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jukitio · 7 months

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Oceans Apart

Watched Ocean's 11 last night for the umpteenth time and this popped into my head as I watched the scene where Danny and Tess reunite.

Should probably be part of something larger but like. Context? What context? I don't know her.

Modern AU, E/R, post-breakup. Angst because it's been too fucking long.

Enjolras peered through the windows of the tiny, nondescript restaurant, his heart doing double time in his chest as he saw the back of the man he was looking for. He’d know the hunch of those shoulders anywhere, the way the man’s shirt stretched across a deceptively well-muscled back. Once upon a time, he’d known every inch of the skin beneath that shirt.

But that was years ago. Now…

Now, he straightened, pushed the door to the restaurant open and walked inside like he was supposed to be there, skirting the hostess stand and making a beeline to the man in question, hesitating for only a moment before reaching out to lightly rest a hand on the man’s shoulder.

Grantaire froze before slowly reaching up to cover Enjolras’s hand with his own, and then—

“Fuck,” Enjolras swore, as Grantaire gripped and then twisted his fingers.

Violently.

Grantaire let go without doing any lasting damage, and Enjolras cradled his hand against his chest for a moment, his pride far more wounded than the hand. “Hello to you, too,” he grumbled, even as he drank Grantaire in with eager eyes.

It had been far, far too long.

But Grantaire wasn’t amused. “What are you doing here?” he said, in lieu of a greeting.

Enjolras jerked a shrug, flexing his fingers to make sure they all still worked before dropping his hand to his side. “I got out.”

“You got out,” Grantaire repeated, something incredulous in the three words.

“Of prison,” Enjolras supplied helpfully. “You remember, the day I went for beer and never came back. You must have noticed.”

“You don’t drink,” Grantaire said shortly, followed by an exasperated, “Don’t sit—”

But it was too late, as Enjolras sat down across from him. Almost as if on cue, a waiter appeared at the tableside, looking at them expectantly. “Can I get anything for your…”

He trailed off. “Husband,” Enjolras supplied.

“Ex,” Grantaire corrected. “Or didn’t you get the papers?”

The waiter glanced between them, eyes wide. “I’ll give you two a moment.”

He disappeared as quickly as he had arrived, and Enjolras gave Grantaire a long, measured look. Despite everything, despite, especially, the acrimony that was rolling off of Grantaire in waves, it really was good to see him.

Even if the feeling was, seemingly, not mutual.

“What are you doing here?” Grantaire repeated.

Enjolras sighed and leaned forward. “They say I paid my debt to society,” he started, but Grantaire snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Funny, I never got a check.”

Enjolras gave him a look. “But I felt I owed you a little bit more than just time served,” he continued, and Grantaire scoffed and looked away. “Hence the drop by.”

Grantaire didn’t quite meet his eyes as he reached out to trace a finger through the condensation on his water glass. “How’d you even get parole anyway?” he asked, deliberately casual. “I’d’ve thought domestic terrorism would be an automatic life sentence.”

“I wasn’t convicted for domestic terrorism,” Enjolras said.

“Right, just indicted.”

Grantaire gave him a sharp sort of smile that didn’t remotely reach his eyes, and it was Enjolras’s turn to look away. “So you did keep up with my case,” he said, aiming for levity and missing by a mile. “I wasn’t sure, considering…”

Grantaire jerked a shrug, his smile disappearing. “Well, I did try to visit you once. Turns out I wasn’t included on your approved visitors list.” Enjolras winced, but Grantaire didn’t let him interrupt. “You know, I always told you that you needed to work on your communication in our marriage, but that one I heard loud and clear.”

“That wasn’t—” Enjolras broke off, not sure where to even start explaining why he hadn’t wanted Grantaire to visit him without explaining the rest. He huffed a dry chuckle, running a hand across his mouth before telling Grantaire, a little wryly, “You don't know how many times I played this conversation out in my head the last five years.”

Grantaire just arched an eyebrow. “Did it always go this poorly?” he asked coolly.

“Yes.”

That sharp smile was back, twitching at the corners of Grantaire’s mouth. “Sounds frustrating.”

“You were never easy,” Enjolras told him, honestly. “You were always worth it.” Again Grantaire’s smile disappeared, and for just a moment, he looked—

He looked as heartbroken as Enjolras had never in a million years wanted him to be.

Enjolras cleared his throat and looked away. “Okay, I’ll make this quick,” he said, trying to steer back on subject, if only to try to alleviate the pain in his chest when he saw Grantaire looking like that. “I came here because I wanted to explain.”

His attempt working perhaps too well, as Grantaire’s expression instantly hardened. “What explanation could you possibly have that will matter one iota?”

Enjolras wet his lips before telling him, his voice low, “You may not believe me, and given everything, I don’t blame you for that, but I swear, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

Grantaire stared at him. “Well, for someone who wasn’t trying, you sure as shit pulled it off with aplomb.” He leaned in, his eyes dark. “So by all means, Apollo, tell me, what were you trying to do?”

Enjolras met his glare evenly. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Bullshit.”

Enjolras shook his head. “It’s not. I didn’t want—”

“And did you ever stop to think about what I wanted?” Grantaire interrupted, his eyes flashing. “Because I didn’t want to be protected, not if that’s what you’re calling the last five years of my life. I wanted us to be together.”

“Pretty hard to be together from a jail cell,” Enjolras said flatly. “As the divorce papers you sent pretty clearly demonstrated.”

Grantaire shook his head. “We could’ve figured something out if you had just, I don’t know, involved me literally once—”

“Involving you would have implicated you,” Enjolras said, his voice tense, “and I couldn’t let that—”

Grantaire barked a laugh, scrubbing his hand across his face. “You think I wasn’t already implicated?” he asked, incredulous. “Tell me, do you think I’m stupid? Or naïve? That I didn’t know what you were doing all that time?”

“I—”

“Because the FBI agents who interrogated me after you were arrested didn’t seem to think so.” Grantaire let that statement sit for a moment before continuing, “We were married. We were living in the same house. Just because I don’t believe in the same Causes you do doesn’t mean I’m a complete moron.”

Enjolras just shook his head. “I never said you were,” he said quietly.

Grantaire’s lip curled. “No, you just decided to cut me out of everything.” He laughed again, dry, humorless. “I mean, hell, I wasn’t even your one phone call when you were arrested.”

He hadn’t been, but it wasn’t because Enjolras hadn’t wanted to call him. But there were multiple moving pieces that needed to fall into place, and— “I didn’t have a choice,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “You did have a choice, Enjolras. You had a choice, you made it.”

“Fine,” Enjolras snapped, “I made a choice, and I didn’t pick you, and I’m sorry, but that doesn’t mean—”

“It was never about picking me!” Grantaire burst. “Three years of marriage before your arrest and you don’t think I had already figured out where I ranked?”

Enjolras had the sudden realization that everyone in the restaurant was staring at them, so he leaned forward and lowered his voice as he told Grantaire, with every ounce of sincerity he possessed, “And you don’t think I know that if I was in trouble, or in danger, you’d firebomb the fucking Hague to keep me safe?” Grantaire met his eyes evenly, and didn’t bother trying to deny it. “I didn’t want that for you.”

“And all I wanted was to be part of the decision,” Grantaire said tiredly, all of the fight leaving him in an instant, his shoulders slumping in what Enjolras recognized all too well as defeat. “Even if there wasn’t a thing I could say or do to change your mind, I just wanted you to care about me enough to ask.”

With that, he stood, and Enjolras stared up at him. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving,” Grantaire said shortly, grabbing his coat. “You did it, you should recognize the gesture.”

Enjolras scrambled to follow, trailing after him out of the restaurant. “Grantaire, please, I—”

“You what?” Grantaire asked, stopping so suddenly that Enjolras almost ran into him.

“I still love you,” Enjolras said. He said it simply, starkly, hoping the quiet declaration would reinforce that he meant it. It had been all he had come to say tonight, after all, and even if Grantaire didn’t believe anything else, didn’t believe in anything else, Enjolras needed him to believe this. “You think my choice was about me not caring enough to involve you, but how could I possibly involve you? How could I possibly tell you what was going on knowing that you would immediately put yourself at risk, and all because of me?”

Grantaire shook his head, but Enjolras didn’t let him interrupt. “The only way that I could do what I did was by knowing that you were sage. So even if you never forgive me for it, I did what I had to do to protect you.”

For one long moment, Grantaire just stared at him, and Enjolras held his breath, hoping against hope that maybe, somehow, Grantaire might find a way to forgive him, even just a little. But then Grantaire shook his head, reaching up to wipe the tear from his cheek with the heel of his palm. “Yeah. Well. Right back atcha,” he said his voice hoarse. “Goodbye, Enjolras.”

Watching Grantaire walk away from him hurt more than Enjolras could possibly have anticipated, all the more so when he saw Grantaire meet up with a dark-haired man halfway down the block, grabbing his arm and tugging him in the opposite direction.

Enjolras wasn’t sure he’d ever fully understood what heartbreak felt like before that moment.

He was staring so intently that he didn’t even notice as Combeferre joined him, squinting after Grantaire. “Why is Grantaire with him?” he asked.

Enjolras shook his head. “Pretty sure that’s who he’s seeing now,” he said dully.

“No, I get that,” Combeferre said, glancing sideways at him. “I told you this was a fool’s errand from the get, after all. But why is Grantaire with a Serbian arms dealer?”

Enjolras stared at him. “He—” Grantaire’s parting words replayed in his head, and for the first time all evening, for the first time, if he was being entirely honest, since he’d gotten the divorce papers mailed to his jail cell without so much as a note, he felt a spark of something flicker in his chest: hope.

“He’s doing what he has to do to protect me.”

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