And here's the second update. Hope you're all well!
The sheer foolishness of the act of putting one putain foot in front of the other while standing up straight and being half convinced that one man - one worm and slug to the mighty and the great and the good - one singular and particular Grantaire was at any moment quite in danger of stopping to do something so utterly un-Scaramouche-like as to weep faded as he stepped out of the cafe. There was a small area for the outcasts and pariahs of social circles to gather and drink their coffees in peace, pretending each man to have very important Parisian business to attend to elsewhere, which was why he was being so very unFrench as to be on his own with a singular seat in the chill of the early Spring air.
The man and worm and whatever else he was, the outcast and the lost soul, the forbidden and banished Grantaire and winecask settled slowly into one of these chairs for his breed of man and hugged both arms around his ribs. He was too tired to be anyone new or splendid, anyone who could prove to Enjolras that this single, mortal, fallible, broken thing of a human being was worth any more than the wreck Enjolras could see. He was nothing except the approximation of the man behind the man who was called Grantaire. An old and tired and very very cracked and fractured man. Perceval.
Dieu, my ribs hurt. The thought was going around and around his head. Never ceasing, just the endless circle of pain. Pain pain pain, and dieu, amis... what a fool I am. Dieu amis, what a waste I am. Dieu, amis... let me have a drink, amis... my ribs hurt and I can't breathe.
"Perceval?"
It was still hard to realise that Maurice was talking to him when he said that, so Grantaire took a few minutes to look up, and then winced at the worried look on Joli's face. Ah. Yes. Merci, mon cher Harlequin. Here to check on your ami Scaramouche, are you? Well, I'm sorry, Harlequin. There's no one here but a useless old sot who lost all his faith more years back than he can remember. Look at me, Harlequin - attacker of the Cause and damned soul... damned lost soul... Harlequin, there's nothing here for you. "...made a fool of myself, didn't I?"
Maurice sat down and shook his head. "No, no. Enjolras did, not you." A pause, and Grantaire could see the unfortunate possibilities of that statement running through Joly's particularly nervous but certainly agile brain. "I mean... made a fool of himself, not made a fool of you - you know?"
I'm sorry, cher ami, are you asking me to state for the record that I think Enjolras made a fool of himself? Really? "He's... very... passionate." Dieu, he's everything I'm not. Can't you see that, Harlequin? Do you need your glasses checked over? Can't you see just how passionate and true and fine and god-like he is? Like a white fire fit and set to clean out the world if we worms and cynics believed the world could be cleaned.
"Well, yes. One can't help but give him that," Maurice said, then proceeding to perform a rather awkward and obvious subject change. "How're your ribs?"
My ribs? My soul? My heart, mon ami? Why do you bother a dying man with questions to his health? Not that I am dying, of course, but dieu, I wish I were. He leant forwards and rested his head against the table. "...feels like demons are raking them with tiny little pitchforks. Fiery pitchforks. Hurts to breathe."
"Hey," stout and brave Daniel slipped out of the cafe to join the outcasts beyond the world of the Cafe and forestalled Maurice's fretting.
If only for a little bit, for there... yes, now he's looking at us with those damn eyes and... "Oh that's not good at all," he says, and thank you. Now I can't even point out the yes, M. Joli, kind M. Joli, I did know that it's not good because you've gone and turned those eyeson me and I can't!
Possibly a good thing that, eh mes amis? After all, god knows I've made enough enemies for one day. I'd like to keep the few friends I've got left, though heaven and the blue skies and all the pretty little birds only know why you still want me.
"Ribs playing up, are they?" Daniel sat down - miraculously not tripping over anything and gave a kind sort of grin. "I told you not to come."
"You shouldn't be up and out of bed at all..." Maurice added. And yes, they'd said not to come. Each of them had said not to come. Even Alexandre had repeated it rather bluntly several times with an exasperated look on his face.
Well, fine. I give up. You were right. He gave a groan and nodded against the table. "Agreed... didn't do much good, did it?"
Am I dragging you down too, amis?
"Not at all," for a moment he thought Maurice was somehow through strange and freakish gemini powers answering his thoughts before he could even consider speaking them aloud, but then he realised it made more actual logical sense that Maurice was simply replying to the words he had actually spoken out loud. Never let it be said that we are constrained by the laws of logic, my very very dear table. Not when illogic is so much more comforting. Maybe that's why Combeferre is so angry with me. It seemed more than likely that Combeferre could just tell when someone was going to think something like 'illogic is more comforting' and was prepared to smite them beforehand with the power of his fearsome glare and dieu, I'm not even making any sense in my own head, am I? Maurice was biting his lip and looking worried. "Daniel, how are we even going to get him back to the apartment now?"
"I'd call a cab, but Dom took my last ten sous."
With which we get the double blow of being reminded how putain poor we are and what a putain burden that is for you lads and get to think about Bahorel as well. Bahorel and Courfeyrac and what the hell I've done to them recently because I can't think of a damn thing, mes amis... not recently anyway.
"I didn't even think you had that much in your pocket," Maurice said rather indignantly. "You shouldn't have paid him!"
"I owed him. He asked... couldn't say no." Daniel said it quite simply, as if that concept of paying back a debt when asked was the most obvious thing in the world.
Maybe it was. It was also the most obvious thing in the world, wasn't it chers? M. Grantaire's just no good to Bahorel and Courfeyrac when he's sober and serious. He's just no use to them anymore when he's not their own personal clown. "...looks like I'm no use to them anymore, doesn't it." His voice came out cold and blank, and a bit too soft, for neither Maurice nor Daniel seemed to notice.
Joli was arguing the point with his twin. "You could have considered it a tax on his being such an ass..." and here progressed a sort of concerted searching of pockets and turning out of wallets and scratching of heads before Daniel sighed and Maurice made a disgruntled noise. "I don't know if I have enough either."
"I can tax people for being asses?" Daniel asked with a grin, putting his threadbare wallet back in his pocket. "Damn. I'll make a fortune out of Enjolras alone!"
Maurice gave a surprised laugh. "Yeah..." and then he looked in the man Grantaire's direction. "Don't listen to what he says about being useless, really..."
Merci, ami. That will make all the difference in the world that will. Just tell me not to pay Enjolras any heed, eh? That will work. He tried on a smile and felt it wilt at the edges. "I'll try. He's always so sure of himself. Dam' convincing." Y'hear him, ami? I'm the disappointing man. The one who holds you all back from the paradise he leads you to.
"That's the truth," Maurice said with a sigh, once again seeming to answer thoughts - except not so reassuringly this time.
"...well... I'd ask 'Ferre for help, but he's obviously lost all sense today as well. Whole dam' world's gone mad." Daniel said, leaning back in his chair and sticking his hands in his pockets with the air of a man ready to wahc his hands of the entire human race. His Joli, of course, nodded along in agreement, and here we are, mes amis. Gathered outside the hallowed grounds of the Republic and having our own little revolution against the powers that be. Enjolras really should be proud.
"Well," he said softly, Scaramouche amused and the man Grantaire simply tired of being full of irony all the time. Irony - despite how hard you could laugh if there was enough wine and your ribs weren't broken - hurt. "Dominic owes me money. Maybe I should ask him for it."
It was something of a joke, that. Something of a 'hey, he wont' even talk to me, how much money do you think I could get out of him' joke, but Maurice grinned like it was the best idea he'd heard in a while. "Oh, that'll go over well."
"Hey... that would be rather amusing, Perceval," Daniel gave a laugh.
Maurice folded his arms. "I'd like to see him try to say no."
"Be a bit hard to in front of me, now, wouldn't it?"
It was amazing how they could do that. This smooth conversation like they had grown up talking like this and would always talk like this. Like they knew what the other was going to say before the words had left their mouths, and were simply continuing the thought for their twin 'in case you'd forgotten to think this, ami'... Grantaire the man and Scaramouche the father and all the fractured pieces of Perceval in between, watched in amazement and awe.
"Especially..." and a beatific grin spread over Maurice's face. "Since he still hasn't lost that bruise. I don't think I ever told you how amazing that was."
"It was nothing, cher." Daniel went red, and Grantaire took a moment to recall... oh yes. Someone had mentioned at some point that M. Pedrolino had punched one M. Bahorel on the chin. And yes, a fine, fine bruise, monant
Fine enough to bring a grin to his own face, albeit a small one. "Oh yes, I heard about that. Good for you, Pedrolino."
"Don't seel yourself short like that," Maurice said firmly, petting his twin's hand. "You were wonderful."
One of these days, Grantaire thought, he was going to have to tell them that they looked like an old married couple when they did that.
"Well, he had it coming. An' if you'd have told me what it was 'Ferre said to you the other night, he'd have had it coming." And here Daniel Lesgle flexed muscles which he obviously had, but just as obviously no one else had suspected he did.
Maurice grinned. "It wasn't really all that terrible."
"If you say so."
"Tell the truth, I really don't remember what it was. I hope I didn't say anything too terrible back."
Considering the caustic, hyperactive, strangley buzzing mood Maurice had been in, Grantaire somewhat doubted that the enigmatic Eugene Combeferre had managed to escape without being bitten by the sharp-toothed lamb.
A chuckle from Daniel confirmed that he wasn't the only one who suspected so. "Well... he looked remarkably chastened when he came out. Don't tell me you forgot getting an apology from Eugene, ami."
"Unfortunately, I think I may have done just that. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll have occasion to apologize again, but when I'm properly conscious."
Maurice chuckled then, and Grantaire was filled with the almost comforting notion that maybe he wasn't the only one out of the three of them who sometimes felt like there wasn't a single person int the world who took him seriously. Though... oui, it would be nice to have a twin like Daniel... but...
Somehow this wasn't quite as lonely as before.