A/N - My TW is recovered enough to provide us with an illustration for this chapter! Also please note that from now on we are updating twice a week, on Saturdays and Wednesdays, but will only be providing illustrations for every second chapter. :3 Enjoy! Review please!

"Vastly more important to our situation as an organization," Enjolras said, and a sword of flame appeared in his hand. It hissed and spat like the serpents twining on the broken vase at the leader's feet. And the pieces turned into a man who said "Don't go being an idiot, y' damn fool," and the man was so familiar but he couldn't get his name, and he knew he ought to know him, but he didn't know him at all. And the sword of fire turned into ice and it cut down the man and before he could say a word he fell to the floor with a thud –

And then another. And another, in quick succession. Joly blinked several times into his pillow before it hit his sluggish brain that it was now conscious, and several more times before it realized that those sounds were someone knocking at the door. At this hour? It had to be an emergency. Nevertheless he waited until the knocking was repeated and he failed to hear Daniel get up before he dragged himself from his bed, pulled on something approaching clothing, and hauled himself up to answer the door. Once again he found himself blinking into the doorway at a very unexpected visitor. "Whaaaa…." He tried and failed to form the word properly around a yawn. "Grantaire…what are you doing here?"

"I'm going to find them," Grantaire said impatiently. Find…what? What was he talking about? Was he drunk? If he was drunk, Joly had every intention of simply closing the door and going back to bed.

"…all right. Go do it, then," he managed through his sleepy haze.

"No no no," Grantaire said in a ridiculously energetic way. Especially given the hour. "I need you to help."

Again? "…it is almost midnight. Probably after midnight, I didn't check."

Grantaire frowned. "…midnight."

Yes, midnight. As in after the time he went to bed. As in a time at which he would very much like to be asleep. "Grantaire, I'm half asleep as it is," he said, waving vaguely. "Come back tomorrow, all right?"

The other man scowled at him. "I can't sleep. I'll wait." And with that he pulled out a sheaf of papers and sat down on the step to make notes on them by the light of the street-lamp. Maurice groaned. Dear Dieu, he really wasn't going to be able to rid himself of Grantaire, was he?

"Nnnh…fine. I'll try to make some coffee or something," he said finally, giving in.

Grantaire perked up even further. Really, was he entirely sober? Joly didn't think he could be. "...mm. Coffee. Do you have any food? I don't think I ate today."

"There's probably something." Not bothering to formally invite Grantaire in, he simply stumbled along toward the kitchen. Nevertheless Grantaire followed, still babbling away.

"You can go back to bed, you know," he said, intending to be reassuring but falling…very…short. "I'll just sit and…think. A lot."

Oh noooooo no no. There was no way he was leaving Grantaire alone in the house. Especially not like this. Something awful might happen and though he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment, Daniel would probably be mad later. "No…no, it's fine." He put water on for coffee and started digging through cupboards for food. Anything to shut (and hopefully sober) Grantaire up.

By the time he came back out with bread and some coffee that was probably far too strong, but he was so tired that it didn't matter and he really didn't care anyway, Grantaire was compulsively resorting the books on the shelf in some order that only made sense to himself. Come to think of it, maybe he wasn't drunk. Perhaps he was just gone mad. Could it be catching? He'd worry about it when he'd woken up a little further. Grantaire caught sight of him and deserted the bookshelf in favor of food and drink. "Thank you, thank you thank you. Very kind. So kind in fact. Lovely," he went on hyperactively. Maurice merely poured himself a cup of coffee and drank the entire thing in less than a minute. Not for the first time recently, he wasn't quite sure if he were quite awake.

The buzz hit him suddenly, like running into a wall and unexpectedly feeling it crumble away, or introducing a flock of miniscule insects into the bloodstream and feeling the furious hum cap-à-pié. He numbly poured another cup and drank that too. Dieu, it was strong. It was very strong. And now he was very awake. Very very awake and very conscious and suddenly he realized that the books on the shelf were now arranged in order of clarity of subject matter. And that made perfect sense.

"Right. Good. Hm." Grantaire was now finished with the bread and moving on to his own coffee, pausing to stare fixedly at him. "Joly…we need to save the Amis."

"Save the Amis." The words shot out of his mouth unchecked. "Save the Amis? Us? Save the Amis? Grantaire, we already did that."

"Yes, I know I know," Grantaire said solemnly, but not losing his edge of insanity. Which was definitely catching, but he didn't quite care. "But we need to do it again again."

"Again again is three times."

Grantaire made a kind of 'poof' noise with his lips. "Again then."

"Well what happened now?" Whatever it was, he was sure he could handle it. There was nothing he couldn't do at the moment.

"Exactly. You'd think…" He paused, and Maurice watched him as he stopped and carefully returned each book to its original position. "...you'd think eight fine strong young men with such fine brains would be able to take care of themselves." Another pause. "...Seven, present company being excepted and all."

"Oh no, don't include me," he agreed, "I'm not strong at all."

Grantaire immediately bopped him over the head with one of the books. "Bein' excepted due to present company having the brains not to get himself into trouble such as likes of good self have to extricate him from."

He found himself giggling a little. "You win. Brains."

"Na-tu-rally," he said, drawing out every syllable. "Now... present good self being as it were banished from the presence of our aforementioned bright young men, what is to stop them from becoming careless and carefree with their tongues and landin' themselves once more in the charming penitentionaries of Paris?"

Maurice thought for a second and then waved a hand. "Nothing?"

Grantaire pointed at him with the book still in his hand. "Right. See? Brains. Good brains, too. Right! Nothing. So, my fine fine Harlequin friend of a brainy young man... we must find the sinister and evil person taking advantage of the strong but not overly smart young men - and stop them."

Heh. Brainy? Me? Maurice-Hilaire-don't-touch-me-it-might-be-catching-Joly, brainy? Very nice joke Grantaire. Very nice indeed. I'll let you have it though because it seems to me you just proposed something very interesting about stopping evil and sinister people. "That's about twenty times harder than the last time we had to save them."

Grantaire paused and then continued very thoughtfully. "In my experience... things have a habit of getting harder. It's a heroic cycle of sorts. Each villain needs to be more challenging or the hero has no idea he's being a good little hero and doing what he should be doing."

…brains are one thing, heroes are another, 'mi. Maybe I misheard? Wouldn't be the first time for it to happen. "…so we're heroes."

"I always considered myself more the comic relief, but that would appear to be the part we are currently in possession of," Grantaire said seriously. "Just secret heroes no one knows is heroes."

"Secrets are bothersome," Maurice said lightly, and got up for another cup of coffee. Everything was so fuzzy but he felt more carefree and energetic than he had in days.

"True," Grantaire said, following him to the coffeepot. "Perhaps we should go to Enjolras and tell him our daring plan. I can see that working."

He laughed as he poured the coffee. "Could you see his face? It would be like asking…I don't even know!"

"No no. I tried that already today," Grantaire said with a grin. "Once is enough." Maurice lifted an eyebrow. "Enjolras came to visit, says I might not have intentionally handed you all in to the authorities but I'm still bad news, terrible person and should go die."

He was already halfway through his nth cup of coffee, didn't really care how much he'd had. Really didn't see why he usually avoided the stuff. Was that his heartbeat he could feel doing cartwheels? "That's terrible. Where's he get that from? You're not a terrible person. You're a pretty nice person."

Grantaire sighed. "Nah... he just doesn't like me. He's too convincing about it. When he gets going I start believing every word he says. Be a wonderful lecturer."

"Oh yeah, he would," he nodded, finishing off the cup. "Definitely would." For some unknowable unthinkable reason Grantaire suddenly choked on his coffee and spit it out. That couldn't be good. "You a'right there?" he asked with a tilt of the head.

"'Bout to ask you the same thing, oh brain of the ABC," Grantaire said with a very very odd look at himself Joly. He stirred the air with his finger in that not quite elegant very singular gesture. "You just said I was rather nice."

There was something wrong with this? "Ah-huh…yeah?"

"That…is just strange," he said, looking at he himself like a broken-vase serpent facing down a rabbit.

"Yeah. I tend to act strange sometimes." Didn't everyone know that? Everybody ought to know that. Sometimes it was all he was known for.

"...well, that's all right then. I had the strangest idea that you didn't like me, Harlequin," Grantaire said with a sip of his coffee.

"I used to didn't like you - I mean - not - you know what I mean." He grabbed at the air looking for words and didn't find them, and tried not to laugh as it wasn't really funny but everything seemed so ridiculous all of a sudden that he couldn't help but want to laugh at it all.

Grantaire waved regally as Scaramouche ought. Oh yes, he was Scaramouche, and always always had been. "I comprehend perfectly. Carry on."

"But I think you're pretty decent," he finally managed to pronounce around his slipping stuttering much-confused tongue. "Maybe on accident but you are."

"…I think I can live with that," Grantaire said very thoughtfully.

An interesting development. So now they were heroes? He thought he could live with that too. And possibly with another cup of coffee. Where was Daniel when you wanted him?