clayforthedevil | Photographs and Memory

Bahorel stops by Feuilly's room not too long after the weekend he can't remember, a small paper packet held lightly in one hand. He's in a fairly thoughtful mood, so he knocks extra loudly.

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Feuilly is feeling a little cautious these days; instead of calling out a Come in, he gets up to answer the door. "Oh! Hullo, Bahorel. I was just making coffee--want a cup?"

"Ask me again in five minutes." Feuilly may want to retract that invitation. But Bahorel comes in enough to shut the door behind him behind holding out the little paper-wrapped packet.

"I took some photos, before everyone else grew back up. Jehan would have skinned me if I didn't try--I didn't know if any of them would turn out. once we all changed back. But they did. These are yours, if you want them; yours if you don't, too, get rid of them or whatever you like."

It's just a couple of Jeannot sleeping, a couple more where Jean had, in his usual restless sleep,thrown himself over into Jeannot's mattress, and one where in a really impressive maneuver Jean managed to herd Jean-Sebastien into the same mattress, too.

Edited Date: 2016-04-23 12:56 pm (UTC)

He raises his eyebrows and takes the packet. Bahorel is being--sensitive? It must be serious.

Feuilly's face stills a bit at the explanation; he goes back to the motions of making coffee before looking over the photographs. Is that really him? Him after Joly had come along, insisting on baths and food and combed hair. Even after all that there's traces of paint on his face. And the pinched look of long-running hunger. "Thank you for bringing them," he says after a few moments. "Do you want some coffee?"

Enjoy it for the moment it lasts, Feuilly! He nods at the repeated invitation, still quiet for a moment. "Combeferre's seen one- my mistake when I'd sorted them all." Fair warning. But he grins after it. "--You should have seen his face when he saw his own."

Feuilly pours out two cups, passes one over. He's still thinking. But not annoyed: he smiles slightly at Bahorel. "I'm just surprised more of you don't remember it all. --But really. Thank you for bringing these. I don't--"

He leafs through them again, still needing time for thought. "--Wasn't there--I remember we were playing with a, a tablet, Joly's tablet. Making pictures and videos. Did you find that?"

Bahorel's answering grin is sheerly delighted. "No. Oh, you'd have heard about it from me if I had! I didn't even know to look." He shakes his head, and takes his flask out of his still waistcoat pocket (still black; still all in black), pouring what's definitely brandy into his coffee while he tries to remember.

But--"I still don't remember a minute of it. If I hadn't seen you all still children, I'd think it was all a very good joke." Really! It would be very impressive. He holds the flask out to Feuilly, not sealing it yet.

Edited Date: 2016-04-23 02:41 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head absently--no thanks, no brandy for him just now. "Well--who knows, we might have managed to delete it. Or maybe Joly will find it."

Feuilly meets his gaze with a sudden rueful smile. "I wouldn't have chosen for this to happen. I'm not--ashamed--of this." He taps the pictures. "I'm not ashamed of that boy. But you know there are things that you want to--to keep private--from before coming to Paris. But it happened, and it turned out all right, here--we all made some friends, didn't we? When we were suddenly young again?"

His smile turns into a bit of a grin.

It's a good grin. Bahorel returns it in kind. " You know more than me! --If you were ashamed of him, I'd shake you." He would, too. "I may not be the most secretive of souls, between you and me." Shock! "But some things aren't for people who weren't there, I know that." He takes a sip of his coffee and nods to himself.

And, because he's really not a very private person. he adds "-- It was my brother. You said I was looking for someone? I put it together, and poked Joly about it. He'd have been-- Hah, oh, five. Just." There's no great tragedy in saying it;there are surely people who grew up without any deaths in their family, but Bahorel never knew them in his lifetime. "Figured it out in good time, too, Jehan would never have talked to me otherwise. Seems I recruited half our merry crew into looking for him. So possibly we all did all right by ourselves." Another sip. I"m sorry I don't remember it."

Yes. Some things aren't for people who weren't there. Feuilly nods as well--and nods again when Bahorel explains about his brother. "Five. That's hard." A five-year-old is a pretty much a real person to another kid: you miss that person, the way it's hard for a child to miss a baby, no matter how devastated the adults are. (Mère Lucenay had cried over every one of the infants she'd nursed who hadn't lived. Some of it was a sense of duty, maybe, but it's a kind of duty that Feuilly can respect. As he can respect a young boy searching fairyland for a dead brother.)

But he's smiling a little now, at Bahorel. "No, well, I'm glad I do remember. And yes, we--we did all right by ourselves, I think. It wasn't just us, of course. I mean--I'm sure you've run into other people who it happened to. But I met Harry Percy--and that Jim, that Moriarty."

A real person, and a real loss- but one twenty years gone, and familiar in its way now. But yes--he would have torn the place apart looking for his brother at ten. He can believe that; he would hardly expect anything else. But now is now, and he's mostly glad he doesn't seem to have run over any of the others in the job.

He starts to grin properly at the mention of Harry--that's a meeting he wants to hear about!-- but frowns skeptically about Jim. "--That ass who tried to burn down the stable?" Yes, he saw the notice--and if he hadn't, still, some gossip carries.

Edited Date: 2016-04-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Right, that ass. I'm not sure what exactly he meant to do," Feuilly says, sobering. "Send a message of some sort. But he didn't take much trouble not to burn down the stable. Bahorel--take this as you will, but I'd tell any friend of mine to leave him alone. No, I know, I can't usefully say that to you. But don't trust him? Not anything that he says, anything."

They've known each other in circumstances that make that a warning to take seriously, as it's made. "--And I saw you grinning. Harry and I went and caught frogs in the lake. And that's not a, a euphemism for anything, so for God's sake don't try to make it one."

Ugh, that sort. No nerve for the truth. He makes a disgusted expression that has nothing to do with his coffee--and then cracks up at the unexpected reprimand over Harry. "You were ten! Do you think me entirely indecent?--Of course you do, and it's very flattering. --No, no, I'm glad of it. Would have done the knights of old a world of good to spend more time catching frogs, no euphemisms at all, I'm sure of it." He is! And he wants to know more.

But he turns serious long enough to ask "-- did he say anything?" Moriarty; his tone is obviously nothing to do with Harry now.

Feuilly would correct him if he read minds: he doesn't think Moriarty lacks nerve for the truth, just that he has his own agenda. "He didn't really. He has something against Harry Percy--and Monmouth, too--but I gather he doesn't consider it much of an effort to set an explosive, any more than some men in Paris consider it much of an effort to cut a throat for the sake of someone's purse."

No, he's not going to share Moriarty's relationship commentary with Bahorel. In fact, he regrets bringing it up at all; there's no way for Bahorel not to take a warning as a challenge, and no way to make him want to leave a problem alone for someone else. "It's nothing that's worth your time, anyway," he says, a last effort, and then drops the subject, picking up the pictures again. "Really--thank you for bringing these. But it's--it's all right. I guess I'll keep one, but you can have the rest if you want."

Bahorel's idea of Truth here is something perhaps a bit different, and more annoyingly dramatic, than Feuilly's thinking of. But it's probably not worth spending time, or the debate, on Jim, no. "That I believe." In Paris, it would be different, but here? " One more ghost.-- Take whichever ones you like. I'll keep the rest a while, if you really don't mind." He laughs. "If you really don't mind, you should talk to Joly, let him know you aren't having any delayed growth spurts or getting spots or whatever dread fate he thinks is lurking." Joly being Joly is hardly dire. Still.

Edited Date: 2016-04-23 09:41 pm (UTC)

"That I mind. Go ahead and tell him you've seen me and I look all right, but I'm still staying out of his way until something more interesting comes up. A growth spurt sounds useful, though."

He looks through the pictures again and sets aside two to keep: one of just himself, sleeping, and the one where several of the boys had managed to pile themselves together in their sleep. "--No, but I shouldn't avoid Joly. He and Lesgle were very kind. Were good friends," he amends. "They were good friends."

" Oh, they were probably kind, too. Terrible habits people fall into." Scandalous, really. "-- Does Harry remember any of it?"

Feuilly smiles. "Some, yes--not very well, I think. He was impressed with my frog-catching. And--oh, he and Harry Monmouth took Duncan out for a ride and fell off, and he broke his arm..."

You know, all about what you'd expect.

And since then, Harry has written a letter to his family--to his unmet son--for Monmouth to deliver, a thought that makes Feuilly bite his lip in fond memory. But that's private to Harry.

"Ah, another horse theft? He's becoming quite the brigand; you're keeping dangerous company." Bahorel approves! "--Did Monmouth get hit with it too?" There's someone he won't tell about his own forgetfulness--or maybe he will, to see what he makes of it.

"He did. I didn't see him--haven't seen him since. I think he went back to his world as soon as it wore off."

A keen observer, or anyone with an eye or an ear, will notice Feuilly's lack of enthusiasm for the topic. "They were very good friends. Thick as--horse thieves."

Unenthusiastic, sure, but apparently wanting to say something all the same. " --Maybe the good king hadn't quite become himself yet by then. There's the remains of a person about him." Hmm. Unless--"Or d' you mean now, after they've come back to themselves?"

Come on, Harry. Have better sense than that.

Edited Date: 2016-04-24 03:52 pm (UTC)

"He's the only person from Harry's world here," Feuilly says defensively. "I can't--I don't want to, to cut that thread. But reading about Monmouth's campaign in France--! Maybe you know all about it--I only looked it up recently--"

Until Harry came back from Agincourt, Feuilly had been avoiding studying that particular bit of history too closely. After their argument, he dived right into the books. "But of course--I don't know how things go in this Monmouth's world, it could be different--"

Bahorel nods. " The Shakespeare's different, a bit. Monmouth--" Bahorel shrugs. "For a king in a war he was...fair. Given that he decided on the damn thing, and all."

His smile is more than a little amused."--You know you don't have to like him. You don't want to scold Harry for friendship, that's smart and it's right; but you can flat hate the bastard, if you want. I won't scold."

"I haven't read the Shakespeare. I don't plan to."

He'd been looking down at his hands; when he looks up and sees Bahorel's amused smile Feuilly straightens up and scowls. "Oh, believe me, I know I don't have to like him. Come on, Bahorel, do you think I'm that--that far gone? Christ, I don't need you to tell me I'm allowed to hate him. --Does Shakespeare talk about Rouen? The siege? I don't know, maybe it's common knowledge, maybe it's something they cover in school, maybe you know all about it. I hadn't known, and it's--God, the poor turned out to starve in that ditch around the city walls, with Monmouth's army watching on one side and the men inside the city watching from the other side-- oh, Monmouth gave them food on Christmas, and then it was back to starvation again--"

He scrubs his hands through his hair. "That came later than Azincourt, so I doubt Harry knows about it. I don't think he even knows about killing the prisoners at Azincourt."

Edited Date: 2016-04-25 12:23 pm (UTC)

Bahorel wasn't even considering Feuilly as Far Gone, just generally a crushingly decent and fair-minded man. That immediate denial of an accusation he wasn't even making is pretty funny, though!

But the answering grin disappears as Feuilly goes on, and turns into a scowl as Bahorel tries to remember-- ugh, school. "--The Shakespeare wouldn't answer your questions, anyway. School--" What did he learn in school alone, not reading on his own?" "--wouldn't have told you much. At least not the one I went to; if it wasn't Greek or Roman or Grand Royal Triumphs, we didn't hear too much about it. Oh, of course we learned about terrible Henry, invader, and the names and dates of the main battles, but the details--no. And you can be sure I'd have remembered those!" Terrible murderous crimes committed by an Invading Tyrant? Bahorel would have drawn pictures. He'd have made plays. Very bad plays.

But that was then. " I've done enough reading since to know our Henry--the one in our histories, who isn't the fellow who comes by the Bar, really-- was something of a darling to the Church in his day. So maybe other teachers would have said more about it. But--" he shrugs. " Combeferre isn't wrong, about how little they really tell you, there, for all they talk--or who they tell you about. A few poor townspeople, not even soldiers?" He shrugs again, feeling it want to be a strike. " Hell! You know well enough who they wanted us to forget."

Damn the histories, anyway. He drums his fingers against his leg for a moment, mostly to make his hands unclench. "--I don't see how Harry would know any of it, either, unless he's looked it up since being here."

..Which doesn't seem the most likely, but it could have happened, sure.

"And Caen," Feuilly adds. "What the English did there--" He laughs tiredly. "Well, it was war, is what people say. As if that--"

Feuilly pulls his hands through his hair. "So no, I doubt Harry knows, and I haven't brought myself to tell him." Which isn't like Feuilly, is it. Or he feels that it isn't, anyway. But setting up that dissent between Harry and Harry...or between himself and Harry...

He shakes himself irritably.

What to say, to people out of time; it's a question that keeps coming up, somehow. "--I'm not exactly throwing the news in his face either. It's not as if we're keeping secrets; he could ask anyone from later in our world, or go to the Library himself-- he reads." At least Harry can.

He's quiet again for a moment. Then, glancing over to Feuilly: "Do you want him to know?" It's a real question, no presumption one way or the other.

It's a real question, and it has Feuilly scrubbing his fingers through his hair again, until it all goes up in spikes. "I...wish that he had been brought up to ask the kind of questions that would tell him about it," he says finally.

That's really the heart of it, isn't it? Well--mostly? Because somehow, even though Feuilly can't quite understand or believe it, some people are able to ask questions of a war, ask questions about half the town starving to death in a ditch or two thousand men and boys executed after the city surrenders, and find the answers adequate. Harry--wouldn't be satisfied with it. Would he?