Grantaire shook Enjolras awake. He still lay exactly where he'd let himself collapse when Eponine slipped away.
"Enjy, what are you doing?" Grantaire asked as Enjolras came to. Enjolras caught the distinct scent of liquor on his friend's breath immediately.
Enjolras looked at him, barely wanting to get up. "Apparently, I am sleeping." He replied sharply. He then stood and brushed himself off. Grantaire's eyes followed him as he did.
"Well, I knew that much," Grantaire snapped indignantly, "My chief question is why."
Enjolras had no smart comeback. He just looked at Grantaire, mulling over what he should say. He thought back to Eponine, the way she so flatly rejected him, and felt a rush of pain pour into his heart. Never before had he been so affected by a woman, aside from Amédée. He didn't even know such feelings existed. His face must have shown some sort of expression, because Grantaire clapped him on the shoulder.
"Enjy, what's got you down?" He asked, a playful smile on his face, as though nothing in the world was anything more than a joke. In a way, Grantaire's way of living was so much better than Enjolras', because nothing ever got to him.
Still, Enjolras said nothing, so Grantaire answered for him. "The girl." He said pointedly.
Enjolras gave pause. "How do you know?" He couldn't remember ever mentioning Eponine to Grantaire before.
Grantaire grinned and wobbled over to the couch, the same one that Eponine had been sitting on before. "Listen, Enjy," he put his feet up on the tea table as Enjolras approached and sat down in his chair, "You are difficult to read, but uh, you're also my best friend. You think I don't pick up on things. I'm not completely stupid!" He added the last bit as almost an afterthought, shouting it in a way that only a drunk man could.
"But I never –" Enjolras began, but Graintaire cut him off.
"You never talked about her. You never talked to her around any of us. Don't matter. I could see you light up every time Marius mentioned her or she walked into the café." Grantaire looked at him, concern permeating his drunken eyes, but then suddenly, it went away. He jumped up off of the couch again and said, "Got any wine?"
Enjolras nodded.
Grantaire hobbled his way to the kitchen. There was much clanging of cupboards and pans, and at one point, a shatter of glass, but Enjolras felt no motivation to go and see what had happened. He simply sat on the couch, staring at the empty hearth, his mind wandering back to the time when he'd tossed logs on the fire, trying to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake the sleeping Eponine.
Eponine.
He imagined her for a moment, not in her rags, but in a gown and hat that he'd purchased for her, with her hands wrapped around his arm. She smiled at him, and he made a joke. She seemed so happy in his mind, but he knew that reality was sick and twisted and that nothing would ever come to be like that. Eponine had dashed out of the door into the cold late-autumn air without so much as a look back.
Grantaire returned with two glasses filled improperly to the brim with wine and handed Enjolras one. "For your troubles," he said before taking a long swig that exhausted about half of his glass.
Enjolras eyed his own glass for a moment, and then looked at Grantaire, swaying slightly, but altogether, relatively pleased with his life. He didn't have a care in the world. Perhaps it wasn't so bad to be drunk all the time. Enjolras followed Grantaire's example and swallowed the wine, drinking more in one gulp than he typically allowed himself during an entire meal.
It didn't take long for Enjolras' entire world to grow fuzzy. He and Grantaire laughed the night away in a haze. There was no pain, nor worries, and the next morning, Enjolras awoke, his feet on the sofa and his back on the floor. Grantaire was drooling, his head tilted back, wedged in a knot into the armchair. Enjolras felt as though he'd been hit in the head with a brick.
He climbed back onto the couch and fell asleep again.