Chapter Text
It takes weeks after Aimee’s first day of school for them to agree to Grantaire’s proposal. It wasn’t like he was asking for much, just to walk his sister to and from school, except they had hummed and harred around the issue, bringing up all the old haunts.
“We don’t know if you could handle that responsibility, Grantaire,” and “She needs someone who’s a positive role model.” He never bothered to mention that he held down two jobs, or that he’d never demonstrated any behaviour in front of her that could be considered as unhealthy (no curse words, no drinking, christ, even keeping up with his meds), because they wouldn’t listen to it. Grantaire’s word had never meant much in his parent’s eyes.
It was only Aimee herself which turned the tide in the debate.
She’d overheard Grantaire asking for their permission (twenty five and he was still begging for his parent’s fucking permission) and proceeded to throw a fit at the answer (as always: no). After that she’d refused to go to school entirely unless ”Grantaire takes me” and Grantaire had tried not to look too smug about the reaction.
In the end, it got him what he wanted.
His parents still made their lofty justifications for their decision, things like, “Well it would make it easier for me in the mornings” and “It is difficult trying to drop her off before work”, when really the defiant tantrum of a six year old had flipped the topic on it’s head.
It was everything he had ever hoped for. Generally, his parents had been less than willing to let Grantaire spend time with his sister. Hell, Grantaire hadn’t even known he had a sister for the first four years of her life. Grantaire was the family embarrassment - they liked it best if he stayed away, and Grantaire liked it too, if only because he didn’t have to see their judgemental gazes of disappoint. Then, one day Jehan had bumped into his parents in the supermarket, and the secret of his younger sister had been uncovered.
She looked just like Grantaire. With Grantaire’s same unruly black hair (the colouring, from their father, the texture, from their mother), the same light eyes, the same smile, although she was definitely cuter than Grantaire could ever be. By the time he met her she was a child raging war on the world and they’d fallen in love with one another, instantly. Except his parents only saw what Grantaire had been and because of that trying to spend time with his only sibling was as easy and as pleasant as pulling teeth.
Now, he properly had the chance to get to know her - and spoil her rotten. The walk from his parent’s house to the school wasn’t long, about twenty minutes, or a half an hour drive if it was raining, but Grantaire drew it out as long as possible. He got to the house extra early in the mornings to help her get ready, asking her about her work and sitting down to watch cartoons before they left if they had the time. Then they walked to school, chatting about whatever, Grantaire making up stories to keep her occupied and her adding her own parts in with ”No, the rabbit should be named Denver. Denver is a place in America, you know.”
Sometimes he would give her a piggy back that lasted the entire walk to the school, leaving his back aching for the rest of the day. Totally worth it.
He’d run around with her in the playground until the bell rang - Her teaching him how to play hopscotch and Grantaire pretending to be a dinosaur, chasing her around and pulling faces as she screamed her rebellion. She introduced him to her friends, insistently and with her hand firmly in his, tugging him over to a girl with long ginger hair and calling her Alice, and another who usually dressed in blue called Skye, and kid after kid after kid with judgemental parent after judgemental parent after judgemental parent. Until he was chasing them around the playground, too, grabbing hold of Sam and hoisting him up to pretend to devour his stomach as his mother looked petrified across the concrete, calling her son back as soon as he had freed him.
It wasn’t that Grantaire wasn’t a nice guy, he just didn’t particularly look like child-friendly material. His arms were an explosion of colour, set off against a wardrobe that primarily existed of black (sometimes grey, if he was feeling adventurous). Tattoos spiralled down his arms and past even his wrists, ending at the backs of his hands, a collection he’d slowly built up over the years. He wore heavy combat boots, band shirts and old faded black hoodies layered up underneath a worn leather jacket. He could have been mother-fucking-Teresa and he would still get judged for his wardrobe, so Grantaire genuinely didn’t give a fuck. The only thing he didn’t want was a call from the police trying to label him as some sort of child molester just because he wears black skinny jeans and ratty Nirvana tops.
More often than not Aimee introduced Grantaire as “Her awesome brother,” which really felt like all the praise he would ever need.
After school they’d dawdle as long as possible, Grantaire meeting her in the playground with ice cream, or books, or a magazine she’d wanted then wandering back to the house. She’d excitedly tell him about her day and what activities they’d got up to - often pulling pieces of paper out of her bag to wave at him. Of course, he’d tell her what ever she had made that day looked brilliant, even if her enthusiastic scribbles were catastrophically shit, because you don’t exactly need constructive criticism when you’re six. Sometimes she had friends with her, who were staying over for tea, which always led to Grantaire having to awkwardly discuss the safety of the child with the parent - “Yes Mrs Tucker, I’ll make sure Stacy gets there safely.” Most of the time it was just them.
The less pleasant part was returning Aimee to their parents, mainly because his mother would just look at him as though she was waiting for the day where they wouldn’t come home, and she’d be getting a phonecall which would tell her Aimee had fallen under a moving vehicle instead. Grantaire smiled as placidly as he could, usually meeting his parent’s in the hallway if they weren’t working, while Aimee bounced between the two, running words into one another as she tried to recall the bestmostawesomething of her day. Grantaire couldn’t tell if she just didn’t notice the tangible tension between Grantaire and their parents, or if she was set on ignoring it. They smiled tight at one another before Grantaire left, keeping coldly and carefully to the same patterns of conversation - “How are you?” “Fine. What about you?” “We’re great, thanks, Grantaire.”
One day Jehan had told him, “I’m sure your parents still love you,” back when things were a lot more unsteady around the edges and Grantaire could barely remember what he had done the previous day. Except there had been a string of doubt run through Jehan’s words, a product of Jehan’s equally shitty relationship with his equally shitty and equally rich parents, that had just made it sound like a lie. It didn’t matter - Grantaire would have never believed him anyway. Sometimes parents are just not made to be good to their children, by chance, or accident, or by personality, and the kids are made to be just as bad as return. Grantaire, Jehan and Eponine were all examples of that, except Eponine had summed up the way to deal with it best of all - “Fuck ‘em.”
So, Grantaire didn’t bother trying to win back their affections. It was an effort he wouldn’t get rewarded for. As long as they let him pick Aimee up every morning, from Monday through to Friday, and drop her home again, he was happy tolerating them.
-
When Grantaire had first told his friends about finally getting to spend time with his sister, they had been at the pub Bahorel worked at after his shift, for their usual round of Friday night drinks and Bahorel had broken out into a grin and spoken one word, “MILFs.”
Jehan, of course, had punched him straight in the arm and sent him a pointed glare over his drink.
Except, you know, the thought of hot mums doesn’t really do anything for you when you’re fucking gay, only, Bahorel had been interested for his sake, which had of course led to the usual sexually filled Friday night bickering between Jehan and Bahorel of - “Jealous I’d fall in love and have little middle-upper class babies?” (Bahorel’s mouth stuck half between a leer and a grin, beer in his hand) and “Only in the most deluded of your dreams, Bahorel” (Jehan sighing prettily, chin propped up on his hands) - until Grantaire was telling them to shut the fuck up because Eponine was still on tour and wasn’t there to do it for him.
The most Grantaire had vaguely hoped for was that Aimee had some smoking hot teacher he might be able to check out ever so often, but even that had only been in passing. To be honest, he hadn’t expected anything. After all, the playground was still extremely gender biased toward mothers rather than fathers. In fact, there was only one other male who regularly dropped his child off at school, and oh, oh did Grantaire want to press him against the nearest hard surface and fuck him senseless as soon as he had laid eyes on him.
There are dads, and then there are hot dads, and then there was that fucker. He looked like he’d transgressed the laws of physics and stepped straight out of a porn video named something along the lines of “My dad’s hot friend”, to the point where if he kept that up for a few more years Grantaire was sure his son’s female friends would be asking, “Would you?” at 3am sleepovers because fuck, who wouldn’t?
Grantaire wanted to climb that like he wanted to climb a long pole with the very object of his desire sat on the end of it. Which was a lot.
The man must have been in his thirties at least, maybe even nearing his forties, but fuck was he attractive. He had salt and pepper hair, mouse-brown flecked with grey, and very rarely turned up at the playground with light stubble dusting his jaw in the same colour, that Grantaire could just imagine scraping against the inside of his thighs or feeling under his mouth when he kissed his jaw. He could imagine dragging his fingers through that hair, damp with sweat at his hair line, and wrecking it, making a mess of it where usually it was only out of place by the direction of the wind.
Occasionally he wore glasses though most of the time it seemed like he wore contacts and his eyes were a shade of brown, intense and measured. He was always dressed nicely, smart, simple yet clearly expensive, rarely with a hair out of place and always in neutral colours - dark blues and creams. Grantaire wanted to peel the clothes away from him, make buttons fly after dragging him over by his tie and trying to rip him out of his shirt, taste the muscle underneath. It was obvious he worked out, something about the way he held himself, and the defined line of his shoulder blades through his shirt when he wasn’t wearing his coat. Grantaire could bet on the fact that he was strong, at least, definitely stronger than Grantaire was, who’s work out was lifting crates at Tesco.
Every day him and his son, who was the same age as Grantaire’s sister, were at the school by the time Aimee and himself arrived, even if they got there early. Just from looking at the man Grantaire could tell that punctuality and control were one of his top priorities, or at least, one of his defining traits. He seemed placid, comfortable in his body but also vaguely aware of his actions, and moved like a man confident in his own skin and with his own confidence. When one day his son fell over chasing another boy around before lessons started, crying and knees grazed, the man hadn’t so much as panicked, just quickly walked over to his son and helped him up, talking to him in a low voice while crouching down in front of him before leading him into the school where Grantaire presumed he would get him a plaster or something. When he had come back many of the mothers were a flurry of “Oh, is he alright?” and the man had replied with a similar calmness, smiling politely and nodding his head.
Grantaire wanted to rip that calmness from his skin, he wanted to send the man wild with it, make him forget his name and more importantly forget himself. Except, there were other things to think about.
Did the guy have a wife, a girlfriend, even? Grantaire hadn’t seen him wearing a wedding or an engagement ring, but that didn’t mean much these days. Plenty of people Grantaire knew had vowed themselves off of marriage, instead settling down for the long run and being content in their relationships without some wedding vows to a God they didn’t believe in. Too many marriages ended in divorce, too many things got messy with a piece of paper tying their relationship together. Without marriage, things were easier.
There were other problems. What if he wasn’t into guys? Grantaire had turned people with blowjobs, or at least sexually confused them, but many were as homophobic as they could get. What if he had just come out of a break up? Then he’d probably feel guilty to do anything. What if the age difference was too much?
Grantaire wasn’t very deterred by these things, but he waited anyway, content with spiralling fantasies off in his own mind. Then one day he’d seen one of the mums openly flirting with him at the school gates, his son squirming impatiently by his side, and although the man didn’t look like he was reciprocating, it wasn’t like he was pushing her away either. The picture clicked something in his mind, made him think right, and just like that he’d decided to get into the guy’s pants.
-
“What’s his name?” Grantaire asks, pointing across the playground to where smoking hot dad is stood beside a miniature of himself, but with lighter hair and dressed in a rain coat, rather than work clothes.
Beside him, on the bench, Aimee is also dressed in a rain coat, swinging her legs back and forth in front of her. The material’s red rather than the boy’s blue and it probably cost more than half of Grantaire’s wardrobe. Oh, how the other half lives.
At his words she looks up at him, distractedly. “Hmm?”
This time he nods in their direction. “The boy over there.”
“Oh,” She replies, following his direction while fiddling with the toggles on her coat. “His name’s Luc. Why?”
“I think I know his dad,” Grantaire lies easily, leaning back more against the bench and muffling a yawn into the palm of his hand. Grantaire had been working overtime at the supermarket, and though it meant it could pay off his standing debt in a matter of weeks, it was tiring. In between that and commissions, he feels exhausted. He’d had to have three cups of coffee that morning before he’d even made it out of the house.
Aimee perks up at that, looking at Grantaire brightly. “We should say hi!”
He barely catches her before she runs off to complete that sentiment. “Nah,” He tells her, pulling her up onto his lap and carefully tugging her hood over her head as the rain begins getting harder. He, himself, is dressed in nothing but skinny jeans, a shirt and a green hoodie he’d pulled on over his head on the way out of the door. The most protection he has from the rain is an old red beanie of Jehan’s he’d shoved on. Flecks of rain still catch in the wild mess of hair poking out from beneath the hat. “I just wanna check it’s him. Can you ask Luc his name for me?”
“Sure!”
Around five hours later he has a name.
“Combeferre,” Aimee tells him, after Grantaire reminds her about his question. “Luc says he’s a doctor.”
A doctor, Grantaire thinks, followed shortly by, shit. Way out of his league, then. A further stretch than cute primary school teacher. Except, Grantaire can see Combeferre and Luc just across from them, Combeferre in conversation with another dad, and it doesn’t particularly make him want him less. All it really does is increase the urge to corrupt him more.
“Is it him?” She asks, and Grantaire turns to her, grinning and patting down her fly away hair.
“Nope,” Grantaire smiles, holding out his hand for her to take. “My bad.”