The Cafe Musain was commonly particularly overly populated by those young men who - in Perceval-Alexis Grantaire's opinion - were rather too over-endowed with brains, passion, optimism, and a particularly nausiating tendency to wish to change the world. Usually by the time he had finished with his job, drunk a pleasantly relaxing glass or two of wine, and made his relaxed way up to the Cafe - there were revolutionarily criminal plans flying through the air powered by a miserly amount of wine and Enjolras. Enjolras was, quite frankly, the most beautifully awe-inspiring rude person Grantaire had ever met. Somehow he couldn't find anything except humble awe in his heart for the ange - despite the charismatic (albeit rather legally obtuse) leader's intense dislike of his good self.

Grantaire could never quite decide whether disliking him made Enjolras more or less intelligent.

However today Grantaire walked into a deserted backroom. Not a single revolutionarily inclined young man dotted the landscape. Grantaire wondered several things as he seated himself at his usual table. Firstly and foremostly - had Enjolras finally become so irritated with his constant presence that he had changed the location of the meeting without telling him? Had everyone caught one of the constant diseases passing through Joly's system and succumbed to the poetically appealing but rather over-done theme of death? Or had he - being the muddle-brained drunkard everyone loved to mildly dislike - forgotten the proper time and managed to show up on some ridiculously unlikely time and date? He waved over a young girl who looked like someone had wrenched the head off a broom and attached it to her head in an act of extreme cruelty, and ordered a glass or two of wine.

Or three. Or maybe, should his inebriation survive that far without detection from Enjolras - the God of Sobriety - four, five, six.

A man ran into the cafe and collapsed across from him, wheezing loudly. Joly. Jooooollyyy. Joli. Joli Joly. Ah to have a name so prone to puns and pranks of the imagination. Grantaire eyed him with some appreciation. At least if the god-like Enjolras had decided to change the meeting place without telling him, he had also neglected to tell Maurice Joly. Which made him feel better. Nothing like shared misery.

He swallowed a mouthful of wine and allowed the alcohol to breathe on his voice. "Hey.... Joly.... you not catching pneumonia 'gain, are you? Zephyr wouldn't like th' way you're sucking up all that air." Greek gods and little Roman gods, all frightfully good for metaphors. And they irritated Combeferre, who complained he used them out of context.

Joly - who Grantaire was well aware held little patience of particular like for drunkards who spouted cynical classic references at him, gave a loud wheeze and coughed as he leaned over the table. It seemed that their pet hypochonriac and malade imaginaire had been running around the city in search of a little pneumonia or asthma. "Damn Zephyr."

My my. The little 'doctor' all out of sorts? He leaned back comfortably and raised a cynical eyebrow in his general direction. Ha. "I'm sure that a lot of sailors share your sentiments, my fine 'friend'," always chancy using that word. He took an artistic care to only say 'friend' in the lightest of tones. "What's got you all out of sorts? They stop selling handkerchiefs?" That particular disaster would be bound to set poor young Joli Joly on edge more than a plague of locusts.

Rather to his curious surprise, Joly gave him a baleful glare. "Stop joking. It's serious. Has anyone else been in here? Anyone?"

Respectable glare, it was too. Just the right blend of disapproval and disgust. He'd been taking instruction from Enjolras, surely. "No... 'm first for once. Odd that." Odd. Bewildering... Curious. Very curious."

"And nobody who's not with us, either?" A touch of nerves, and the hair began to lift on Grantaire's neck.

There was something seriously wrong. "....no. What's wrong, Joly?"

The doctor took a deep breath, still panting from whatever exertion he'd been involved in before the Cafe. "Everyone else's been arrested. Combeferre, Prouvaire, Daniel, everybody. Even... even Enjolras. I only just escaped."

Grantaire considered several swearwords, decided that none of them were in any way strong enough for the situation, and swallowed his drink so fast that he couldn't even feel it burning his throat. "Zues. Why?"

"Why do you think?" there was a terseness to Joly's voice that took Grantaire by surprise. Like being bitten by a prawn. Or - he felt a little uncharitable at that - perhaps a lamb. "Hardly a popular group with the government."

A lamb with surprisingly sharp teeth. He rubbed his face in the hopes that both sharp-=toothed lamb and empty Cafe might disappear. They didn't. Well there went his faith in eternal optimism. "But arrested... that's not.... dear god."

"Yes."

"You all right?" Not the smartest think he'd ever asked.

Joly gave him a look. "Just fine"

Good. Good. "...what can we do?"

"We?"

There was something in Joly's voice that Grantaire didn't particularly like. He blinked and gave him a quick double-take. "Um." Intelligent. "Shouldn't we... do something?"

"You're actualy... intending to help."

Well. Now that was just lovely. He contemplated getting angry, and discarded the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. Instead he slowly put down the glass and gave Joly a long stare. "...why wouldn't I?

"You..." Joly said with an emphasis he was quite prepared to take exception to. "Never do anything. Much less anything helpful. Hng. I can't think of anyone willing to bail them out, even to avoid a scandal."

Ah. Lovely. A little packaged presumption and judgment from someone who didn't like him and barely knew him. And Enjolras wondered why he had given up on the human race.

"...I just don't know what to do. Dieu I'm just hopeless... be just as helpful in there with them..."

Oui. Lovely, Joly. Glad I'm not the only one feeling like a loss and blight on the face of the earth here. He opened his mouth once, closed it again, then took a breath and said it aloud, quietly as though that would make it less surprising. "I suppose we could always... just... get them out again..."

"Just never going to..." Joly stopped, looked at him, and sat up a little. "What?"

Don't tell me I'm not supposed to have original thought either. "I said," he gave Joly a slightly defensive glare. "we could get them out again."

"Well... that would obviously be the goal, but how?"

Good. You're not laughing. Step up Jacob's precious Putain ladder. He leaned forwards a little, thinking it through. "..few ways. I mean... there's ways in an' out of prison, right? We could bust them out."

"We could bust them out?" there was less disbelief in his voice.

Yes, little doctor, I am offering to help. You can stop mentioning it as though it is one of the seven greatest wonders of the world now. "I figure we could. No one's going to expect that, are they?"

He noted to some amusement that Joly took a moment to look from himself to Grantaire and back again. "... no. Not really."

He laughed at that, a small cynical laugh. The malade imaginaire and his pet drunk. Perfect. "Well. There we are then."