He had absolutely no idea how it all happened, the memory still a blur in his drunken mind, but he knew it was probably his fault. He vaguely recalled a lot of wine, a fight. He had thought himself alone then, or else he wouldn’t have brought danger to anyone other than his own pathetic self. Apparently, Enjolras had been there, or had appeared tel un ange from heaven, apparently he had intervened, apparently he was now carrying him. He could feel his body under his own and that… well that was unfortunate. And slightly impressive.

When the silence became too much and some guilt started to leak through the fog, Grantaire could keep his mouth shut no longer.

“So, Apollo you really are then, for I am fairly sure to be heavy. Too much, certainly, for those shoulders of yours.” He was, after all, larger than Enjolras, even if it was more body than fat that made it so. “Is there something you cannot do?” The other was probably exasperated, maybe even angry, though Grantaire couldn’t tell without seeing his face. Or perhaps he should try to feel the way the muscles were tensed under him and guess whether they were from pent up rage or efforts, but he preferred not. “Of course there isn’t, what ludicrous question, but I beg of you, put me down. I will crawl if my legs fail me, but you will not carry me around.” I am not worth it… didn’t leave his lips. His facade was cracking, it was hard to gloat, to seem confident, to laugh too loudly or talk with exaggrated elation when he was being handled this way. Enjolras shouldn’t have been there and he should still be fighting or passed out in a corner with a bottle in his hands.

---

He felt the shake in Enjolras’ muscles before he heard his words and soon after he was dropped to the ground, landing in a rather graceless pile of limbs at the man’s feet. If a small grunt of pain left his lips, he ignored it. The words had finally made their way to his confused brain and he blinked up, taking in the sight offered before him. “Tu es sans coeur, Enjolras.” He mumbled, though there was the ghost, the hint of a smile at the corner of his lips, a wry curve up of a man too tired to fight back. “Beating with words a man already down.”

It felt familiar, almost normal in their interactions. What wasn’t was what had happened before: Enjolras helping him, Enjolras getting him out of trouble. He believed him when he said he would ask them to beat him to death and if he was in any other state, maybe would he be laughing.

“And you look frailer than most, I am rather heavy. Heavy with the clouds of my thoughts, the nectar I drink and the weight of this mortal body I was so ironically gifted when some miserable jester put my soul on this Earth. Yes, I doubted my carcass would do you good and not so wrong I was, was I?”

He pointed out, gesticulating around him to show he was on the ground and not still on Enjolras’ shoulder. His back stiffened when the motion brought some pain, but he made no noise.

“But my virtue is safe now, although creased.”

He breathed out, a way of thanking Enjolras, of offering him a way out of this conversation.