course, it wasn't.

"Gonna join us for dinner?" Grantaire asked. The puppy was pawing at his napkin.

"Sure," Enjolras said. When he returned he brought his own serving of soup, a plate of buttered toast, two glasses of water, and a tiny biscuit for the puppy. And two more napkins. He sat next to Grantaire and propped up a tablet between them, so they could watch an episode of some show Grantaire and Prouvaire were really into lately (featuring rabbits? or vampires?).

They ate in companionable silence. The puppy curled up on Grantaire's lap and licked at his dirty spoon.

"Best day ever," Grantaire said, and sounded only maybe 50% sarcastic. He fell asleep with his warm cheek pressed against Enjolras's shoulder. Enjolras tried to stay as still as possible while he finished his own bowl.

It was pretty good soup.

Chapter Text

"Your dog is a confirmed mutant!" Grantaire said, grinning like someone had just handed him a newly-opened bottle of wine.

"No, no, no," Enjolras heard Courfeyrac contradict from the hallway.

Courfeyrac came through the door gripping a basket handle in both hands.

"And a runt," Grantaire said, still cheerful while shrugging out of a jacket. "A mongrel mutant mutt!"

"Stop that," Courfeyrac said. He knelt to put the basket on the floor; the puppy wriggled out from under a red towel and dashed across the living room to where Enjolras sat with his back against the wall by the Christmas tree. "He's a pure angel, he is."

"And shall remain so." Grantaire's tone had turned grave as he walked over.

Enjolras scratched the puppy's ears. "What does that mean?"

"The vet said healthy pups can be neutered at eight weeks. She's guesstimating this rascal here is nearly twelve."

"He's good to go anytime," Courfeyrac said. "But you'll wait until after the New Year, of course."

"Sensible," Enjolras said faintly, not making eye contact with anyone. He did not want to consider someone snipping on the puppy, even for very sound and sane reasons. He steadied himself with a long inconspicuous breath. "So he's not a beagle?"

"Not entirely." Grantaire was inching over to sit down. "But we'd sorta started to figure that out, yeah? Since he's not grown a huge amount, leg-wise."

The side of his knee knocked against Enjolras and a memory of the night before flashed behind Enjolras's eyes: the press of Grantaire's palm hot on the skin behind Enjolras's right knee. Enjolras probably blushed, and was thankful the room at sunset was growing darker save the illumination from multi-colored stringed lights.

The puppy whined and barked at Grantaire.

"What, buddy?" Grantaire grabbed him up and slumped against Enjolras; the puppy had licked both of them in the face before Enjolras could even blink.

Courfeyrac, fiddling with his phone, snickered. "You are both so completely owned by that dog." He snapped a picture. "Ah, cute."

He held out the phone. Grantaire and the puppy both looked like they'd known to say cheese. Their respective faces were fond and adorable, if oddly lit. Enjolras, in contrast, looked like a haunted house visitor a tenth of a second from shrieking in terror as a fake skeleton fell from the ceiling.

The phone began to play a chirpy MIDI version of "Jolly Ol' St. Nicholas."

"Good evening, Bahorel," Courfeyrac answered. "Yep, 10 minutes."

While he chatted, Grantaire rubbed his foot against Enjolras's ankle and bumped his shoulder with his own. When Enjolras looked over, Grantaire mouthed the words "Hi there." His smile was soft.

Enjolras returned it, some very distant part of his brain wondering, again, at how easy, how one million percent effortless, it was to smile at Grantaire, and capture his wrist in his hand, and know Grantaire was happy -- deep down somewhere past the reflexive sarcasm and a measurable if mild amount of liver damage -- too.

The puppy chose this moment to bark again. It sounded less like an inquiry and more like a demand.

"All right, suppertime," Grantaire told him. He stood up crookedly, like a droid with mismatched robo-limbs, and began to stagger towards the kitchen in a lurching fashion that gave the puppy enough time to run ahead like a starter's pistol had gone off.

Enjolras stayed seated, as though gravity had been dialed up to black hole levels.

Courfeyrac's phone call had ended. "Bahorel says Prouvaire says Combeferre might do something for Christmas Eve. Actual real-china-and-cloth-napkins dinner, maybe, or at least extensive snackage. Has anyone said anything to you about it?"

"Joly said Bossuet was considering making barbeque at Feuilly's place."

That a scorecard would be needed for everyone to keep up with each other for the last two weeks of the year came as no surprise to Enjolras. The prior December plans had remained elusive and confusing and, ultimately, dashed by a blizzard-bearing polar vortex. Enjolras and Cosette had ended up having Christmas nachos with Bahorel, Bahorel's parents, and Musichetta; Combeferre and Grantaire, both stranded at O'Hare, dined on overpriced deep dish; Prouvaire still refused to discuss what he referred to as The Feast of the Seven Viruses; and the rest had sought shelter at various and sundry familial points east and south.

"If we could get everyone in the same place for five minutes, we could hash out a single functioning plan," Courfeyrac mused. Enjolras gave him a pointed look. "Yes, I know that sort of thing isn't precisely my strong suit, but it could be."

"Make everyone meet at the mall," Grantaire called in in a sarcastic voice, over the whir of the can opener.

"Good god, no," Courfeyrac said, horrified.

"Group email?" Enjolras suggested.

"Are we too young, or too old, that such a format seems antiquated already?" Courfeyrac asked non-judgmentally. "It's like trying to round everyone up in a literal paddy wagon."

"Yeah," Enjolras agreed, though he wasn't sure with what.

An idea occurred. He sat up. Courfeyrac's eyes widened. Enjolras hummed with pride: he loved his clever friends.

"We make Combeferre call everyone," Courfeyrac said. It was an inspired proposal.

"He'll hate that," Enjolras said. A laugh erupted from his chest.

"I'll head over there now." Courfeyrac bounced a little with merriment. "Want a hand?" He pulled Enjolras into a standing position. He kissed both of Enjolras's cheeks, not entirely unlike a cheerful mob boss might. "Heading out," he called to Grantaire.

Grantaire strolled back from the kitchen wiping his wet hands on a paper towel. "Thanks for the company at the vet's."

"No worries. Remember. The thing." Courfeyrac tipped his head.

"Yes," Grantaire said. "Thanks."

"Bye, puppy," Courfeyrac shouted back in a sing-song as he left.

The puppy actually yip-barked a loud reply. He was the smartest puppy on earth. Enjolras's neighbors were probably thrilled.

"The thing?" Enjolras asked Grantaire's retreating form.

Grantaire stopped at the kitchen door and turned around. "Um. You know. Thing. Things."

Sheepishness was not really in the natural skillset of someone who regularly went out of his liquored, erudite, and provoking-on-purpose-I-know-you-all-love-me-anyway way. Grantaire studied the floor as though it surprised him to be solid. He took a breath.

"You were right, you know." Grantaire's expression was inscrutable, just this side of rueful.

"About?" Enjolras crept closer.

Behind Grantaire the puppy, water dripping from his chin, had rushed under the dining room table and was worrying his favorite hedgehog squeaker. It added inadvertently hilarious percussion to Grantaire's next words.

"Us," Grantaire finally said on an exhale, like it had been punched out of him. "Or Courfeyrac. Or Courfeyrac in regards to us -- he'd guessed we were." He waved a hand as if at random. "Doing this stuff." He sniffed. "Together."

"Ahhh. And you talked about us?"

"Sorta." Grantaire looked up. "Yes. A lot. Don't be surprised if Courfeyrac corners you soon and makes a lot of hysterical noises in your general direction."

Enjolras couldn't help but grin. "It's really okay."

"He said I should tell you how I feel." Grantaire sounded like this would prove to be a misery.

"You don't..." Enjolras stepped into whatever personal space Grantaire had left, and eliminated it by putting his arms around Grantaire's waist. "You want to tell me something, anything? Okay. Whenever or whatever you like. But you don't have to. Especially not just because Courfeyrac said to." He kissed the freckle by Grantaire's left eyebrow.

Grantaire pulled away only a little; a subtle note of sly snuck into his expression. "You just don't want to have to say things to me."

"Maybe," Enjolras admitted.

"The vet says, if you get the puppy fixed, you'll also have to buy one of those cones of shame to keep him from licking the stitches. Apparently they sell you one whether you want it or not, it's part of the upfront price, not negotiable."

"Okay." Enjolras could use his reasonable voice. "I'll make an appointment in early January."

Grantaire nodded. He'd put his arms around Enjolras too, but it felt tentative, Grantaire's hands light on Enjolras's shoulder blades.

He still expects me to leave, Enjolras thought. Not just leave: vanish.

"So, I was thinking about something myself," he told Grantaire. "While you were out." He did pull away then, but caught Grantaire by the elbow in the turn and tugged him with him as he went back to his spot by the tree.

Piles of binder clips and crumbled post-it notes and notebooks, folders, print outs -- paperless society, my ass, he thought -- were fanned out like snowflakes, representing months of grueling work, more than a few heartbreaking decisions and outcomes, and, somehow, eventually, an agenda that would set the group's goals for the next twelve to 24 months. He scooted his iPad and weekly planner out of the way and kept tugging Grantaire down to the floor, until they could both sit again in the nook where, Enjolras had discovered, their tree presented its most flattering angles.

"You can't see the big gap from here," Grantaire said agreeably. He understood Enjolras appreciated the tree more for its simple twinkly prettiness than for any seasonal symbolism it conveyed.

He pried off his boots and threw them, thonk-thonk, under the opposite side table. The puppy noodled over to investigate and gnaw on the laces.

"You've been thinking?" Grantaire poked Enjolras on the arm.

Enjolras thought about where to start. "39% voter turnout in the state last month. 2.7% of those voters wrote in the Versailles county sheriff for governor, either despite of or because he's currently being investigated by the feebs. Governor-elect Louis has vowed to cut funding for education, early child development, welfare, and basically anything that would provide a public service to anyone not in a 28% or higher tax bracket, and push through large tax incentives for, amongst other things, a theme park where every religion except one -- guess which one -- is considered at best pitifully misguided. Like, we're not going to hire you if you don't sign this loyalty oath misguided. And because he didn't live here for over twenty years and wouldn't have gone fishing even if he had, it's peachy keen that every single waterway has now tested positive for a slew of man-contributed toxins; therefore, he's going to pick a fight with the EPA over coal slurry, power plant runoff, river traffic, and badly needed upgrades to sewer and other wastewater infrastructure."

"Enj--"

"Furthermore, do you know how many calls we logged this year from people who were about to be evicted, or whose kids hadn't eaten three meals a day in over a month, or who were being denied access to a goddamn restroom on the basis of, basically, their existence? We've been contacted 63% more than we were last year. And yes, donations are also up, like, through the roof. Combeferre sleeps 75% fewer hours than he did a year ago because just figuring out what investment, grant, or case to tackle first with which pool of money is 75% harder than it was a year ago -- and we still don't have enough funds, time, or people to offset the sociopaths a whopping 27% of the state voted to put in office."

"I--"

"Life is hard and it's only going to get harder for a lot of people. Those are just the facts."

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. "Did we switch brains this morning before I left? I don't remember doing that, but maybe I wouldn't."

"There are always struggles," Enjolras said. "And people get worn down, tired, scared and bereaved and angry."

"And that's why we drink."

Enjolras smiled. "That's why we fight."

Grantaire took another breath, let it out. "Does this have something to do with us? Like, you and I lounging here by this ostentatious display of paganism?"

Enjolras plowed onward; a thought of literally scooping up heavy wet snow with a shovel came to mind. "I'm not going anywhere."

Grantaire looked away. Red, green, gold, and blue glimmers colored the slightly crooked length of his nose, his dark eyebrows, his jaw shadowed with beard. He kept his eyes on the tree. "Doesn't mean you won't want me to go. One day."

"Anything's possible," Enjolras agreed, and saw Grantaire swallow. "Know what I know about you now, though?"

Grantaire didn't answer, but he looked into Enjolras's face again, willing to listen. His eyes were solemn.

"I'm committed," Enjolras said. "To helping others, to doing what has to be done. To my friends. Always. You think you're not."

"The group's causes...aren't my causes." Grantaire didn't sound defensive, only honest.

"You're still here too. If I held out my hand, you'd take it. Every single time you'd take it." Enjolras brushed a lock of hair behind Grantaire's ear. "That's what I know about you."

"Is that enough?" Grantaire's roughened voice created an ache at Enjolras's sternum.

Enjolras held out his left hand, palm up. Grantaire pressed his right palm against it, and Enjolras folded over his fingers, holding Grantaire's hand tight. He kissed Grantaire and Grantaire kissed back, breaking the hand-hold to put his hands on Enjolras's head, in Enjolras's hair. The kiss was suddenly urgent, wild and sweet and insistent, and returning it felt like more of a pledge than Enjolras had ever in all his life imagined he would make to another person.

After what seemed like a moment stretched long as garland Grantaire gently stopped kissing Enjolras in order to say to the puppy, "I need those toes for later, dear."

The puppy, flopped over like a ragdoll, quit chewing on Grantaire's foot and gave both him and Enjolras an anticipatory look.

"He's waiting for a name," Grantaire whispered, threading his fingers through Enjolras's.

"He's puppy," Enjolras said, like that explained it.

The puppy, unnamed but also completely unconcerned about it, pounce-bounced his way up their stretched out legs and was lavished with all the affection he so richly deserved.