Marius wanders into the Corinth with his nose in a book, looking as if he is half-forgetting where he is going as he walks.

Grantaire is ensconced at his more-or-less habitual table, off near the corner. He's leaning forward, arms folded on the tabletop, watching a candle burn. He is not drinking. Been there, done that, had an attack of self-recrimination. As the door opens he glances up, and, feeling antagonistic at the world, calls out, "Isn't it past your bedtime, young one?"

Marius looks up from the book, and around the room. Even though it is almost empty, it takes him a few moments to focus his eyes on Grantaire. "Oh, good evening, Grantaire." Was he asked a question? He is not sure. He only knows that he has been worshiping his beloved, and that nothing else could possibly matter as much as that.

"God preserve me, young man." Grantaire appears exasperated. "Aren't you even going to casually insult me? Not even a 'what do you want now'?"

That catches Marius's attention slightly nore, but he hasn't got much attention to spare. "What? Insult you? Whatever for?"

Grantaire lifts a large ungainly hand, beckons. "C'mere a minute, Pontmercy."

Marius has nothing better to do, so he does.

Grantaire, once the boy's next to the table, reaches up to pull the book out of his hands: not violently, almost deftly. "Does she have wings or what?"

This non sequitur meshes amazingly well with Marius's thought processes. "I don't know. She is an angel. Why should she need wings? She can already fly."

"Mmm," Grantaire says dryly. "Yes. It always seems like that at the time." Poor Marius. You should take this fellow home and introduce him to Grandfather. They'd get along beautifully.

Marius smiles vaguely. "It doesn't just seem to be. It is. She is a spirit from the heavens, and she blesses me with the benediction of every moment we spend together."

Grantaire starts to groan halfway through this declamation. "Boy... /boy/! Spare me. Save it for the tryst."

He might be aware that he's being insulted, if he was actually paying attention to anything in the real world. Marius is mentally quite a distance from the Corinth, and gazing upon the wonder of Cosette in silence. He does not respond to Grantaire's annoyance. It cannot touch him.

Grantaire resorts to the time-tested expedient of waving a hand in front of Marius' face. "Boy. Pontmercy. Wake up."

Marius blinks. "Oh. Bonjour," he says, as if he has just walked into the room, because, in a sense, he has.

Grantaire grins crookedly. "Bonjour, your own self. Sit down. Get comfortable." He kicks out the chair across from him.

Marius sits, resting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. He's gone again.

Grantaire snaps his fingers. "Hey."

After an inordinately long reaction time, the answer comes. "Yes?"

Grantaire aims a cuff at the boy's shoulder to keep him alert. "God's name, young man. Wake up. Get your mind out of your trousers and talk to me. Talk politics at me. Do you good."

Marius mouths the word "trousers," but doesn't make the connection. "I don't have anything to say about politics. The government may do as it pleases for all of me."

Grantaire throws up his hands. "Talk to me about dead politics then, you're the one was on at Enjolras about Waterloo. Talk to me about literature, good God! talk about your little brother who drives you mad. Anything but romance."

Marius frowns. "I haven't got a little brother," he says, unhappily. "My father..." he looks now as if he has descended precipitously from the heights of joy and is about to weep.

Grantaire tilts his head slightly, and leans forward. Whatever his faults, he can be a sympathetic listener at times. "What?"

Marius sighs and gets out his handkerchief. "He died before I knew him. My grandfather had kept us apart." He dabs at his eyes.

"Hell," Grantaire says, not unkindly.

Marius nods. "It was terrible. I could have learned so much from him, and he was My Father, but we were kept apart."

Grantaire reaches over to pat the poor simple boy's wrist, just as the door swings open and a lithe young brunette swings inside. "Ooooh, Lord, it's cold."

Marius sighs. When he sighs, it's a full-body experience. First his chest swells, his chin raises, and his eyebrows lift slightly, then his shoulders slump, his head bends, and his face declines into depression. It is doubtful that he notices the newcomer or the breeze that accompanies her.

Grantaire glances up with a lopsided grin. "Bonsoir, Lise. Rob any bankers lately?"

Marius looks at an indeterminate point on the table, and mutters, "Papa..." on his next sigh.

Lisanne laughs, saunters over to the table in her long-legged coltish way. "Hey, cheri. Who's your pretty friend?" She shrugs off her shawl, drops it on the table, sits on it.

Marius's reverie is destroyed when there is a leg where he had been gazing. He is quite taken aback to look up and find that it is attached to a person, and a female, at that. "Bonsoir," he says, mystified.

Lisanne gives him a wicked grin. "And hello to you too, pretty. What are you doing in this place, sitting with a terrible fellow like this, hm?" She reaches out to flick back one of Marius' cutely tousled dark curls.

Grantaire grins. "You're a wench. --Marius, Lisanne. Lisanne, Marius. He's lonesome this evening."

The boy's eyes get very wide. His mouth opens, but for a minute, no sound comes out. "Uhh...Lisanne," he manages to repeat after Grantaire, then protests, "I am not lonesome. I have my bright angel cradled in my heart." He begins to drift away again.

Lisanne's brows arch.

Grantaire aims a none-too-gentle kick at his tablemate's ankle. "You're doing it again, boy."

Marius yelps. "Ouch! What?"

This is good, outraged is good, outraged is an improvement. Grantaire kicks him again, less sharply. "Wake up, Pontmercy. You are missing the point. You are missing almost everything."

Lisanne slants a keen glance at Grantaire. Then she says gaily, "Awww, be nice to the boy," and slides off the table with intent to land in Marius' lap.

Marius frowns. He's not outraged. He's just peevish. Outraged is what Enjolras does. Marius is lucky if he can manage anything in the neighborhood of irate. "Stop kicking me," he starts to say, then gapes as Lisanne lands in his lap. He knows this is wrong and bad and terrible, but he can't figure out how to get her off of him.

Grantaire signals a sleepy Fricassee. "You are," he continues to Marius as if the latter doesn't have five feet nine of mischievous woman in his lap, "missing a hell of a lot of fun. You comprehend that word, 'fun', Pontmercy? You've heard it go by occasionally?"

Lisanne just looks amused. At Marius, at Grantaire, at the world. She settles in comfortably, draping an arm over the back of Marius' chair.

Marius tries to answer, but all that comes out is a squeak.

Fricassee stumbles over to the table. "Oui, Monsieur?"

Grantaire indicates an empty bottle and then Marius and then Lisanne, talking all the while. "I'm sure you have. You're a bright boy. Under that dizzy exterior, you're a sharp young man, you pick things up, don't you?"

One of Marius's hands is sitting on the table. It begins to shake. In a very high voice, he says, "Mamzelle? Could you...ummm....uhhh...get off of my lap?"

Fricassee brings over two bottles of wine. She knows her role.

Lisanne shoots Grantaire an "is-this-really-a-good-idea" look.

Grantaire returns it with a "give-me-a-little-credit" one, still chattering at Marius. "First of all, young man, a word of advice, you don't want to go saying things like 'bright angel' in public. People look at you strangely... ah, thank you, dear," aside to the longsuffering waitress. "It's all very well in the heat of passion, but you know, in normal conversation..." He pours out a glass, nudges it across the table. "Here."

Lisanne takes pity on the poor fellow and stands up, moving around to stand behind his chair and rub his shoulders instead. She's still looking skeptically at R.

Marius squeaks again before his slightly trembling hand latches onto the cup. This seems to give him a bit of courage. "Merci." He drinks, then jumps when Lisanne touches his shoulders. The wine sloshes onto his hand.

Grantaire hands him a napkin without missing a bit. "Relax, Pontmercy. Nothing's going to bite you. That's another thing, ye gods! you're too nervous. Relax."

Marius blots his hand dry, and drinks again. "Relax. Right." And again. The wine is three-quarters gone, between the drinking and the spilling.

Lisanne squeezes his shoulders in a not uncomforting way. "'s all right, cheri. Take it easy." Over his head she mouths, 'Are you out of your mind?'

Marius takes a deep breath. "Calm. Yes. Good idea." He follows this affirmation with a deep drink. The glass is empty.

Grantaire quirks a brow at Lisanne, and offers a refill.

Marius shakes his head. "I should be going..." he starts to say, and begins to get up.

Grantaire is about to launch into a spiel to keep him there, but catches Lisanne's eye and subsides. "You're hopeless, Pontmercy," he says ruefully.

Marius sets the glass down on the table. "Thank you for the wine," he says in a tremulous voice, ignoring the insult. "And it was...nice...to meet you, m-m-mam'zelle Lisanne."

Lisanne shakes her head, leaning on the back of the chair. "Nice to meet you, cheri," she returns, quite gently.

Marius realizes belatedly that it would be a bad idea to stand up, so he sits down again.

Grantaire sighs. "Have a nice evening, young man. Try not to run into any trees on the way home."

Marius turns bright red. "Um....maybe I'll stay a few minutes longer."

Grantaire leans his head in one hand. Give the man credit, he's trying not to laugh.

Marius casts about for an unpleasant topic. "I really hate walking past the slaughterhouses in summer. They smell awful."

Lisanne raises her eyebrows. "Mmmmm-hm."

Marius goes on in the same vein, "And the sewers. They're horrid, too."

"Very," Grantaire says, muffled.

Marius blinks, wakes up slightly, and scoots his chair forward so it's really under the table.

Lisanne shakes her head again, shooting Grantaire another Look.

Grantaire studies Marius a moment, then refills the glass. Kid can use it.

Marius looks at the glass. It will give him something to do until he can leave, at least. "Merci," he says, with a very wan smile, and lifts the glass. He drinks again.

"That's the spirit," Grantaire approves, leaning back in his chair again. "Calm your nerves."

Marius whimpers. "Yes, my nerves." His voice rises into an almost wail. "Ahh, my nerves are shot."

"Drink your wine," Grantaire advises, "it'll pass." And gives Lisanne a look as though to say, well, are you going to pass up this mission of mercy?

Marius complies. He hasn't enough willpower at this point to stop. The wine is half gone, already.

Lisanne rolls her eyes. She's already reaching out to pat Marius on the shoulder, soothingly. "There. It's all right, cheri."

"Is it? That's nice." His hands are still shaking.

She rubs his shoulder a little. "Easy, cheri, you're all right."

Marius nods. "Yes, I suppose I am." He takes another drink of wine. "All right. Yes. That's me. Marius Pontmercy, all right." And another drink.

And Grantaire, in soothing counterpoint: "Just for God's sake relax, boy, you're among friends. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to jump out of the woodwork. Just take it easy, even you can do that."

Lisanne's disapproval abates a bit as Marius quits being quite so blatantly terrified. She moves to slip an arm around his shoulders, pulling up a chair next to him.

Marius has now forgotten about his earlier trouble in leaving, and doesn't really want to go. Why should he? This nice girl is talking to him, and Grantaire, in an unprecedented show of generosity, is sharing wine. Marius, being poor, doesn't have wine very often. "I can relax," he says firmly, and finishes off his second glass of wine.

Grantaire refills it halfway, not to have the boy get sick. "'course you can. Easiest thing in the world, just quit worrying."

Lisanne murmurs, "That's all right. See? You're fine, cheri. --Where d'you live?"

Marius nods as if he knew that all along and was trying to be amusing by acting ignorant. "Right. Quit worrying. That's obvious." He is intrigued by the arm around his shoulders, and traces a finger down it. A specific address escapes him, so he merely answers, "Paris."

Lisanne nods solemnly at this, and reaches to capture his hand.

"There's always upstairs," Grantaire murmurs helpfully, and gets another sharp look for his pains.

Marius looks doubtful. "I don't think I live there," he muses, then takes a drink of wine, hoping it will clear his head.

Lisanne tousles his hair. "No, but you can sleep there." Which is what he'll probably end up doing. Get him back to his room in this state? Not likely.

This is apparently news to Marius. "Oh. That's useful of them. What a good idea."

Grantaire wisely shuts up at this juncture. And, on reflection, pours out a glass for Lise and one for himself. Camaraderie.

Marius sets down his mostly empty glass of wine and sighs. "I should go home, though."

"Isn't it?" agrees Lisanne. So they have somewhere handy to put naive boys whose friends get them sloshed. "Ah, Lord, cheri, no, you can't walk all that way now."

"Is it such a long way? That's silly of me. Why do I live a long way from here, if I can't walk there?" He smiles at Lisanne, and he thinks he's being flirtatious. "It'd be terribly expensive to have to take a fiacre every time I came here."

Lisanne is used to drunken flirtation. She smiles back at him quite cheerfully. "Awful. Shall I show you the way upstairs, cheri? Make sure you can find it?"

Marius nods uncertainly. "That might be a good idea, thank you."

She scoots back her chair and stands, leaning down to help him up. Not looking at Grantaire, thank you, who's done quite enough.

Marius edges his chair back and accepts her help to stand. He has a fleeting memory of not being able to leave, and wonders what all of that was about.

Grantaire raises a glass to them both, unrepentant.

Lisanne slips an arm about Marius' waist and steers him toward the staircase.

Marius raises a hand to wave goodnight. "Merci, Grantaire," he says before the stairs daunt him. He manages to climb by getting both feet on the same level every time before venturing up another step.

"Not at all," Grantaire murmurs, "not at all."