#spies and assassins and suchforth

[kjack89]

Back to Where We Started (Chapter 1/?)

For @theworldfallsup for my 10 year/4k follower anniversary, who requested a Mr. & Mrs. Smith-type AU.

It's gotten long, so I'm splitting it into multiple chapters, largely to force myself to actually finish it.

E/R, modern AU. CW: Mentioned character death, gun violence, everything you'd expect from an action movie AU.

Cosette offered the two men sitting on the couch in her office a tight smile. “I’m sorry for being late,” she said as she sat down. “My last session ran over.”

“It’s fine,” the blond man sitting on the left assured her with a faint accent she couldn’t quite place.

She nodded, giving them both a quick once-over as she pulled her pad of paper close to her. For as long as she’d been doing this, it would never not surprise her how much she could learn about a couple before they even got into whatever issue had ostensibly brought them in for couple’s therapy. In the case of the two men sitting in front of her, the tension between them was palpable, mostly based on the fact that they were sitting at opposite ends of the couch rather than directly next to her. And based on the way his knee was bouncing at about ninety miles an hour, the darker-haired man was particularly unconvinced that this was going to work.

“So,” she said, “my name is Cosette Fauchelevent. Which one of you is Enjolras?” The blond raised his hand and she smiled at him before switching her gaze to the brunet. “And you must be Grantaire.”

“I assume these incredible deductive reasoning skills explain the exorbitant price we’re paying for this,” Grantaire said in lieu of an answer.

Cosette didn’t so much as blink. “Then let’s get right into it to justify the cost,” she said pleasantly. “What’s wrong with your marriage?”

Both Enjolras and Grantaire stared at her. “Who said something was wrong with it?” Enjolras asked, his brow furrowed.

“Mostly the fact that you’re sitting here,” Cosette said, still pleasant. “But if you’d rather, we can back up a little. How long have you been married?”

“Three years,” Grantaire said.

Cosette nodded. “And how often do you have sex?” This time, she didn’t wait for either of them to protest. “Sex is a cause or symptom of larger issues more often than you might think, so better to get it out in the open.”

Enjolras cleared his throat. “Sex isn’t really our problem,” he muttered, the tips of his ears burning red, as Grantaire crossed and recrossed his legs, studiously avoiding looking at him.

Cosette just nodded again, scribbling a note on her pad of paper. “On a scale of one to ten, how satisfied would you each say you are with your sex life?”

For the first time all session, Enjolras and Grantaire glanced at each other. “Eight,” Enjolras said, and Grantaire looked back at Cosette.

“Wait, is ten the best or is one the best? Like is ten mind-blowing sex every day, and one is bad missionary once every six months, or—?”

“Just answer instinctively,” Cosette said.

Grantaire jerked a nod, looking back at Enjolras. “Ok. Ready?”

“Ready,” Enjolras said.

They both looked at Cosette and said in perfect unison, “Eight.”

Cosette jotted down another note. “And how often do you say ‘I love you’?”

The question was met with a stunned sort of silence. Then, Enjolras leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Yeah, I’m lost,” Grantaire added quickly. “Is this a one to ten thing?”

“It’s really not,” Cosette said, circling something in her notes. “But how about I make this easier: do you love each other?”

Again, silence.

Cosette let it linger for as long as she personally felt comfortable with before clearing her throat. “Maybe we should back up even further,” she said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourselves, like what you do for a living? Sometimes that can be a sore spot between couples.”

Enjolras looked visibly relieved at the change in subjects. “Oh, well, I’m involved in local politics—”

Grantaire snorted derisively. “I think she meant, like, your job.” He glanced at Cosette. “Which is a sore spot, because he doesn’t have one.”

A muscle worked in Enjolras’s cheek. “We’re very fortunate to not need a second income, which allows me to focus on things that matter,” he said, something warning in his tone. “And I don’t know that I’d consider photography a real job, anyway.”

“Is that what you do?” Cosette asked Grantaire, ignoring the murderous look he had just shot Enjolras. “Photography?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire said gruffly. “I used to be a wildlife photographer. Traveled all over: Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, Siberia—”

Cosette cocked her head. “I wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of wildlife in Siberia,” she remarked.

Something shifted in Grantaire’s expression. “You’d be surprised,” he said before clearing his throat. “Anyway, now I mostly do, like, weddings, senior portraits, stuff like that.”

“I’m sensing that you’re not particularly enthusiastic about the type of photography you’re currently doing.”

Grantaire jerked a shrug. “It’s fine. It’s steady. It’s – well, I mean, it doesn’t quite compare to traveling the world, but…”

He trailed off and Enjolras shifted impatiently in his seat. “But we both agreed that we can do a lot of good right here in this community, right, honey?”

“Absolutely, sweetheart,” Grantaire said, saccharine sweet. “Of course, if it weren’t for traveling, we never would have met, so…”

“Oh, where did the two of you meet?” Cosette asked.

“East Africa,” Enjolras and Grantaire said, again in unison.

Cosette nodded. “Were you on vacation?”

“Something like that.”

Three Years Ago

Enjolras wasn’t naïve about what he looked like, so the fact that he managed to slip unnoticed through the crowded market in Bujumbura spoke to how much effort he’d put into learning how to blend in. It was a necessary survival skill, after all, given his line of work.

It was also a skill put to the test when he overheard a snippet of conversation between two men in police uniforms patrolling the outskirts of the market, and more specifically, the name General Lamarque. Enjolras’s step slowed, and he lingered longer than was wise to overhear what they were saying next, hopeful that it would be about the continued rumblings of revolution that Lamarque was stirring in the former capital city.

Instead, what he heard next made his blood run cold.

“Le Général Lamarque est mort.”

And then: “Assassinat.”

Enjolras was immediately aware that these two were not the only police in the market, and that the police he saw were much more heavily armed than usual. And scanning the crowd as if looking for someone.

He backed away quickly, his heart pounding in his chest as he rapidly thought through every exit strategy he had developed over the past few weeks living in Burundi. But he hadn’t thought that this would happen, at least not this early on, so the vast majority of them wouldn’t work, especially if the police were looking for anyone they could reasonably accuse of being involved.

Like anyone foreign, and traveling alone.

He couldn’t do anything about the former, but he could try to figure something out for the latter.

Plan decided on, he turned on heel and strode back in the direction of city centre and the few hotels in the area, hoping he could find someone friendly. It wasn’t exactly a tourist-heavy part of the world, but there were bound to be a few NGO workers who wouldn’t have been evacuated yet.

He managed to make it inside a hotel lobby before he was stopped by two men in paramilitary uniforms who spoke to him in rapid French. Enjolras only half-listened, looking over their shoulders into the bar he could just see, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he locked eyes with a dark-haired man sitting by himself at the bar.

Not that Enjolras particularly cared at the moment, but the man wasn’t much to look at, though judging by the way his shirt tightened across his chest as he moved, he was well-muscled, and that mattered far more given everything. “Cet homme là,” he said, interrupting the man speaking. “C’est mon ami.”

He didn’t wait to hear what they said, just brushing past them and making a beeline for the man in the bar, who smiled when he approached. “I was wondering when you’d be back,” he said, with a kind of warm familiarity that Enjolras wouldn’t have appreciated under any other circumstance. “I was beginning to think I was going to spend the evening drinking by myself.”

“You’re traveling together?” one of the military officials asked sharply.

“Of course,” the man said, as if it was obvious, and Enjolras thanked whatever higher power might exist that he was rolling with it. “Do you need to see our visas, or…?”

A sudden burst of gunfire came from the street, and the officials exchanged glances. “You should get to your embassy,” one said shortly before they both hurried outside, leaving Enjolras alone with the man who just might have saved his life, or at the very least, kept him out of a Burundi prison cell. 

“I hope you don’t think that was, uh, forward of me,” the man said, almost a little sheepishly. “Only the bartender just told me that someone was assassinated and the military police are looking for anyone traveling alone, and then I saw you, and, well, you looked a little desperate, so I just figured—”

“You figured correctly,” Enjolras said, cutting off the man’s ramble. He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of more gunfire. “And while I thank you for your assistance, we should get out of here.”

The man nodded and turned back to the bar, grabbing whatever he’d been drinking it and downing it in a single gulp. “To the embassy?” he asked. Enjolras hesitated, because of course he had absolutely no way of explaining that going to any embassy was as dangerous for him as staying put, but thankfully, the man then offered, “Or I have a connection that was going to take me to Kenya tomorrow anyway, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind an extra passenger.”

“Are you sure?” Enjolras asked, surprised.

The man shrugged. “He owes me a favor,” he said breezily. “Or ten.” He looked at Enjolras expectantly. “So what do you say?”

Enjolras shrugged as well. “It’s as good a plan as any,” he said, aiming to match the man’s breezy tone.

The man laughed. “Not exactly brimming with enthusiasm, but I’ll take it.” He held his hand out for Enjolras to shake. “My name is Grantaire.”

“Enjolras,” Enjolras said, shaking his hand, but before he could say anything more, there was the sound of a distant explosion. “How would your connection feel about moving our trip up to today?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Grantaire said. “I need to grab my bag from upstairs. Do you…?”

“No,” Enjolras said, thinking of his clothes, forged passport and array of weaponry currently stashed in what had been General Lamarque’s camp outside the city. “No, I never travel with anything I can’t afford to leave behind.”

Grantaire smiled at him. “Well,” he said, “just as long as that doesn’t include me.”

Enjolras laughed as well. “Don’t worry,” he said, and it was only after Grantaire had left for his hotel room that Enjolras added, “it absolutely does.”

— — — — —

Three nights later, Enjolras slipped out from under Grantaire’s arm still draped across his waist and held his breath when the other man shifted in his sleep. But Grantaire didn’t stir and Enjolras breathed a sigh of relief before standing and heading over to his bag to grab his satellite phone. He glanced at Grantaire before stepping out onto the balcony, closing the door softly behind him.

Then he called Combeferre.

“Thank God you’re alive,” Combeferre said by way of greeting, and Enjolras half-smiled as he leaned down to rest his elbows on the balcony railing.

“Alive, and made it to Nairobi,” he reported. “Wish I could say the same about Lamarque.” 

Combeferre sighed. “I know. It’s a tough loss.”

“Tough?” Enjolras repeated. “It’s going to set back progress in the region by at least a decade.”

“Unfortunately, we’ve got bigger problems than that,” Combeferre said, a little grimly.

“Like what?”

Combeferre cleared his throat. “The Burundi government evidently recovered some of your personal effects, and after connecting your most recent alias to some of your other ones, well…let’s just say you’re being blamed for the assassination. Meaning you’re also now on every terrorist watchlist in the world.” Enjolras had expected as much, not that it made it easier to hear. “Speaking of which, how did you make it all the way to Kenya on your own?”

Enjolras glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Grantaire was still sleeping. “I’m not on my own.”

“You – what?”

This was the part of the conversation that Enjolras had been dreading most. “I met someone,” he said, and when Combeferre was silent, he added, “His name is Grantaire. He’s an American, a wildlife photographer, and he used his connections to get us both out of there.”

“And then you immediately abandoned him in Nairobi, right?” Combeferre asked, and Enjolras could just picture him pinching the bridge of his nose.

Enjolras traced a finger along the balcony railing as he hedged, “Define abandoned.”

“Enjolras.”

“He’s very nice,” Enjolras assured him. “And he thinks he just saved my life.”

“Courfeyrac and I wouldn’t have let—”

“You know that, and I know that, but…”

“But what?” Combeferre demanded, exasperated. “Enjolras, you can’t just sleep with a random American you met in a war zone without us thoroughly vetting him!”

Enjolras made a face. “Tell that to Courfeyrac,” he muttered.

He could practically hear Combeferre roll his eyes. “Courfeyrac doesn’t exactly have the same international profile that you do. And this guy could be CIA, he could be INTERPOL—”

“Or he could be my ticket out of here.”

Combeferre was silent for a moment before asking warily, “What do you mean?”

Enjolras cleared his throat. “I mean, it’ll be, what, three to five years before the heat dies down enough that I can get back to work, right?”

“At least.”

Enjolras nodded. “So I’ll spend the next three to five years with Grantaire,” he said, looking over his shoulder again before telling Combeferre, “He asked me to marry him.”

“He – what?” Combeferre said weakly. “It’s been three days!”

That had more or less been Enjolras’s reaction, though he at least had the benefit of seeing how amazing the sex was before Grantaire asked him the world’s dumbest question. But while Enjolras had demurred at the time, he had also been thinking about it. And now he needed Combeferre on his side. “What can I say, almost dying together has a tendency to accelerate the timeline.”

“Enjolras,” Combeferre said, with the kind of patience a parent used on a misbehaving child, “you can’t marry him.”

Enjolras shrugged. “After a thorough background check, I don’t see why not—”

“Because you are wanted by INTERPOL, the FBI, the CIA, Mossad, Hezbollah, the Russian SVR, NYPD, LAPD, and the Cook County Assessor’s Office for $5,000 in back owed property taxes!” 

Combeferre practically shouted the last bit, and Enjolras cocked his head. “I’m pretty sure Courfeyrac added that last one to my file as a joke,” he said mildly, “seeing as how it’s the plot of the Blues Brothers.”

 “That’s not the point—”

“No, the point is, I need to lie low until the heat from any and all of those dies down,” Enjolras said, with conviction. “And the sane thing to do is to flee to a non-extradition island somewhere and wait it out.”

“Exactly, the sane thing—”

“And the predictable thing.” Combeferre fell silent and Enjolras paused before asking, “Can you honestly tell me that you think the CIA is going to come looking for me in a suburb in middle America? Let alone Mossad, or the SVR?”

Combeferre sighed, and Enjolras knew he had already won. “I think we can safely assume that the CIA is going to come looking for you wherever they pick up your trail.”

“Then we’ll do whatever we can to make sure I don’t leave one.” Enjolras half-smiled. “Come on, you have to admit, of all the asinine plans we’ve made, this one actually might work.”

“Maybe.” It was Combeferre’s turn to pause, and Enjolras knew he was readying his most convincing argument. “But what happens to Grantaire after three to five years?” Enjolras was silent, and Combeferre sighed again. “I have always supported you, and I’m not going to stop now, but this is a mistake.”

Enjolras shook his head. “I don’t think it is. Combeferre, you know me. You know that I’m not…sentimental. But Grantaire…” He trailed off and shook his head again. “He’s different. No questions, no demands, it’s like he already knows the truth about me and doesn’t care.”

“Then it’s even more of a mistake,” Combeferre said heavily.

“Maybe,” Enjolras echoed. “But the worst that can happen could happen anywhere, with anyone. So why not?”

Combeferre was silent for so long that Enjolras almost checked to make sure the call didn’t drop. Then, reluctantly, he said, “I’ll talk to Courfeyrac. We’ll get started on the arrangements. Let me know when you’re back stateside.”

“Thank you,” Enjolras said softly. He hung up and turned the phone over in his hands, removing the SIM card with practiced fingers before casually dropping the phone off of the balcony.

And just in time, as moments later, Grantaire stepped out onto the balcony, yawning widely. “What are you doing up?” he asked sleepily, wrapping his arms around Enjolras waist from behind and dropping a kiss onto his bare shoulder.

Enjolras turned to face him. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I was thinking about what you asked me.”

Hesitation flickered across Grantaire’s expression. “I know it’s only been a few days—”

“Yes.”

Grantaire blinked. “Yes – yes what?”

Enjolras smiled. “Yes, I will marry you.”

A grin spread slowly across Grantaire’s face. “Seriously?” he breathed, and when Enjolras nodded, he let out a whoop before pulling Enjolras close and kissing him. “You’re not going to regret this, I promise.”

“I know,” Enjolras told him, closing his eyes as Grantaire pulled him in again.

He’d had worse covers, after all.

And how bad could three to five years of marriage be?

>>Read Part 2>>