tu_vas_triompher | (no subject)

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hotspur

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It turns out that you can't actually just lie around in the grass forever; for one thing, bugs start biting you, and other residents come strolling by or want to visit the stable, and the day wears on. So Feuilly had gone to his work--belatedly--and Harry had gone about whatever Harry does--presumably horse things? Knight things?

And Feuilly had set himself to start his painting and his translation work an hour earlier the next morning. He'd fit more hours into the day if he could, but until Joly or Combeferre discovers something along those lines, he'll just sleep less! It's a workable plan!

So Feuilly has circles under his eyes as well as bruises under his shirt when he wanders to the stable in the late afternoon. With his practice sword! With his practice sword held rather awkwardly, because he's not sure if he and Percy actually have a...scheduled...arrangement to meet...? But, you know, he's just. Wandering over to the stables. With a sword.

Like you do.

Well, also a basket of food. He'd been hungry after their training session.

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Feuilly ruffles the breadcrumb out of his hair. "Well--then get one for yourself too. Delicate noble blood and all that-- I'm the sturdy peasant here."

Hotspur lifts his brows. "Shall I be thy valet? Well, so I shall."

He hoists himself up again and retreats into the stable. When he returns, he drops a blanket right on Feuilly's head: not, in fact, a horse blanket at all, but the blanket from the cot in the tack room.

Well, when he puts it like that...

Feuilly is not going to be his valet. But he doesn't feel any great need to say so out loud. He yelps and flails the blanket cheerfully off his head, then shakes it out and wraps it around himself, rubbing his damp arms and shoulders a little before looking to see whether Harry did indeed get one for himself. "Thanks. --I've never been to Scotland, so I can't say if this is much like it. But it was winter when I got here, with plenty of snow and cold."

Okay, so he's talking directionlessly about the weather.

In fact, he didn't, as there was only the one blanket on the cot, and he probably has enough of a horsey air about him at the moment without compounding it with an actual horse's blanket.

"Too little rain," he says firmly. "To be very like Scotland, there must be more rain."

"And Northumberland is about the same?" Feuilly looks over at him, sighs, and lifts a corner of the blanket around his shoulders. "--You could have one end. If you want. It's a big blanket." And neither of them takes up very much space.

Harry nods. "Ay, very near. Paris is warmer, I warrant."

He scoots a little closer and grabs on to the offered corner, though he's plainly making an effort not to tug any of it actually off of Feuilly.

"A little, I think," he says doubtfully. "Lyon was warmer than Paris--and much less rain. Paris is very grey. --But beautiful." It's the best city in the world, especially if an Englishman asks.

The fraught nature of this rivalry is clear in the way he scoots closer as well, setting himself shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee with Percy until the blanket stretches far enough for two.

"I think I would like to see it Paris. With an army at my back, to be sure," he adds cheerfully, knocking his shoulder against Feuilly's to assure him that it's only a joke. He stays there, just slightly leaning, the damp of Feuilly's sleeve pressing into his.

"--what, to get a decent meal? It's all right--you don't need your army--our Paris gamins aren't that dangerous."

He jostles back, likewise to show that it's a joke, but really there's not much room to get closer, is there?

"Ay, that Lesgle showed me your French foods-- all soft and sweet--" He makes a face, but really can't complain further, since he really quite liked it.

"Mmhm. You take your coffee black, do you?"

"Coffee? I know it not."

"We'll have some tomorrow, then."

"I would not keep thee from thy--" A vague gesture. "--thy books, thy fans."

"I've done my work for the day," he says slowly, choosing to take it at face value. He's not sure whether he's looking for an excuse to stay or to go, and probably he should make up his mind. For now. "--But if I'm to get an early start tomorrow--"

"Oh, ay-- and thy shirt, thou shouldst--" He straightens, taking his weight back off Feuilly, letting their shoulders part.

"Yes--yes, my shirt. I--" (It's wet, his shirt. Probably soaking into Hotspur's. Feuilly gathers himself a bit, looking in the direction of the main building, and then thinks of Harry's admission that he has dreams.) "--I can find another blanket if we get cold."

A flash of surprise crossed Harry's face (but not bad surprise, not at all) before he can conceal it. "There's more to be found, I doubt it not."

"Probably horse-blankets. Well, and the stable's warm."

He leans against Harry's shoulder again, and stops trying to find excuses about things.

Harry slings his arm around Feuilly's shoulders, bringing his hand up behind to rest on the back of Feuilly's head. "'Tis warm-- wouldst go in?" (He means nothing by it, it sounds as guileless as he ever does.)

"Oh--this is just fine for now." He leans back, just enough that Harry's fingers dig in at the base of his hair, before stretching out an arm to retrieve the bit of bread and cheese. Mmmh. "--Should have brought more of this. Or are you going to point out that, that many a soldier has sat up with less--on watchful nights when no fire may be lit--"

He bursts out laughing and buries his face against Feuilly's shoulder. "Yet 'tis true! And then thou shalt tell me how the fan makers of Paris are so hale and proud, they can drink naught but spun sugar and then work three nights together--"

"Coffee," he corrects. "The workshop runs a week together on one pot of coffee. With a single candle for light and warmth. It keeps us in, in fighting condition."

At some point, he promises himself, he'll do his hardworking fellow fan makers the justice of pointing out that they're mostly women. But. Right now he just slings an arm around Harry's shoulder and pulls his hair.

"There is some magic in this coffee, sure." Well that merits a shove back, naturally. "A week together? I would like that very well. Why, could my poor, frail nobility be but as hardy as thee--"

He's pretty sure Combeferre or Joly has told him what's in coffee, but it escapes his mind. "We'll start you out on--on plenty of milk and sugar in the coffee so it doesn't overpower you--hey!" Hey, that shove made him lose his grip on his end of the blanket. Feuilly scrambles to retrieve it. "--and make you learn the Rights of Man by heart."