milliways_bar | (no subject)

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joly

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Mary bursts through the door from the grounds, in the middle of the night, breathless from running, and collapses onto a stool at the bar. But once she can breathe again she starts giggling helplessly, and bites down on her knuckles to try to stop. In one fist, she's still clutching a sock.

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She might have time to calm down before the door opens again. It's taken Joly rather a while to get back into some semblance of Properly Dressed, given the general wet-and-cold situation.

But here he is, coat draped over his shoulders, undershirt and vest and trousers sticking rather awkwardly to his skin, shoes and sock held in one hand. He stands where Mary could easily choose to not look at him , and holds his other hand out towards her.

...He's not sure how to address her, and polite forms seem questionable with someone who's just grabbed your clothes. He settles for "That's my sock you grabbed."

She has calmed down, but when she sees the damp man she almost starts laughing again, a hiccuppy sound. It's...the other man! Who isn't Bahorel. And it's not just because of the nighttime, he is dark-skinned. Well--all right!

She hiccups down another laugh and hands the sock back. It's a bit anticlimactic. "I'm very sorry?"

Joly takes his sock, looking very severe and imposing and as if he totally has the Right of...Something...on his side...

Oh no wait, he's also cracking up, and looks like he's liable to drop his shoes at any moment. "Oh--oh you should be though, he really was going to tear after you, oh no--"

He leans on one of the nearby chairs for support, still giggling.

"Well--well, thank you for restraining him, sir," she says, with the best manners she can muster under the circumstances.

They're very silly circumstances.

"But why were you swimming in frozen water?"

...He could probably just blame Bahorel for it. This young lady has met him, after all.

But it was more or less Joly's own idea.

" For our health." He shrugs helplessly. "I'd read about some people doing it, and well--well there we were." He's still laughing. He's also slightly freezing; he pulls the coat back over his shoulders and stamps his feet to warm up a bit.

Edited 2017-02-06 01:01 (UTC)

"It doesn't look like it was very healthy!" She clears her throat and sets her face straight again. Because she is a Queen. But he looks so funny, shivering and stamping and laughing and trying to be serious; she can't manage a straight face. The best she can manage is a laughing mock-motherly scold. "You'll catch your death! Bar, a cup of hot wine for--for M. Bahorel's friend."

Joly takes the drink with an only slightly abashed thanks."--Joly. Joly, from Paris, same as him. You know Bahorel too?"

please actually know Bahorel and not just have heard of him, please tell him Bahorel wasn't about to jump naked at a stranger

again

"We've met! He was singing to those little wooden elf dolls that were here at Christmas." Which may not be a level of acquaintance to justify jumping naked at a fifteen-year-old girl, but suggests that she at least knows Bahorel's style.

"So you're from Paris too! Are you another friend of Cosette's? --I'm Mary. I come here from Scotland."

Well. Romantics. Really it's a good thing Bahorel's inclined to be a dandy, or they'd probably never get him to wear clothes at all.

...Joly is not going to say that to this earnest young woman. Fortunately they seem to have a much safer mutual acquaintance!

"Oh, Madame Pontmercy? Yes, I'm proud to say I am. She's an excellent woman." And totally proper and never known for jumping naked at people at all! "I've known her husband for--oh, some years. Were you at their party recently? I'm sorry I missed you there, if you were." Really, truly sorry. It would have been nice to meet Mary in circumstances of less....circumstances.

Mary would be amazed to hear herself described as earnest. Amazed and giggly. In fact, she's laughing now. "I was! Wasn't it beautiful? I want to have a party like that. I can't do the magic fire, of course, but something outside, with flowers and all different kinds of cakes!"

Yes, she's very cynical and jaded.

So is he, she can probably tell by how he's perked up at the suggestion of a party. "Oh, yes? Do you mean here or back in your own Scotland?"

"In Scotland!" she answers, with the of course, silly, implied in her tone. "I hadn't even thought about a party here. I don't know enough people. Do you think I should have a party here?"

"Well--why not? It's a very good way to begin to know people, and of course you can try all sorts of things that you might not be able to in your own world--that is, I think that's true for almost everyone, certainly it is for us. And if you want to wait for better weather, that's months ahead--plenty of time to plan."

..Yeah Joly's idea of throwing a party is telling other young and mostly-footloose young men "we'll have booze, swing by". But he's been to enough Real Parties--and seen the women of his family throw enough of them, growing up-- that he does have some general idea of what it might take to organize one. Months seems about right, right?

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