College AU Frenchmen!

[road_to_calvary]

 
...this isn't his bedroom. Jean Valjean - dressed in shorts and a muscle T, covered in sweat - rubs a towel over his face, and blinks quite a lot. Then he sticks his head back through the door, and yells, 'Javert!'

'What?'

'Come look.'

Javert - mussed hair, jeans, sullen expression, a scar around his neck - slopes through the door. He also blinks a lot, and doesn't stop the door closing behind them. While Valjean spends his time staring about, his eyes fall on the leaflets nearby. He picks one up, reads it, then touches Valjean's arm to get his attention.

'Here.'

A couple of minutes later, they're staring at each other. Javert shakes his head. Valjean nods, and stretches for the door handle...which won't open. His eyes go wide as he tugs on it, and Javert has to take his wrist to stop him trying to wrench his way out.

'It's OK. We'll just get a drink and wait for it to open. It says here that it will. OK?'

'...OK.'

And so there's two wary young guys at the bar, eyeing drinks suspiciously. Well, Valjean is. Javert is eyeing Valjean, because...well. Just because.



[OOC: AU guys, obviously! Write-up on their background here. You can pretty much do what you want with them, they're only here for a week. This is open until whenever, and they'll each get an independent EP at some point. \o/]

Comments

[venerable_ibis]

Well, that's...certainly a dynamic that they have there. Huh. Tetu nods, eyebrows up, a falafel on the end of his fork. "Cool. Cool. What kind of factory?"

[never_shall_yield]

'The kind that prints money,' Javert mutters back, darkly.

Valjean just shakes his head.

'I make a few things now. Started off with a kind of jewelry, went into fabric, diversified from there. It does OK.'

He's the best employer in the city, with a benefits and welfare package that makes most other big businesses weep. 'It does OK' is something of an understatement...or would be if he didn't, as Javert said, give most of the profits away.

[venerable_ibis]

"What kind of jewelry? I do some beadwork, myself." The salad is pretty good; and it goes pretty well with the piña colada, all things considered. So well that he's already almost finished the latter.

He's not ignoring Javert, he's just really not sure what he can possibly say that won't prompt the kid to be even more...whatever he's being.

[road_to_calvary]

Again, he looks a little embarrassed.

'Well, I started off with rosary beads. I found a way to produce them better, and more cheaply, than they were being. From there, costume stuff - I've never worked with real gold or anything I don't have any of that kind of skill. But we streamlined the process and came up with some new machinery to process and package it all, which also sells well, so-'

So. Yeah. He's really rich, all without trying very hard, and all completely undeserved as far as he's concerned. And when he says 'we' he means he did it on his own, but he'd never say that.

'But now I mostly let managers run it. Like I said, I'm in college.'

[venerable_ibis]

Tetu has his mouth full so at first he just gives a thumbs-up; but once he swallows, he grins. "Well, damn, check you out! What college do you go to?"

[never_shall_yield]

'Just the city college, nothing fancy.'

He wouldn't try to apply for a big name one, not with his record. And he wouldn't move away from Father Charles anyway, because he's not sure he could manage without him near.

Or Javert for that matter, but he's still not sure how that happened.

Speaking of Javert, he's watching them curiously. Because none of this is the most impressive stuff about Valjean, and he's wondering whether he'll tell this guy. Figures he won't, but you never know. This is a whole different place.

But then Valjean catches his eye, and minutely shakes his head. Javert goes back to his burger.

[venerable_ibis]

He shrugs. "I've written a lot of students recommendation letters to 'just-the-city-college-nothing-fancy.' Don't knock it, man."

And the guys are giving each other little cautious glances and stuff. Which has the effect of making them look even more like a (really awkward) couple, if that's what they're hiding--but Tetu doesn't press the speculation. They could just as likely be secret werewolves or superheroes or something.

[road_to_calvary]

'Oh, I'm not complaining. It's good enough for me.'

It's not like he needs a degree to be successful. He already is. And Javert snorts again, and says, into his Coke, 'no it's not.'

Neither of them would care if they come off like a couple. They probably are, in every way but the physical.