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Most of his brothers spend their days in the village, aiding the townspeople with various tasks. The frost of winter has finally melted, and it is time to till and plant the fields again. His brothers do their duty, and enjoy the warmth of the sun on their faces for we are blessed by God, says Brother Combeferre. Brother Jehan scribbles at least three verses about God’s bounty in the springtime and sings them aloud when the prior is not nearby to hear him.
Grantaire takes the time to open a window, to see the sun and feel a cool breeze ruffle through his hair, but he prefers to stay indoors. He likes the safety that only thick, stone walls can bring. He uses fewer candles in the spring, and that is a relief, tucked away in the corner of the library, allowing sunlight to spill across his work. Grantaire almost feels lighter on the inside, too, and he continues to skip Mass and sometimes matins and vespers. He keeps the crucifix that used to be on his wall shoved between bed frame and mattress. An occasional confession, from time to time, but those do not make him feel any lighter, with the penances that he only half-heartedly carries out, more often than not under Enjolras’s watchful eye.
Enjolras pretends not to watch him, not to see him, when the sun is up and they live surrounded by their brothers. Sometimes an argument in an undertone, when Enjolras is at his more scholarly work, but little more than that.
(He tries to keep his heated gaze on God, but Grantaire’s sharp gaze is eternally earthbound, and he can see when Enjolras ends up watching him instead. In his own distraction, he spends too long at pretending prayer and then the chapel is empty, and Grantaire cannot bear to face the prospect of God alone. He scratches at where his robes itch underneath his arms and retires to the comfort of dusty books and paint.)
During penance, he thumbs through his rosary beads and moves his lips and thinks of other things.
…..
“You look unwell.” A voice, tight with concern and something else, unidentifiable.
Grantaire does not look up, and he doesn’t have to. Although the sentiment seems almost foreign coming from that mouth, he would recognize Enjolras anywhere, and the shape of his long shadow on the floor. He continues to move his brush across coarse paper, patterning the Blessed Mother’s azure shawl with bits of red for texture.
And he knows he looks unwell—he can feel the dark circles that inscribe themselves around his eyes, and with all his brothers hale and tanned and ever-grinning, he must seem sickly by comparison. But Grantaire is speaking to Enjolras, and so he is obstinate sheerly out of habit. “I am well. If I feel otherwise, I shall speak to Brother Joly about it,” he says, clipped and unhappy, though he cannot name the reason why.
Enjolras does not reply, but Grantaire is studying his shadow now, and he does not move, either.
“What would you have of me, brother? Would you like my thoughts on simony? Or shall we write a treatise against the pope’s latest mistress? Shall I fetch a chair and make room for you at this table?” The questions spill out of him before he can stop them, mocking and cold and he can taste the bitterness on his tongue, like wine gone sour. He sets down his paintbrush and looks up.
Enjolras appears unmoved. He always appears unmoved, and Grantaire wishes they could fuck face-to-face only once so that he might watch him come undone, watch golden-edged eyelids flicker open and closed again and witness firsthand the vibrations of a low groan in his throat. A miracle, like the saints perform.
Then again, perhaps Enjolras is unmoved even then, too, his face like that of a statue’s, with only the glow of simmering anger in his eyes to betray the soul inside of the man.
“I am only concerned for your health, that is all,” Enjolras mutters, and looks away to the wall now that Grantaire is staring up at him. “Lent begins in less than a fortnight and I would not want the fasting to make you ill.”
“I shall sneak food from the kitchens, if I deem it necessary,” Grantaire says, to be contrary. The truth is that he cannot remember the last time he took a full meal. Usually he picks at his bread and swallows only a few spoonfuls of the beef broth that is often served for supper. He’s certain that Brother Feuilly, who sits beside him, assumes it is for some sort of penance and stays silent. Grantaire supposes it might be penance, too—penance for living, for breathing and thinking and too much sinning to ever tally up in its entirety. He sighs aloud, glances down at the book he is illustrating. He’d barely resisted his impulse to paint the Virgin with tumbling yellow curls.
(The Prior’s sermons of damnation ceased terrifying him months ago—he still avoids Mass whenever he can get away with it. He knows that if the Abbot were not so soft-hearted, he might have been exiled or expelled to drink himself to death in the streets. Grantaire might not revere God but he can admire the Abbot’s patience.)
A scratching on the floor, and Enjolras pulls up a stool beside him. He leans in. “What are your thoughts on transubstantiation?”
Against his will, Grantaire raises his eyebrows and begins to smile. “I knew you only wished to discuss some new controversy with a willing listener who won’t betray whatever blasphemy is in your mind.” He pauses, considering, and tries to be less aware of Enjolras’s eyes drawn to his half-open mouth. Against his will, Grantaire licks his lips, before continuing. “The Church’s doctrine is that, as the priest blesses the bread and the wine, they become the actual flesh and blood of Christ, yes?”
Enjolras nods.
“And I assume you disagree?”
Enjolras looks around the library—empty, as usual after vespers, and most of their brothers have retired to their beds. He nods again. “I have been reading some of the letters of Berengar of Tours, and his argument that the Eucharist requires no physical, material change in the bread and wine is rather well-reasoned,” he admits. “The invocation of the spiritual presence of the Lord, after consecration, is a sufficient explanation. Berengar recanted, of course, after his excommunication, but I do not find his claims entirely without merit. If God is present, why must we persist in the belief in such a mysterious, unlikely transformation? Priests are only men, after all, and not magicians.”
“You had best lower your voice, Brother Enjolras, lest you risk excommunication yourself,” Grantaire replies, although the smile does not leave his face. He likes the doubting Enjolras, prefers him questioning and concerned over the ever-faithful son of the Church. He is not one of the men who would rise only to continue the traditions of his religion, but to change them and for the better. “Ah, but I do not know my own thoughts upon the Eucharist—it has been so long since I have taken it myself,” he adds.
Enjolras furrows his brow, and Grantaire braces himself for a scolding. “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you will not have life in you,” he quotes. “No wonder you seem so sickly. Will you not attend Mass more often?”
Grantaire wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “No one takes ill and dies from not taking communion. Else there would not be so many heathens in the world, and no crusades! No, no, I am fine.”
But Enjolras is still frowning at him, and Grantaire recalls that he has managed to convince him to go to confession every once in awhile, and Enjolras may well try to do the same with Mass and the holy sacrament. He must find a distraction, and then he does—Enjolras’s hands—long fingers, Grantaire knows just how far they reach—resting on the tabletop. Carefully, as though Enjolras is a horse in the field that might spook at any moment, his rests his hands against Enjolras’s, fingers curling underneath to trace his palms. “I am fine,” he murmurs again. “Save your concern for the Church, and for God. Do not waste it on me.”
When Enjolras’s eyes move back to Grantaire’s lips, he knows that he has won, and is grateful for the privacy this library has offered them, time and time again.
Their heads were close to begin with, and Grantaire leans in the rest of the way to eliminate the remaining distance. Lips meet, softly at first, until Enjolras opens his mouth in silent invitation. Grantaire has already memorized the splay of his mouth by heart, and now he retraces it with his tongue—the grooves on the roof of Enjolras’s mouth, his teeth, that raw spot behind his lower lip that he chews on whenever he is too deep in thought. Enjolras brings his hands up to clutch at the collar of Grantaire’s robe, tilts his head to deepen the kiss, and now it’s Grantaire’s lower lip he cuts his teeth upon. Grantaire groans, and lets his fingers loose in Enjolras’s hair. When his fingernails graze against his scalp, Enjolras shivers and pulls him closer—this is what Grantaire meant, earlier, by the blasphemies in their minds.
They break apart for breath, and Grantaire explores the contours of Enjolras’s throat with lips and tongue. Enjolras permits it, and it’s all somehow more tender than their usual pushing and grabbing and thrusting—
Enjolras tilts his head back, eyes half-lidded and heavy and wanting when Grantaire looks up at him. They’re both still in their chairs, and Grantaire resolves to fix that. He’d like to stretch into Enjolras’s lap—legs on either side of him and hips moving and bucking while hard cocks—
Instead he slides onto his knees, slots himself between Enjolras’s legs the best that he can with cumbersome robes—and when did these clothes get so warm and too heavy—and their mouths collide again in a gasp, and the grasp that Enjolras has on the back of his neck is hard enough to bruise and he’ll have to wear his cowl for at least a few days to hide purple fingerprints. He hums happily at the thought, while his hands and arms busy themselves somewhere lower—trying to hike up an irritating tunic—and Enjolras lets out a moan and sits back abruptly when Grantaire’s cheek rubs against his upright cock, even through the thick woolen robe.
“Do you like that?” Grantaire whispers in a low voice, because he’s fairly certain this is one of the only times he’s ever gotten Enjolras to stop whatever he is in the middle of, and he find he likes having this sort of upper hand.
Enjolras licks his bruised lips, red and swollen, and watches Grantaire.
Grantaire hesitates only a moment before moving his tongue roughly over Enjolras—over Enjolras but through the fabric, and Enjolras shudders and shifts his hips. That shift is all Grantaire needs to haul Enjolras’s robe up over his knees and around his waist. He tugs at the softer material of his underclothes, and smirks when Enjolras gasps.
“Grantaire,” Enjolras moans, and it’s like music, because Grantaire isn’t even touching him—save for hands resting almost chastely on his knees—he’s just looking, and Grantaire also realizes that this is something new. In all the ways they’ve been together, this has not been one of them.
(It’s a liberty that Enjolras is allowing, for one reason or another, and it isn’t likely to happen again.)
He begins with his tongue. A tentative touch at the tip, and then a swipe of it around the head. There’s a growl in the back of Enjolras’s throat, and Grantaire stares up at him. Enjolras’s eyes are closed, hands gripping hard the arms of the chair he’s barely even sitting in anymore.
Now he licks along the length, and listens with satisfaction to the resulting gasp.
“The flesh of the Son of Man,” he grunts, against the inside of Enjolras’s thigh, and Enjolras’s eyes open wide—filled with something like horror mixed with a new wave of lust.
He resists the impulse to say Amen.
When Grantaire takes him fully into his mouth and then the back of throat, head bobbing up and down, Enjolras’s back arches and hips move.
Hands heavy on Grantaire’s head—in his hair—Enjolras would like very much to control himself but
Grantaire is nothing if not pliable, and he shields teeth with lips as his mouth hangs open, and Enjolras begins to drag Grantaire’s face back forth on his own cock. His eyes begin to water, but he doesn’t gag, and when he moves his tongue again, Enjolras moans and moves faster.
He’d like to seek his own release, because he’s throbbing now—the incoherent sounds coming from Enjolras and the ache in his throat only exacerbating his arousal—but he’s careful not to make any sudden movements and to injure Enjolras with his teeth. He rubs a hand against himself, through the robe, and groans around Enjolras in his mouth.
Enjolras freezes, and through gritted teeth: “Do that again,” he hisses, and thrusts again in Grantaire’s mouth.
Grantaire moans freely, louder now, as he grips himself in one hand. The other clings to Enjolras’s knee in an attempt to stay upright.
“Grantaire, oh,” Enjolras sobs and his eyes roll back and he looks positively wild as he comes, and slumps back, panting. There’s a layer of sweat on his brow, and there’s a spot of blood from where he bit his lip too hard.
Grantaire swallows warmth and salt, pulls away and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. He pulls Enjolras’s tunic back down, and rises to his feet on trembling legs. He hasn’t yet taken care of himself, not entirely, and he adjusts his belt to hide it.
The man in front of him has yet to move, as he tries to steady his breathing, and watches Grantaire with an unreadable expression.
He’s finally watched him come undone, and yet how quickly he puts himself back together.
For once, Grantaire is the first one to stumble away, and leave Enjolras in the almost-darkness of the empty library.