(no subject)

[road_to_calvary]

 
Valjean enters the bar quietly, looking up and around when he realises this is not, after all, the hallway of his building. He is dressed very much as a wealthy bourgeois gentleman but as soon as he sees where he is, he disappears up the stairs and comes back ten minutes later in working man's clothes. There seems to be enough light left to do some building work, and he would rather apply his hands to some task than do nothing.

When it is too dark to continue, he comes back inside and takes a plate of rough black bread and cheese, and a glass of water. Supper is mostly ignored in favour of resting his chin on his hand, and sitting without movement as he contemplates...well, who knows?


[OOC: Open through the weekend! Hurrah for deadlines being done. \o/]

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

As Valjean is sitting down and starting his contemplation, the door opens, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter walks in, carrying a small stack of books under his arm.

"Good evening, Monsieur Valjean," he says, his voice unfailingly polite.

He regards Valjean's supper with something approaching dismay.

"Why on earth do both Javert and you think that punishing yourselves with intentionally plain food in the midst of plenty will make you into morally better people?"

[road_to_calvary]

Valjean merely smiles at this. Or at least, the corners of his mouth rise a touch.

'Good evening, monsieur l'docteur.'

He is also unfailingly polite. And not in the least surprised to see him.

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter regards him with a smile.

"Why?" he says. "You could have a decent plate of coq au vin, for example, with some piece of baguette to soak up the gravy, and a glass of red wine with it. Wouldn't that be much more pleasant?"

[road_to_calvary]

Ah. Perhaps this is a question that actually requires an answer, per their agreement.

'I have a simple palate, monsieur.'

[cook_the_rude]

"And what I suggested was hardly complicated," Dr. Lecter says. "A simple dish for a simple man to enjoy after a day's simple work. What you're eating is more like prison fare, or a pauper's insufficient supper. You don't have to, so what are you punishing yourself for with it?"

[road_to_calvary]

'It is not punishment.'

Or at least, he does not think of it in those terms.

He also wonders whether Lecter expects him to be offended by being called simple so often.

'I see no need for excess, that is all.'

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter sets down his books at Valjean's table and orders a bottle of wine -- a specific one -- from the rats.

"Will you at least join me for some decent Côte de Povençe?" he offers.

[road_to_calvary]

'No, thank you.'

It is not that Valjean does not drink wine - even brandy, on occasion - but there is no need for it tonight. And he would rather not take anything off Hannibal Lecter.

[cook_the_rude]

"Do you consider it excess?" Dr. Lecter asks.

[road_to_calvary]

'Yes.'

Quite simply.

'The water here is good. It will do.'

[cook_the_rude]

"But why?" Dr. Lecter says. "You could have tea, if you don't want wine. Coffee. Cider. Nothing of that is excess, certainly?"

[road_to_calvary]

'I drink both coffee and tea.'

He fails to see why is it of such interest to the man, but that is his affair.

'I simply chose not to this evening.'

[cook_the_rude]

"Well, then my initial question remains," Dr. Lecter says. "What are you punishing yourself for by denying such simple pleasures as a decent meal?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

This is the first time Lesgle has seen Valjean at the bar. He has a meal of his own, but no one here seems to stand on ceremony--and he's the last man to make ceremony where there isn't any. He carries his plate and tankard of beer over, and then coughs deferentially. "Monsieur--?"

(All right, maybe a little ceremony after all.)

[road_to_calvary]

He looks up. No expression crosses his face, though the man standing before him is familiar.

'Fauchelevent. Good evening, monsieur.'

Another of Enjolras' friends. He is pleased for the boy. He seemed to miss them so terribly.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

He remembers the man's quiet at the barricade. And there's all the more reason to be quiet now, with that in his past and the uprising crushed. Laigle seats himself beside Fauchelevent without any fuss, and gets back to his own meal. Staring contemplatively into space, he ventures to say, "I believe I remember you from last June?"

If there's yet more absurdity with times and Fauchelevent isn't here from January 1833 like his daughter--well, to hell with it, Bossuet will just look like a fool.

[road_to_calvary]

'Yes.'

He is not going to deny it. And there is no need to ask what year this man is from, then - he remembers seeing him fall.

'Forgive me, I do not recall your name. Enjolras has spoken of you all, but-'

There was a lot going on that day, and he had spent much of it simply thinking.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Legle, formerly of Meaux. --Or Bossuet. My friends call me Bossuet." Any volunteer at the barricades--in good faith, that is--can call himself a friend as far as Bossuet is concerned. "And I think perhaps you know another friend of mine. Pontmercy?"

Pontmercy, who apparently hasn't seen fit to mention much of anything at all to his utterly charming fiancée.

[road_to_calvary]

He is not sure whether that is an invitation to call him by his nickname or not. It is probably better to err on the side of politeness. He was not, after all, there to share their cause.

'Yes,' he says, calmly.

'He is engaged to my daughter.'

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet, Lesgle, it's all good. Just don't call him late to dinner.

"Congratulations, then, with all my heart. He's a good fellow in his way, is Pontmercy."

[road_to_calvary]

'In his way?'

Damning with faint praise does not usually concern Valjean. But his daughter is going to marry the boy - there is nothing to be done about that - and this is the one occasion he would rather hear great torrents of praise and delight about him.

He gets plenty from Cosette, but that is different.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet laughs. "Oh, no, no--he's a good fellow in the way that anyone would want for a son-in-law, I'm sure. Clean, hard-working, chaste, learned, patient--probably pious, though I can't speak to it. And very much in love, I have heard. It was decidedly apparent." (This makes him laugh again: the friend who said that in June is here now, and many many things are much brighter.) "It's only a terrible old reprobate of a Paris student,"--he bows and indicates himself--"who would say that Marius Pontmercy might be a bit of a dreamer, a bit lost in a reverie now and then, a bit muddled in his political sentiments. --But he fought like a tiger at the barricade," he says more soberly.

[road_to_calvary]

'He did.'

Most assuredly. It had been quite awful to see.

Valjean smiles lightly, non-committal.

'I do not think Marius being a dreamer is any great flaw in Mademoiselle Fauchelevent's eyes, nor his politics.'

Indeed, his politics seem not to figure largely for Marius himself at present, but that is just as well. Perhaps it his recovery, or perhaps simply being under the same roof as his grandfather. It is all to the good if it remains that way, probably.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Hm. That's not quite the beaming look of a proud father-in-law-to-be. Well, fathers-in-law-to-be are known for apprehensive tendencies. And Lesgle is well aware that he is, in fact, a terrible reprobate of a student, which does not transfer recommendation on Marius Pontmercy. And he has his old coat back. Laundering out the blood has left it even more battered than before.

He finds a genuinely earnest expression. "No, but I know I'm not the sort of figure a man wants connected with his son-in-law. Courfeyrac's the man to talk Pontmercy's praises: Courfeyrac is an excellent fellow, the soul of a paladin and a fundamentally good creature. But will you take my word for it, at least, that Marius is a sober, decent, and honest soul?"

[road_to_calvary]

'Yes, of course.'

This is said at once, in honesty and genuine acceptance.

'He is a sincere fellow. And the recommendation of a friend is worth more than any other, monsieur.'