[closed] let's make the most of the night

[jondrette]

Characters: Dead, Miserable, French People
Date: Early March
Location: A pub somewhere out of the way
Situation: Courfeyrac is gone. We'll drink to that. Javert is gone. We'll drink to that.
Warnings: Swearing, debauchery, miserable French people, Pontmercying.

Yes, yes, everyone had a lovely time in and out of the bottle, but the remaining citizens of the turtle who had been lucky enough to die together at their home (and Marius) still had something else on their minds. After returning from the bottle, they'd been greeted with a half-empty suite that had formerly belonged to M'sieur de Courfeyrac, and a completely empty suite that belonged to Police Inspector Javert.

Whomever had organized it, it didn't matter. What mattered was that the remaining members of their party, Eponine, Enjolras, Combeferre, Joly, Bossuet, Marius, were all there to drink to their lost friend. And while that in and of itself was a sad occasion, no one was about to mourn the loss of Javert, particularly not Eponine.

So come on in, take a seat, pour a pint, and drink with us to time gone by.

Comments

Enjolras: OPEN

[solo_patria]

Upon finding out that Courfeyrac had vanished, Enjolras had thrown himself into a variety of activity, not really speaking about what he'd learned to anyone. He could not do it, or acknowledge things somehow. There was only the sick knowledge that another of them was gone, and that he would not be coming back. This, like the badly sprained arm he'd been ignoring since fighting the gang with Iskierka, was all part of what he was meant to bear, what he had sentenced himself to once.

He'd been avoiding near everyone, even Combeferre, where he could, by means of faking sleep or going out, but when he'd gotten word that they were gathering to drink for Courfeyrac, it was only right he show up now.

So...here he was, shoved into a table in the corner, trying his best not to think, and barely saying a word, though his friends were getting slight nods as they entered. A glass of wine sat in front of him, untouched, for the most part, as he tried, and failed to make some sense of this whole thing.

So far? He had nothing.

[jondrette]

"Enjolras," Eponine drawls, coming to stand next to him, a glass in her hand. "You arrived! And so somber!" Of course it was somber. Courfeyrac was gone. "Your hair has fallen limp." His wonderful hair.

Eponine wears one of Courfeyrac's scarves around her neck, and one of his hats perched jauntily on her brow. She looks beautiful, she's decided. THe type of girl that her beloved would have falling all over him back in France. Or wherever he was, now.

Dead. But they shall not say that word. Not tonight.

"I miss him. My charming Courfeyrac."

[solo_patria]

"Eponine." Enjolras might have smiled, any other time, to see Eponine wearing Courfeyrac's things, but for now, they were simply something of a sad reminder at the moment that Courfeyrac had vanished, and that he had little idea of what to do here.

"Somber is...yes, I suppose as good a word as any. But you..."

He might as well focus his attentions elsewhere. It did no good to draw attention to himself in this. Courfeyrac was the one to think of now, and those others who had cared for him. Just because Enjolras could not remember a time without Courfeyrac, not truly (all the things in his life before Paris were so unimportant, and so useless now), it did not mean he was alone in the heavy sense of wrong about it all. And it was damned well better to look to others as he could, even when he was not sure what to do with them.

"...Are you...how are you doing with this?"

[jondrette]

She liked the way he said her name. Eponine.

She takes a drink, before sliding into a chair opposite Enjolras. "Our numbers dwindle. Your numbers, I suppose. Was this what it was like, at the end? Looking out and seeing so few?" She needed to stop talking, but since when had that ever been one of Eponine's strong suits? Shutting up?

"I miss him, Apollon. He is a sweet, wonderful man. Charming, handsome, with sweet breath. It occurs to me I shall never see him again. That like my brother, he is gone, never to return to us. Dead in Paris, gone from here... And that, that is why we must drink." With no thought at all, Eponine poured Enjolras his own glass of wine before taking her own.

"We were courting, Reynaud and I."

[solo_patria]

There is a question, and something Enjolras has been doing his best not to think about. "Well, the main force of our group, besides Jean Prouvaire and Bahorel managed to stay together for the most part during that, and Marius, after he joined us. Watching the numbers fall was...different then, I suppose. Those who fell first mattered, of course they did, but...it was not so personal somehow?" It's coming as a question because hell if Enjolras knows a better way to put this. He really has no clue as to whether or not that sounds horrible.

"The personal losses there were not until...one almost could not think, in the thick of it. It was so much faster..." He does remember finding that he was alone, the table wedged between him and the guard, the moment that he realized they must be dead entirely too well, but even then...

"Much as I feared I was not ready then, that she would find me wanting, that I had left something undone, there was not so much time to think, or to absorb what happened to the others then. I knew it, but...it was not real yet? Not like this." He is adding, expression unchanging for the most part, save for a bit of steel creeping into his gaze.

Enjolras will not show any weakness or anything like tears here. Those are giving in somehow. Instead, the uninjured hand is going to his ear, the one most lately pierced, and he is giving the hoop he wears a particularly hard tug. Focusing, yes. that's better. It gives him room to focus anyway, on the rest of Eponine's words there.

"That is, yes. We can do him that much now, if nothing el...courting? Oh Eponine. I...do not have words."

Re: Enjolras: OPEN

[philosophe]

Combeferre had, for his part, been avoiding people too, throwing himself into his work at the clinic and repairing the damage from Iskierka's latest shenanigans. Courfeyrac was very nearly as dear to him as Enjolras was, save perhaps in a more brotherly way.

In any case, there has been little time to even speak to Enjolras, though he has been watching him with some concern. So he sprawls down next to the other young man, looking rather as tired as he had at the barricades, and promptly leans a bit closer. "Good evening."

Re: Enjolras: OPEN

[solo_patria]

It's probably rather telling that the usual stab of guilt he might feel about not speaking to Combeferre as often as he should when things get busy or intense is simply ...gone...just now as Enjolras actually bothers to look up, hearing his voice.

"Those exist?" he wonders, raising an eyebrow at Combeferre's condition. Not that he thinks it at all unusual but there IS some concern there and he's shifting a little, in spite of everything, so that he might be closer now.

"You look like Hell."

[philosophe]

"Perhaps not currently," he allows, nuzzling a bit closer. If he cannot console himself with work, he will hope that companionship will do so for him. It does, at least, make it somewhat more bearable, with Enjolras at his side.

"So do you," wryly, with a pointed look at that arm. "Shall I have to have words with our draconic mademoiselle?"

[fliesonfour]

"It is the crux of the matter, in drinking to a friend..." Joly sat himself carefully down across from Enjolras, voice light though his expression was somber, "...to drink. Mouiller la gorge, à votre santé." He clinked his glass against Enjolras', softer than joy might produce of a toast, and sipped it thoughtfully, before setting it down.

"It is curious." He began, but waited to be invited to more before continuing.

[solo_patria]

What precisely was the crux of which matter? Enjolras nearly asked just then, but instead settled for giving Joly a tired half smile that did not do much to reach his eyes, or to last very long. He ought to say something reassuring here, to allow Joly room for what grief he had now, he knew, and made an attempt in the direction, raising his head enough to meet Joly's eyes as he returned the gesture and the toast, of sorts though his hand shook a little as he did so.

"What is curious, precisely?" He asked then.

[fliesonfour]

"It is curious that though Courfeyrac was a robust man, and very happy, with cheer on his sleeve, you might almost say..." And here, he took a sip at his drink, and turned the cup, and squinted... but did not eye Enjolras just yet. Joly was a man of logic above all the rest, and while Joly could sometimes find a countryman in Enjolras (born of the same rational!), he could see that tonight would be different. The man was emotional, as no doubt his Eagle was. The point he should like to make needed to be approached with baby steps. Point A, to Point B, to Point C... and then Point D. No skipping this time, and assuming Enjolras would follow his reasoning.

"...and yet we celebrate him so soberly. It seems unfitting. Then, too, it seems unfitting to mourn at all-- does it not? For, if you would have me believe what you have told me earlier, that we are in another world, atop a turtle, floating in the spaces reserved for dreams, then my! Where might Courfeyrac have gone off to? I scarcely remember The Land of Dreams being on the cartographer's scope, close to Paris. Perhaps somewhere near Egypt, surely, but Paris? Bah. Why does it follow that Courfeyrac must have gone back there, or if it does follow that he must, why does it follow that he will not be there suddenly in August of 1832? Something to celebrate. But if you think it is not possible..."

Point A: It was odd to celebrate a happy man like this.
Point B: It was worse to mourn him like this, because it assumed the worst, when no amount of reason promised the worst.
Point C: If, however, if assume the worst, and make this a problem of analytics...

...Point D:

"It is curious we do not mourn the others in such a manner, then. I say, we have not done our duty by them, if you would have me think the worst in the case of Courfeyrac. If you think that I have died over a year ago," He glossed over this term quickly, for he still was at odds with it, "and yet here I am, then time is funny, and life prevails. If you decide that in leaving Courfeyrac has returned to death... then what? It is curious we are not in the black always. Where is Feuilly? Where is Bahorel?"

Finally, he gave Enjolras a look. The man had a right to his emotions, and it was good he showed them, and it was right that they all be as together as they possibly could, in this time. Joly quite approved of Courfeyrac; fashionable and solid, humorous and generous. But if Enjolras assumed the worst-- even if that 'worst' was that he was gone, never to return-- he could not help but note the hypocrisy in not celebrating the time they had had, when they'd yet to weep on Feuilly or Bahorel's behalf, who were not here at all. When he himself knew he suffered the loneliness of being without Musichetta, and would not Marius be missing terribly his own song bird?

To assume the worst was to doom them all. And thus, back to Point A:

"Perhaps it is more forgivable to assume the best." Then they will have done no friend and no lover wrong in not mourning them, and could celebrate Courfeyrac properly. Just a thought.

Bossuet: OPEN

[bonjourguignon]

.:: 01 | YOUR FAVOURITE BALD EAGLE...! ::.

To lose yet another of their contracted numbers, particularly one so central to each and every one of them, brought more than a frown to Bossuet's face. It was an even deeper sort of sadness that plucked at his heartstrings than when he had first heard news of Jehan's disappearance just the month or so prior, but he would do his best to retain his tone at 'light and cheery,' and would even hold his sarcasm's tongue when in the presence of at least the few who looked all the worse for wear after the passing.

Courfeyrac had always been the warmth to their motley crew. His laugh had been one of greatest encouragement in a land where so many could not follow the rhythms of Bossuet's speech, and his smile the contagious sort that even L'Inspector must have succumbed to its unearthly powers.

So far be it from Bossuet to sully that last image with a sullen face, for how better to commemorate the man than with a sardonic smile and bawdy tales of the man's pursuits beyond?

"I envy him, I do," one might overhear the Frenchman drawl. "To be sure, the god who has plucked Reynaud from our sides has better deeds for him to perform elsewhere, and provides him his pick of the flock! As though he needs any help in that endeavour...!"

Taking a sip of wine to wet his throat, and pausing dramatically in thought. "Though I will have it be said that if punishment were his crime instead, no doubt it would be due to the travesty of garments that he has bequeathed upon poor Marius in his absence! That I would have the preference, but alas, Pontmercy wins out once more."


.:: 02 | ... IS NOT A HAPPY CAMPER. ::.

Because Courfeyrac had always been such a constant source of comfortable energy, everything seemed a little dimmer without him there, every memory that resurfaced was tinted with a melancholy Bossuet was not sure he had ever experienced before.

"M'sieur Braun, you will have trouble taking that icebox with you if Reynaud could not even take his new fashions with him," Bossuet mumbled to himself as he finally slowed his imbibing and instead carefully nursed the next glass of liquor -- he had lost track of what it was he drank now, and it smelled foreign, tasted strange. It had been refilled once too many, and the man was beginning to fall into that drearier place from which he knew men to descend and never return.

"I cannot recall the last time he had given up such new purchases without a fight, and Death here does not seem to reveal more than the barest of scuffles..."

He could not help but wonder if this was how Grantaire traversed the world always, in this fuzzy haze, without a warm light to pinpoint the way and return the brighter humours to his lips.

[jondrette]

Eponine had laid claim to some of Courfeyrac's clothing. Right now, she wore a hat and scarf of his in memorium, and drank even more liberally to try to forget. Her beloved Courfeyrac, gone. They had been courting, as she had now told many. Courting in a strange sort of way that was not courting at all. In truth, they just kissed and spent time together, and she fancied him. he did not love her, and she did not love him. It was a rather tragic existence, but it got her kisses and splendid hats.

And how Courfeyrac was gone.

As was Javert.

And, as she learned, looking at her wine glass, was her wine.

"I have his hat! And his scarf! Do not forget that, my dear Bossuet!"

[bonjourguignon]

"Ah, it is no surprise that Reynaud's belongings which are Marius's belongings are soon also dear Éponine's! You all do love to tease me so with your smaller frames, your slimmer necks, your daintier toes!"

Cheered, Bossuet would be grabbing the nearest bottle and refilling her glass for her, topping himself off and presenting it all to a toast. "To every set of dainty toes Reynaud had the pleasure of worshipping!"

[jondrette]

"Dainty toes!" She laughs, raising her glass before coming to perch on his lap. Why not? She was drunk, he was friendly, and her need for affection ran deep.

"Perhaps you will worship mine some day!"

Re: Bossuet: OPEN 2

[solo_patria]

"It IS a travesty at that." Enjolras tried to joke, and failed rather badly on the end of that. He looked about as worse for wear as anyone, though he'd been through only a few glasses of wine compared to some of the others. "He was rather fond of..." And then he stopped that line entirely, shaking his head, but stepping close enough to lay a hand upon their eagle's arm.

"I do not even begin to ask how you are in this. Too obvious for all of us, I think. But if you would speak, I can listen." He could do little else but offer that now, even though it may not bring the same comfort as speaking to Combeferre actually might, and was certainly no replacement for Courfeyrac.

[bonjourguignon]

"Ah, Enjolras! You are the man to speak for a man who no longer can." Putting his own hand roughly upon the one at his arm, squeezing reassuringly, and gesturing perhaps a little more wildly than normal to offer their chief a seat.

"It is difficult for us all, you are right in so saying, but we must persist! He would prefer it that way, to be sure, and I will speak if you will listen, just as I hope you will speak to have me listen. You knew him well, especially upon this plane, from whence he has disappeared. Tell me! Has he been as good as he once was, when we were all congregated back in Paris?"

But he answered his own question, with a bitter shake of his head. "Ah, but of course he would have been as good, for he is Reynaud, that rascal, and I do not regret saying that he won't be terribly missed. I am sure he is enjoying whatever place it is that he has flown off to -- for that is what happens to good men, they are taken somewhere grand! -- and he does better to be there than upon this godforsaken shell."

[solo_patria]

"Am I, at that?" Enjolras asked, taking the offered seat and trying to smile, especially as Lesgles mentioned what Courfeyrac would prefer. He did not think himself that he had very much to say now. Much of what he'd tried earlier was confused and jumbled and completely...well, born up in other things that had less to do with Courfeyrac than he had imagined and would not be appropriate just now. Instead, he focused on the question.

"Courfeyrac, and good?" He asked, letting a smile cross his face. "He was as always, yes. Better, for there were more people to embrace here than in Paris. I do suspect he will always be missed, but you are right that he must be enjoying himself quite a bit." At least if such a world as that were true. Enjolras did have his doubts, but now, if ever, was a time he wished he might believe in something else. "It does make me consider that the day all of us meet again will be a cheerful one indeed. And better he is there already, that we can be welcomed there."

If only he had the same faith. But the thought was nice all the same, so he would focus on that.

02

[fliesonfour]

"You speak to yourself, so one assumes you make good company." After all, with such a full room, to sit alone and chat only to one's lonesome would imply a hearty conversationalist.

Still, Joly delivered the joke with concern riding its edges and needling its way onto the lines of his face, as he sat down on the bench beside his bedraggled friend, until they touched shoulders. In that small contact, the offer of comfort, though he felt certain Bossuet knew that they were all camaraderie together-- perhaps, then, just the reminder.

"Perhaps he has gone to the place that all his hats have traveled to first, eh? They await."

[bonjourguignon]

"I would certainly hope so, that one would choose to make use of it quite so often." Offering a lopsided sort of grin, and making room for him on the bench.

He could hardly hear the worry in that tone by that point in the night, but his subconscious would be far better aware and leaned more comfortably into that contact with a small sigh. It allowed for far more of that melancholy to melt, knowing that the gayest of them all sat shoulder to shoulder with him, gave him the springboard from which to return to a higher sort of spirit. Even so, his words would be tinged with a rueful sort of sound, hinted with that bitterness that his sarcasms usually fell just shy of, and perhaps a little of it might sting, for he may not hide his thoughts as wisely now.

"With his hats, indeed! He is a good friend, Theo -- and I say 'is' as though he still walks amongst us, for there is no saying that Reynaud has been lost from anything but this blasted shell, right? Much like those hats! -- and will do well where he has moved on to -- hats or no. It is likely Prouvaire simply summoned him, and as the kindest of us all, he has answered to the call most readily to ensure our little poet has a friend to remind him how to button up his own garments. Such selflessness! He deserves a prize, an honourable ceremony, for even in such a small disappearance (ah, for we mustn't call it death!), he takes no change to his golden heart! So we must remember: vita mutatur, non tollitur."

Pointedly: "And he is not like the hat."

[fliesonfour]

Joly let Bossuet to his ranting, and became comfortable at his new perch, making an auditory note here or there: 'Mm!' the agreement that Reynaud was not lost, 'Hem!' at the idea of Prouvaire summoning him, 'Eh' at the word 'death', as was truly more an inborn reflex than a reaction, by this point.

Then finally: 'Ah!'

"Ah, ah, ah: you say he is much like those hats, then you say he is not like the hat? Your metaphor is all tangled up, dear Eagle. Which hat is he like, and which not? I'd say he's more like The Collegian, and less like The Regent, in terms of hats. Less tall, but also less low and less wide, best with a merry sort of tilt. I can see such a light hat floating away on its own gaiety, surely. Well-- well? Explain yourself, Bossuet, how else can a man be 'much like' the hat, and 'not like' the hat?"

[saisamour]

The disappearance of Cosette had become bearable largely because of the influence of three people: M. Javert, M. Amon, and Courfeyrac.

M. Amon, because his guidance, companionship in the form of lessons, and the work at the clinic that had provided Marius with sufficient distractions. (And often Marius wondered: this was what it must be like, to have a father.) Courfeyrac, because he welcomed him into his home without question, like the fine brother he always was. M. Javert, because his nightmare, while admittedly horrific, revealed that Marius had not indeed perished in the barricades, as all had assumed, and that there was a life for him, waiting for him when he returns.

But the loss of these anchors, all in succession, sent him adrift into the ocean of gloom and plunged him into the depths of despair, and this time he believes he would never surface. Gone are the distractions, the boisterous laughter and familiar companionship, the constant reminder that he had been saved from the barricades and dragged into a world where Cosette is waiting.

All he wanted was to be left alone, where he can mourn their loss in private, but Enjolras had appeared at Courfeyrac's doorstep that evening to practically drag him towards said pub, and as he was too exhausted to protest, he followed.

He is currently moping in one corner, ignoring everyone else, staring at the nearby wall and wishing to be anywhere else but in this pub, in Keeliai, in a world suddenly dark and unfamiliar and unbearably lonely.

[solo_patria]

And Enjolras had simply done so on the basis of not wishing for Marius to be left alone at all just now. He'd not said much to him, but wanted him to be among the others, particularly because Enjolras himself had had the desire to isolate himself and knew the dangerous thoughts that came with it. And while he had lost many things, they were not the things Marius had.

At the moment, he is sitting silently beside Marius, aware of what a poor substitute he is being, but unwilling to let this friend who was so dear to Courfeyrac suffer more than he can. At the moment, he is offering a glass of wine, a single glass only, because he understands that no one should go to excess just now, but it may still relieve something.

"Marius." He nods toward that glass now, but says nothing more than that. There really is nothing, is there?

[jondrette]

GUESS WHO'S DRUNK EVERYONE! that's right, it's Eponine. She is... extremely drunk. Having previously abandoned Enjolras for more drinks, she soon found herself, for once, making good on a promise to return to him. Well, more particularly, she wanted to sit herself near her beloved. Which, holding a bottle (she did not recall which number it is) she does.

"Why, Marius!" She exclaimed, planting herself next to him, leaning against him in a way that she would not have were she a bit more sober. "You join us in our sorrow! See, Apollon? I have returned, as I said I would. I now sit here with you, a man who may yet be an elder brother, and you, my Marius, my most beloved friend! And we shall drink to our Reynard. To him!" She lifted her bottle up and drank before placing it back down on the table. The bottle wobbled, but remained upright. Eponine, however, was not quite so upright.

"I shall have you two dearest know that I should dispair greatly if you two ever left. Enjolras, my confidante, and Marius- oh, you must recall all I confessed to you, as I lay dying- I will tell you now that I should gladly take another bullet for you, if such a thing were to happen. Why! Perhaps for all of you! I care for you all. It is a tragic thing, the loss of our Reynard. And we should hope that we all remain together." Mostly just her and Marius.

[saisamour]

Marius is thankful that Enjolras doesn't speak, and for once the silence isn't awkward. There are many times that he and Courfeyrac understood each other without words being spoken, and he thinks that this echoes those moments, in a sense.

But then Eponine comes in like a wrecking ball and shatters the quiet moment, and Marius is reminded of someone else not unlike her. Grantaire. Another who has left, and although Marius has never been as close to him as Courfeyrac, he does consider him a friend. So he finds himself echoing the very action he often defaults to whenever Grantaire is in an alcoholic haze.

That is, to say, nothing at all.

He casts an indifferent glance at her before his gaze drifts to the offered glass, and takes a small, unenthusiastic sip. After a moment he realizes that he should probably say something, so he says, while keeping his eyes on the way the red wine catches the warm light of the bar, "You are drunk."

At least he hasn't shrugged her off yet.