pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

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There are a few exercise rooms scattered about Milliways, of various sorts and various levels of formal construction. A room with weights and a punching bag; a room with mirrors and a barre and strict signs about which shoes one is permitted to wear; a room with fewer mirrors, a closet full of various kinds of padding, another closet with practice implements like rods of wood and bamboo, a wood floor, mats of strange blue plastic to unfold or ignore.

It's in the last of these that Enjolras and Bahorel have been recently engaged in vigorous (and friendly) attempts to pummel each other.

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Enjolras frowns sharply, sitting up a little straighter (though he's a man with straight-backed posture in any case).

"I hadn't realized. That could be trouble."

"He may remain ignorant of the book forever, or of any advantage to gain from reading it, but we can't count on that."

The difficulty is in what they can possibly do about it.

Well, there's the extreme solution. (If it would even work, under the circumstances of Milliways.) Enjolras is not exactly in favor of it, but it's inescapably an option; Bahorel's likely thought of it too.

Bahorel nods. "He seems to be avoiding anything to do with us-- but then he is a spy, it could be a front." He laughs. "I suppose I could try to provoke him into fights when he's here, and keep us both in the cells-- but no, never mind, we're supposed to be allowed books, now."

He sobers again. "And,here's something I at least didn't know: it seems we had two spies at our barricade. You remember the fellow who killed the porter."

It's not a question.

"Was he."

Enjolras had wondered, of course. But he could equally have been a hothead; there was no way to be sure.

It doesn't change anything, of course. Murderer and spy or not, Le Cabuc was still their brother. And the necessity of executing him was never in question; the fundamental betrayal of ideals in the action remains true as well.

Still. It's worth knowing.

"So it seems. A long-time agent, a member of one of the stronger gangs-- and it seems it was amazing how little they were ever prosecuted for their various crimes." Bahorel watches the movement of the wine in his own glass. "Which would explain his skill in certain matters." A gun, a knife. "And why he was so set on murdering an unarmed old man who'd come out to chat to some fellows he knew."

It might make no difference to Enjolras. The porter had perhaps been a stranger to his barricade. But for Bahorel it answers a question. After Bossuet's visit to Milliways, making the porter's acquaintance had been part of their preparations, and not an especially hard job-- a few drinks, a few games of dominoes, a few stories traded about grandchildren and nieces and nephews--

"I knew the porter. He was friendly to us. The murderer had not even a shadow of an explanation on our barricade." He smiles, bitter but not without a certain bleak amusement. "They police might teach their agents to spin a better story."

Edited 2015-01-23 17:23 (UTC)

"A shadow of one on ours, but no more." And how strange, how surreal still, to speak of your barricade and ours. "He must have been counting on the notion that we'd allow rowdy hotheadedness to the extent of shooting a defenseless old man in a window. I suppose it makes sense that he was used to his spying winning him pardon for all crimes."

He didn't have the air of one willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of besmirching the barricade's reputation. Javert took capture and the sentence of death with proud stoicism; Le Cabuc wept, pleaded, clutched at Enjolras's knees, seemed utterly undone by the idea that he might die for the crime of open murder.

The swallow of water is tasteless, despite the lemon floating in the glass.

Le Cabuc died, whatever he expected -- and he succeeded in barring doors and hearts to the revolutionaries, whether or not he would have considered that worth the price. But they knew that.

And maybe, on Bahorel's barricade, some of those doors opened after all. There's no way to know, so there can be hope.

"Hm. I gather our visitor missed his timing. If he had waited a mere two years, he might have joined the forces of law along the Rue Transnonain, and killed old men in their beds with good company, instead of before our unappreciative audience." His smile vanishes in a curse, and he throws his wine glass into the fireplace.

It shatters; Bahorel watches as the fire briefly flickers another color, and for a while longer. It is really very helpful.

When he speaks again, it's with a touch of real warmth. "Bossuet will be cross with me. He was very insistent that I tell the rest of you about this gently." Ridiculous, to try and be gentle about such things; but Bossuet would think to try, and that thought makes him grin in amusement and fondness.

Enjolras watches Bahorel fling his glass away; watches him watch the fire, and gives him his space for frustration. Enjolras may not express his own feelings in the same terms, but some sentiments they share, in their own ways: Bahorel fuels himself with a fire that flares at any provocation, and Enjolras reserves the fire of his soul to release it rarely and with the greatest heat. Still.

His voice holds a certain degree of both affection and dry amusement when he says, "Did you not?"

He has no objection to anything Bahorel said or did in the breaking of this news.

(He also doesn't yet realize some of what Bahorel was glossing over with that talk of a great deal of description of appearances and the like. But if he did, it wouldn't convince him that Bahorel hadn't approached the matter with rare and perhaps unnecessary discretion.)

Bahorel shakes his head. "I don't know- he took the news very oddly. But then he was concerned for Grantaire, I think. Monsieur Hugo doesn't flatter us all equally." He shrugs. "At any rate-- Bossuet knows, which is to say, Joly knows; and Bossuet is telling Grantaire. I've spoken to Combeferre earlier today. I can tell Courfeyrac and Feuilly, or you can, if you want." It's not even a question that they need to know.

"I don't mind, though you're the one who's read it. Whoever speaks to them first, I suppose."

They'll all have plenty of cause to discuss the book and the concerns it raises with each other, based on this conversation.

The mention of Grantaire gets a curious look, but Enjolras doesn't press the question. If Bossuet is concerned for Grantaire, he may well have good reason; still, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a matter Enjolras needs to know about, or that Grantaire will want him to.

Bahorel waves off the question of Grantaire; it's nothing Enjolras doesn't know already, at least to the extent that it could possibly matter. Nothing anyone who looks at them in the same room wouldn't know, in Bahorel's estimation, but that doesn't have to mean Bossuet's concern is wrong. Just not something he has an answer for.

" I'll get the more immediate passages copied out for us-- the mentions of 48, and so on. For the rest, I think it can wait until the others have a chance to read the book, if they want." He grins. "But I'm telling Jehan if he comes by. I won't forgive anyone who spoils that news." A joke, and not; he would want to see Jehan's immediate reaction, but he also knows he won't care all that much if it becomes a possibility.

"So that's the news of our day, or someone's, at any rate." He stands and stretches and heads for the food on the table. "What about you, any grand discoveries? Has Combeferre taught his dinosaur to breathe flame yet?"

...Probably the answer is no!

"No," Enjolras answers, amused. "He hasn't attempted that yet."

Although if Bahorel suggests it, that state of affairs may not last too much longer. Combeferre is rather susceptible to experimental engineering challenges.

"He's acquired a jarred specimen to accompany it instead. With wings. I'm told it's not technically a dinosaur."

He was also told why it wasn't technically a dinosaur, but he hasn't really retained any of those details.

Despite Enjolras's lack of any great detail about Combeferre's latest pickled acquisitions, though, the discussion of other friends' activities and Milliways's peculiar possibilities for study does occupy them both nicely for a while longer, and for another few slices of pizza.

Edited 2015-03-14 04:16 (UTC)

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