#don't mind me just shoehorning in another les mis excerpt for funsies

[laundrybiscuits]

aaaah i love the ficlets you've been posting! i saw in your tags that you worked on character voices for that les mis fic (which is awesome omg and also very understandable to do for that particular cast of characters lol), and i want to say that you're really really skilled at that. i started following you for your stranger things writing and i think you're excellent at writing those characters. you write eddie especially very nuanced and it's awesome, he's a hard character to write since he got like an hr of screen time tops and also is very much a dude who is always performing lol. anyways hope you're having a good day!

Thank you so much, that's so kind! Eddie's incredibly fun for me to write—I'm just continuing the age-old fandom tradition of projecting all over my blorbo in the massive gaps that canon leaves. With Eddie (because you're absolutely right that he's always performing), that means I get to indulge my core impulse to spout a bunch of flowery idiomatic bullshit at the drop of a hat, and also my core impulse to go "I will tell you a true and vulnerable thing but ONLY!! if I can wrap it up in a hundred oblique references and maybe a funny dance"

Actually, looking back at that les mis fic for the first time in ages, I'm also suddenly realizing that my Eddie voice is a significantly toned-down (and much more palatable tbh) version of the Grantaire voice I developed for that one. Don't get me wrong, still hella fun to write at the time, but a bit of a nightmare to read, I think. Like, good lord, nobody needed this:

Grantaire smiles. It’s probably a smile, anyway. It’s hard to tell in the shifting lights.

“Ah, I should have known better than to think any detail might pass by Apollo the keen-eyed—or perhaps Artemis would be more suited to that particular epithet? Very well; I hadn’t intended to fasten a millstone to the evening’s mood, but if I assure you it’s nothing, I can’t imagine you’ll be put off the scent.”

Enjolras wishes he could reach back in time and edit the last twenty seconds out of existence, and he doesn’t even know why yet. Casual conversation has never come entirely naturally to him, and with Grantaire, it’s physically impossible for him to say two words without stumbling over some conversational tripwire he doesn’t entirely understand.

The frustrated, confused knot in his stomach is depressingly familiar as Grantaire continues, “Truth be told, Dionysus has been no friend of mine in recent years; circumstances have conspired to terminate our relationship most decisively. It is a long and sordid story that is not worth the breath it would take to tell, but I assure you the only bearing it has on the present moment is that my drinks will always look a shade different than those designed to contain alcohol.”

“Ah,” says Enjolras. “Is, um. Are we...”

Grantaire’s face is in shadow, only the curve of his jaw and smudge of cheekbone picked out in neon. “Don’t fret, Apollo. The frown lines will mar your improbably fresh visage, and strangers might stop mistaking you for an elfin adolescent. You know me: these little eddies in the stream of life never quite manage to drag me under.”

Eponine materialises at Grantaire’s elbow. Enjolras isn’t always great at picking up on nonverbal cues, but the dislike radiating from her is almost a tangible thing.

“Come on, R,” she says lightly, eyes still on Enjolras. “Let's dance already.”

———

Hours later, they tumble back out onto the street, sweaty and laughing, with both moons still high in the sky. Courfeyrac grabs Eponine’s hand and twirls her, then collapses theatrically onto Combeferre’s shoulder. “We are so old. We are so, so old. Oh my god, we are so old. Ferre, carry me home, my ancient bones can’t move another step. Ferre? Ferre, I love you, you’re my soulmate, carry me or I’m leaving you forever.”

“I’m keeping Enjolras in the divorce,” Combeferre says soothingly, petting Courfeyrac’s hair.

Enjolras is a bit tipsier than he’d intended to be. He’d been so determined to act normal around Grantaire that he’d accidentally regressed to the kind of overindulgence that had too often characterised their university days. It had worked, though, so he couldn’t be all that upset about it. He’d even managed to have a proper conversation with Grantaire, although as the night air clears his thoughts a little, he’s beginning to have the terrible suspicion that he’d asked Grantaire the same overly polite set of questions about his work several times, to Grantaire’s mounting amusement.

It’s fine. He might feel differently in the morning, but right now he’s glad to look ridiculously slow-witted if it will ease the tension between the two of them.

“Let’s get you tourists back to your hotel before someone picks your pocket,” yawns Eponine. “And by someone, I mean me.”