Chapter Text
"All I'm saying is that high school is way more bearable when you bring something else in a water bottle besides water," argued Grantaire, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "It's just common sense."
Eponine and Enjolras looked at him skeptically.
"When you bring water, you gotta refill it at the water fountain. And all of the water fountains here are warm and dumb."
With that, he took a long sip of lemonade. Leaning against an unused locker, Enjolras asked where he got his refills of lemonade at school. Grantaire simply pulled out another two empty reusable water bottles.
"I can't believe none of them get too warm," Eponine said. She fiddled with the scrunchies around her wrists. "Is your backpack filled with ice packs or something?"
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe it's magic."
Laughing (but only a little), Enjolras pointed out that they were gonna be late for math if they kept talking about this any longer. Grantaire and Eponine followed him to their next class, which would have been everyone's least favorite except for the fact that they shared it with the rest of their huge friend group.
Combeferre, Jehan, Musichetta, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Cosette, Marius, Bahorel, Bossuet, and Joly were in math with them too. And since it was kind of a small class, they were literally more than half of the students in there.
It was chaos, and it was great.
Their friend group had been going strong since middle school, hardly ever faltering except for that one disastrous game of dodgeball and the fight that followed it.
With thirteen people who each had different schedules and responsibilities, it was sometimes difficult for everybody to get together, but they all tried their hardest.
Everyone had their own unique role in the group:
Enjolras was the most proactive, always pressing for a solution that would benefit everyone, carrying on even when better judgement would say to give up, and usually getting himself in trouble one way or another for this. He had a sweet, almost dorky charisma. Being too caught up on rules and technicalities was his biggest flaw, and he was this close to being able to admit it.
Combeferre never noticed when his glasses were smudged and dirty, because he was too busy noticing everything else—when moths landed on his windows at night, when one of his friends was uncomfortable or sad, when sunlight shown into a room and lit a spotlight on the dust in the air.
Jehan, at any given time, had at least fifteen tabs opened on their sticker-covered laptop, most of which were usually the Wikipedia pages of their favorite cartoons. They were notorious for not understanding sarcasm and for choosing the weirdest, most hilarious clothing combinations ever. If their high school had a dress code, they would probably cry.
Musichetta considered herself the only one in the group who could pull off plaid. All of her flannels were special, particularly the tattered ones, and she liked to think of each as representing some distinct part of her personality, her random and jumbled life. Not that she would tell anyone, but she did this with books too.
Feuilly thrived under up-til-midnight, a-week-til-midterms conditions, to the point where he had accidentally turned himself into a procrastinator. Always taking the time to put in the extra effort his brain constantly nagged him about, and hardly putting himself first, he existed in a strange mishmash between stress and contentment. This paradox both amused and worried him, usually at the same time.
Courfeyrac couldn't let a conversation go without finding something to laugh at, or make everyone else laugh at, or turn from unfunny to just weird. If he was overly dramatic or ridiculous, oh well; he moved around too quickly to gather much embarrassment. As far as nicknames went, he had more than enough saved up for everyone.
Cosette loved learning things. Once she became attached to something, whether it was birds or Disney movies or music, it was hers forever. The only problem this had caused her was in spreading out her interests and talents in such a way that she didn't consider herself to truly excel at any one piece—and she had yet to figure out that that was perfectly fine.
Marius didn't think it was normal for someone to eat so much hot sauce and eggs without getting sick of it, or stumble while climbing trees so much without giving up already, or watch so much Game of Thrones without understanding it at all. But he was an expert at doing things wrong while hardly being aware of it, which was honestly pretty entertaining for him and everybody else.
Bahorel just wasn't one of those types of people who get excited about everything, with the three chief exceptions of math (when he understood it so perfectly that it actually became interesting), music (hip-hop and musicals, strangely, were his favorites), and getting to insult people who really deserved it. His jokes could be mean sometimes, but hey, what can you do?
Bossuet's constant bad luck confounded, frustrated, amused, and even amazed him. What was wonderful about it, though, was that every incident of laptops dying at 50%, glasses of water spilling after he barely even did anything, and clothes tearing when he tried them on at the store, had taught him that nothing was as catastrophic as it seemed.
Joly, when he was at his most confident, was totally different from Joly at his least confident. There was hardly an inbetween. He had a weird way of getting just as caught up in loving life and finding everything funny as he did in giving into his more nervous, hypochondriac tendencies.
Eponine tackled her irresponsible and ruthless parents, her annoying yet lovable siblings, and her great yet taxing friends every single day. It got tiring. A lot. With so much on her plate, it was easy to lose her temper or say something stupid, but that's where being awesome at damage control comes in. And being able to forgive herself came in handy, too.
Grantaire would probably object to some long, thoughtful paragraph about who he was and why he was complex. However, that didn't mean he didn't deserve one—it just meant he wasn't prone to digging into those things himself. He, for instance, wouldn't typically think about how his sarcasm, puns, and endearing annoyingness worked better than nearly anything to bring these thirteen teenagers together.
It was soon time for the first pep rally of the school year, so everyone came out of their classrooms and, in a crazy jumbled line, entered the gym. School spirit mixed with claustrophobia, but in a way that was actually cathartic and fun. And besides, if any of the friends had wanted to skip the pep rally and chill in the library instead, they'd miss seeing Cosette, Jehan, and Combeferre with the band, Feuilly with the swim team, Courfeyrac with the soccer team, and Musichetta with the dance team.
The rest of them—Grantaire, Enjolras, Joly, Eponine, Bossuet, Marius, and Bahorel—went upstairs to the second level of bleachers, where 11th graders were supposed to sit.
"Okay, I don't think we'll find a spot where all seven of us can sit right next to each other," guessed Enjolras, looking up at all the people who had gotten there before them.
Everyone nodded. "Hopefully there's something close enough," said Marius.
So the seven sat with three of them on one side of the steps going up the bleachers, and four on the other side. Bahorel squeezed onto the end of one seat because he was small, and Enjolras and Grantaire sat above him. Across from them were Marius, Eponine, Joly, and Bossuet, so tightly packed that they had to hold their backpacks in their laps. It was uncomfortable, but at least they all had a good view.
Down below, a teacher was shouting things nobody could hear about how the pep rally would start in a couple minutes. Cosette, Jehan, and Combeferre were getting restless just standing and waiting, and so were Musichetta, Courfeyrac, and Feuilly, on their parts of the bleachers.
"I wonder if the cheerleaders will go first, or if Chetta and the rest of the dance team will," Joly said to Bossuet. He fiddled nervously with all the strings and zippers on his backpack (crowds weren't his favorite).
"What?" The music was already too loud for Bossuet to hear anything, naturally. "What's that?"
Joly repeated what he said patiently.
"Well, whoever goes first, I hope they turn the music down some," he complained.
Eponine, who sat next to Joly, laughed. "Yeah, we don't want you to get hearing problems at 16! That'd be just your luck!"
With a shrug, Bossuet grinned.
Over on the other side of the steps, Bahorel was currently grumbling about being right next to Grantaire's apparently smelly feet. Grantaire brushed him off and drank some more lemonade instead of arguing, while Enjolras jokingly pretended to sniff his feet to see if Bahorel was right.
Marius looked over at this and got pretty confused, but when he tried asking Grantaire what was going on, they couldn't hear each other at all. Thankfully, the pep rally was just about to start anyway.
The band began playing their school's fight song, which everyone knew Jehan had been struggling to learn.
Combeferre seemed to be trying to refresh Jehan's memory of what to do with their oboe and play his flute at the same time. He ended up bumping into the girls next to him and making Cosette, who was a couple rows behind them toting a drum almost as big as herself, crack up laughing.
Even from all the way up in the bleachers, Marius could have sworn that Cosette's laughter floated up to him. He caught her eye for a moment, before turning away and staring at his backpack for a while.
It took Cosette a couple seconds to catch up to the beat again.
Meanwhile, Jehan had gotten into a rhythm, copying the person next to them. Montparnasse noticed this but let it go. The two of them had a weird frenemies dynamic, with Jehan berating him for being snotty but still generally following him around and asking for help with playing the oboe. Combeferre and Cosette always thought this was amusing.
When the song ended, everyone clapped and cheered. Next came the cheerleaders, and then more teachers saying stuff nobody could hear, and then Musichetta with the dance team. She wasn't wearing flannel, for once, but she was still grinning wider than ever.
The music finally softened, to Bossuet's relief.
By this time, Grantaire had regretfully finished his final bottle of lemonade. He complained about this to Bahorel and Enjolras, who thought of something.
"Hey," he said, "so if you don't like the water fountains here, why can't you just fill all your bottles with cold water at home? It doesn't have to be lemonade."
Grantaire rolled his eyes. "I know it doesn't have to be lemonade, I just like lemonade, okay?"
"Oh," said Enjolras. "Right. That makes sense."
They sat in awkward silence for the rest of Musichetta's team's dance, when Bahorel made a joke about some teacher with a ridiculous outfit and the three of them laughed really loud.
Now it was time for each sports team to walk across the "stage." Swim team went first, and as Feuilly and his teammates went past the band kids, he got a high five from nearly everyone in the front row. (Everybody loved Feuilly.) The football and volleyball teams went next, followed by soccer. Courfeyrac, to make the most out of his time out there, spun around in a circle while walking and waving to everyone he needed to wave to.
After twenty more minutes of stuff like this, the band kids were getting really tired of standing, and the pep rally had ended.
Musichetta, Combeferre, Cosette, and Jehan went to the locker rooms, to drop instruments off and/or change back into normal clothes. The seven sitting in the bleachers made their way down to the gym floor, following one embarrassing incident where Enjolras bumped into Grantaire, sending his backpack tumbling down the steps and nearly hitting a 9th grader. When they all got to the little hallway near the locker rooms, Feuilly and Courfeyrac were already waiting.
"Hey, guys," said Feuilly, with a big smile. "Fun pep rally, huh?"
His friends nodded, and Bahorel joked, "Good job making yourself dizzy waving to everybody, Courf. I think a yearbook photographer caught it, too."
Embarrassed, Courfeyrac crossed his arms and was about to say something—probably something suitably dramatic and ridiculous—when Cosette, Jehan, Musichetta, and Combeferre all came out of the locker rooms. He broke off to congratulate them on how good they did in the pep rally, and then everyone else did the same.
"Aww, thanks," Cosette said, quickly undoing her ponytail. "But we have something more important to talk about: we're going to my house to hang out. Jehan's never played Neopets before!"
"Is it really that big of a deal?" they wondered. "I mean, have all of you played Neopets?"
Most of them had, but Joly, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, and Bossuet hadn't, to Cosette's shock. The thirteen of them had already been planning to hang out at Cosette's house, because it was the closest to the school. Now, with her plan to introduce Jehan and the others to her favorite online game, they began heading over there.
Her dad, Valjean, was used to hosting his daughter's friends several times a month. It was hectic with everyone running around, but either he never really minded, or he did a great job of hiding it.
Grantaire and Courfeyrac liked to joke that Valjean wasn't just Cosette's adoptive dad, he was everybody else's too.
As everyone passed under the live oaks lining one side of the sidewalk to Cosette's front door, Spanish moss bumped most of them in the face. It was a very nice yard—lots of trees, lots of flowers and berry bushes, really homey.
Was it lame for Cosette's own front yard to be her favorite place in the world? Maybe, but she wouldn't dwell on that.
"Hey, Dad," she called, "I'm… we're home!"
Valjean, drinking from a tall mug of green tea, said hello to everybody. Everybody said hello back.
Soon they were in the living room, all looking at the computer. "Okay, how is this going to work?" asked Musichetta, crossing her arms. "Going on the computer isn't really the best group activity ever…"
She was right, of course, but Cosette didn't want to give up so easily, and Jehan was getting super curious about Neopets at this point, too.
"Could we just get a bunch of chairs over here and watch?" suggested Courfeyrac.
Combeferre agreed. "That's better than nothing."
Finally, Enjolras and Feuilly came up with a solution that seemed, in retrospect, ridiculously simple. Nobody needed to play Neopets with Cosette if they didn't feel like it; sure, these thirteen friends loved hanging out as one whole group, but they weren't codependent. Luckily, no one felt particularly weird about making themselves at home here.
Cosette excitedly launched into explaining Neopets—all the different worlds you could go to; all the Neopets and petpets and even petpetpets; and all the ways to interact with other players—to her five friends who were completely new to it, as well as Musichetta and Marius.
"Neomail?" Joly asked at one point. "So this website has its own emailing thing? That's pretty cool."
"It is, though," Cosette agreed, buzzing with happiness at getting to share this thing she loved with her best friends. The way she smiled made Marius smile; and, as everyone in this house did whatever they were doing, they all felt like it had been a pretty great day.