Candlelight (Enjoltaire Drabble)

Candlelight

The crash of something being dropped startled Enjolras awake.

It was dark both outside and in, and the straw mattress on which he had previously been asleep was distinctly lacking the body of the man who it actually belonged to. This was his first clue as to where the noise had come from.

A dim, yellow light emanated from the far side of the room, just barely reaching him in his reclined position. The wobble of the flame caused the shadows it cast to flicker as well. Enjolras was silent for a moment, eyes fixed to the ceiling, while to his right he heard whispered curses and the shuffling of objects.

When he finally turned to see, his gaze was met with the bounce of dark curls and half-amused, half-bewildered eyes as he whipped around to face Enjolras. The deep breath he took as he stared implied that he may have feared for Enjolras's response, but he seemed not to care enough to apologize for the noise-- or even to say anything at all.

His hands held what appeared to be broken glass and a paint-covered wooden palette. Wordlessly, he broke their eye contact, and continued gathering his dropped supplies.

"It's the middle of the night, Grantaire," Enjolras stated in complaint once it was clear that there would be no unprompted explanation or apology.

There was no immediate response. The scrape of tiny pieces of glass against the wooden floor was his only reply.

Grantaire was most driven at night. It was for this reason that Enjolras was oft woken in the early hours of the morning by his body hitting the mattress with insensitive force. It was a long way to fall from standing to lying practically on the floor, but it never seemed to bother him. This was due in part, Enjolras guessed, to Grantaire being absolutely wasted on wine or liquor. It was a wonder he hadn't drunk himself to death yet, though he always reeked of the substance whether awake or asleep.

"Grantaire," Enjolras prompted, annoyance creeping into his tone, sitting up at last. It was impossible to tell just how late it was, but his body was sore enough that he probably hadn't slept more than a few hours.

"My lord?" Grantaire responded, feigning societal obedience. He declined to look up.

Normally, Enjolras would ignore that sort of response, but he couldn't help it. A sigh escaped him. "It's the middle of the night," he repeated.

"Of that, I'm well aware," Grantaire responded. "And would you believe it, I had to light a candle to be able to see my work." He raised his head a bit and gestured to the metal dish that held the candle, lighting the canvas that faced away from Enjolras.

Grantaire set his palette on the table beside him and rose to his feet, hands full of unintentionally painted glass shards. It left a mess where the palette had fallen, face down, but it was nothing new to the room, Enjolras was certain. Judging by the stains on the floor, dropping his paints was likely a common occurrence. It didn't surprise him at all.

Enjolras pried himself away from the mattress, moving silently toward the site of the accident. Grantaire had walked off to dispose of the broken bottle. He glimpsed the canvas, and on it rested a mess of golden curls. His own, he assumed, until his eye traveled to the beginnings of a soft blue backdrop with wisps of cloud floating behind the man's figure. The painting wasn't even half-finished, but Enjolras felt a slight pang of embarrassment that he'd assumed it was of him, but all things considered...

Grantaire returned from the hallway, staggering from whichever poison had been in the bottle he'd dropped. He wrapped his arms around Enjolras's waist, the oil paint on his hands no doubt permanently staining the shirt he was wearing.

"What do you think?" He paused. "Apollo?" It was phrased as a question, but Enjolras recognized the god of the sun on the canvas before him.

"It's coming on," he murmured, lips barely moving.

"I hate it," came Grantaire's harsh reply. There was a ferocity in his voice that was normally reserved for their public arguments, but when Enjolras checked, Grantaire was grinning.

He broke free of the embrace, grabbing Grantaire's hands. He'd forgotten about the paint, but it was too late for his shirt already, so he paid that detail little mind. "You're insufferable," Enjolras deadpanned

"And you're gorgeous," Grantaire quipped without missing a beat. He lunged forward to kiss Enjolras, but he let go of Grantaire's hands at the last moment and left the dark-haired man to stumble forward.

"Clean your hands off before you try anything," Enjolras shot back over his shoulder.

"You wound me." Grantaire was pouting, but smeared the paint from his hands over Apollo's image. It was silly of him, but Enjolras almost felt the loss of the painting personally. There was nothing he could do about it now, but he would rather have offered his already-ruined shirt as a cloth than have Grantaire ruin the painting he had crawled out of bed to create.

There was much he didn't understand about Grantaire, some of which was because Grantaire didn't seem to want him to understand. Before their current arrangement, he hardly paid the other man any attention. They would debate hotly about any issue that Grantaire cared to push him on, but other than a mild annoyance, the older man meant nothing to him.

Though, there was something charming about Grantaire's continued support of their cause. The drunkard was staunchly noncommittal, but he showed up to every meeting without fail, no matter if he hadn't slept in days or if he was working on a sketch or painting for a sale or show (which was rarely). And though it his input was mostly distracting at best, he cared enough to challenge Enjolras. He would hate to admit it to anyone else, but that was admirable.

Enjolras knew that if he told anyone that he was sleeping in Grantaire's room, they would be suspicious, if not disgusted. Even Courfeyrac and Combeferre, his closest friends, would find it wrong. Enjolras himself was morally irresolute about it. Something transcendental drew him to Grantaire. Diametrical opposition, instead of preventing a connection between the two, ensured it; it was as though Grantaire was incapable of existence without Enjolras to balance his nihilism.

Enjolras sat back against the wall in thoughtful silence, watching the shadows sway while Grantaire fumbled about with his paintbrushes and charcoals. After dropping his entire palette along with his drink, he couldn't be blamed for giving up on the piece. Shame he'd wasted the paint though; Enjolras knew supplies like those could get expensive.

The room darkened. Before his eyes had time to adjust, he heard the firm yet delicate footsteps moving toward him from across the room. It startled him only slightly when he felt Grantaire drop into his lap, straddling his hips.

"I fucked it up, Apollo," he lamented in a mumble, resting his head awkwardly against Enjolras's shoulder.

"You didn't have to destroy it," Enjolras muttered into the dark mess of hair, realizing once he heard the nickname used as such, that whether or not he truly had been painting a Greek god, Enjolras's visage had some hand in the aspect.

Grantaire raised his head and brought his face close to Enjolras's. His lower back rested against Enjolras's thighs, which were drawn up to support him. His breath was hot and offensive, and as he spoke, his lips brushed Enjolras's own.

"It wasn't good enough." Grantaire spoke slowly and kept his voice low, and when Enjolras parted his lips to respond, Grantaire kissed him firmly on the mouth, sliding his hands down Enjolras's arms and subsequently clambering off of him to flop down on the mattress beside him. "I want to sleep."

If he'd thought it would be constructive, Enjolras may have argued, but he decided to save his energy. After all, he wanted to sleep, too. He shifted to a lying position and set his back to Grantaire, who draped his arm across Enjolras's waist. The only sounds the two men heard were the sounds of their breathing as they let sleep reclaim them.