Chapter Text
Combeferre could not remember a time when he wasn’t friends with Courfeyrac and Enjolras.
They were New Orleans boys, born and bred, all from old families who had lived in the city from its earliest days. They grew up in Garden District mansions, with fathers who worked in the CBD and mothers who joined the Junior League and sisters who participated in debutante balls. As teenagers they prowled the city, arguing about politics while they learned how to drink and smoke and fuck in the smoky jazz clubs and the back alleys of the Quarter; as college students at Tulane, they shared an apartment and learned to live on their own.
After college, however, they’d gone their separate ways. Enjolras went to law school and became a public interest lawyer, working in the poorer wards of the city as a community organizer, standing up to the corrupt cops and the shady business people who had flooded into the city after Katrina. Combeferre had gone on to do his graduate work at Tulane, and now he taught history there -- his speciality was 18th century American history, and he spent his days lecturing to bored undergraduates about Federalist 10 and the Louisiana Purchase and his nights in a tiny second floor apartment near campus with his stacks of books. And Courfeyrac was ostensibly working for his father’s law firm, but he was also an investor in a restaurant, stealing from his mother’s receipt book to make tantalizing Creole dishes using local ingredients that were the toast of the French Quarter for locals and tourists alike.
They were closing in on their 30s now, but even as their lives diverged, they still kept in touch -- they still met for drinks, always at the same bar they’d gone to since college, where they would talk about their work and gossip about their childhood friends. Enjolras would go on long monologues about politics, and Combeferre would tell amusing stories about his undergraduates, and Courfeyrac would complain about his day job and share tales of the restaurant business.
None of them were attached -- Courfeyrac had had an on-again, off-again relationship with a musician named Prouvaire, but Enjolras remained defiantly single, and Combeferre was abysmally bad at sustaining any relationships beyond a few weeks.
“Why do I have a feeling that when we’re 40 we’ll still be coming here?” Enjolras had asked more than once.
And every time he said it, Courfeyrac would snort and reply, “And that’s a problem?”
And Combeferre would lean back and close his eyes in contentment, in the full knowledge that come hell or high water -- and in New Orleans, the latter was always possible -- he would have his two best friends by his side.
But on a ferociously humid Friday morning in August, after a particularly intense drinking session during which Combeferre and Courfeyrac had participated in a heated debate over issues of the constitutionality of wiretapping and rendition, Combeferre woke up in Courfeyrac’s bed, hung over and aching in all the right places.
And Combeferre wondered if things would ever be the same with them again.
**
“Good morning,” Courfeyrac drawled as he came over sat on the bed next to Combeferre, clad in just a scanty bathrobe and bearing two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. “How are you feeling today?”
Combeferre grunted and sat up, reaching for the glass Courfeyrac was offering. “Please tell me there’s no alcohol in here,” he said, sniffing at his drink.
Courfeyrac laughed. “Hair of the dog that bit you, am I right?” he said. “But no, I abstained. And coffee is on its way.”
“And I thank you for that,” Combeferre replied dryly. He sipped his juice and tugged the blanket up over his hips with his free hand, feeling suddenly self-conscious in the bright light that streamed through Courfeyrac’s windows.
Noticing Combeferre’s sudden discomfort, Courfeyrac patted his leg reassuringly. “You do know I’ve seen everything, darling,” he said. “I mean, not that I hadn’t seen it before, and last night I saw it all close up--” he said, trailing his fingers up Combeferre’s thigh.
This caused Combeferre to squirm even more. “You do know that last night was a terrible idea, and that we should never do this again,” he said primly.
Courfeyrac placed his juice glass on the nightstand. “Why is it such a terrible idea?” he asked as he crawled on top of Combeferre. “Prouvaire is off in New York for God knows how long, and you don’t have anyone in your life right now. Can’t we just fuck around once in a while?” he asked, leaning in to kiss Combeferre on the mouth. “I had fun last night, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but--” Combeferre murmured, feeling his objections melting in the lush heat of Courfeyrac’s mouth.
Courfeyrac grinned and slipped his hand under the blanket. “Relax, cher,” he said in an affected parody of a local accent. “Laissez le bon temps roulez,” he murmured, as Combeferre reflexively groaned.
After another half an hour in bed, followed by a lengthy shower together, Courfeyrac sent Combeferre on his way, dressed in his own shorts and one of Courfeyrac’s t-shirts, and bearing a travel mug filled with the coffee Courfeyrac had brewed. “I’ll see you tonight?” Courfeyrac asked, pressing a kiss to Combeferre’s damp forehead as they stood on his front porch.
“Sure, I guess,” Combeferre said absently, squinting at Courfeyrac as he shielded his eyes against the sunlight, realizing he had not brought his sunglasses with him in the expectation he’d be home long before dawn.
“You do know it’s just sex,” Courfeyrac reassured him. “It’s not like we’re boyfriends now, you know,” he scoffed.
Combeferre nodded. “I know that,” he said, trying to sound casual.
But he still wasn’t completely sure.
**
For the rest of the day -- as he rode the streetcar back to his apartment, as he showered yet again and dressed in his own clothes, as he sat at his laptop pounding out his syllabus for the senior seminar he was teaching -- Combeferre tried to push thoughts of the previous night to the back of his mind. But he kept being distracted by reminiscences of the feel of Courfeyrac’s soft lips on every inch of his body, of the magnificent feeling of their bodies melding together.
God, it had been way too long.
He knew that Courfeyrac was right that it was just sex, and his proposal was appealing: a relationship, or something, that was built simply on a mutual desire to fulfill each other’s physical needs. It was certainly appealing to Combeferre -- romantic relationships were never his strong point, as he just sometimes seemed to get so far into his own head that he never considered his partner’s feelings. Friends with benefits, his students would say -- and God, if last night had been any indication, those benefits were amazing.
But he worried, as he always did and always would, about the friendship -- he loved Courfeyrac as a brother, as a confidante, as a debate partner. And he knew he had the potential to fuck this up like he’d fucked it up so often before.
And then there was Enjolras, the third leg of their stool -- Enjolras, who didn’t do relationships at all, who didn’t even do sex as far as Combeferre knew. Would it be awkward and weird? Could they -- should they -- even tell him?
As the sun was setting through the trees outside, Combeferre pushed back from his desk and rifled through the papers on his bookshelf to find his phone. There were two text messages there -- one each from Enjolras, and the other from Courfeyrac.
“Reservation at Corinthe at 8:00,” read the text from Enjolras. It was more a command than a question, but Combeferre replied anyway in the affirmative.
“I’m in a meeting and I can barely sit down and it’s all your fault,” Courfeyrac had texted with a winking emoticon.
Combeferre sighed, weighing the phone in his hand as he contemplated his reply. “Better sort that out before 8:00,” he finally texted back, the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. “Should I call you a doctor?”
“Did it sound like I was complaining?” came back Courfeyrac’s reply, with yet another wink. “We can do it again later if you want to.”
Combeferre tossed the phone on the table with a memory-induced shudder, and padded into the bathroom to take another shower -- his third one of the day, he realized, as he peeled off his clothes and turned the faucet on.
And made sure the water was as ice cold as he could stand.
**
Combeferre was the first to arrive at the restaurant -- five minutes early, as was his custom -- only to discover their table wasn’t quite ready yet. As he paced around outside on the sidewalk, practicing how he would greet Courfeyrac, the devil himself appeared beside him.
“Nice to see you,” Courfeyrac said, looking to see if Enjolras had arrived, then pecking Combeferre on the lips. “Were you thinking of me all day?” he asked.
“Not in the slightest,” Combeferre deadpanned..
Courfeyrac snorted. “You’re a fucking liar,” he said. “Don’t forget I’ve known you since we were awkward preteens, my friend. I know what you used to be like before you got hot,” he said, letting his hand wander down to stroke Combeferre’s ass.
As Combeferre flushed and shoved him away, the hostess poked her head out the door. “Enjolras, party of three? Your table is ready.”
“Don’t say a fucking word about anything, okay?” Combeferre hissed to Courfeyrac as they walked inside to be seated. “Enjolras doesn’t need to know about -- you know..”
Courfeyrac took his seat on one side of the booth, taking the napkin off the table grandly and laying it across his lap. “About our ‘arrangement’?” he euphemized. “He’s not an idiot. He’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“I just don’t want it to be weird, you know?” Combeferre said, picking up the wine list. “You know how he is.”
Courfeyrac snorted. “For all we know he has some arrangement of his own,” he pointed out. “He has to get off some way or another.”
“As if I’d ever tell you about how I get off,” Enjolras interrupted him, as he slid into the booth next to Combeferre. “You’d get it published on the front page of the Times-Picayune.”
“Because it would be the biggest news to hit the city since the last hurricane,” Courfeyrac quipped. “The next storm of the century, if you will.”
Enjolras glared at him as he cracked open the menu. “Not all of us have managed to fuck just about everyone in Orleans Parish. Well, other than me and Combeferre, right?” he said, poking his friend beside him.
Not looking up from the wine list, Combeferre nodded. “Right,” he managed to croak, not daring to meet Courfeyrac’s gaze, knowing even without looking that his friend was grinning like crazy.
**
The next morning, when Combeferre opened his eyes -- again hung over, again sore in all the right places -- Courfeyrac was still asleep, the sheet just covering his bare skin and his dark curls splayed out across the pillowcase.
God, this would not be easy, Combeferre knew, as he cringed at the tiny lie he had told Enjolras the night before.
But as he leaned over and kissed Courfeyrac awake, and they began to come together as one again, he knew one thing for sure: the benefits, such as they were, were absolutely amazing.