Can I get a Distracting Kiss for Courfeyrac & Marius?
For you? Always. Canon era? Canon era.
Marius looked at Courfeyrac with narrowed eyes. “Why should I agree to this?” he asked skeptically. “I will lose.”
Courfeyrac waved a dismissive hand. “Were you battling Grantaire, perhaps, but you and I are better matched than you might realize. Besides—” He offered Marius a winning smile. “There are no losers here.”
Though Marius hesitated for a moment more, he finally nodded decisively. “Then let us engage in combat,” he announced.
“Excellent,” Courfeyrac said, still grinning, and he reached for the bottle of wine to pour them both a glass, passing one across the table to Marius. He lifted his own glass in a toast. “To victory.”
Joly nudged Bossuet as Marius clinked his glass against Courfeyrac’s. “What are those two fools doing?”
“I believe it is a drinking contest,” Bossuet told him in an undertone. “Though what they hope to accomplish…”
He trailed off and Joly shook his head slowly as he watched Marius and Courfeyrac both draining their wine. “They’re both going to end up dead.”
“Probably,” Bossuet said cheerfully. “Care to watch?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
But as the hours dragged on and the bottles drained grew steadily, Les Amis took their leave until it was just Marius and Courfeyrac, both almost falling off their chairs as they beamed wildly at each other. “My — hic — dear man,” Courfeyrac said, with some difficulty. “How do you fare?”
Marius waved a hand, almost sending his glass flying. “Well, well, well, well…” He trailed off. “What did you ask?”
Courfeyrac leaned forward. “You are drunk.”
“That is a scurrilous accusation,” Marius said.
“And yet you don’t deny—” Courfeyrac broke off, his eyes narrowing as he attempted to focus at something that had come loose from under Marius’s chair. “Wassat?”
“Nothing,” Marius said quickly, attempting to knock it back under his seat, but Courfeyrac lurched forward, almost falling on his face, though he recovered enough to grab the bucket Marius had at some point stashed under his chair.
Courfeyrac looked into the bucket, which was half-full of wine, and back at Marius, his mouth hanging slack. “Cheating!” he practically bellowed, though he looked frankly impressed at the development. “You’ve been cheating!”
“I would never!” Marius protested, but he was laughing.
“This is an outrage, sir, and I will not stand to see—” Marius kissed him, a fleeting peck to the corner of his mouth, and Courfeyrac broke off, startled. “What are you—”
Again, Marius kissed him, this time a kiss to his cheek, followed swiftly by one to his forehead. “Stop it, fiend,” Courfeyrac said, but he was laughing now as well as he struggled in vain to push Marius away without putting forth any effort whatsoever.
Marius pressed one final kiss to the tips of Courfeyrac’s fingers before sitting back, laughing. “You won two bottles ago, friend,” he said. “I warned I would not be able to keep up.”
“You could have just yielded,” Courfeyrac said with a mock pout.
“Ah, but my friend, as you are so fond of telling me, where would be the fun in that?”
Courfeyrac laughed loudly and stood, swaying only slightly, and he held his hand out to Marius. “Come, then. As the victor, I demand my spoils of war.”
Marius allowed Courfeyrac to pull him to his feet, both men staggering slightly under the influence of far too much wine. “And what spoils would those be?”
Courfeyrac tilted Marius’s chin gently upward and kissed him lightly. “That,” he said simply. “And then home to sleep before we both pass out in the streets.”
Arm in arm they staggered out of the Musain, both reeking of wine and in higher spirits than when they arrived. In the back corner of the Musain, Grantaire shook his head and made his way to where Courfeyrac and Marius had left their wine behind. “Amateurs,” he sniffed, picking up the bottle and making his way from the Musain, whistling to himself as he did.
