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kjack89 · 9 months

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Back to Where We Started (Chapter 3/4)

Third part of the E/R Mr. & Mrs. Smith AU. Read Part 1 here (tumblr | AO3) and Part 2 here (tumblr | AO3).

Modern AU, established E/R.

NAME: [REDACTED – CODEWORD CLASSIFIED] ALIAS: GRANTAIRE SMITH OCCUPATION: ASSASSIN PREFERRED METHOD: SNIPER

Three Years Ago

Grantaire glanced through the scope of his rifle, the oppressive humidity threatening to cause sweat to drip into his eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time, and Grantaire had figured out how to mitigate it years ago, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation.

Not that lying on his stomach in a grove of trees some 500 meters away from his target was any more pleasant, but that he’d gotten used to even sooner than the sweat.

“Target in sight,” he reported, knowing the tiny earbud barely visible in his ear was also a microphone. “Standing by for go order.”

“Copy,” said Joly, sounding bored. “How’s Burundi?”

A fly buzzed in Grantaire’s ear and Grantaire swatted at it, annoyed. “Great,” he said shortly. “Try to schedule my next assassination here too, would you?”

Joly chuckled as a second voice hopped on the line. “Evac route secure,” Bossuet said, “with contingencies one, two and three in place, just in case.”

“Three contingencies?” Grantaire asked mildly. “Are we planning on the entire world falling apart, or…?”

“Hey, with my luck, you can never be too careful.”

Grantaire grinned, all too aware of Bossuet’s luck, and was ready to make a comment as such when a third voice chimed in, this time disapprovingly. “Gentlemen,” Javert said, “let’s keep chatter on this channel to a minimum.”

Grantaire’s shoulders automatically straightened when he heard Javert’s voice. “Yes, sir,” he said, looking through the scope of his rifle again, though his target had barely moved. “Can I ask something, sir?”

Javert sighed. “You’re going to ask it regardless, so you might as well.”

Grantaire worried his lower lip between his teeth before saying, somewhat cautiously, “As you know, I’ve been here for a few days, getting acquainted with the place and the general’s movements. Everyone that I’ve spoken with says that General Lamarque is a good man, that he wants to repair a lot of the damage done by previous, corrupt administrations and return power to the people of Burundi. Which begs the question—”

“Are you questioning your orders?” Javert snapped, unusually terse, even for one of his darker moods.

“No, but—”

“But nothing,” Javert said. “Your orders are in service of your country—”

If Grantaire had anything resembling a self-preservation instinct, he would’ve dropped it. Of course, if Grantaire had anything resembling a self-preservation instinct, he wouldn’t be in this line of work, so it was somewhat of a moot point. “How is increased instability in this region in service of anyone?” he asked. “Except for, say, global shipping magnates who need the Horn of Africa unstable to justify price gouging?”

Javert sighed, and Grantaire could just picture him pinching the bridge of his nose. “And here I thought you didn’t care about anything.”

Grantaire scowled. There was little he liked less than having his own words flung back in his face. “I don’t.”

“Good,” Javert said coolly. “Because if you’ve somehow found morality, we’re done, and you’re stuck in Burundi with an illegal firearm, a forged passport, and no means of getting home.”

Grantaire ground his teeth together. “Might be worth it,” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Grantaire said, before adding sourly, “sir.”

“Good,” Javert said. There was a brief moment of silence, then: “We have the go order. As soon as you have a shot, take it.”

“But—”

“Take your shot, Grantaire.”

Grantaire swallowed, hard, and looked back down the scope of his rifle, his finger resting lightly on his trigger. Someone moved in front of General Lamarque and Grantaire held his breath, but the person moved away, leaving Grantaire with the perfect shot, and—

CLICK.

Three years later, and the only shots Grantaire was taking were with his camera. And the occasional shot at a bar, though it wasn’t like he and Enjolras frequented any of the local establishments. Enjolras had never been one for drinking.

One of a hundred small differences between them that had seemed so minor three years ago and now stretched like an endless chasm between them.

He had hoped couples therapy would help, even if he’d been reluctant to go initially, but thus far, there’d been no change.

Grantaire sighed and shifted. He was half-lying in the otherwise empty stands of the high school football stadium, trying to get the perfect shot of the team practicing for the local paper. He didn’t usually do newspaper assignments, on the off-chance his name in print somehow wound up in the wrong hands, but he doubted anyone would pay any attention to the credit on a story about a high school football team with a five-game losing streak.

He sat up, deeming the pictures he’d gotten as good as he was going to get, and was surprised to see Enjolras striding toward the stadium from the parking lot.

Well, that was new. Enjolras never came to see him work.

Maybe the therapy had more of an effect than Grantaire gave it credit for.

Maybe—

The telltale ping of a bullet striking a metal bleacher not even two feet to Grantaire’s left was enough to tell him that this sure as shit didn’t have anything to do with therapy, and he scrambled to his feet, reaching automatically for his own gun, only to remember that he hadn’t brought one.

Because he was at a high school, in America, and he wasn’t a fucking idiot.

Enjolras, evidently, had no similar compunction.

Enjolras raised his hand to fire off another shot and Grantaire darted backwards, swinging around the bleacher railing and taking the steps two at a time to get to the bottom. From there, it was an all-out sprint to his car, well aware that Enjolras was in close pursuit, well aware that even with a silencer, someone was bound to figure out that Enjolras was shooting at him.

And inevitably, someone would wonder the same thing Grantaire was: why the fuck was his husband trying to kill him?

As soon as he was in his car and away from the school (with only two bullet holes in his back windshield), Grantaire called a number he hadn’t called in years. “Thank God you’re alive,” Joly said, sounding genuinely relieved, and Grantaire almost cracked a smile until he caught sight of Enjolras’s car in his rearview mirror.

“For now, at least,” he said, taking a left so sudden that his tires squealed. “I’ll take it you have a better idea than I do of why my husband is trying to kill me?”

“Two sets of documents, both classified higher than top secret, were leaked this morning,” Joly told him. “One involved you, and your identity, and the assassination of General Lamarque.”

Grantaire swallowed and nodded. “Right,” he said. “Well, I guess I probably should’ve expected something about that to leak at some point. What was the second?”

“Intelligence on the movements of an international terrorist organization know as Les Amis de l’ABC,” Joly said, a little grimly. “And that’s where your husband comes in. Because somehow, of all the gin joints in all the world, you wound up in the one that an international terrorist decided to walk into.”

Grantaire almost laughed, thoroughly convinced that Joly couldn’t possibly be serious, but then he realized that Joly hadn’t exactly sounded like he was making a joke. “He – what?”

Five minutes, and three very circuitous routes later, Grantaire was convinced that he’d finally lost Enjolras – and that he’d never really had him in the first place. “Well, at least it explains why he tried to kill me,” he said, a little hollowly, staring down an unfamiliar road without really seeing it.

Joly cleared his throat. “Speaking of trying to kill you, you’ve probably thought of this already, but you can’t go back to your house?”

Grantaire frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t you think that’s exactly what he’ll be expecting? He’s probably booby trapped the entire thing.”

Despite everything, Grantaire cracked a smile. “Is Bossuet on this call?”

Joly was cautious in his response. “He’s listening in. Why?”

“Because I can only imagine him giggling at the word booby.”

“No comment,” Joly said with a sigh, which meant Grantaire had been correct. “But I mean it, you can’t go back there. At least not by yourself. You need—”

“What, a human shield?” Grantaire asked with a snort.

“If you can find one, sure.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “That’s not—”

He broke off abruptly, the idea coming to him in a flash of sudden genius. “Grantaire?” Joly prompted, and Grantaire grinned.

“Yeah. I just thought of someone I can use.”

“Oh?”

Grantaire nodded. “Yeah. Since we were speaking of boobies…”

— — — — —

Grantaire opened the front door and took an immediate step back, his hand automatically falling to his side and the gun he had holstered under his jacket. “Wow,” his next-door neighbor, Marius, said, peering inside excitedly. “So this is the place. I’ve been dying to get a look.”

“Take your time,” Grantaire said, following him in.

Marius shook his head with something like wonder as he glanced around the foyer. “Wow,” he repeated. “I can’t believe I’ve never been in here before.”

He made to turn towards the kitchen but Grantaire stopped him, grabbing him by the shoulder and steering him in the opposite direction. “Let’s start in the living room.”

Marius didn’t protest, too busy gazing at the floors. “I love these floors,” he told Grantaire, who was, in turn, busy checking every sightline for anything out of place. “What are they, teak?”

“Red oak,” Grantaire told him, sidling past him to peer around the entryway into the dining room. Something was out of place, but Grantaire couldn’t put a finger on it, and it was taking everything in him not to draw his gun.

“You know, I inherited my house from my grandfather, I’m sure you must’ve met him,” Marius said, though Grantaire was barely paying attention. “What color are these walls? I’m thinking of redoing the upstairs hallway and I think—

“Honestly, I don’t remember offhand,” Grantaire told him. “Why don’t you keep looking around? I just have to pop upstairs and check on something.”

He didn’t wait for Marius’s reply, pulling his gun as soon as he was out of Marius’s sight and taking the stairs two at a time. He moved swiftly but efficiently, checking each room before he finally got to the bedroom he’d evidently been sharing with an international terrorist for the last three years, and he held his breath before he pushed the door open.

And that was when he finally realized what was out of place.

The drawers on Enjolras’s side of the dresser were half-opened, and empty. The closet doors were wide open, revealing that Enjolras’s side was completely cleared out. His half of the bathroom sink, as clean as if a toothbrush and bottles of hair product had never even sat on it. Every knick-knack, bauble and sock that had belonged to Enjolras had disappeared.

Enjolras was gone.

Five minutes later, Grantaire had unceremoniously ushered Marius from the house, promising that he’d send over the name of the paint once he remembered.

Then he remembered that there was one other place he’d forgotten to check for booby traps.

He drew his gun for a second time as he crossed the yard to his shed. The dark room was just a cover for the far more important set up underneath, and he just hoped against hope that Enjolras hadn’t thought to check beyond the surface.

When he yanked the door open and saw the hidden trap door open, and the light from the downstairs flickering, he knew that Enjolras had.

When he smelled the telltale scent of gasoline, he also knew that Enjolras hadn’t bothered booby trapping the house.

He got ten feet from the shed before it exploded, sending him flying in a spray of wood splinters and shattered glass, and he lay on the lawn for a long moment afterwards, blinking dazedly up at the sky before groaning.

“Son of a bitch.”

— — — — —

Where did someone go after killing their husband, especially when that someone didn’t have a passport or means of fleeing the country yet?

After driving around aimlessly for a few hours, Enjolras figured he might as well take himself out for dinner. Maybe even enjoy a cocktail in Grantaire’s honor.

There was exactly one semi-fancy restaurant in their town, and at the hour, it was barely even a third full, and everyone else in the place was at least an octogenarian. One old couple was even dancing, because life seemed full of cruel ironies.

Not that witnessing someone else happy and in love was particularly cruel, in the grand scheme of things, but as Enjolras watched them, taking a sip of champagne that the waiter brought, he couldn’t help but think that, prior to about twelve hours ago, he might’ve even believed that that would be him and Grantaire one day.

A single tear slipped down his cheek, and Enjolras shook his head, feeling foolish. He hadn’t actually known Grantaire, any more than Grantaire had known him. What was there to miss, other than the best sex Enjolras had ever had?

And the way Grantaire made him eggs every morning when Enjolras actually slept in. And the way he laughed at Enjolras’s jokes, no matter how stupid, that deep rumble of a belly laugh that Enjolras could feel even more than he could hear. And how Grantaire had never tried to make Enjolras into something other than what he was, had never had any expectations for their life together other than them just existing together in the same space. And the way Grantaire said ‘I love you’, as if it was just as miraculous as it had been the first time around.

He hadn’t known Grantaire. Or maybe he had, in all the ways that mattered.

Frustrated, he reached up to brush the tear off with the back of his hand, freezing when someone’s hand closed around his wrist. “You know, I thought I’d come up with something clever to say by the time I got here,” Grantaire said. “But all I could think of was that there are easier ways to blow up a marriage.”

Enjolras closed his eyes for just a moment, torn between relief and fury that Grantaire was still alive. “LIke what?”

He opened his eyes to look up at Grantaire, who gave him that stupid smile that he loved and hated in equal measure. “Try this: I want a divorce.”

“Do you?” Enjolras asked, taking another sip of champagne. “Or do you want me to ask you?”

Grantaire just shrugged. “I asked you to marry me. Seems only fitting you be the one to ask for the divorce. May I sit?”

He gestured toward the open seat across from Enjolras. “No,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire sat anyway. Enjolras ground his teeth together for a moment before casually rearranging the napkin in his lap to cover the gun he’d just grabbed from his bag. Grantaire tracked the movement, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. He casually tipped his own napkin into his lap, and a moment later Enjolras heard the telltale click of the safety being switched off.

For one long moment, they just stared at each other, as if seeing each other for the very first time. Which in a way, Enjolras mused, they were. He broke the silence, impatience sparking within the tension. “So what do you want?”

Grantaire leaned forward. “Well, at the moment, I’d settle for a drink, but—”

“I’m serious.”

“And I am wild.” That small smile again, the one that drove Enjolras completely crazy. “Something you’ve probably never given any credence to prior to today.”

Enjolras hadn’t, not really, but he didn’t like being reminded that he had spent all this time underestimating Grantaire. He looked away before repeating, “What do you want?”

“We appear to have a problem,” Grantaire said, tracing one finger along the linen tablecloth. “You obviously want me dead. And I’m less and less concerned about your wellbeing. So where do we go from here?” He arched an eyebrow at Enjolras. “Do we go for a shootout here? Or to minimize civilian casualties, should we take this somewhere more intimate?”

“As if you’ve ever once in your life cared about civilian casualties,” Enjolras said coolly.

Grantaire didn’t even flinch. “Right back at you, babe.” Silence again stretched between them, but this time it was Grantaire who broke it. “Dance with me.”

Enjolras blinked. “You don’t dance,” he blurted, which was a stupid thing to say to a monumentally stupid proposition.

Grantaire grinned. “All just part of my cover,” he said, standing up and offering Enjolras his hand.

Despite himself, despite every self-preservation instinct Enjolras had honed over the years, he took Grantaire’s hand, allowing him to pull him to his feet. “Was being a slob part of your cover, too?” he asked blithely.

Without warning, Grantaire twisted his hand, the move just this side of painful, twirling Enjolras so that they were facing each other. Then Grantaire pulled him flush, his hand resting on the small of Enjolras’s back. “So what do you think?” he asked as they began dancing, and Enjolras had to give him credit, he did in fact know how to dance. “Is this story going to have a happy ending?”

“Happy endings are just stories that haven’t finished yet,” Enjolras told him, sliding his own hand from Grantaire’s shoulder down his side, checking for a shoulder holster. Feeling none, he continued southward, though Grantaire stopped him once he got to his belt.

“Only thing you’ll find down there isn’t a weapon,” he murmured in Enjolras’s ear, pulling him flush again to prove his point.

Enjolras swallowed and looked away. “Could’ve fooled me,” he said, his voice rough. “Bet you use that thing on all your marks.”

Grantaire barked a dry, humorless laugh. “Is that why you tried to kill me?” he asked, his lips just brushing against Enjolras’s ear. “Because you think I fucked General Lamarque before putting a bullet through his head?”

Enjolras stiffened, pulling away from Grantaire. “That—” he started, but he couldn’t find the words to continue. “I have to go.”

“Enjolras—” Grantaire called after him, but Enjolras didn’t pause. “Enjolras!”

It only occurred to Enjolras some ten minutes later that he had nowhere to go, that he was driving with no actual destination in mind, trying to escape a life that had all been a lie.

He was broken from his reverie by his cellphone ringing, and he answered it on his car’s screen. “Grantaire?”

Grantaire sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, and to his credit, he did sound it.

Enjolras drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “For what?”

“For what I said,” Grantaire told him. “It was a low blow.”

Enjolras jerked a shrug, even though Grantaire couldn’t see him. “Well, I did try to kill you, so fair is fair, I guess.”

Grantaire was silent for a long moment, long enough that Enjolras almost asked if he was still there. “Can I ask you something?”

It was probably a bad idea – anything that prolonged the inevitable was almost certainly a bad idea – but Enjolras just sighed. “Fine.”

“First time we met, what was your first thought?”

Enjolras’s chest felt tight. “You tell me.”

Something in Grantaire’s tone turned wistful. “You know that painting, Liberty Leading the People? I thought you looked like that. Like righteous fury striding into my life.” He sighed. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

The tightness in Enjolras’s chest had sharpened. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I guess in the end, you start thinking about the beginning,” Grantaire said, before clearing his throat. “So there it is. I thought you should know.” He paused before prompting, “So how about it?”

Enjolras swallowed, hard. “I thought…” He trailed off, that damned tear making a reappearance on his cheek, and he hurriedly wiped it off before saying, his voice harsh, “I thought you looked like an easy mark.”

Grantaire didn’t seem surprised. “So it was all business.”

Enjolras nodded. “All business.”

“From the go.”

“I’ve never been one to ignore reality,” Enjolras said with forced nonchalance.

Grantaire barked a laugh. “Thank you,” he said softly. “That’s all I needed to know. Can you do me just one favor?”

“What?”

“Meet me at home,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras’s chest clenched again. “And let’s finish this for real.”

— — — — —

Enjolras could see Grantaire’s headlights as he approached the driveway, and he slammed on the gas, narrowly avoiding clipping the front of Grantaire’s car. He zoomed into the garage, shutting the garage door behind him.

He might’ve gotten rid of Grantaire’s stash of guns, but that didn’t mean he’d been stupid enough not to leave anything in the house, and he grabbed his semi-automatic pistol from where he’d hidden it and screwed on the suppressor as he waited for the front door to open.

Instead, he heard a faint creak from the upstairs, and despite himself, he smiled, just slightly. So Grantaire wasn’t going to make this easy on him. Good. One last fight, for old times’ sake.

He crouched at the base of the stairs, waiting until he could sense someone hesitating at the top. Then he stood and fired a series of shots at the top of the stairs before ducking back into place.

“You still alive?” he called.

In response, Grantaire fired a shotgun directly where Enjolras’s head had been ten seconds earlier.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He raced toward the kitchen, firing a few cover shots over his shoulder as he went. God, he’d missed this. Missed the adrenaline humming in his veins, missed the acrid smell of gunpowder, missed the thrill of being alive for at least one second more.

He hadn’t had this much fun since—

The vase next to him exploded into shards of ceramic, and Enjolras hit the floor, squeezing off a rapid succession of shots in the direction the shot had come from. “Your aim’s as bad as your cooking,” Grantaire called. “And that’s saying something.”

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed and he fired twice more before moving further back into the kitchen, ducking behind the island for cover as he checked how much ammo he had left. “Your aim’s not so great yourself,” he said distractedly. “Especially considering—”

“Considering what?” Grantaire asked, and Enjolras felt the cold press of metal against his temple. “Drop the gun.” Enjolras closed his eyes for a moment, obediently letting the gun in his hand clatter to the floor. “Good. Now—”

Enjolras’s hand shot out, grabbing Grantaire’s wrist and twisting, hard, forcing him to drop his own gun. Then, he laid into him.

He had never been one for fist-fighting, preferring myriad other ways to get done what he needed to, but he knew how to throw a punch. Grantaire, for his part, matched him blow for blow, dodging and blocking with a practiced ease, something strangely graceful in his motions, clearly just as adept at hand to hand combat as he was at sniping world leaders.

Except—

Enjolras froze so suddenly that Grantaire’s fist went wide by a whole foot, sending him spinning from the momentum, and in an instance, both men had dropped to grab their respective guns, aiming at each other. “What was that?” Grantaire asked, panting.

“You tell me,” Enjolras said. “Or am I really supposed to believe you missed every shot you took tonight on accident?”

Grantaire wiped a dribble of blood from the corner of his mouth on his shoulder. “I’m out of practice.”

“So what do you call being practiced enough to block 95% of my punches and not land a single one of your own?”

“Coincidence.”

“Fine.” Enjolras took a step back, his hand falling to his side. “So then go for it. Right here, right now. Take your shot.”

Grantaire scowled. “You think I won’t?”

“No,” Enjolras said. “I don’t.”

Something shifted in Grantaire’s face, and after a moment, he lowered his weapon as well. “I can’t,” he said. “Can’t do it.”

Enjolras gritted his teeth. “Come on,” he half-shouted. “You can kill how many people, but you can’t kill me?”

“No,” Grantaire said. “I can’t.”

Then, without warning, he crossed to Enjolras, pulling him close, as close as they had been while dancing. But this time, he kissed him, an open-mouthed, fiery kiss full of all the heat and fury Enjolras had felt during their fight.

Only this was better. So much better.

He balled his free hand in what remained of Grantaire’s shirt, pulling him close, determined to savor this moment for as long as he could, knowing far too well that they quite likely had very few of them left.

But then, as Grantaire pulled away, just slightly, his stubble brushing against Enjolras’s cheek, he said something that for a moment almost made Enjolras doubt everything. “This was always real for me,” he whispered in Enjolras’s ear.

But it wasn’t – it couldn’t have been. Not when the entirety of it was built on a lie of omission. “Well, not all of it,” he murmured.

“Fine,” Grantaire said, undeterred. “But you and me – that was real.”

Enjolras closed his eyes. “Grantaire—”

“No, I have to get this out,” Grantaire told him, breathless. “I have to tell you, because—”

Enjolras just shook his head. “Grantaire, don’t. If anyone gets it, if anyone understands how this works—”

“I didn’t kill him, Enjolras.”

Enjolras stared at him, at the tiny flecks of silver he had never noticed in Grantaire’s eyes. “What?” he croaked.

Grantaire squeezed his hand. “I didn’t kill General Lamarque.”

>>Read Part 4 here.>>

#exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #enjolras #grantaire #fanfiction #les miserables #modern au #spies and assassins au #mr and mrs smith au #gun violence cw #gun shot cw #attempted murder cw #joly #bossuet #javert #marius pontmercy #as a treat

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