![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
And so it begins.
Mar. 26th, 2015 06:17 pmBAHOREL IS A LAWYER
It showed up a few days ago in the men's room, neat firm lettering in black pen. In English, just like that.
BAHOREL IS A LAWYER
(And Feuilly, through sheer coincidence, has been making a point of taking a seat with a good view of the restroom doors, the last few days, when he comes in for meals or a change of scenery. No reason, you know. Just. Watchfulness.)
---
They're good seats! They also have a view of the bar, and the doors to the kitchen behind it. And the rather over-aged busboy going in and out of the kitchen doors on the rounds he makes when he's not being swallowed by a temporal vortex,
Which is Bahorel's particular No Reason for sitting there across from Feuilly today, with a book and a flask that is definitely not from the Bar. The kitchen doors swing in and out. His face is completely blank, but he acknowledges Feuilly with a nod, and starts reading in between glancing up towards the kitchen doors. Swing. Swing. Swing--
and an unholy clatter--specifically unholy, with a great deal of blasphemy-- comes from the kitchen.
Bahorel lifts his flask in salute, and turns a page.
----
Feuilly acknowledges Bahorel with a nod, and goes back to his reading. He doesn't even look up at the clatter or the swearing, or the sopping-wet Laigle that comes stalking out to the table and jabs Bahorel pointedly on the shoulder.
"Did the bucket of water have to be dyed blue," Lesgle wants to know. "Did it really?"
---
Bahorel moves the book slightly out of the way of the dripping. "For libel? For an unerasable stain on my reputation? For the betrayal of confidences? Committed, I must suppose, though only suppose, as I can hardly be expected to understand a soul capable of such treachery, in a cowardly attempt to direct suspicion away from yourself, though we are both equally guilty of the vile sin I now alone stand accused of? Yes. Blue dye was the very least that was required."
Bahorel is also pointedly Not Looking at Lesgle Because of Reading, and so misses Feuilly's rather unusual display of concentration.
---
"I have enough weekly complaints from the laundry-rats without adding blue dye to the mix!" Lesgle flicks his hand angrily at Bahorel, and notes the blue spot on the man's shoulder with some satisfaction. "Also--also--I point out that I don't know what you're talking about. We're both guilty of quite a few vile sins; I don't mention your irregularities and you don't mention mine. I thought we had an understanding!"
Feuilly, humming to himself, looks up a word in one of his language dictionaries and writes it in the margin of his notes.
---
Bahorel's calm vanishes. he erupts from his chair in a single movement to loom over Bossuet, radiating fury.
(Perhaps not over, exactly. Lesgle is about as tall as he is himself. But Bahorel has both the bulk and the outrage to definitely loom at Bossuet nonetheless.)
"Understanding! Such deeds are beyond all understanding! Had you written what you know, I would not care, I for one do not fear my own truths-- but you spew lies that would corrupt a charnel house! And now you deny it? A crime that bears your mark--libel literally in your own hand-- and you would deny it? You--"
Pushed beyond rational speech, Bahorel grabs Lesgle by the shoulders and marches him in the direction of the men's stalls.
---
Lesgle may not have much bulk, but he has more than enough outrage of his own to face Bahorel's looming. He knocks Bahorel's hands off his shoulders as they go to the restroom; when they get there he simply crosses his arms and stares. "Well? If you're that offended by a little verse on Victor Hugo, you can write a better one."
There certainly isn't anything else here of his.
---
Bahorel growls and gestures at the insulting sentence in question. "Are you pretending such innocence you can't even see it?" His expression flickers to another shade of frown. "Can you not see it? Mind, before lying, I can find honest men here to ask as well."
---
Laigle spots the offending message just as Bahorel is gesturing to it. "Bahorel...is...a...oh! Oh-ho-ho! Oh, that's excellent, someone is feeling brave. But my dear fellow, you owe me a dry set of clothing; this isn't any of my work."
He pats Bahorel kindly (and damply and bluely) on the shoulder and makes to leave. "Find your culprit elsewhere. Perhaps one of the clever police-inspectors can help; we have quite a few on hand."
---
Bahorel stares at the two bits of graffiti; there *is* a slight difference between them, right next to each other like that. He stands back up away from the wall and starts to follow Lesgle out, anger completely gone, or at least completely redirected from the Legle- shaped part of the world. "Of course, if I'd known I could so easily convince you to accept a better choice of apparel, I'd have soaked your head years ago. --But you may laugh, it's not your names being disgraced. But you might consider that we have a forger among us, since whoever wrote that knew both my name and your writing, and has the skill to--"
He pauses almost mid-step, wide-eyed. "...that damned fan-panderer." He ducks back into the stall quickly, uncapping the writing-marker from his coat pocket, and scrawls POLAND IS A LAWYER in red ink.
He's almost impressed.
But mostly he's glowingly furious again. He straightarms the bathroom door open and charges back into the main bar, bellowing "TRAITOR!"
---
As soon as they had left for the men's room, Feuilly had taken the precaution of tucking the Megaton library book back in his satchel; by the time Lesgle and Bahorel emerge, he's working on a sketch. It's not what he'd call art, but he thinks he'll be able to paint it well enough to convey something of Fawkes' world: small green things fighting to live and to spread their hope.
He doesn't look up from his notebook.
---
The table's not very far from the stalls, really, especially at a furious stride. Bahorel stops himself just short of running into the table, with the air of a man very pointedly not using force.
"Well might you hide your eyes, you thrice-Judas! To slander a man is bad, to do so in secret is cowardice, to let another man take the blame for your villainy is beyond the pale! Has your crawling spirit taken such hold of your flesh that you cannot even look up?"
---
Feuilly appears to be deeply engrossed in his work.
---
Bahorel is the oldest among his friends by several years. As such, he considers it a solemn duty to provide a good example in certain matters, like how to communicate one's desires clearly and effectively.
He kicks Feuilly's chair away.
---
Feuilly is knocked back along with his chair.
Blinking up at Bahorel, he removes first one of the little listening-plugs that go with his MP3 player, and then the other. "Oh, Bahorel! These MP3 computers are wonderful. I was just listening to a recording of a polonaise by Chopin. My God, I don't pretend to know music, but I would have loved to hear him play. Did you ever?" He rolls up the little hearing-cords with the plugs, and tucks the whole business neatly away in his waistcoat pocket.
Feuilly has been watching prank offensives and practical jokes play out among his friends for years. And he believes he has the required sang-froid himself.
---
It's like that, then.
It would be an insult to them both to start laughing now. Bahorel takes the opposite of a calming breath, and starts in again.
"Indeed you might pretend ignorance, since you clearly have no claim to innocence! You infinite and endless liar--"
Bahorel can go on a while, and does. Villains of myth and history are invoked (Feuilly is of course worse than any of them) , multiple playwrights are quoted (especially Shakespeare, because when there's a chance to call a man a fustilarian, Bahorel takes it) and threats of various levels of plausibilty are issued (Bahorel is not entirely sure he can't turn Feuilly into sentient peach preserves at Milliways, which would only be justice).
He finishes by vowing revenge, stealing Feuilly's cap, and striding off upstairs, full of cheerful fury.
It showed up a few days ago in the men's room, neat firm lettering in black pen. In English, just like that.
BAHOREL IS A LAWYER
(And Feuilly, through sheer coincidence, has been making a point of taking a seat with a good view of the restroom doors, the last few days, when he comes in for meals or a change of scenery. No reason, you know. Just. Watchfulness.)
---
They're good seats! They also have a view of the bar, and the doors to the kitchen behind it. And the rather over-aged busboy going in and out of the kitchen doors on the rounds he makes when he's not being swallowed by a temporal vortex,
Which is Bahorel's particular No Reason for sitting there across from Feuilly today, with a book and a flask that is definitely not from the Bar. The kitchen doors swing in and out. His face is completely blank, but he acknowledges Feuilly with a nod, and starts reading in between glancing up towards the kitchen doors. Swing. Swing. Swing--
and an unholy clatter--specifically unholy, with a great deal of blasphemy-- comes from the kitchen.
Bahorel lifts his flask in salute, and turns a page.
----
Feuilly acknowledges Bahorel with a nod, and goes back to his reading. He doesn't even look up at the clatter or the swearing, or the sopping-wet Laigle that comes stalking out to the table and jabs Bahorel pointedly on the shoulder.
"Did the bucket of water have to be dyed blue," Lesgle wants to know. "Did it really?"
---
Bahorel moves the book slightly out of the way of the dripping. "For libel? For an unerasable stain on my reputation? For the betrayal of confidences? Committed, I must suppose, though only suppose, as I can hardly be expected to understand a soul capable of such treachery, in a cowardly attempt to direct suspicion away from yourself, though we are both equally guilty of the vile sin I now alone stand accused of? Yes. Blue dye was the very least that was required."
Bahorel is also pointedly Not Looking at Lesgle Because of Reading, and so misses Feuilly's rather unusual display of concentration.
---
"I have enough weekly complaints from the laundry-rats without adding blue dye to the mix!" Lesgle flicks his hand angrily at Bahorel, and notes the blue spot on the man's shoulder with some satisfaction. "Also--also--I point out that I don't know what you're talking about. We're both guilty of quite a few vile sins; I don't mention your irregularities and you don't mention mine. I thought we had an understanding!"
Feuilly, humming to himself, looks up a word in one of his language dictionaries and writes it in the margin of his notes.
---
Bahorel's calm vanishes. he erupts from his chair in a single movement to loom over Bossuet, radiating fury.
(Perhaps not over, exactly. Lesgle is about as tall as he is himself. But Bahorel has both the bulk and the outrage to definitely loom at Bossuet nonetheless.)
"Understanding! Such deeds are beyond all understanding! Had you written what you know, I would not care, I for one do not fear my own truths-- but you spew lies that would corrupt a charnel house! And now you deny it? A crime that bears your mark--libel literally in your own hand-- and you would deny it? You--"
Pushed beyond rational speech, Bahorel grabs Lesgle by the shoulders and marches him in the direction of the men's stalls.
---
Lesgle may not have much bulk, but he has more than enough outrage of his own to face Bahorel's looming. He knocks Bahorel's hands off his shoulders as they go to the restroom; when they get there he simply crosses his arms and stares. "Well? If you're that offended by a little verse on Victor Hugo, you can write a better one."
There certainly isn't anything else here of his.
---
Bahorel growls and gestures at the insulting sentence in question. "Are you pretending such innocence you can't even see it?" His expression flickers to another shade of frown. "Can you not see it? Mind, before lying, I can find honest men here to ask as well."
---
Laigle spots the offending message just as Bahorel is gesturing to it. "Bahorel...is...a...oh! Oh-ho-ho! Oh, that's excellent, someone is feeling brave. But my dear fellow, you owe me a dry set of clothing; this isn't any of my work."
He pats Bahorel kindly (and damply and bluely) on the shoulder and makes to leave. "Find your culprit elsewhere. Perhaps one of the clever police-inspectors can help; we have quite a few on hand."
---
Bahorel stares at the two bits of graffiti; there *is* a slight difference between them, right next to each other like that. He stands back up away from the wall and starts to follow Lesgle out, anger completely gone, or at least completely redirected from the Legle- shaped part of the world. "Of course, if I'd known I could so easily convince you to accept a better choice of apparel, I'd have soaked your head years ago. --But you may laugh, it's not your names being disgraced. But you might consider that we have a forger among us, since whoever wrote that knew both my name and your writing, and has the skill to--"
He pauses almost mid-step, wide-eyed. "...that damned fan-panderer." He ducks back into the stall quickly, uncapping the writing-marker from his coat pocket, and scrawls POLAND IS A LAWYER in red ink.
He's almost impressed.
But mostly he's glowingly furious again. He straightarms the bathroom door open and charges back into the main bar, bellowing "TRAITOR!"
---
As soon as they had left for the men's room, Feuilly had taken the precaution of tucking the Megaton library book back in his satchel; by the time Lesgle and Bahorel emerge, he's working on a sketch. It's not what he'd call art, but he thinks he'll be able to paint it well enough to convey something of Fawkes' world: small green things fighting to live and to spread their hope.
He doesn't look up from his notebook.
---
The table's not very far from the stalls, really, especially at a furious stride. Bahorel stops himself just short of running into the table, with the air of a man very pointedly not using force.
"Well might you hide your eyes, you thrice-Judas! To slander a man is bad, to do so in secret is cowardice, to let another man take the blame for your villainy is beyond the pale! Has your crawling spirit taken such hold of your flesh that you cannot even look up?"
---
Feuilly appears to be deeply engrossed in his work.
---
Bahorel is the oldest among his friends by several years. As such, he considers it a solemn duty to provide a good example in certain matters, like how to communicate one's desires clearly and effectively.
He kicks Feuilly's chair away.
---
Feuilly is knocked back along with his chair.
Blinking up at Bahorel, he removes first one of the little listening-plugs that go with his MP3 player, and then the other. "Oh, Bahorel! These MP3 computers are wonderful. I was just listening to a recording of a polonaise by Chopin. My God, I don't pretend to know music, but I would have loved to hear him play. Did you ever?" He rolls up the little hearing-cords with the plugs, and tucks the whole business neatly away in his waistcoat pocket.
Feuilly has been watching prank offensives and practical jokes play out among his friends for years. And he believes he has the required sang-froid himself.
---
It's like that, then.
It would be an insult to them both to start laughing now. Bahorel takes the opposite of a calming breath, and starts in again.
"Indeed you might pretend ignorance, since you clearly have no claim to innocence! You infinite and endless liar--"
Bahorel can go on a while, and does. Villains of myth and history are invoked (Feuilly is of course worse than any of them) , multiple playwrights are quoted (especially Shakespeare, because when there's a chance to call a man a fustilarian, Bahorel takes it) and threats of various levels of plausibilty are issued (Bahorel is not entirely sure he can't turn Feuilly into sentient peach preserves at Milliways, which would only be justice).
He finishes by vowing revenge, stealing Feuilly's cap, and striding off upstairs, full of cheerful fury.
