tu_vas_triompher | (no subject)

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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"I do," he says, very relieved to have his very pathetic attempt at changing subjects taken up. "I cry thee mercy, I did not think of it. I will--" He starts to stand. "Or wouldst come?"

Yeah, like Feuilly is any better at changing subjects.

He's already getting to his feet, and mumbles, "Oh--well--why don't I come with you--" which gets a little lost in remembering to collect the blanket. And the basket.

It's a graceful transition.

Hotspur throws an arm around Feuilly's shoulders (because everything's fine! we're friends being jovial!) and steers him into the stable, back into the tack room. There's a narrow cot, a small hotplate and coffee pot, and a little shelf with battered, American dime store paperbacks in amongst walls of saddles, bridles, and the pervasive smell of leather.

There is also a little corner which Hotspur seems to have tidily colonized. He makes a beeline for it: a little pile of linen, a pair of shoes to swap out for riding boots, a hat that Bar gave him presumably in deference to the fashions of his time (or of Shakespeare's time, or whatever uncertain blend of the two his clothes are) but which he has never actually worn. From this assortment, he pulls out a shirt and offers it to Feuilly (it smells just a bit horsey, a bit Hotspury-- he wore it the day before, but he figures the other one he has is worse).

Edited 2015-07-03 01:45 (UTC)

Somewhere along the way one or the other of them presumably scoops up the practice swords as well, because it wouldn't do to leave them in the grass, even if this is just a quick trip inside to change a shirt.

And not to stare with an odd bewildering fondness at the tiny corner of Hotspur habitation. But Feuilly is doing just that, which is very silly, it's just a few clothes, but--he'd spent many years himself sleeping in the workshop when he was a boy, and had had such a corner, and they weren't altogether bad times, one can still be oneself in a contained and concentrated way--

Oh, yes, right, shirt. Feuilly puts down the blanket and such, and takes it, and then remembers that he has to take off the one he has on, which at least is just his worker's blouse and he doesn't have a waistcoat to worry about--

Whatever bruises he's managed to collect from today's practice haven't really set in yet, but yesterday's are plenty apparent.

"O, let's see--" Harry comes forward, reaching with one hand to stop Feuilly pulling on the dry shirt, the other dipping into his pocket to retrieve the salve from Athelstan.

He looks down at Hotspur's hand, and then at the bruise. "It's not bad--"

Which is not an objection.

"Not bad, but Athelstan did swear me 'tis a help."

He takes off the lid and scoops some out, then reaches out to Feuilly again, takes a step nearer. "Gentle" would be a strong word for anything Hotspur does, but there is a practiced steadiness to his hand.

It's slightly more dignified than getting brushed down for glitter, or swatted into sword-practice positions! Or maybe dignified isn't the word--Feuilly bites his lip on a smile that's half a laugh, because now there's a sort of transparency to everything that's happened this afternoon, the last couple of days, and he has to wonder how clear it is to Harry as well--

He closes his eyes.

"Is't well?" he asks when he has run out of bruise and his hand stills but lingers still near the small of Feuilly's back.

(There are quite a number of things Hotspur is busy pretending aren't true or aren't happening-- but this is a thing that happens, or at least has happened to him, though it is usually under cover of a great deal more tension and battle rush and fear.)

"Aye, well enough," Feuilly says--in English, in what's recognizably a mildly teasing attempt at Harry's northern accent.

He leans back a little, just in case Harry was thinking of moving away altogether.

Harry starts laughing.

"Good, I'm glad to help," he replies in heavily accented (but otherwise correct) French.

In fact, he doesn't move away.

"Oh--so I should be calling you a scholar now--and a diplomat--" He's laughing, and turns a bit to swat unsteadily in a direction that's more or less Harry's shoulder. "--It's about as good French as I came to Paris with. Around Lyon we have our own language."

He'd adapted quickly, very quickly, and been proud of it. Had barely missed Lyonnais words until running into someone else from the region.

"In Richard's time we spoke naught but French in the court," he protests, laughing. He returns the shove, of course, setting his hand slip from Feuilly's back at last.

"Eh, yes. The court, of course." Feuilly is about to comment that in Russia the nobility also favor French, to the great loss of their own native language, widening the gulf between classes to a sickening degree, but that's--is that maybe a little bit--well, call it didactic--? For the circumstances?

(These circumstances are circumstances that generally happen to other people, as far as Feuilly is concerned. Which has been just fine! He's almost entirely been too busy, too happily wrapped up in a cause that needed all of him, always, and then always a little bit more. But. This is a thing that people do, and he is a person, isn't he? And--)

On the strength of this conviction he lets the subject of linguistics fall, and touches the collar of Harry's shirt with a questioning frown.

Hotspur looks down at Feuilly's hand and brings his own to rest, lightly, just for a moment, on top of it. He lifts his eyes to meet Feuilly's eyes, and lifts his brows, too, a questioning (but not confused) expression.

Thank God one of them maybe sort of knows what he's doing because otherwise they'd be halfway through an analysis of this article Feuilly was reading about the devaluation of local languages and dialects, which really forced him to reconsider some of his own ideas--

yeah

so

instead of that, Feuilly is sort of running a hand along Harry's shoulder, which is a very satisfactory shoulder.

(they can talk about languages later)

Edited 2015-07-03 13:50 (UTC)

The expression that flashes across Harry's face the moment before he reaches out is an oddly (perhaps slightly comically) determined, yes right then sort of look.

But then he reaches out and slides his hand up the back of Feuilly's neck and into his hair and pulls him in.

Yes right then indeed.