(no subject)

[tu_vas_triompher]

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.

Comments

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Sure, there needs to be government. But founded on the common good."

Soon Harry's going to have to either give up his grip or make some alternate tactical approach.

[harryhotspur]

"Why so-- a king can serve the common good, can he not? Or a lord? Indeed, he must, or he deserves not the title."

--yes, fine, he lets go. But then he gives Feuilly a nudge, just in case the whole hedgehog bundle is tightly wrapped enough to tip over.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Can and should! You're right." (Eh, so he'd give a somewhat different answer to someone else; Harry's time has had no Robespierre and no Saint-Just to make things clear.). "But how does he come to be a king or a lord?"

He doesn't tip over, but he probably would with just a slightly harder push.

[harryhotspur]

Harry laughs. "Why, 'tis a catechism indeed. He is born to it-- or takes it, if he is called Henry Bolingbroke."

Is he giving up for good? Is it a tactical retreat? We just don't know. But he does seem to abandon the blanket effort, drawing his knees up to his chest and folding his arms on top of them.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"And where the hell does 'founded on the common good' come in then?"

Feuilly peers out from the blanket roll and relents, shrugging it down more loosely on his shoulders. He didn't mean to scare Harry off! (This is the approach of a person who apologized after disarming his foe.)

[harryhotspur]

"Why, I know not," Hotspur replies, growing a bit frustrated with what seems to him a very circular conversation. "But someone must rule."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Yes, but--birth makes a bad argument for governing, if the thought is the common good--"

He shakes off the blanket and looks over to Harry, all earnestness now. Feuilly doesn't want him to hate the subject. There's nothing worse for learning. "But you know--these are thoughts for a future past my time."

[harryhotspur]

"Then how comest thou to know of them?" The sentence begins with the intention of belligerence, but this resolve seems to fail halfway through.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Well--all right, this Declaration of the Rights of Man, that's from before I was born. Not much, ten years or so. The people who wrote it governed France--and then power was taken from them, and we've had an emperor and kings since." He's wincing inside at the oversimplification, but hopefully it doesn't show. "My friends and I were fighting to, to restore that kind of government. We--well. You know. But coming here, I've found out that it does work eventually. I just mean--I just mean that I'm--I'm talking about things I'd like to be, things I wanted to be, things that I think should be. But I'm not--it's hopes for a future, my hopes, it's not a catechism."

Ah, damn. Conversation is a thread, and it can fray and snap. He rubs his face with both hands, tangling his fingers in his hair.

[harryhotspur]

"I should not have called it so. I did not mean to mock it." His tone is less contrition than extreme gravity. He didn't mean to, never meant their playful conversation to spill over into taking lightly something that means so much. He reaches forward and lays a hand on Feuilly's arm.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly looks over at the touch, and after a moment smiles wryly. "Eh. You didn't mock it. And I didn't mean to sound like a schoolteacher. No one needs that."

[harryhotspur]

Hotspur matches the smile. "I have some need of one, I think. Thou knowest-- the things I know are worth fair little here, but thou canst-- thou, thou--"

His embarrassment at his stuttering incoherence shades over at once into an expression of irritation. He tightens his hand on Feuilly's arm a moment, then lets go.

"--Thy shirt is damp yet."

[tu_vas_triompher]

But the things Harry Percy knows are worth knowing. "Ehhh," Feuilly says again, which is profoundly articulate of him, and gives his hair another fretful tug before Harry lets go of his shirt. "--Well. Do you have a spare? Over there in the stable?"

[harryhotspur]

"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?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

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.

[harryhotspur]

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).

[tu_vas_triompher]

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.

[harryhotspur]

"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.

[tu_vas_triompher]

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

Which is not an objection.

[harryhotspur]

"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.

[tu_vas_triompher]

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.

[harryhotspur]

"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.)

[tu_vas_triompher]

"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.

[harryhotspur]

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.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"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.