Jean Prouvaire gritted his teeth and climbed over the wall and dropped into Cosette's garden. She was sitting on a small stone bench picking all of the petals off a flower. (Rather barbarically, Jehan thought.)
"Oooh, hello again, Jehan."
Prouvaire sighed. "Good evening, Cosette."
Cosette giggled. "I've been getting gentlemen callers a lot lately."
Jehan smiled weakly. "Marius sure is an interesting fellow, isn't he?"
"He's dangerous and mysterious." Cosette informed him with a rapturous sigh.
"You know, he's also a little shy." Jehan said.
"Really?" Cosette gasped. Meeting with her behind her father's back so they could snuggle, didn't really strike her as being shy.
"Oh, very." Jehan said, feeling his cheeks begin to burn. 'Curse irony!' he thought. "In fact he's too shy even to read some speeches he's written in public."
Cosette gasped. "You mean those 'impassioned speeches' he wrote for the student rebellion he's the leader of?"
"Yes." Jehan nearly choked on the word.
"Do you think if I asked him, he'd recite one?" Cosette asked.
"Say, I hadn't thought of that! Why don't you ask him to recite one at about 3 tomorrow in the Luxembourg gardens?" Jean Prouvaire suggested quickly.
"What a great idea!" Cosette said, cheerfully. "I'll even ask my Papa to take me for a walk about that time. That way I can hear him myself."
"Are you sure-"
Cosette smiled. "I'm very sure."
Jean Prouvaire nodded mechanically, a smile frozen on his face. "Well then...I guess I'll see you later." He tried to sprint for the garden wall.
"Wait!" Cosette cried after him.
Jehan froze and slowly turned around.
"I liked how you metaphorically compared love and the sun in your poetry. You also have quite the way with imagery." She said smiling.
Jehan gave her a lopsided shy grin. "I like how you know the difference between metaphor and simile." With that, he swung himself over the garden wall and landed on the sidewalk below.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jean Valjean was grumbling as he took Cosette through the park. Why on earth she had insisted that she had to be walking around in the gardens at 3 o'clock precisely was beyond him. He frowned as he spied a knot of college students sniggering several yards away from another college student standing on a box.
"Shall we compare you metaphorically to Marius?" A slightly older student said, batting his eyelashes at a flustered looking student with light brown hair.
"Shhh!" A tall blonde student said firmly. "He's going to start."
A boy that Valjean recognized to be 'the boy' was evidently preparing to make a speech. A frown twisted Valjean's face.
Marius stood upon his small wooden box and cleared his throat. "Friends! Citizens all! We are now living in dark days, but there is hope on the horizon..."
A tall man with muttonchops came rapidly up. The students stopped their sniggering and started pointing with horrified looks at Marius. "Tell me, is this the troublemaker?" The man asked Enjolras.
"Yes, M. Javert." The young man said, nodding emphatically.
Javert snatched Marius off of his box by the earlobe. "Come with me, rebel scum." He turned to the group of students and nodded curtly. "Thank you for your information."
"My pleasure." Enjolras said smiling at Marius.
"Noooo!" Marius cried. "They are the Republicans!" He pointed at the Friends of the ABC frantically.
Bahorel gasped. "How dare you!"
Joly clutched his chest. "Liar!"
Marius looked panicked. "Courfeyrac, tell him!"
Courfeyrac averted his eyes from Marius's pleading glance.
"Jehan," Marius begged.
"I assure you sir," Jehan said to Javert, "you will find no bigger royalist in France than my father."
Javert gave the group a curt nod, and continued to drag Marius by the earlobe, until they were out of sight.
Valjean who had pulled his coat up to cover his face as Javert had gone by, grinned. The day was certainly looking up.
Cosette gasped and started to cry. "Poor Marius!" She sobbed. "Now we can't cuddle on our bench!"
"You can't WHAT?" Valjean cried. So much for the day looking up...
"I want my snugglebear!" Cosette cried dissolving into tears.
The students had turned and were watching Cosette and Valjean. The older student shoved the one with light brown hair towards the two.
"Here," he said laughing, "snuggle him."
Cosette began to sob into the younger student's jacket front.
"See? Prouvaire's very cuddly."
"Bahorel, I loathe you." Prouvaire said, looking embarrassed beyond all adjectives.
"Just how many college students have you been cuddling?" Valjean asked, rubbing his forehead.
"Just Marius." Cosette said, somewhat muffled by Jehan's coat front.
"And you are?" Valjean asked.
"Jean Prouvaire." Jehan shyly stuck out his hand around Cosette.
"He fell into our garden last week." Cosette said, still keeping a firm grip around Prouvaire. "And then he came and visited me yesterday, while I was waiting for Marius to come and cuddle."
Valjean looked sick.
Jehan looked sick too. "Please don't kill me." He pleaded. "Its all Marius's fault. He plagiarized my poetry and gave it to your daughter. Then he plagiarized Enjolras' speeches, and was just now..."
"You forgot the part where you beat the snot out of Marius for stealing your work and calling it mediocre." Bahorel said. "That's the best part."
Valjean suddenly liked this young man. "You beat the snot out of him, eh?"
"Jehan's very emotional." Cosette said. And he was kind of nice to hug, she thought.
"It was the mediocre comment." Jehan muttered.
"How old are you?" Valjean asked.
"Twenty-three."
"On good terms with your parents?"
"Usually."
Valjean chewed on his lip for a second. The image of Marius's all too curly locks came to mind. "Do you curl your hair?"
"No..." Jehan looked befuddled.
"Would you snuggle with a man's teenage daughter on his own bench behind his back?"
"Never." Jehan was not an idiot.
"Want to marry my daughter?" Valjean thought that this might be the easiest way to get rid of his wayward daughter...matrimony.
Enjolras' jaw dropped. "What?"
"Yea!" Cosette clapped her hands. "I get to marry my new snugglebear!" She squeezed Jehan tightly.
Jehan had turned an interesting shade of gray. "Joly, tell me, what does a heart attack feel like? I'm fairly certain I'm having one right now..."
"Well, how about it?" Valjean asked.
"Sir, I barely know Cosette." Jehan said, attempting to gently peel her off of his jacket front.
Enjolras frowned. "If Marius costs me one of my lieutenants," he began, in a tone that suggested he was about to orate.
"Oooh!" Cosette ran over and hugged the stuffing out of Enjolras. "You're the one who wrote those wonderful speeches!"
"Woman! Get off me!" Enjolras cried, struggling to get away from her.
"He's so masterful!" Cosette said snuggling closer to him.
"I can't believe she's hugging Enjolras." Bahorel said, wide-eyed.
"I can't believe she doesn't care that he's yelling like that." Joly said, stunned.
"I can't believe I'm jealous." Jehan said. Two minutes ago he would have given anything to have her stop hugging him.
Enjolras was trying to shake Cosette off of him. "Let go!" He cried. "I am most certainly not a snugglebear!"
Valjean went over and tried to drag Cosette away from Enjolras. "But I love him Papa!"
"You also claimed to love Marius and Jehan." Valjean said.
"Oooh, poor Marius. My poor, plagiaristic, errant, cuddle-puddle." Cosette's eyes filled with tears as she looked hopefully from Jehan to Enjolras.
Enjolras sighed. Apparently if he didn't somehow get Marius out of prison, either he or Jean Prouvaire would end up wedding Cosette. "All right, all right." He sighed. "We'll get your cuddl-I mean, Marius out of prison."
"Yea!" Cosette kissed him on the cheek.
"He's the one who wanted Marius sent to prison in the first place." Jehan said, sulking because he didn't get kissed.
Cosette slapped Enjolras.
Enjolras rubbed his cheek and gave Jehan a look. "He beat the snot out of Marius." He said pointing at the poet.
Cosette slapped Enjolras again.
"Ouch! What on earth are you slapping me for?" He asked rubbing his cheek.
"For wanting me to slap poor Jehan. After all, Marius did plagiarize his work." Cosette slapped Enjolras once again.
"For pity sake Woman, why did you do that?" Enjolras cried, stepping away from Cosette.
"I read those speeches you wrote and apparently you not only have a death wish for yourself, but also for your friends."
"Hit him again!" Combeferre cheered.
Everyone stared at him.
"Well...she's right you know." He mumbled.
"Enough of this nonsense!" Enjolras cried. "We are going to get Marius out of prison. He doesn't deserve to serve time for pretending to be one of us."
"Besides, if he steps out of line again, Jehan can handle 'im." Bahorel said, pounding his fist into his palm for emphasis.
Enjolras ignored that comment. "Joly, Jehan, Courfeyrac, I need you three to create some sort of diversion." Enjolras thought a moment. "And I need Bahorel and..." He continued droning on about his plan, but his friends were distracted.
Cosette was running around and hugged the Amis. "Thank you, and thank you, and thank you, and...you can stop hugging me now M. Courfeyrac, and thank you, and thank you!"
Valjean held his head in a vain attempt to soothe the throbbing pain that was centered behind his left eye.
"Marius has good taste." Courfeyrac said cheerfully.
"I met her first." Jehan pointed out.
"Enough!" Enjolras cried. "We have bigger issues at hand than Cosette." He frowned. "Now, lets go rescue Marius."
"If we must." Bahorel said with a little yawn.
"Yes, let us rescue our wayward plagiarist." Courfeyrac assented, and with that the group began to leave.
"As long as this plan doesn't involve going anyplace with mildew. Mildew makes my throat close off and my face swell up. I really cannot be exposed to mildew for anytime whatsoever." Joly said, rubbing his throat as he walked by Valjean.
"Can we leave him there?" Bahorel asked as they turned a corner and went out of sight.
Cosette looked up at her father. "Papa, shouldn't we try to help them somehow? We could get them rope, or maybe supply them with gunpowder, or maybe tell them that most jailbreaks are done in the evening, or..."
Valjean tousled Cosette's hair. "Now, child, come now. You're just a woman, what earthly good could you be?"
Cosette sighed. "Or maybe, I could sit at home, wringing my hands and perhaps work up a good swoon when the angst becomes too much for my feminine heart to bear?"
Valjean beamed. "That's my girl."
(Author's note: more to come soon!)
"Oooh, hello again, Jehan."
Prouvaire sighed. "Good evening, Cosette."
Cosette giggled. "I've been getting gentlemen callers a lot lately."
Jehan smiled weakly. "Marius sure is an interesting fellow, isn't he?"
"He's dangerous and mysterious." Cosette informed him with a rapturous sigh.
"You know, he's also a little shy." Jehan said.
"Really?" Cosette gasped. Meeting with her behind her father's back so they could snuggle, didn't really strike her as being shy.
"Oh, very." Jehan said, feeling his cheeks begin to burn. 'Curse irony!' he thought. "In fact he's too shy even to read some speeches he's written in public."
Cosette gasped. "You mean those 'impassioned speeches' he wrote for the student rebellion he's the leader of?"
"Yes." Jehan nearly choked on the word.
"Do you think if I asked him, he'd recite one?" Cosette asked.
"Say, I hadn't thought of that! Why don't you ask him to recite one at about 3 tomorrow in the Luxembourg gardens?" Jean Prouvaire suggested quickly.
"What a great idea!" Cosette said, cheerfully. "I'll even ask my Papa to take me for a walk about that time. That way I can hear him myself."
"Are you sure-"
Cosette smiled. "I'm very sure."
Jean Prouvaire nodded mechanically, a smile frozen on his face. "Well then...I guess I'll see you later." He tried to sprint for the garden wall.
"Wait!" Cosette cried after him.
Jehan froze and slowly turned around.
"I liked how you metaphorically compared love and the sun in your poetry. You also have quite the way with imagery." She said smiling.
Jehan gave her a lopsided shy grin. "I like how you know the difference between metaphor and simile." With that, he swung himself over the garden wall and landed on the sidewalk below.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jean Valjean was grumbling as he took Cosette through the park. Why on earth she had insisted that she had to be walking around in the gardens at 3 o'clock precisely was beyond him. He frowned as he spied a knot of college students sniggering several yards away from another college student standing on a box.
"Shall we compare you metaphorically to Marius?" A slightly older student said, batting his eyelashes at a flustered looking student with light brown hair.
"Shhh!" A tall blonde student said firmly. "He's going to start."
A boy that Valjean recognized to be 'the boy' was evidently preparing to make a speech. A frown twisted Valjean's face.
Marius stood upon his small wooden box and cleared his throat. "Friends! Citizens all! We are now living in dark days, but there is hope on the horizon..."
A tall man with muttonchops came rapidly up. The students stopped their sniggering and started pointing with horrified looks at Marius. "Tell me, is this the troublemaker?" The man asked Enjolras.
"Yes, M. Javert." The young man said, nodding emphatically.
Javert snatched Marius off of his box by the earlobe. "Come with me, rebel scum." He turned to the group of students and nodded curtly. "Thank you for your information."
"My pleasure." Enjolras said smiling at Marius.
"Noooo!" Marius cried. "They are the Republicans!" He pointed at the Friends of the ABC frantically.
Bahorel gasped. "How dare you!"
Joly clutched his chest. "Liar!"
Marius looked panicked. "Courfeyrac, tell him!"
Courfeyrac averted his eyes from Marius's pleading glance.
"Jehan," Marius begged.
"I assure you sir," Jehan said to Javert, "you will find no bigger royalist in France than my father."
Javert gave the group a curt nod, and continued to drag Marius by the earlobe, until they were out of sight.
Valjean who had pulled his coat up to cover his face as Javert had gone by, grinned. The day was certainly looking up.
Cosette gasped and started to cry. "Poor Marius!" She sobbed. "Now we can't cuddle on our bench!"
"You can't WHAT?" Valjean cried. So much for the day looking up...
"I want my snugglebear!" Cosette cried dissolving into tears.
The students had turned and were watching Cosette and Valjean. The older student shoved the one with light brown hair towards the two.
"Here," he said laughing, "snuggle him."
Cosette began to sob into the younger student's jacket front.
"See? Prouvaire's very cuddly."
"Bahorel, I loathe you." Prouvaire said, looking embarrassed beyond all adjectives.
"Just how many college students have you been cuddling?" Valjean asked, rubbing his forehead.
"Just Marius." Cosette said, somewhat muffled by Jehan's coat front.
"And you are?" Valjean asked.
"Jean Prouvaire." Jehan shyly stuck out his hand around Cosette.
"He fell into our garden last week." Cosette said, still keeping a firm grip around Prouvaire. "And then he came and visited me yesterday, while I was waiting for Marius to come and cuddle."
Valjean looked sick.
Jehan looked sick too. "Please don't kill me." He pleaded. "Its all Marius's fault. He plagiarized my poetry and gave it to your daughter. Then he plagiarized Enjolras' speeches, and was just now..."
"You forgot the part where you beat the snot out of Marius for stealing your work and calling it mediocre." Bahorel said. "That's the best part."
Valjean suddenly liked this young man. "You beat the snot out of him, eh?"
"Jehan's very emotional." Cosette said. And he was kind of nice to hug, she thought.
"It was the mediocre comment." Jehan muttered.
"How old are you?" Valjean asked.
"Twenty-three."
"On good terms with your parents?"
"Usually."
Valjean chewed on his lip for a second. The image of Marius's all too curly locks came to mind. "Do you curl your hair?"
"No..." Jehan looked befuddled.
"Would you snuggle with a man's teenage daughter on his own bench behind his back?"
"Never." Jehan was not an idiot.
"Want to marry my daughter?" Valjean thought that this might be the easiest way to get rid of his wayward daughter...matrimony.
Enjolras' jaw dropped. "What?"
"Yea!" Cosette clapped her hands. "I get to marry my new snugglebear!" She squeezed Jehan tightly.
Jehan had turned an interesting shade of gray. "Joly, tell me, what does a heart attack feel like? I'm fairly certain I'm having one right now..."
"Well, how about it?" Valjean asked.
"Sir, I barely know Cosette." Jehan said, attempting to gently peel her off of his jacket front.
Enjolras frowned. "If Marius costs me one of my lieutenants," he began, in a tone that suggested he was about to orate.
"Oooh!" Cosette ran over and hugged the stuffing out of Enjolras. "You're the one who wrote those wonderful speeches!"
"Woman! Get off me!" Enjolras cried, struggling to get away from her.
"He's so masterful!" Cosette said snuggling closer to him.
"I can't believe she's hugging Enjolras." Bahorel said, wide-eyed.
"I can't believe she doesn't care that he's yelling like that." Joly said, stunned.
"I can't believe I'm jealous." Jehan said. Two minutes ago he would have given anything to have her stop hugging him.
Enjolras was trying to shake Cosette off of him. "Let go!" He cried. "I am most certainly not a snugglebear!"
Valjean went over and tried to drag Cosette away from Enjolras. "But I love him Papa!"
"You also claimed to love Marius and Jehan." Valjean said.
"Oooh, poor Marius. My poor, plagiaristic, errant, cuddle-puddle." Cosette's eyes filled with tears as she looked hopefully from Jehan to Enjolras.
Enjolras sighed. Apparently if he didn't somehow get Marius out of prison, either he or Jean Prouvaire would end up wedding Cosette. "All right, all right." He sighed. "We'll get your cuddl-I mean, Marius out of prison."
"Yea!" Cosette kissed him on the cheek.
"He's the one who wanted Marius sent to prison in the first place." Jehan said, sulking because he didn't get kissed.
Cosette slapped Enjolras.
Enjolras rubbed his cheek and gave Jehan a look. "He beat the snot out of Marius." He said pointing at the poet.
Cosette slapped Enjolras again.
"Ouch! What on earth are you slapping me for?" He asked rubbing his cheek.
"For wanting me to slap poor Jehan. After all, Marius did plagiarize his work." Cosette slapped Enjolras once again.
"For pity sake Woman, why did you do that?" Enjolras cried, stepping away from Cosette.
"I read those speeches you wrote and apparently you not only have a death wish for yourself, but also for your friends."
"Hit him again!" Combeferre cheered.
Everyone stared at him.
"Well...she's right you know." He mumbled.
"Enough of this nonsense!" Enjolras cried. "We are going to get Marius out of prison. He doesn't deserve to serve time for pretending to be one of us."
"Besides, if he steps out of line again, Jehan can handle 'im." Bahorel said, pounding his fist into his palm for emphasis.
Enjolras ignored that comment. "Joly, Jehan, Courfeyrac, I need you three to create some sort of diversion." Enjolras thought a moment. "And I need Bahorel and..." He continued droning on about his plan, but his friends were distracted.
Cosette was running around and hugged the Amis. "Thank you, and thank you, and thank you, and...you can stop hugging me now M. Courfeyrac, and thank you, and thank you!"
Valjean held his head in a vain attempt to soothe the throbbing pain that was centered behind his left eye.
"Marius has good taste." Courfeyrac said cheerfully.
"I met her first." Jehan pointed out.
"Enough!" Enjolras cried. "We have bigger issues at hand than Cosette." He frowned. "Now, lets go rescue Marius."
"If we must." Bahorel said with a little yawn.
"Yes, let us rescue our wayward plagiarist." Courfeyrac assented, and with that the group began to leave.
"As long as this plan doesn't involve going anyplace with mildew. Mildew makes my throat close off and my face swell up. I really cannot be exposed to mildew for anytime whatsoever." Joly said, rubbing his throat as he walked by Valjean.
"Can we leave him there?" Bahorel asked as they turned a corner and went out of sight.
Cosette looked up at her father. "Papa, shouldn't we try to help them somehow? We could get them rope, or maybe supply them with gunpowder, or maybe tell them that most jailbreaks are done in the evening, or..."
Valjean tousled Cosette's hair. "Now, child, come now. You're just a woman, what earthly good could you be?"
Cosette sighed. "Or maybe, I could sit at home, wringing my hands and perhaps work up a good swoon when the angst becomes too much for my feminine heart to bear?"
Valjean beamed. "That's my girl."
(Author's note: more to come soon!)