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His first birthday after meeting all of Les Amis had been something almost shocking to Grantaire. Not because they threw him a party or did anything wild (because they didn’t). No, it was because for the first time, he had a new group of friends, and none of them knew when his birthday was.
Grantaire hated his birthday.
It fell at that awkward cusp right when the school year was ending or right when it had already ended, when his friends were too busy on family vacations to get together for a party. His birthday was relegated to the background, always an afterthought, and sure, nowadays he got the requisite hundred plus “Happy Birthday!!!”s on Facebook, but that hardly counted.
Mostly his birthday was an excuse for getting ridiculously drunk and passing out early to try and forget that another year of his miserable, worthless life had passed.
That year, though, everything was different. He had friends, real friends, true friends, the kind who probably would throw him a birthday party if he let slip the date of his birth (which he didn’t, which he wouldn’t, since it was an old hurt at this point, a small scar that barely even twinged when the date passed with no recognition).
Which made it all the stranger when he strolled into the Musain that day to find streamers, balloons, and a banner that proclaimed, “Happy Birthday!”
He thought his heart might stop then and there, all the more so when Courfeyrac leapt out from behind a table and shouted, “Surprise!”
Then, to Grantaire’s confusion, he straightened and called, “False alarm, everyone, it’s just Grantaire.”
“Just me?” asked Grantaire lightly, mock-offended. “Who were you expecting it to be?”
Jehan rolled his eyes as he maneuvered himself into a more comfortable position on the floor behind one of the tables. “Enjolras, of course.”
Enjolras. Oh, Enjolras.
Grantaire could not even begin to summarize the feelings he had regarding Enjolras, ranging from “I want to stab him in the face, the smug bastard” to “take me on this table right here, right now, my body is ready”, and just about everything in between. “Is it Enjolras’s birthday today?” he asked, a little too casually.
“No, we just decided to decorate the Musain and hide for shits and grins,” snorted Bahorel from the corner.
As Grantaire calmly gave Bahorel the finger, his mind was racing. He shared a birthday with Enjolras.
It was bizarre to think about, almost a little like sharing a birthday with a god. But then again, it guaranteed that no one in Les Amis was ever going to give a second thought to his birthday. And besides, it gave Grantaire an excuse to pay even more attention than usual to Enjolras.
And so he did, spending the entire night laughing and drinking and partying with the rest of Les Amis, whooping when they got Enjolras to do a birthday cake shot, teasingly saying that they should all give the birthday boy a kiss (Enjolras halted that one in its tracks, though not before he had received a rather steamy kiss from Courfeyrac). All in all, it was without doubt one of Grantaire’s best birthdays on record, even if no one else knew it.
This pattern repeated every year. In years when their birthday fell during the week, the surprise party - which was never in fact much of a surprise by this point - was more of a surprise birthday dinner . When it fell on the weekend or even just a day when not much was going on, a more raucous party could be expected.
Regardless, Grantaire settled into the routine of actually beginning to enjoy his birthday, mostly because it wasn’t his birthday. There was no disappointment because there was no expectation, and while a lesser man might have become jealous of the attention lavished on Enjolras, Grantaire had spent enough birthdays sitting on the front stoop of his parents’ home, waiting for his mom to get off work from a double shift so she could let him in the house, had spent enough birthdays being told that money was tight this year and that next year’s present would be better, and had spent enough birthdays where his parents just straight out forgot that it was birthday to really mind.
The only exception was when their birthday fell on an odd day, a day when Enjolras or most of the group was busy, and the party had to be pushed to a different day. Those birthdays were bad. Those birthdays found Grantaire so far down a bottle that it would take him days to recover.
He didn’t like to think about those years.
Only once during all this time did he get asked about when his birthday was. Grantaire had just laughed, tipping his beer bottle back to drain it, tipped a wink at Joly, who was the one who had asked, and said, “I am a man of mystery, and this is one you’ll never crack.” He didn’t see the odd look that crossed Enjolras’s face when he had said that.
This year was one of those odd years. Enjolras had plans - a work thing of some variety, Bahorel was vague on the details when he told Grantaire - and Grantaire had already prepared himself for the evening ahead, for sitting on his shitty couch and staring at his shitty walls, wishing as he did every year to not be him.
It was one of those things that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, he supposed. His life was going…surprisingly well, all things considered. He had a steady job doing graphic design for a company and was doing good business in commissions on the side. His relationship with Enjolras was probably at what could be considered an all-time high; it had been weeks since their last full-blown, knock-down, drag-out fight and for once he didn’t feel like he was lying when he told people that they were friends.
Still, his birthday always served as a reminder of his past, of the things he had done and lived through, the problems that had started, it seemed, with his birth, and so despite how well his life was going, he still knew he wouldn’t be able to shake the feelings that crept up his spine and kept him anchored to his bottles.
On that particular day, though, before he was even halfway through his first bottle of vodka, before he had sunk into that familiar stupor that crawled through his veins like cold ice, there was a knock on his door. Against his better judgment, Grantaire set the vodka bottle down on the coffee table and went to answer it.
To his shock, Enjolras stood outside his door, looking almost a little nervous, which Grantaire would have called a figment of his imagination had he been either far more intoxicated or far more sober. “Um, hi,” said Grantaire, leaning against the door frame.
“Hi,” said Enjolras, his voice a little breathy, and if anything confirmed Grantaire’s suspicions that Enjolras was nervous, it was that. But it just didn’t make any sense for Enjolras to be nervous… “Um, can I come in?”
Grantaire realized he had been staring at Enjolras and blushed slightly. “Of course. Come on in, Apollo.”
Enjolras followed him into the apartment and Grantaire didn’t need to be looking at him to see the way he rolled his eyes before saying dryly, “We’ve been over this before, Grantaire. My name is not Apollo.”
With a small laugh, Grantaire flopped down on the couch. “On today, of all days, indulge me, would you?” He took a swig from the vodka bottle, and, after a moment’s hesitation, offered it to Enjolras. “I’d offer you something better to drink but this is literally all I have right now.”
Wrinkling his nose slightly, Enjolras politely declined as he sat down on Grantaire’s armchair. “No thank you.” He looked closer at Grantaire, something unreadable in his eyes. “What did you mean, on today of all days?”
‘I meant your birthday, of course,” answered Grantaire easily, having not felt the sting of the lie for years now. “Speaking of, many happy returns.”
Enjolras looked at him for a long moment before saying quietly, “The sentiment is returned, of course.”
Rolling onto his side, Grantaire raised an eyebrow at Enjolras. “Beg your pardon?”
After another moment of hesitation, complete with biting his lip in a way that half made Grantaire want to kiss him, Enjolras reached into his messenger bag and pulled out two party hats and a single cupcake, candle in the middle. “Happy birthday, Grantaire.”
Grantaire just stared at him, open-mouthed. When he had recovered the power of speech, he whispered, “How…how did you…?”
“How did I know?” Enjolras supplied, shifting uncomfortably. “Um, I’ve…well, I’ve known since the beginning. I’ve run a background check on every single one of Les Amis, which given the nature of our activities really shouldn’t surprise you, but um…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. Sorry I didn’t do anything about it sooner. You just…you never seemed to want to talk about your birthday and I know I should have said or done something from the beginning and you must think I’m a giant selfish asshole for not saying anything, but—”
Grantaire cut Enjolras off by standing, crossing to him in a single stride, and pulling him into a giant hug. “Thank you,” he whispered, voice muffled against Enjolras’s shoulder. “Thank you. For…well, everything.”
After a brief moment, Enjolras’s arms tentatively wrapped around Grantaire and they stayed that way for a long moment. Then Grantaire pulled away, sitting back on the edge of the couch, and Enjolras, who looked equally parts pleased and flustered, cleared his throat and handed him one of the party hats. “Here,” he said gruffly, putting the other on over his curls.
Blinking at him, Grantaire almost asked if this was necessary but the butterflies in his stomach told him not to ruin the moment. So instead he wordlessly put his own hat on, setting it off on a jaunty angle. Then he looked down at the cupcake. “You should share this with me,” he said softly. “I mean, it is your birthday, too.”
“Taire, there’s going to be an entire sheet cake in my honor at Courf’s on Friday,” Enjolras said patiently. “This one is all for you.”
Grantaire nodded, then frowned. “I thought you had some kind of work thing tonight.”
To his surprise, Enjolras blushed. “I, uh, I lied. I just…I didn’t want this year to be the same as all the others.”
There were many things Grantaire wanted to say to that, to Enjolras lying to their friends on his account, delaying his own birthday party for Grantaire, doing these little things that might have seemed insignificant to anyone else, but to Grantaire, meant the world. So instead he ducked his head and nodded mutely, and after a long pause, Enjolras said quickly, “Let me light the candle.”
He pulled a packet of matches out of his pocket and bent forward to light the candle, holding the cupcake out to Grantaire, who leaned in as well. “Happy birthday, Grantaire,” Enjolras whispered, smiling. “Now make a wish.”
Grantaire closed his eyes and blew out the candle. When he opened them, it was to look directly into Enjolras’s, which were mere inches from his own. “What did you wish for?” Enjolras asked.
Taking the cupcake from Enjolras’s hands, Grantaire set it down on the coffee table and turned back to face him. “If I tell you, it won’t come true,” he whispered, before closing the space between them and kissing Enjolras.
Unlike the hug he had given Enjolras earlier, the kiss didn’t seem to take Enjolras by surprise; in fact, he responded readily, pulling Grantaire close to him, cupping his cheek, and kissing back just as intently as Grantaire kissed him.
“See,” Grantaire said, pulling away and smiling shyly. “It came true.”
Enjolras stole his line and used it at his birthday party later that week, telling everyone proudly when it was time to make a wish, “I already got what I wished for,” squeezing Grantaire’s hand and kissing him soundly and though Grantaire wasn’t really willing to take any bets on it, he thought this might just be his best birthday ever (and Enjolras told him later that night that it had been his best birthday, too).