PILOT/101 MEETINGS

[A/N]

I have recently come to the conclusion that if nobody else is going to write a quirky sit-com style les amis fanfiction set in modern new york then I'll Just Do It Myself which is how this baby was born

each chapter will be written like an "episode" and they'll all be pretty long so it might take a while for new chapters("pretty long" doesn't really do these chapters justice; this one was about 4,000 words so take from that what you will)

but yeah here's this self-indulgent fanfiction that approximately zero people asked for

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Cafe Musain is an interesting place full of interesting people.

The cafe itself is a small building on the corner of one bustling city street and another in fast-paced New York City. It isn't very "popular", per se, so it's never all that crowded. If you did happen to stumble upon this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, you would be greeted with a large marble counter and more often than not a friendly barista, depending on whose shift it was. The counter was open on the left side, but on the right, there were three barstools accompanying it. Behind the barstools were various comfy couches, beanbags, armchairs, and high-top tables. The walls were covered in windows(as well as art and photography done by local artists), so the space was very bright and well-lit, most likely to provide a sunny atmosphere and to accommodate for the many plants' needs, which were placed on just about any flat surface that could hold them and hanging from the ceiling in macrame holders.

It is the perfect place to have a nice cup of coffee and a hot scone, or maybe secretly plan to overthrow the government and Eat The Rich.

Our story is about the latter. Nobody would want to read about the former.

The Cafe Musain was home to a young political activist group known as Les Amis de l'ABC.

This group was founded in part by Enjolras. Let us say this much: Enjolras was a huge twink. He was taller than most but shorter than a few. He sported curly blonde hair which fell right at his sharp jawline. His skin was porcelain and features dainty. He had a reputation for being impulsive in the heat of the moment. Les Amis' fearless leader in red was determined and charming but had a fury in his heart that burned with the intensity of a thousand suns and couldn't be extinguished like using a flint and steel on netherrack in Minecraft.

By Enjolras' side was Combeferre. His skin was a deep chocolate hue, and he wore his short, curly black hair in a crew cut. Combeferre was extremely fond of moths and big, fancy medical terms. He was the most level-headed and logical of the group and always kept Enjolras from making rash, dangerous decisions.

Courfeyrac was the one who kept things light-hearted when it got too heavy; a very important role in any friend group. He was known for being flirty, a ray of sunshine, and a coffee junkie. His skin was light brown and his brown hair was short and curly. Together, he, Enjolras, and Combeferre were a tight-knit group of best friends - the Triumvirate, if you will. They were the three founders of Les Amis de l'ABC.

Jehan Prouvaire was Courfeyrac's significant other and the group's resident earthy vegan. They wore their long red hair in a braid almost every day to the point where all of Les Amis were almost positive that their hair had permanent indentations in it. They were very spiritual and tended to attempt to summon demons in their friends' apartments, which according to the others was "very distracting, Jehan."(quoted from Enjolras) and "extremely disruptive, Prouvaire, it's three in the morning, please let me sleep."(quoted from Combeferre)

Feuilly was the group's working man and Enjolras showed blatant, unabashed favoritism towards him. Feuilly was Enjolras's most texted contact after Combeferre, Courfeyrac coming in a close third.

Bahorel was Feuilly's loving boyfriend. He was a jacked boxer who was actually maybe the sweetest person you'd ever meet. He owned a massive collection of weights which were constant victims of relentless teasing from literally every single one of Les Amis. His long, curly brown hair which matched his brown beard paired with his flannel shirts made him constantly look like a ripped lumberjack.

Joly was a happy hypochondriac. He was a studying medical student with mild cerebral palsy affecting his left leg, making him use a forearm crutch; a frequent visitor of WebMD; and a terrible liar. He had joined Les Amis de l'ABC - where he met his current significant others - because he was Asian, LGBT+, and crippled, making him the target of an overwhelming amount of discrimination.

Bousset was one of these significant others. He was a bald, black man with incredulously rotten luck. Once he'd given a stranger who'd lost her train ticket his own, only to realize ten minutes later, after the train left, that he had no way of getting home.

Musichetta was the third member of Joly and Bousset's polyamorous relationship. She had mid-length, curly reverse-ombre hair and wore clothes as loud as her personality. She was known for punching out catcallers on the street and being an overall legend. Her full-time job was to keep the two boys in line and made sure neither of them died,(and honestly, if she wasn't there, they would have by now) and make delicious sweets for Les Amis' meetings in the back room of the Cafe Musain.

Eponine was another one of the queens of Les Amis de l'ABC. She'd been a part of the group as long as any of them could remember, and her little brother, Gavroche, often tagged along. She'd moved to the city to escape the clutches of her toxic parents and joined the activist group to make sure no other children got abused as her and her brother did.

Then there was the awkward and melodramatic Marius. Nobody really liked Marius, aside from Courfeyrac, his best friend and roommate; Eponine, who had an unrequited crush on him a year back, but realized her worth within a month and moved on; and Cosette, his girlfriend.

Cosette was a blonde young woman who often wore dresses. She was soft but strong and cared deeply for everyone and everything. Enjolras was her half-brother on her father's side, but since her father left her before she was born, they had never really been close until she started dating Marius and joined Les Amis.

And of course, what is a group of friends without the emo one? Grantaire was the group's favorite drunken cynic. He had absolutely no idea how to care for himself but cared more for his friends' well-being than his own. He was fluent in Spanish and he and Eponine often had conversations entirely in her native language. Grantaire wasn't completely "devoted" to this whole revolutionary cause. He and Enjolras fought over this matter quite a bit, but it normally never resorted to violence.

Normally.

On this particular morning, a coffee mug that had the words "World's Best Revolutionary Leader" printed on the front in big block letters - the font was Enjolras's favorite; he said they were precise, eye-catching, and got straight to the point - barely missed Grantaire's head and shattered against the wall behind him. Eponine looked up from where she was sitting on Grantaire's kitchen counter with Jehan and whistled. "Someone's in trouble."

Grantaire gazed down at the ceramic shards littering his kitchen floor before looking back up at the blond man standing in his kitchenette doorway. "Did you take that coffee mug all the way from your apartment just to throw it at me?"

"Where were you last night?"

Grantaire ignored his question, as he often did when he didn't know how to respond to things. "You really could've just thrown one of my mugs, I'm sure it would've been more rewarding to know that you'd broken something of mine, and you wouldn't have had to waste one of your perfectly good ones."

"Do you even own a mug?"

Grantaire looked down at the small bowl he was drinking coffee out of and shrugged. "Maybe one day."

Enjolras cocked an eyebrow and continued pestering Grantaire on the aforementioned topic. "Last night's meeting. You didn't show up."

"Is it a crime if I don't show up for one meeting?"

"You've missed eight."

"Well-"

"This month."

"Okay, fine, but-"

"I'm not the only one who's angry, too." Enjolras pointed an accusing finger in his direction which Grantaire just stared at in amusement. "Courfeyrac has saved you a seat every meeting, but you never turn up!"

Jehan gasped softly and turned to Eponine. "Aw, he's so sweet."

"I'll show up tonight," Grantaire compromised.

"Our next meeting is on Wednesday!" Eponine stifled a laugh. "You don't even know our meetings schedule?"

Grantaire corrected, "Wednesday. I'll be there."

Enjolras turned to Eponine, making her jump a little. "You'll make him go?"

Eponine nodded quickly. "Oh, yeah, of course."

She was 110% sure she would forget.

Enjolras bit his lip, unsure, but nodded. "Alright. Wednesday." Grantaire put his hands up in surrender and nodded. The blond man headed for the door, casting one last sidelong glance at Grantaire before forcefully, as he did everything, shutting the door behind him.

Jehan looked over at Grantaire. "So you're finally coming back to our meetings?"

Grantaire looked up at Prouvaire and shook his head with a devilish smirk before taking another long sip from his coffee bowl.

*

Courfeyrac took another look at the clock and frowned, before surrendering the seat next to him to Bahorel. He rested his chin in his hand as Bahorel reached over him to the plate in the middle of the table. "Are those brownies?" he asked, referring to the chocolate sweets Musichetta had made for the meeting, refusing to let Bousset "help", knowing all too well that he'd set their kitchen on fire. Courfeyrac swatted his hand away bitterly as Bahorel reached for one.

Enjolras watched Courfeyrac from the corner of his eye. "Honestly, what else can you expect?" he said, leaning on the table. "This is Grantaire we're talking about. He's never been on time for anything a day in his life."

Bahorel laughed heartily. "Oh, yeah, one winter he was late paying his heating bill and the building shut off all of the heat to his apartment, so he slept fully clothed and in a jacket for two months."

"You know, the sad thing is that that's not hard for me to believe," admitted Courfeyrac.

At that moment, Eponine walked through the door to the back room, late as usual. Enjolras looked up upon her arrival. "You didn't bring R with you?"

Eponine froze. "Uh..." She quickly scanned the room for a topic to change the subject to. "Hey, are those brownies?" she asked, quickly snatching one up from the plate.

Enjolras sighed in exasperation. Sometimes he swore all his friends were children.

*

Later that night, Courfeyrac laid in his apartment and sighed dramatically. He looked up inconspicuously(or what he thought was inconspicuously) at his significant other, who continued watering their plants hanging by the window and on the windowsill with an old beer bottle with a shattered and jagged neck. Courfeyrac rolled his eyes and sighed more forcefully, and Jehan turned their head slowly.

The freckled person was never in a terrible rush; it kind of went with their aura -- laid back, relaxed, and probably high. "Is something bothering you?" they prompted sweetly, knowing exactly what their problematic boyfriend wanted them to ask.

Courfeyrac lazily waved the question away. "No, no, everything's fine..."

Jehan gave a half-smile at their boyfriend's antics and sat down on the couch beside him. "Will you please tell me what's wrong?"

This time Courfeyrac straightened up on the couch quickly and turned his body to Jehan, propping his chin up with his hand, his elbow resting on the back of the couch. "Remember how I got laid off from the cafe last week?"

"For sticking the stirring straws in your mouth and pretending you were a walrus?"

Courfeyrac laughed softly at the memory of his impeccable joke. "Yeah... Anyway, it was the perfect job! I saw my friends all the time, I got to make you tea every day and write cheesy nicknames on your cup-" Jehan smiled at this-"but now all I do is stay home all day and keep up with the Kardashians, who are very tiring people to keep up with. I need something to do."

"If you wanted to go out and drink, you should've gone to R or Bahorel."

"Nah, we always do that. I wanna do something more exciting." He tapped his chin in thought, his eyes wandering around the room until they landed on his significant other's t-shirt with a picture of an ouija board on it. "You know that cemetery you and that Mountain-Parsnip guy go graverobbing in?"

"Montparnasse," Jehan corrected, "but yes, I do," he supplied immediately as if this was a totally normal thing to do. Courfeyrac didn't quite see it that way, but he had his own share of weird hobbies, like sticking stirring straws in his mouth and imitating a walrus, so who was he to judge?

"So, did Monty Python-"

"Nope," interrupted Jehan plainly, correcting their boyfriend's butchering of the name of his grave-robbing partner in crime.

"Mourning Palestinian-"

"Getting farther and farther away."

"Whatever, did he tell you how to sneak in?"

"I know the way by heart," Jehan replied, liking this idea more and more.

"Let's go perform a seance."

*

"Where were you tonight?" The question gave R a bit of déjà vu, except this time Musichetta's tone was much less harsh than Enjolras's. "You missed out on my amazing brownies."

"Did they have weed in them?"

"No."

"Then I'm sure I didn't miss much."

Joly sighed. "Enjolras is gonna kill you."

R shrugged it off. "I think I can take him."

Bousset laughed softly as he sunk into their small couch next to Joly and clicked on the TV. "I dunno man, he's pretty scrappy. Remember when he decked that policeman?"

R turned around in his stool at the bar in their kitchen. "You mean the policeman whose taser you stole and accidentally shocked yourself with, sending you into cardiac arrest? Yeah, I remember." This memory earned a high-pitched laugh from Joly. This is how most of their 11:30 pm nights went. Joly had crazy long shifts at the hospital so he got back to the cozy apartment much later than the three others, who got back from Enjolras's meetings at 8:30. This delayed their quality time together, but Bousset, Musichetta, and R were willing to wait.

They'd worked out an effective system, which included screwing up their sleep schedules to enjoy their best friend's company and R taking notes on the meetings Joly missed to keep him up to speed for the meetings he did come to. Since R had stopped making appearances, Bousset had stepped up to the plate. Joly didn't want to hurt his boyfriend's feelings, but his writing was much messier than R's and almost intelligible. He needed his scribe back.

Musichetta handed R a beer, for which he gave her a nod of thanks before banging it loudly against their counter in order to pop off the top. Bousset glanced over his shoulder at R and spoke over the over-dramatic Spanish soap opera playing on the TV, "Seriously, though, you need to start showing up."

"Why?"

"Well, first of all, the meeting minutes are more interesting when you doodle in the margins," Joly stated, making R snort. "Second of all, you can't stay cooped up in our apartment all day. Vitamin D is good for you, and-"

Musichetta quickly cut him off, "Babe, I love you, you're one-half of all the light in my life-" Bousset grinned at this-"but I don't think any of us can handle another medical lecture." Joly frowned softly but nodded. Bousset rubbed his knee reassuringly.

R shrugged. "We'll see."

"You said 'we'll see' when I asked you to help me study for my bar exam last year, which never happened," Joly pointed out accusingly.

"Well, we did see, then. We saw that I didn't want to help you study for your bar exam. See? We saw. Therefore, I am a man of my word. And my word in this matter is, 'We'll see.'"

*

Courfeyrac set down the last candle, completing the pentagram. "Do you think this'll summon Satan to talk to us?"

Jehan quickly shushed him. "Don't say that name. It'll curse the session. The spirits are afraid of Lucifer and won't talk to us if you keep shouting his name like that," he whispered.

They sat down in the middle of the pentagram of candles in front of the Ouija board. Courfeyrac sat on the other side. Jehan closed their eyes serenely and held out their palms. "Take my hands," they whispered.

Courfeyrac awwed. "Oh, my God, this is like a romantic candle-lit dinner, but it's a romantic candle-lit seance." Jehan opened one eye and looked across the board at him, successfully shutting their boyfriend up.

They closed both eyes again and slowly lifted their chin to the darkened, starry sky, and Courfeyrac smiled, entertaining the idea that they slowed down their movements so as not to 'alarm the spirits'. He spoke some weird spirit-summoning phrase in ancient Latin, an unused language they were fluent in, the creepy sound of the words sending a shiver down Courfeyrac's spine. Once they finished, they lowered their head slowly and their eyes fluttered open. They released their boyfriend's hands and placed two fingers on the planchette in front of them, Courfeyrac doing the same.

Jehan circled the planchette a few times on the board to get it 'warmed up'. "Ouija, are you here?"

Courfeyrac felt another chill run down his spine. He leaned over the board. "Oh, my God, I feel like we're being watched," he whispered excitedly, making Jehan slowly look up at him. They opened their mouth to answer, but were interrupted by a bright, harsh flashlight shining on both of them, sitting in the grass of a broken-into graveyard at two in the morning, surrounded by a pentagram of candles, and harsh tone that Courfeyrac had heard far too many times before shouting, "Freeze!"

*

Enjolras looked over from where he was lying on the wooden floor of his bedroom at his vibrating phone, carefully reaching over to grab it and scooping it up. He looked and saw a number he didn't recognize, but picked up anyway. "Hello?" he asked, his voice raspy from not being used in over four hours.

"Why are you even up to this late?" Courfeyrac's muffled voice came from the other line. An unfamiliar amount of background noise made Enjolras's suspicion kick in.

"I'm always up this late. Why are you up this late?"

"I'm always up this late." Enjolras knew this statement to be true. "Hey, Enj, you tryna bail me out of jail?"

Enjolras raised his eyebrows and stood, beginning to pace around his bedroom mindlessly. "No, no, I am not trying to do that."

"You have to say 'tryna', 'trying to' sounds dorky."

"Well, you always call me dorky."

"That's because you are, in fact, a dork."

Enjolras had been told this numerous times, and at this point, he didn't even try to deny it. "Why do you need to be bailed out of jail?" he asked, returning to the previous subject. "What did you do this time?"

"Jehan and I are being held for 'breaking and entering' and 'arsonistic behavior'. I think it's because I'm 50% black."

"Well, did you break and enter and exhibit arsonistic behaviors?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't think it's because you're 50% black."

Courfeyrac sighed. "Are you coming or not?"

Enjolras glanced debatingly over at his glowing alarm clock and sighed. "I'll be there in ten."

*

Enjolras; Combeferre, who he'd woken up in the process of getting dressed to go down to the police station; and a guilty-looking Jehan and Courfeyrac all clambered into Jehan and Courfeyrac's apartment. Enjolras slammed the keys down on the counter. "What made you think that breaking into a graveyard would ever be a good idea?"

"All my friends were doing it!"

"I don't care!" Enjolras shot back. "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it?"

"No..." Courfeyrac admitted.

"And if all your friends are breaking into graveyards and performing seances, are you going to do it?"

"...No," Courfeyrac said weakly.

Just then, a sleepy Joly, Bousset, Musichetta, and Grantaire came through the door, all wearing weird pajamas Courfeyrac would've made fun of if he wasn't so tired. "What's all the noise about?" Musichetta interrogated.

"We got arrested for breaking into a graveyard," responded Jehan nonchalantly.

"Did you bring me back any souvenir bones?" Grantaire asked excitedly, sitting down on the windowsill.

"No, but I can next time. Do you have a specific bone you want? Femur? Tibia? Skull?"

Grantaire knit his brows together as if weighing his options. "How about the vertebral column? I think that'd look really cool hanging on my wall."

Comebeferre contributed from the kitchen connected to the living room, where he was leaning with his forearms on the counter, "I think the most disturbing part of this conversation is not the fact that R wants to hang human bones in his room, nor that Jehan is perfectly willing to steal some for him, but that both of you actually know all the proper names of the bones."

Grantaire shrugged. "When you live with Joly, you pick up a thing or two." Bousset let out a low chuckle, and Musichetta joined in.

Courfeyrac would've laughed too, but he wasn't in the mood, which was rare. At that moment, he was angry, an emotion he only felt when someone abused a dog in a movie or insulted the love of his life. "I hate cops."

"Me too, man," stated R.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him. "I hope you realize that's literally the point of every single one of our meetings. If that honestly is where you stand, why don't you come anymore?" If R didn't know any better, he'd say he'd sensed a little bit of hurt in Enjolras's tone.

Grantaire sighed and stood from his perch on the windowsill and ambled over to where Enjolras was standing in front of Jehan and Courf's bright fuschia ottoman. "Look, E, it's far too early in the morning for you to give me another lecture on why I should start coming to your meetings again. Just give it a rest, will you?"

Enjolras was about to shoot back a witty reply but realized that R was right. It was too early for this. He untensed his shoulders and nodded. "We should all go back to bed."

"I second that notion," Musichetta said and herded her three favorite boys in the world out of the apartment.

*

On Saturday, a morning meeting took place. Everyone was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after getting their coffees and Enjolras was chatting merrily with Combeferre about the subjects they'd bring up during the meeting.

He heard the bell above the door ring and instinctively looked up, only to be met with R's familiar facial features. He smiled victoriously and watched Grantaire's eyes wander around the room before landing on Enjolras. He gave a little half smile back. Enjolras turned back to Combeferre to continue their conversation.

Halfway into the meeting, Eponine leaned over and whispered to R, "Why did you even miss all those meetings?"

Grantaire laughed softly. "Bahorel and I had a little 'experiment' going. We wanted to see how mad Enjolras would get if I missed all the meetings this month."

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