Long before the barricades, when the talk of revolution was only in the back of their heads, they all used to laugh more. Even Enjolras could be seen with a smile wide on his lips as the evenings in Café Musain crept towards nighttime and they'd all had maybe a glass of wine too much. Those were the days when they felt young and alive and happiness was a permanent feeling etched into their souls, just because they had each other and they had their evenings together in the name of friendship and that was enough to make you happy even though some of them weren't the most fortunate people to walk the earth.
One evening they were all gathered around the long table at the furthest corner of the café playing cards when Bahorel suddenly slammed his fist down onto the table with a wicked grin on his lips.
"Poker, my friends. We shall play a game of poker where the looser shall have to shed an item of clothing until he is but nude and out of the game."
Some of them laughed, some complained and some just shook their heads. But after Bahorel had raised his eyebrow and asked them if they were "too afraid they would loose", they were all sitting with five cards each in their hands and concentrated frowns upon their faces. Bossuet was out of the game before any of the others had even been forced to shed their shirts, and he sat buck-naked on his stool, gladly accepting the supporting bottle of wine that Grantaire passed him with a pitying pat on his shoulder. Courfeyrac roared and ripped his shirt off so that buttons were flying everywhere when he lost in a particularly even match, making the others laugh so hard they couldn't continue for the next five minutes. The game continued for one hour and was passing into the next when the only remaining players were Enjolras (who had somehow managed to keep all clothes but his shoes, socks and vest), Grantaire (who was wearing only underwear) and Bahorel himself (with his pants still on but the rest of him bare as well).
"We must make him at least shed his shirt before we can find ourselves defeated Grantaire!" Bahorel laughed as he drew two cards from the stack into his hand, a worried look upon his face as he regarded them. Grantaire glanced at Enjolras with a smirk on his lips.
"As long as my briefs stay on, I shall fight to see Apollo's chest bared!" he said seriously, winking at Enjolras as he placed a King of hearts on the table, the other's around the table laughing in spite of their exposed state. The owner of Café Musain had stopped caring about what Les Amis where doing there every evening a long time ago, but even he had stopped and stared at the room full of naked men before slowly walking away from there, carefully steering other guests in the opposite direction to sit somewhere out of eyeshot. Why he didn't shoo them out of there was a grand question to be asked, but maybe he'd grown a little soft to the boys who kept coming there despite it not being the nicest place in Paris.
As it so happened, Grantaire was sitting on one more King and three Jacks, allowing his briefs to stay on for one more round and causing Enjolras to finally slip out of his shirt since Bahorel's three tens won over his only pair of Queens. Grantaire and Bahorel shared a drunken howl of victory as Enjolras shirt finally hit the floor, and they laughed hard when the man sighed in frustration.
"Shall we continue gentlemen?" he asked, eyeing them both seriously, but this only made them laugh harder.
"Why do you look so uncomfortable Enjolras? You still have more than half of your clothes on you, which is more than most of us can say!" Courfeyrac reached to tousle the blonde's hair but got his hand slapped away before he could try.
"I just want this to go faster so I can mock these two jokers when their bare buttocks are exposed for us all to laugh at!" Enjolras defended himself, a rare smile showing on his face. Grantaire's eyes didn't leave Enjolras's as he picked up the cards to mix them for the next match, as if daring him to play his briefs off. Three matches later had Bahorel nude (next to a Feuilly who had fallen asleep against his shoulder, making him look extremely uncomfortable to the other boys' amusement) and Grantaire and Enjolras both down to underwear only. Enjolras dealt the cards and Grantaire picked his up, trying to concentrate on them but failing. The thought of getting to see all of Enjolras proving to be too much of a distraction, causing him to throw away his second ace without thinking and he cursed himself and his weak mind. When he lost to Enjolras three Queens and two nines, though disappointed, he grinned as he stood up and slowly started wiggling out of his underwear. The others started to oooh and aaah loudly, but he only kept his eyes on Enjolras who, if his eyes weren't deceiving him, sported a faint blush upon his cheeks. And then he too was naked and they were all laughing so hard they had trouble breathing at this quite ridiculous situation.
The evening ended with the whole lot of them chasing Enjolras around the café, trying to force his briefs off as well with Courfeyrac repeatedly yelling;
"You're the one who always says we should all be equal!"