milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Courfeyrac is lounging in an armchair by the fire, his legs dangling carelessly over one arm. There's a book open on his chest, something about existentialism - but he's not reading a word. He's rather more concentrated on a bottle of wine, and watching patrons go back and forth. He hasn't spent enough time doing that since he's been here, what with one thing and another - but he reasons that no one can object to him sitting around all he likes, what with the dearth of other things to do.

[tiny!tag: Joly]

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'...ah.'

Wizardry. He would not have guessed that.

'I imagine that's a very useful thing to know?'

It is the best he can come up with under the circumstances.

He laughs. "In more ways than you can imagine. It isn't only talking to rats."

'Oh? Then speak on, dear fellow. If you care to, of course; if it is a secret, by all means keep it close to your breast. The wine will taste the same regardless.'

"No secret, not between friends." He grins. "I can heal wounds, talk to anything living, bend the laws of physics if I want to and pay the energy cost."

'Does that mean you have learned the laws of physics?'

Has anyone? Dear God.

'But what is an 'energy cost'?'

"Some of them." He shrugs easily. "Have to know what you're playing with if it's going to be safe. And that - is really the only limit on what I can do. Nothing can happen without energy to make it happen, so if I want to change something, the extra energy has to come from somewhere. Usually from me."

Courfeyrac regards him for a moment, before his face splits into a grin and he shrugs easily.

'Well! It seems as though I cannot think of you as a boy any longer. You're a man with abilities none of us could ever dream of.'

And if it makes him happy, very well. Courfeyrac is the easiest of men - and why should Gavroche not take the chances offered to him? They are more than he would ever have got in Paris, alive or dead.

"Oh, I know well enough you all still think of me as a boy", he says with only warmth behind it, no rancour. "I made a place in the world for myself, that's all."

'No longer, citizen, I assure you!'

Perhaps for a bit longer.

'It seems a very great place. Ah, if there were only magic at the barricade. Still! It cannot be helped, and you must surely be doing good things with what you have learned.'

"It wasn't the right place for it", he says, quiet but assured. "For all I wish I'd had it then. But with my power, I have to do what I believe to be good things, or lose it."

'Then it is a matter of judgement, and I do not doubt you have that.'

He thinks about what he just says, and tilts his head from side to side.

'That is, if you have outgrown your reckless streak. I hope you have not entirely, because then I should hardly know you at all.'

"Oh, not entirely", Gavroche assures him, with a smile that's entirely the boy he was. "Ask my father about the Night on the Bridge sometime."

His eyebrows raise in a politely enquiring fashion.

'You father?'

"The man who took me in", he clarifies. "Only real father I've ever had."

'Oh! Well in that case, good for you. And for him. I'm glad you found each other.'

Gavroche deserves a decent father, it's true.

"So am I." He grins. "Some people don't like Milliways, I know, but it's given me almost everything I could wish for."

'Some people don't like Milliways.'

Well! That is very odd.

'They object to it as an afterlife, or in general?'

"In general, I think. I've never really understood it, except sometimes for the living Bound."

'Living Bound. I suppose that speaks for itself - but still, it would surely be an opportunity to rest with friends, enjoy the company and the wine, no? There are worse jails to find yourself in, I would guess.'

Though he would still probably not enjoy it if it happened to him.

"For some, perhaps. But for others, eager to get back to the life waiting outside..."

'...yes, very well, I can see how that would be frustrating to some.'

He thinks a moment, then grins.

'You could not be kept from the barricade even when free of the certainty of death - I can imagine how you would have reacted if you found yourself stuck here instead of finding a way back to it. I wonder would the magic have been strong enough to hold you?'

Gavroche laughs. "Oh, I would have found a way. Even if I had to cheat a way around time."

'I hope to goodness that is not-'

He stops, and rethinks.

'Is that possible?'

"If you met the right person here, I wouldn't bet against it. I never had reason to try."

'No. And nor do I.'

Really. But it is still a fascinating thing to think about.

He lets out a short laugh.

'I think the time is coming when I should stop sitting around refusing to read books, and perhaps look into the possibilities of this place.'

Perhaps. After this glass.