SPARKS

[A/N]

requested by the amazing hufflepuffturtle

modern au(as always)

also sorry i haven't updated in so long i've been having some issues lately

---------

"y/n, you'll be fine!" her brother, Courfeyrac, assured cheerfully, squeezing her hand as he swung it while they walked down the Parisian streets.

y/n fidgeted with the hem of her black skirt. She'd always begged her brother to take her along to one of his meetings, but saying and doing were two very different things. Now she was on the way to a room full of politically furious strangers, her palms so sweaty she was sure Courfeyrac's fingers would start pruning up soon.

She'd always had a problem with shyness and nerves, ever since she was a child. One Halloween when she was five and Courf was eight, Courfeyrac had dressed up as Superman and he wouldn't rest until their parents made y/n dress up as Supergirl. The night before Halloween, y/n ran into their parents' room, bawling and yelling, begging her parents not to make her go out the next day wearing her costume because she was terrified the other kids would make fun of her. Eventually, they gave in and she stayed home on Halloween. Courfeyrac took pity on her and gave her his entire pillowcase full of candy.

"What if they hate me?" she asked, knitting her eyebrows together.

Courf shook his head gingerly. "There's no way. These are some of the best people I've ever met."

"Wow, no 'How could anyone possibly hate you?'"

"That's because I hate you."

y/n nodded. "Love you, too."

He smirked, but something ahead caught his eye. "Ah, there it is!" He pointed to a small, old café three stores down with a blue and white awning with small wire tables underneath.

"Oh, God," y/n muttered.

Courfeyrac tugged on her hand and pulled her towards the double doors. He yanked open the handle, the bell above the doors signaling their arrival. A group of people towards the back of the room looked up. "Hey, Courf!" called a freckled, lanky man with long, braided red hair. The tall, burly man standing next to him clad in flannel waved as well.

y/n watched her brother wave back. "Hey, guys!" he called cheerily, dragging himself and his sister over to the group. "This is y/n, my sister." Everyone gave simultaneous greetings. y/n waved stiffly.

Courfeyrac introduced each of them, providing her with the information that the skinny freckled one who waved them over earlier was Jehan Prouvaire, who wrote poetry; the lumberjack next to him, Bahorel, was a boxer, which quite frankly made a lot of sense; the one carrying around a book bigger than y/n's head was Combeferre; the bald one was Bousset and he had terrible luck; the short one next to him was Joly and he was a doctor; the one drinking before noon was Grantaire; the one who looked like she could slice open my throat with her eyeliner wing was Eponine; the one wearing a beanie they had never seen him take off was Feuilly; the one who almost looked more awkward than I was Marius; and the blond one her eyes were first drawn to when they walked in was Enjolras, the leader of their group. He hadn't even looked up when they'd walked in, but at the sound of his name, the man finally tore his eyes away from his meeting notes and was immediately met with the e/c ones of the newcomer. His eyes lingered on her, his expression unreadable and equally unnerving, before he noticed Courfeyrac out of the corner of his eye and gave a quick nod to him. "Morning, Courf."

Her brother nodded to him as well. "Morning, Enjy."

He cleared his throat. "Well, now that everyone's here, let's start, shall we?"

y/n watched the meeting from the sidelines and looked on as the others all contributed and asked questions about whatever Enjolras was going on and on about. y/n tended to watch him speak; the way he overly exaggerated his gestures and took up every inch of space he had, and some sort of tick he had where he'd keep playing with his hair --he'd stretch out a curly golden strand and let it go, letting it coil back up--, but most of all, she liked watching his passionate facial expressions; the way his perfect jawline tightened when he clenched his teeth, or how his strikingly blue eyes sparkled with passion, or the way his perfectly pink lips tightened with each word. Did he exfoliate or something? He had to. Was that, like, Lush lip scrub? Either way, he did have really pretty lips-

y/n felt a nudge on her right side and looked down from where she was leaning against the wall to the dark-haired man holding out his beer bottle in offering. y/n shook her head gingerly. She whispered, "I'm good."

After about another thirty minutes, everyone got up from their seats, and y/n guessed that the meeting had concluded as she watched everyone make their way to a group of couches in the center of the cafe. She ran to catch Courfeyrac and grabbed his arm. "What's going on?" she whispered.

"Well, usually after a meeting, we all just kinda hang out around here," he explained.

y/n paled. Looking on from the sidelines she could handle, but having strangers ask her questions she wasn't sure she could brave. What if she said something wrong? They all probably already thought she was a weirdo because she was just standing against the wall next to the drunk one.

Courfeyrac dragged her over to the couch, where she sat safely with him on her right and the armrest on her left. Courf began conversing with Jehan and Combeferre on the other side of the couch while Grantaire, Eponine, Bahorel, and Feuilly cracked jokes and Marius, Bousset, Joly, and Eponine talked about Joly's upcoming medical finals.

"You're new," stated an unforgettable voice next to her, snapping her out of her thoughts. The voice was smooth and caring, yet rang out with conviction. It wasn't deep, but it also wasn't high. It was charming, yet abrasive. She'd listened to that voice for an hour and a half already this morning, and yet she still wasn't tired of hearing it. y/n whipped her head around and saw the blond man with the pretty lips from earlier who seemed to have occupied the armchair next to her while she wasn't looking.

She nodded. "I'm Courf's sister."

"Yeah, I noticed that." The comment came out sharp, probably sharper than he meant it, but he didn't correct himself.

"Uh, yeah. I don't think I got your name." Of course she did. Courfeyrac gave it to her the second her eyes fell on him. 'Why am I asking for it just to hear his voice again?' she mentally scolded herself. 'That's stupid.'

He didn't seem to notice and held his hand out automatically in a formal greeting. "Enjolras. And yours?"

y/n gently shook his hand. "y/n. So this is where my brother spends eight hours a day, huh?" she joked, looking around at the space. y/n usually wasn't one for making this much conversation with strangers, but something about him felt familiar. Maybe because he was her brother's friend he wasn't a total stranger? Does that count?

"I guess so. Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and I practically live here. My apartment is just down the street-"

"Oh, so now you're telling a stranger where you live?" she chided. "Not very wise. What if I come and rob you?" y/n had no idea how he was making it so easy for her to be so smooth, but whatever this boy was doing to her, she prayed it never stopped.

Enjolras looked up and paused. "You know, you really are like Courfeyrac."

y/n sighed softly and looked over at her brother beside her, who had a stack of eight pringles between his teeth and was trying to fit in a ninth while the others cheered him on and Eponine videotaped.

"I take great offense to that," she deadpanned. Enjolras next to her chuckled softly.

*

"I've always been super jealous of people that can tie cherry stems in a knot with their tongue, I always thought it was so cool and I swear I'll be self-conscious about the fact that I can't until the day I die," y/n explained while Enjolras broke out into a grinning laugh.

"That can't be your worst flaw."

"Well, at least mine is more interesting than-" Courfeyrac's hand clasped y/n's shoulder, stopping her from going any further.

"Hey, we'd love to watch you two flirt some more, but they're about to start setting up for lunch, so we gotta get outta here." y/n's cheeks flushed and she looked around the room, seeing the rest of the group all watching the pair of them with smirking faces.

"Okay, I was not-!" she objected, but was immediately pulled up and out of her seat by Bahorel, who had hooked his arms underneath her biceps and picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder.

"Let's go, Courf's sister." Before she could protest, he was walking out of the door.

y/n used her left hand to push the mess of h/c hair out of her face and craned her neck up to meet the brown eyes of her brother walking behind her and Bahorel. "I was not flirting."

"Babe, I've done enough flirting to know what flirting looks like. You were flirting."

y/n bit her lip and looked even farther back to where Enjolras was walking with Combeferre, probably talking about the meeting they'd just had and brainstorming ideas for whatever it was they were planning for the past hour and a half(y/n was a bit distracted during the meeting). He must've felt her staring because he looked up slowly and y/n snapped her eyes back to her brother, her heart racing.

She bit her lip to keep from smiling too much. "And so what if I was?"