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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

harryhotspur

"A goodly company," Percy says. "I will be pleased to meet them, as they are your friends." ...and hopefully the next introductions won't be the unmitigated disasters the last two were! "And all-- they all...?"

From:

tu_vas_triompher

"All--oh. All died, yes." He has to look away a moment at that. Oh, Feuilly's come to terms with it, but it's still hard not to think sometimes But if only Joly were there to explain to the medical school or Surely Prouvaire could have been spared, they didn't have to shoot him--

Feuilly rubs at his nose vigorously to forestall anything like a sniffle. "We didn't all come here at once. I don't know why--we just showed up here at different times."

From:

harryhotspur

Percy tightens his hand on Feuilly's.

"And thou didst know it?" The question seems to burst out against his will. "The moment thou didst arrived, thou knew'st what had befallen thee?"

From:

tu_vas_triompher

He's a little startled, but answers readily. "Yes. Well--I don't know how it was for the others but I--" He leans his practice sword against his knee and pushes his now-free hand through his hair. "Well, I had--time to know I was dying. Before I came here. But yes. I knew when I got here."

Feuilly is willing to believe that Hotspur isn't dead! Isn't...all the way dead! He looks at him, and hopes his rather jumbled answer is of some use?

From:

harryhotspur

One hand clasping clearly is not enough for this conversation-- he claps the other to Feuilly's arm and gives that a squeeze too. "Ah, my friend-- my friend-- if it must be, I would it had been quickly done--"

Feuilly's actually dead, he died, and for some reason that fact had not seemed entirely real to Hotspur until now, until he can picture the men he has seen die bloody and slow but now with Feuilly's face, and oh yes it's glorious to die in battle, to die in honor, to die for a great cause (as he has no doubt at all that Feuilly did)-- but at the moment mostly it just seems unfair and he knots his fingers into Feuilly's sleeve, just a bit, to conceal their slight trembling.

From:

tu_vas_triompher

Bahorel would probably hit Feuilly for trying not to cry right now, if he knew. But he is trying not to cry; he didn't mean to cause this distress, and he doesn't want to compound it with--with tears or words or anything--

Looking down and away somehow turns into resting his forehead on Harry's shoulder and just trying to breathe. "--I'm sorry."

From:

harryhotspur

Harry brings a hand to rest on the back of Feuilly's head.

"Nay, 'tis I who am-- it is not just, it is not just, thou wast robbed of thy--"

From:

tu_vas_triompher

He should protest; he should point out that many other people died that day, some harder than he did; and he was proud of the fight and his friends; and now he's quite all right--

He ends up just breathing for a while, his face pressed hard into Harry's shirt, until he can shake his head and lift it and say something incoherent about how they'd all known it might happen and still it was a good way to--

It's harder than you'd think to say the word, isn't it? Die?

Anyway, see, he's breathing now, and a little red-faced, and as alive in this place as anyone could want, and so is Harry.

From:

harryhotspur

Harry still has one hand braced against the back of Feuilly's head, and now he slides it round to cup Feuilly's cheek, which is a little red, because there is blood under there, because he is alive or at least something that looks like it.

He has protested, in his time, that he is no good at talking-- which is a bit silly, of course, because he's perfectly capable of talking incessantly-- but only about himself, about ideas, about what must be done. When it comes to what has been done, what is praiseworthy, what deserves-- condolences? sympathy? he doesn't even know what-- he is, as now, entirely at a loss. So he just leans his forehead the little way down to press it against Feuilly's.

From:

tu_vas_triompher

That's fine. That's fine, Feuilly can stand there like that and close his eyes and not think very much for a little while.

Eventually he pulls himself together and raises a hand to swat at Harry's shoulder, protesting his own self-indulgence, but it turns into just resting a hand on Harry's chest instead.

After that, he can pull himself together, and laugh softly under his breath at the both of them.

From:

harryhotspur

"I did not mean to speak of it," Harry says, his voice low. "It has-- it has been all this morning on my mind."

From:

tu_vas_triompher

"I don't mind. Speaking about it, I mean. --What do you remember from your fight? Before you came here?"

It's not exactly the same as saying that he's pretty sure Harry is as dead as he is. For one thing, he's really not sure.

From:

harryhotspur

His gaze drifts to a place somewhere over Feuilly's shoulder. "I saw-- I thought I saw-- the prince. And of all others, I wished to match with him. And all else is-- I know not-- I have-- dreams--" He looks down at the ground, and seems to want to turn away, but as with Feuilly, the gesture doesn't really manage to take him anywhere.

From:

tu_vas_triompher

He nods thoughtfully. Dreams. Feuilly has his share of those, and has the impression that his friends do too. Some of them are much clearer than his waking memories of the fight, and he doesn't know which to believe.

His hand is on Harry's arm; he rubs it gently. "I don't know. I mean--I don't--" Feuilly doesn't have any answers. "I don't know any more about it than you do."

From:

harryhotspur

Harry shakes his head, then ventures a smile. "Nay, thou'rt a scholar. 'tis thy business to know all things, and to speak of them at such a length, we poor unlearned wish we had not inquired."

From:

tu_vas_triompher

Feuilly gives his arm a little shove, just a very little one. "I've told you, I'm not a scholar. I just read books. And I only speak at, at such a length, about history--" And education, and justice, and his friends' virtues, and equality and humanity and oh God this friendship is doomed. (Friendship. That's what to call it, right?)

Edited Date: 2015-07-01 07:17 pm (UTC)

From:

harryhotspur

Grinning, Percy shoves back, of course, probably a little harder. "True, true, thou speakest aright-- thou hast never yet bored me to distraction, thou canst not be a true scholar."

From:

tu_vas_triompher

"--I dare you to ask me about the partition of Poland. Only--not right now. You should probably--we should probably practice first. Then you might sit still after." His sword is still somewhere nearby; he looks around for it. At least he hasn't been stepping on it with all this--all this.

From:

harryhotspur

"'twas always my tutors' way," he agrees cheerfully, at last letting go of Feuilly. "To set to their schooling when I was too tired to protest. But it shall be I who wearies you in this, I think." He ducks down to retrieve his own sword (which he... brought with him from the stables before shh).

From:

tu_vas_triompher

Oh, right, letting go, that's-- right. Feuilly gives himself a little shake and tries to get back to where they started. Feet, elbows. Grip. Chin up: Thou needst not look to thy feet, they are still there.

Breathing.

(He hopes Hotspur's tutors were paid enough, and then some.)

Edited Date: 2015-07-01 07:37 pm (UTC)

From:

harryhotspur

--the "letting go" bit only lasts for a few seconds, honestly, as Harry is immediately right back at Feuilly's side, nudging his arms a little, giving the side of his knee a gentle thwack to remind him not to lock them.

From:

tu_vas_triompher

Oh, damn, right, knees. Feuilly mutters under his breath that he's not a horse, Harry can stop swatting him, but there's no resentment at all there.

From:

harryhotspur

Harry just laughs. "Now. The thrust of yesterday: show me. And after show me again, and again after that, until thou needst hardly think of it."

From:

tu_vas_triompher

This is what he was expecting; he takes a breath and gives it a try. It's not very good, but it's a genuine effort. He's not just here as an excuse to talk.

Feuilly is expecting to be very sore by the end of this.

From:

harryhotspur

"I think thou hast a talent for this," Hotspur says cheerfully after several minutes. He has picked up the jar of salve and is tossing it from hand to hand.