For Les Amis de L'Abaisse it had been a pretty standard meeting. They had arrived at the Musain, Combeferre performed his usual monologue on whatever took his fancy at the time. He'd previously talked about new medicine theories and theatre but today's topic was cosmology. He prided himself on having varied interests. After that there was less organisation to proceedings, Feuilly complained about his job, Jolllly fretted about the latest disease he thought he had, whilst asking others to inspect his tongue and Jean Prouvaire quoted from his newly acquired poetry book. In his favourite corner, Grantaire the cynic was making snide comments about the futility of existence whilst getting progressively drunker.

Enjolras was biding his time until the interesting part (in his opinion) of the meeting would start. He was re-reading some notes he'd made on one of Rousseau's books to give him inspiration, not that it was completely lacking. Eventually the noise in the room lessened to a dull muttering and his moment had arrived. He rose and made his way to stand beneath the old map (they had hanging on the wall) of France under the republic. The remaining noise ceased as all eyes turned to him.

"My friends…" he began.

Then, he went on. He spoke of revolution, of a world beyond the one they now inhabited, one where everyone was equal, where everyone was happy. He spoke of no more bloodshed, no more demons, and with their demise, the redundancy of angels. He inspired hope in them, told them that the time had come for their world to be better and they would make it so. All the while, Les Amis clapped and offered confirmation of what he was saying. Despite this, the thought just under the surface of Enjolras' mind was, "Now if only we were to survive to see it".

However, one man -Combeferre- saw this thought. Combeferre read it in his eyes, but he didn't see uncertainty or fear. He knew Enjolras had accepted what was going to inevitably be his fate, his death in the impending revolution. Combeferre had decided long ago, he was to share it with him. Across the room, Grantaire didn't see the thought. Perhaps his senses were too befuddled with alcohol or perhaps he simply refused to entertain the possibility that his idol was anything less than 100% sure of himself and his cause. Or maybe he couldn't contemplate the idea of Enjolras' death. Enjolras was his rock, his pillar to lean on; without him, Grantaire knew there would be no hope left in his life. Without him, there'd be no point to his life.

After Enjolras spoke, there was a group discussion and one by one the Amis got up to leave. Eventually Enjolras was left alone, sitting at his regular middle table working on some university assignment.

For a few minutes silence prevailed in the back room of the Musain, broken only by Enjolras' pen scratching at his parchment. As usual he was so concentrated on his essay that he didn't notice another's presence in the room. Then the clink of a bottle on a table snapped his head up from his work and his eyes focussed on the single occupant of the table in the corner. Although it was wreathed in darkness and he could only see a silhouette, he knew there was only one person it could be. He sighed in exasperation, and kicking back his chair, rose to stride purposefully across the room. He pulled back a chair at the table and sat down to see that the bottle that had alerted him was once more at the lips of its owner.

"Grantaire, put that bottle down!"

Grantaire jumped in surprise at his idol's sudden outburst and instead of putting the bottle down, he dropped it and it rolled across the table and dropped onto Enjolras' lap. "Augh!" Enjolras jumped up and the bottle clunked to the floor.

"Grantaire you idiot!"

He started desperately trying to brush the amber liquid off but only succeeded in spreading it. Grantaire meanwhile had nervously jumped up and, emboldened by his inebriation and the fact that it was his fault, grabbed Enjolras' shirt and started rubbing it with his shirt sleeve.

After a couple of seconds, Enjolras squirmed his way free.

"What are you doing?" he gasped.

Grantaire jumped back and started nervously wringing his hands, unwilling to meet his eye.

"I- well I j'st th'ght th't you want'd help g-getting it off" he managed to stutter and slur at the same time.

Enjolras gave him an icy look. "I think you've helped enough".

He swept off to collect his papers and then left the room. Left behind, Grantaire sank back to his seat. As what he had been drinking was now decorating the man who would probably never feel anything but contempt for him, he simply sat back and stared into the gloom, thinking as clearly as his current state would allow. Which was not very clearly at all.