(no subject)

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Spring has come to Milliways, in full warmth. The grass is greening, and the trees are in bud, and so forth. There are even trees in the mountains that are covered in pink flowers.

Were they there last year? Were they, in fact, there last week? Enjolras is not entirely certain on either count.

On the other hand: Milliways. He'll ask Bahorel, or Combeferre or Joly, if he thinks to bother, but he may not.

At any rate, he's sitting at the base of one of the pink trees, on a convenient flat rock. He has a book with him, as usual, but he's currently ignoring it in favor of an abstraction of thought.

Comments

[tu_vas_triompher]

At the touch, he leans again into Enjolras's shoulder for a moment. "It seemed like it. But he had just come back from the battle, he was still--oh, elated, from the fight. And we haven't spoken since. --But at the barricade, if any of those men's families had been there to hear them arguing their right to stay, to fight and die with us, I don't think they would have heard much regret in their voices."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras leans back, for that same moment, a comfortable and fraternal press of weight and presence.

"No."

Enjolras can hardly find it in his heart to chide them for that. They fought for their families, and for the great mother and sustainer of all Frenchmen, their nation. But he knows, too, that he doesn't understand a father's point of view, and that he's never been the most tender or domestic of men; friends have pointed out this often enough, sometimes fondly and sometimes critically.

He's thinking over Harry, now, though. Harry Percy, earl's son of the fifteenth century, honorable and forthright and hasty, who loudly proclaims himself proudest to be a soldier first and always. "And -- I don't know how he feels about this. We haven't spoken about any of it. I didn't know he had a family, even. But he's always seemed to me..."

How to put this. "There are things he speaks of easily. Promptly. War, honor, affront, friendship. Sometimes without thinking much about what he's saying, of course. Other matters, one has to coax him to reflect on. And after that, wait for him to put into words. One gets the impression that he's surprised by it, every time. You may have better luck than I, though. But perhaps that's part of it?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

From the tone of Feuilly's voice, he has no criticism either, for the men who hadn't wanted to leave the barricade for their families. They had been in their own family, just then, a family of sympathy and action. (Which is, after all, the only kind of family Feuilly has ever known: anything else he can come up with, on the subject of family, is an observer's speculation.)

Harry Percy, though. And family. He listens to Enjolras, with a small fond smile. Yes, there, that's Harry. "That's--no, it's just as you say. He's--it takes him time to find out what he's thinking, if it isn't on those subjects. Well, that's how he was trained--how he was raised. I didn't have the patience just then, when we were talking, but I can talk to him again."

Feuilly laughs a little. "We'd all of us--us from Paris--be a poor set of friends, wouldn't we, if we had stopped talking together at the first misunderstanding."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras smiles back, a small warm flash of amusement.

"Or demanded patience at every moment, on every subject."

They've worked through their disagreements, all of them, whenever they've arisen; worked to an agreement, or an agreement to disagree, or to a comfortable familiar wrangling over details with an understood bedrock beneath. But it's been work, at times.

And with anger, at times. Jean-Jacques Rousseau abandoned his children, but he adopted the people; he adopted the people, but he abandoned his children. It's not as if Feuilly and Enjolras have never disagreed sharply, especially in earlier years.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Yes. Well. Feuilly tends to be circumspect in his mentions of Rousseau: he's learned, from Enjolras and for Enjolras's sake, to appreciate Rousseau's works, but he's never felt warm admiration for the man.

But that's Rousseau, who isn't here. At the moment Feuilly is just glad to have found Enjolras, who is here, and who has as always helped with his insight. (Feuilly has never understood people who call Enjolras unworldly; he's uncosmopolitan, certainly, but never disconnected from anything important.)

He leans back against the trunk of the tree and stares up into the flowers. They really are remarkable. However they came to be here, they're welcome. "He is a good friend, you know. Harry."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras glances at him; a little inquiring, but more affectionate.

"Yes."

Everything he's seen of Harry, and of Harry and Feuilly's regard for each other, has indicated that.