Lovesickness

Fanfiction
Title:	Lovesickness
Author(s):	idiopathicsmile
Date(s):	27 February 2014
Length:	11017 words
Genre(s):	Modern AU, Bystander Fic
Fandom(s):	Les Misérables
Relationship(s):
External Links:	on AO3
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Lovesickness is a Modern AU fanfiction by idiopathicsmile. It is told from the point of view of Joly and contains Enjolras/Grantaire and Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta. It was inspired by a reblog of the following post that was tagged #lovesickness that's all

i am in love with the idea that enjolras is so baffled by his own emotions towards grantaire that he legitimately cannot tell if he has heartburn or stomach butterflies

so it gets to the point where every time he sees grantaire do something cute he just takes calmly stops what he is doing to find joly, describe what happened, and ask whether he is dying or if this is part of the being in love thing

Idiopathicsmile saw that post and sent a three-sentence ficlet that would later inspire the rest of the fic:

Re: lovesickness, "Okay," said Joly finally, "I wrote you a prescription." Enjolras took the slip of paper with a sudden surge of hope, which vanished the moment he read it. / "It just says 'You are a doofus'," Enjolras protested. / "That's the diagnosis," said Joly, adjusting his glasses. "Turn it over." Enjolras turned it over. On the other side, all it said was, 'Stop being a doofus.'

It is the third most popular Enjolras/Grantaire fic when sorted by kudos or bookmarks and is sixth in hits.

Author's Summary

Enjolras swallowed. "I didn't know he had tattoos on his back."

"Yeah," said Joly, shrugging. "I mean, he lives with me and before about noon, he's allergic to shirts—"

"Why—" said Enjolras weakly.

"I always figured he had a bad shirt experience," Joly offered. "Shirts killed his family, or his first dog got hit by a truck full of shirts."

Enjolras shook his head. His face was a little flushed.

"Ooh, are you experiencing symptoms?" said Joly, brightening. "What's your pulse doing? Are you breathing normally? How do your glands feel?"

Inspired in part by tumblr user feferi's post here, specifically: "i am in love with the idea that enjolras is so baffled by his own emotions towards grantaire that he legitimately cannot tell if he has heartburn or stomach butterflies"

Modern AU. Joly is a gentleman, a scholar, a med student—and, when need be, a matchmaker. And oh, the need is definitely being.

Reactions and Reviews

2014

Ohohoh this is perfect and amazing and wonderful and I enjoyed every moment, particularly your characterisations. The Amis just felt like a real friendship group. I love Combeferre, all seeing, all knowing, perpetually suffering. He just wants to spend his time in the library studying okay. One of my favourite bits had to be when Bahorel turned out to be there too ha. And the pessimistic jar.

But Joly, oh Joly, so perfect. This is 100% how I imagine Joly. I don't know how you managed to balance the line between ridiculous and endearing but you did and he's perfect. I love his spreadsheets especially and his burning desire to give them condoms at the end, ha.

People need to write more ExR fics from the Amis pov, this is my new favourite thing ever. Excuse me whilst I go tell everyone I know to read.

There is not a single word of this that didn't make me at least grin very hard. Joly's characterization must be the funniest and most realistic one I've ever read (his very scientific notebook has mostly pigeons drawings in it, I loved that detail so much i have no idea why), Bossuet and his two muggings (and the apple!) made me laugh so hard, everything about Bossuet made me laugh because Bossuet is the funniest too, Musichetta was as perfect as ever, Enjolras was adorable (the flowers to Feuilly for no reasons but friendship omg Enjolras), the idea of the jar is AWESOME (i'd be rich if i did that. well. not really because it'd be my money in it, but..), COMBEFERRE oh my god, Combeferre was delightful and the weird in the best way possible (PSYCHIC), Bahorel who turns up when people don't expect him :D and Jehan and basically I'm reciting your story back to you, ain't I?

The friendship! The squeleton! All the little details that make their relationships with each other so real! Everything being so sweet and sincere but also FRICKING HILARIOUS. I just. Woh, I think I may have fallen in love a little bit. Thanks so much for sharing this.

2017

rereading @idiopathicsmile‘s incredible fic Lovesickness for probably the 84th time. Hot damn but Joly is me. In most fics that would be a bad thing but somehow idiopathicsmile gets the whole med student experience bang on, [...] Basically everyone and especially medblrs or people w med student buddies should go read idiopathicsmile’s Lovesickness here on AO3 bc its the single most accurate depiction of the med school experience i’ve ever read and a completely charming love story to boot. the writing is Delightful and sparkling and just the whole story is such a neat little confection like a tiny lil desert on a big plate at a fancy restaurant where its simultaneously the BEST THING and also you want MOAR. i encourage everyone to read it u don’t even have to be familiar with les mis to read it, just have patience with the sheer number of people with C names

2018

this is probably my favourite depiction of modern au joly EVER and it’s so delightful because he so rarely gets to take centre stage! and combeferre gets some decent sassy screen time too which is great, and we get Weird Cryptid Bahorel (best bahorel) and Very Emotional About His Friends Enjolras and my new favourite headcanon - bossuet really loves watching infomercials. it’s just… it’s so good. wholesome and legit hysterical.

Inspired Fanworks

Fanart

• Fanart for Lovesickness by saltkettle
• Joly sketching some scribbly pigeons, ^{Archived version} by tissueboxesforseals
• DRAWTOBER #19 - Lovesickness by idiopathicsmile, ^{Archived version} by littlesmartart

Podfic

• Lovesickness (Podfic) read by disquisitemind
• [Podfic] Lovesickness by idiopathicsmile a multi-voiced podfic read by aethel-multivoice (aethel), blackglass, elaineofshalott (LadyofMisrule), girlwithabubblegun, klb, reena_jenkins, wingedwords (gunpowderandlove)