unmocked_lawr --> wouldyoulikemyhat, also considering going back to damned

[wouldyoulikemyhat]

No, I understand all too well! You liked the film well enough, so you decided to read the book again. You liked that well enough, too, and now the tour is in your city. And despite your so-called unending workload, you've still found the time to get me a new account and a new face.

None of this surprises me. We both know you've never had any sense of self-control. It is your dithering that I find exhausting. Make up your mind: either choose a damn game or don't. It makes no difference to me, so long as you stop going on about your many and varied [lip-curl] feels.

Comments

[inseine]

Three too many of us, [Javert spouts reflexively and indifferently, knowing full well that the man was musing aloud to himself and not necessarily making any direct chatter with him.] The other one knows several years too little. He may end differently with his dash of piousness. Who is to say?

[Javert can respect that differentiation, but he notes the concerted effort with a pinched, humorless, tight-lipped grin. It is almost appreciative.]

So convince her to stop her pussyfooting. Or find yourself a useful mystery. Like here. You might start with investigating this 'multiples' nonsense. [sidelong, meaningful glance.] If the third one does not reach his wit's end attempting the same.

[wouldyoulikemyhat]

[Wryly:] I've met him, and the dash of piousness. I wonder where he came by it.

The mam'selle is remarkably resistant to common sense. It's a pity I've no jurisdiction here. I can only shout at her as it is, and that grows tiring after a while.

[A humorless smile.] I suppose he's bound to find out eventually.

OH DEAR this tag escaped me - Accept my apologies!

[inseine]

Of course. He can deduce well enough, can't he? Just leave me out of it when it occurs.

[Resigned, with a pinched expression on his face. It's an irritating inevitability, that he's bound to run into this younger alternate with his own name at a later time.]

Normally I would not mind so much. If the... [his mouth forms the word as if he were masticating around a mouthful of manure] questions would not come after.

As for the case of your jurisdiction. Well. You don't intend to take that up again, anyway. [He examines Javert closely.] Or do you?

No worries! I've been a bit slow lately myself.

[wouldyoulikemyhat]

He should hardly be worth his name or rank if he didn't hound us. [This delivered with a wry twist of his thin lips. It's a strange thing to find his own persistence so irritating.

He is silent for a moment. What he intends to do, indeed. It's a difficult question, and one he's not entirely worked out for himself just yet.]

I don't know yet. [His tone of voice is grudging, but the admission comes easier than most. If he can't confess it to himself, after all, whom can he confess it to?] It's an awkward business. You know that. It would be--easier to learn another trade for the time being.

[The caveat, of course, being since when did we ever do what was easy. But he leaves those words unspoken for now.]

[inseine]

[Unspoken as they are, Javert hears the communique loud and clear. They echo in his own mind. He offers the barest of grins.]

Manual labor. Tavern-keeping. Perhaps tilling the fields. Those would be the easier occupations, the rest take considerable training.

Or it may never come up. No cause for alarm. Yet. [Unless outside pressures box them into something for which they no longer feel they are qualified.]

By the way, I am curious. Did you manage to save anything in your pockets after the fall?

[wouldyoulikemyhat]

Precisely. Simple work. But there is nothing wrong with that.

[A smile that borders on a grimace.] I have a feeling it will. But I intend to resist for as long as I can. [There is, after all, no point in doing a job when one can no longer carry out one's duties in good conscience.

At the other's question he pauses for a moment. The thought honestly hadn't occurred to him. He jams his hands into his pockets and, after a moment's rummaging, produces a crumpled handkerchief and a small snuffbox. Discarding the handkerchief in favor of the snuffbox, he flicks the lid open and inspects the contents.]

Irrecoverable, I'm afraid.

[It's a little absurd to feel put out about this of all things, but there we are.]