P.S.

[A/N]

a regular uploading schedule? what is that, a spice? in this house we post one chapter then disappear for about six months and then upload another one with no warning at all

this one's an enjoltaire one-shot because i'm obsessed with this ship whoops

also as I was writing this the untitled goose I downloaded for my desktop kept bringing me notes that said "am goose hjonk" and I think he wanted me to share that with you

but ye here's the story this one's kinda long sorry

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Enjolras sighed and rested his chin in his hand, listening to the clock tick gently and nothing else. The entire building was deadly silent, despite the fact that there were about fifty other students in the library. Their college's librarian had one rule: no talking. She was a considerably mean old lady. Nobody knew her exact age, but everyone tried the hardest to guess. Enjolras went with seventy-five, but Courfeyrac swore she was prehistoric and belonged in a museum rather than their school library.

The frumpy Ms. Wright(note the "Ms.", unmarried -- Enjolras's friends liked to entertain the idea that it was because she kept her house as silent as her library) sat at her large desk in the center of the library like a hawk on a perch, surveying her territory, her eyes narrowed and searching for any "threat".

Enjolras was tucked in the back corner, working on his laptop. He was snugly sat between two bookshelves and the cinderblock wall. He refused to let himself leave the building until he'd finished his paper on the French Revolution's effect on France's daily life for his political history course and therefore had been sitting in the library for about an hour with two sentences typed, reading every single book title on the shelf beside him; the words "The Count of Monte Christo" were forever etched into his brain at this point.

Usually, he had no problem with assignments like this, but he was having some sort of mental block right now, and it bugged him to his wit's end. He had a stack of plain yellow sticky notes sitting next to him to jot down any ideas that came to him because if he didn't write them down he would most certainly forget, but for now, the sticky notes remained unused.

Suddenly, the blond boy heard footsteps fairly nearby. A mixture of curiosity and boredom pulled his eyes up from the computer and over to the bookshelf, where he peered over stacks of classic novels to see someone strolling the aisle next to him very slowly.

Since Enjolras was sitting down and the other person was standing up, browsing through the art history books, he had a perfect view of the other person's muddied combat boots which looked like they'd just survived a nuclear war. The aglets on the laces were frayed at the top and the left sole was barely clinging on to the leather of the boot, not to mention all the mud piling up on the sides and the vibrantly-colored paint clinging onto the worn material. Enjolras involuntarily raised an eyebrow.

The boots walked farther down the aisle and then rounded a corner. Enjolras turned his head back to his work, trying in vain to get back on task. He heard footsteps approaching it and assumed it to be the stranger with the muddy boots, so he tried to make it very obvious that he was definitely not just staring at his shoes through the book stacks. 

Enjolras kept his eyes trained on his laptop as the person entered his little niche. They paused at the bookshelf to the right of Enjolras, and he assumed they were reading the titles of the books, searching for one in particular, but he dared not look up to confirm.

Eventually, the stranger made their way all the way down the aisle to where Enjolras was sitting, and he felt them slide down against the wall to sit next to him. At this point, Enjolras felt it was appropriate to look over at them, and so he did just that.

His eyes were met with a pair of steel blue ones. The stranger was a man about his age, give or take a year, with unruly black hair that fell at his strong, square jaw which had a bit of dark stubble around the chin.

Enjolras examined him closely, and he was about to ask him what he was doing here, but the other man cut Enjolras off before he could begin, "Hey, do you know-?" The elderly librarian who Enjolras hadn't even known was there(and by the looks of it, neither did the other man) cut him off with a harsh shushing sound, glaring down at the pair. Enjolras gulped and nodded, and eventually, the woman left.

Enjolras watched as the other man bit his bottom lip and glanced around the blond man's work station before his eyes fell on the stack of yellow sticky notes between them. He quickly snatched them up along with one of Enjolras's black ballpoint pens and, much to Enjolras's disdain, using his teeth to pop off the cap. He scribbled something down on the top note, peeled it off, and quickly stuck it on the space of Enjolras's MacBook beside the trackpad.

Enjolras kit his eyebrows together and deciphered the chicken scratch into, "Do you know where the Art History section is?"

Enjolras grabbed his red pen and carefully scribbled down, "Take a right out of this section and down two more rows." He looked up in time to catch the man's nod as he stood and headed off in the direction of the art section.

For about an hour or so, Enjolras continued his work, finally getting somewhere on his paper. The strange man, or rather his paint-splattered boots, had inspired him to write his paper centered around the artists of France and the artwork that had come from the French Revolution. He was halfway through his fifth paragraph when Enjolras noticed a bright yellow sticky note plastered to the top of his computer. He glanced up and watched as the strange man walked away before letting his eyes fall back onto the yellow slip of paper.

It was stuck right on top of the piece of red washi tape he had covering his camera to keep his goings-on hidden from the prying eyes of the government. Enjolras carefully peeled the note off and deciphered the writing style that was an ungodly concoction of print, cursive, and just plain chicken scratch. "Thanks!" it read, the exclamation point being dotted with a tiny smiley face, which Enjolras didn't pay any attention to before crumbling up the note and tossing it to the side, making a mental point to throw it away later.

Weeks went by, and the occasion never entered the young student's mind again. He spent most of his time in the library, like always, now working on a different assignment: a persuasive essay for the most successful form of government. Enjolras was making an argument for an improved form of communism which would actually work when practiced. (a/n before anyone comes for me for being a communist enjolras is canonically a die-hard communist in the book)

This time he had seated himself at the cluster of small round tables in the northwestern corner of the library. There were only about a handful of people actually sitting in the library that day, but if anything, it helped him concentrate a bit more. Enjolras had been slaving away at his computer for about an hour and a half before he saw a tanned hand quickly press a sticky note on his screen just over his fourth paragraph. It was written in the same appalling writing he'd seen before, except this time it read, "What's your favorite color?"

The blond looked over to his right and spotted the same black-haired, paint-splattered man he'd seen a few weeks prior watching him. Enjolras furrowed his brow, and the dark-haired heathen gave him a two-fingered salute. He sent Enjolras a happy, mocking smile.

Enjolras wrote his own note on his sticky pad, stood with a book of information he had gotten all he needed from, and stuck the note down on the young man's open sketch pad inconspicuously as he crossed to the shelf to return the book to his rightful place. The small piece of paper simply said, "I'm working." It was true. He was on a roll with his paper and a frivolous conversation on a sticky note would only slow him down.

It was only a few moments before the man was up from his seat and setting the same note back on Enjolras's MacBook, but this time with his own response written on it. "I can see that. It looks mighty boring though, so you should talk to me instead."

The blond huffed out a noise of disdain as he quickly scribbled down a response and stood, setting it on the man's desk. The man looked up as Enjolras approached, but he refused to make eye contact before turning on his heel and walking away. "Who even are you?" the note had said.

Once again, his response came promptly. "R."

They went back and forth like this for a while, and the conversation went as follows: "Your name is R?"

"My name is Grantaire, but you can call me R."

"How about I call you annoying?"

"Now, that's not very nice."

"It's true."

"What's your favorite color?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I dunno."

"Red."

For about another week or so, Enjolras visited the library almost every day with a new assignment to get done, and Grantaire was almost always there as well. Exchanging notes became a habit for the two, and most of the time they simply talked about their majors, favorite movies(Grantaire would often go on long tirades about how Tarantino's work is the best ever in the history of film making, and Enjolras would disagree by saying "violence does not constitute a good movie."), and the pets they had. Enjolras learned Grantaire was a cat person, which was probably the only thing about the man that actually made sense.

Mostly they'd just get up and walk to the other's habitat, which gave Enjolras quite the leg work out, but sometimes Grantaire got lazy and folded his notes into a paper airplane before chucking it recklessly at Enjolras or he actually would make the walk about seven feet and touch his note right down on Enjolras's forehead just to see him get angry.

One day, the pair were talking about religion, one subject they surprisingly saw eye to eye on--both thought religious expression was a basic human right and should be kept out of politics on account of basic human decency("something an overwhelming amount of politicians these days lack," Enj had said)-- when Enjolras had received one particular message that thoroughly surprised him.

"Will you go out with me?"

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[A/N]

stupid ending i know im sorry but i was nearing 2000 words and had to end it

sorry about my insanely long absence with absolutely no notice but i'll try to post more during the quarantine since i have absolutely nothing else to do