dear_mun | because he'd really rather not exist as an idea, period.

They do have a way of making oblivion sound appealing.

There is no such thing as fixed. Not here.

Hello, Again.

[Yes, of course.

He hardly knows what to feel, bitten by a combination of gratitude and guilt, senselessness, shame, hope... Best to feel nothing at all. Best not to let it strike. Because time has passed and time is unthinkable, and there is nothing to be done, nor any way to enact erasure.]

It is fixed that we must linger, that we are denied silence.

Still.

You are here. I am-- That much, I appreciate.

Edited 2013-04-19 19:45 (UTC)

This mundane woman says that this place is what we make it. I am not quite sure what that means.

I... I do not appreciate this place. But, I do appreciate that I am not alone. That is the only thing... I think...

Then you have companions? Where you are? I do... I hope that you are well.

[And not alone. Enjolras had never needed much in the way of emotional sustenance, but he had also been surrounded at all times by his companions, fueled by some sense of solidity, of the force of human life found in fellowship. And Enjolras here, Enjolras now is undeniably altered. Seems somehow more in need of companionship, though the man who was and is Grantaire cannot determine why he feels that this is true.]

I am as well as I am going to be in a place such as this.

I have some companions. I am spoken to. You and I have spoken before, and some of Mes Amis do appear and disappear.

What of yourself? What does this mundane of yours do with you?

(ooc: Hope you don't mind a super minor book character.)
[Irma could have recognized that impossible face no matter the disguises it took. Still, it's quite the shock to see him like this. And she feels pity for him.]
They are quite the inopportune beings, the mundanes.

[A few months ago, he might not have recognized her, sunk as he had been in self-blinding. Now memories swim close, more present than past, and the recognition is instantaneous. Although he feels an inward sinking, he doesn't flinch.

Keep calm. For god's sake, keep calm, and don't... Don't make this more than it is.]

So I understand.

Mademoiselle Boissy. [There ought to be further words, but he cannot find them and doesn't dare to try. Leaving the phrase thus truncated, he regards her warily, uncertain of what might be said, what might occur, and what might crack further.

In this place, perhaps the only certainty is further discord, and the allure of his old habit becomes stronger with each encounter.]

((ooc: don't mind at all! could actually count myself quite thrilled. minor characters are fantastic; especially when they've such admirable embroidery skills, heh. am much intrigued by her, and all that she might be for you. HMMMM.))

Edited 2013-04-19 19:45 (UTC)

(ooc: indeed! I should write some of my headcanon for her soon-ish, but IMHO there had been "something" between these two. Whatever that something had been, it did not end well and thus it was why she declared him to be "impossible" not only in looks, but in his general self, even though it was only the "looks" part that a certain Mr Hugo recorded. - Also I must say that I am hugely in love with the concept for your muse.)

[She nods politely]
Monsieur Grantaire.

[She knew it, and yet, the confirmation makes her feel even stranger. She wants to ask out loud what happened to him. But the answer may be too obvious, and it's not what he needs now, being interrogated by a remnant of a past that haunts him. The fact that she declared him impossible before doesn't mean that she is not capable of feeling pity for him.]

And stubborn, even though they can also have their moments of mercy too, as few they might be.

Edited 2013-04-20 00:53 (UTC)

[Hearing his own name still brings a shock. It is his name, of course, and recently he has felt himself coming closer to it, but there remains a distance between his present self and who or what Grantaire had been.]

I've yet to see anything of mercy, though I should expect none.

[He doesn't know what to expect from her, either. Daggered words would have been no great surprise, but this sense of reserve, this... What is it in her eyes? Something that searches and something that sees, something that might bespeak pity. He had never been entirely clear on the workings of this woman, and now he finds her almost unreadable.

What is there to say?

This isn't perhaps as hard as seeing Enjolras had been (what possibly could be?), nor meeting Musichetta, but acknowledgement of this fact does little good. This encounter still sets him adrift. Still aches. And as he regards the situation, he realizes dimly that he has returned to his recently cultivated posture of stiffness.]

I am surprised to see you here.

[Probably not the best way to proceed. He has been having such trouble with words.]

Everybody deserves mercy.

[It had been a long time, or it seemed a long time, since they parted ways. (Better said since she went her own way.) and even though there was a small part of herself that was still bitter about the whole thing, it was not the time. The time would come later or not come at all, but not now.]

You could guess the surprise is mutual in this case, Monsieur.
[She replies in a polite manner. She's speaking about his military attire, among other things. Those things were making him be so... Unlike himself.]

So we tell ourselves. [But mercy is a mere idea, something wished for and seldom given. And when given, what good can it do? Time and action are irreversible. What has occurred cannot be undone. And memory cracked open cannot easily be contained again.

Those thoughts can be of little use just now, and he brushes them aside. Focus on the situation. Focus on her, uncomfortable though this may be, obscure though that tone of voice may seem. Courtesy, he has found (in no small part from the experience of the past year and a half), is often a careful cover, and he had never quite trusted it in her. That... That had been some time ago, but the memory remains.

What is she thinking.

And how is he to begin to grasp his own thoughts of this moment, or of her? Of who she might be now, and who she had been to him. Because there are images, impressions, aches and suggestion of once-pleasantness, but all is jumbled.]

And I suppose you must be.

You are-- You look well.

[These encounters are difficult. He continues to revert to these simple phrases, and it is moderately maddening, but what else is there to do?]

We tell ourselves many things. [She admits]
[She told herself once that he was undeserving of such mercy. That what he deserved was to suffer for what had happened between them. But life goes on and thus she moved on from the matter because a family's life doesn't have to depend on the whims of a lovesick girl.]
Thank you.
[She would like to say many things, do many things at the moment and yet...]
You look quite different.
[... That's the only thing she manages to say.]

[Raising his eyebrows, he allows her remark to stand for a moment before responding, voice touched with bitter amusement.]

I daresay that is an understatement.

[As he speaks, he feels a heaviness come over him. Weariness tied to some breed of oppression and a growing sense that there is much to be fought and little to fight for. How to begin to say... What even there is and how it catches to what was. He doesn't want to deal with any of this. He doesn't want to deal with anything. And a drink...

For the love of god. She is here, they have seen each other, and he cannot change that. Could walk away, but to what end? He cannot now forget, and she had ever been persistent; there is no telling what she might do. Better not to throw her off so easily. Better to hear out what may be said. Better to find... What, exactly? Some answer, some final condemnation, some... excuse?

Whatever it may be. Barrel on ahead, take your pains as they come.

He gestures toward a pair of chairs.] Would you care to take a seat, m'lady?

Proper, then: I am not cut for grandiose statements. Or anything grandiose, for that matter.

[That was you she wants to add. That is more you than the man that stands now in front of me. The man in front of her seems but the empty shell of what he was. But maybe, she thinks, maybe it was bound to happen.

But that doesn't mean she likes it. He deserved a fate kinder than this.]

Thank you. [She nods politely and goes to sit on one of them, waiting for him to sit by her side.]

[Proper. That was a word for it. A ridiculous and nauseatingly apt term that could be applied to the whole of the past year. No better place to forget than behind what is proper. No better place to abjure one's self. There is something behind the rest of her remark--and something, he feels, that is equally apt (and it's clear, it's clear, its sting is true)--but he allows it to pass. No doubt it will surface later in mind, revealing its unspoken implications.

After a moment he follows, shifting his chair to face her more directly before sitting down. It would be easier not to see her, true, but to avoid looking is to risk absenting himself from the moment. If he is to go through with this--this, whatever this is--he cannot allow himself so easy an exit (somewhere, he recognizes how hideously absurd it is that he must take such precautions).

He forces himself to look at her, attempting once more to truly see the woman who sits before him. Hard to find her in the shifting of presentness and jarred memory, amid attempts to understand this situation and her presence in it, to place himself, to set into order this whole mad mess.

But there is no order to it, and no sense in ordering. Don't you know? Didn't you know? Recall your own lessons, O proper one, and step back, let it be.

Focus. Focus. There must be words, another opening to stumbling conversation.] You're quiet.

[...for god's sake.]

Edited 2013-04-20 23:37 (UTC)

[And it's when he is looking at her that she cannot bear it and looks down for a moment, tears threatening to fall down her cheeks.
She feels like an utter idiot because of this. She wishes she could keep calm and understand. She wishes she could help him and yet she's there, almost a sobbing mess.]

It's not easy for me to find the right words to say at this moment.

[It's the truth. All the thoughts are piling in her mind, inopportune and noisy as hammers working full force. I've missed you so much. I thought you had died with your friends. I cried for you. I've missed you so much. I even mourned you. Even though you did not deserve it. What happened to you? Why are you like this now? I wish I could help you.

And yet none of them manage to get past her lips.]

I'm sorry.
[That's what she manages to say as a tear finally rolls down her cheek, even though she does her best to regain composure and not become the sobbing mess she feared she would become.]

Edited 2013-04-21 01:16 (UTC)

[No. No, that wasn't... He hadn't anticipated this. Perhaps he should have, perhaps recollection of her temperament and fancies ought to have suggested the possibility. He had overlooked it, however, and now she is obviously on the verge of tears, even pushing beyond.

Please, don't. Don't. That isn't what I intended. This isn't where we should be. Try to amend the situation. Try to ease her somehow, though there is no telling how or even whether that can be accomplished. Unspoken emotions are difficult, and he has never really known how to deal with them in women of her sort.]

No, I-- That was badly spoken. I apologize. I--

Please.

[He starts to move a hand toward her, then checks himself, drawing back. Just what would that accomplish? He doesn't have any right to touch her or receive her contact, nor is he certain that he could stand the sensation. The distance between them is safety, both for him and for her. Allow it to remain. There is no need for further pain.

As a concession, he leans forward with a mild relaxation of posture.] I am clumsy in speech, and there is no need.

[She doesn't want this to happen either. And yet it does happen. She's crying, even though it's quietly, only to be interrupted by some deep breaths of her trying to calm herself.]

It's not... [Calm down, Irma.] It's not your fault.

[It's simply that I am an idiot. Something happened with you and I am here crying because I feel useless. Because a part of me cries out to leave you here while the other says that I shouldn't be so heartless. And I don't know what is actually worse.

She wants to say that it is fine, that he can touch her. She even considers reaching him and taking his hand. But it's better that they stay like this. Or so she thinks.

And at last she manages to muster the courage to ask that question as she dries her tears]

What happened to you?

[Well-phrased, Mademoiselle. Miraculously, he manages to keep that thought from surfacing into speech; she is too clearly shaken, and he cannot deny that as bitter as the encounter is for him, it cannot be entirely pleasant for her. However they had parted--it hadn't been well, even by his standards--she had ever held to an undiscerning hope. He had found it maddening at the time, so far as he had given it any thought, at all (and what of that, and why? knowing more than you should like...).

By all rights, she ought to have given herself to enmity. But hope is an odd and ultimately unassailable creature (doesn't he know it well? cynic that he had ever professed himself to be, much as he has worked to finally smother the ever-faint flicker, it has never quite gone out; how much easier if it would!). Who can tell what traces may yet thread through the woman? And who can say what may have occurred in her life, in her being? She is a woman, a human, and life is not straightforward.

Especially now. (Or perhaps not. Why should this twisting be any more absurd than the rest? The world is mad, logic is a false front, and he can no more explain her or himself than he can the smile of a stranger or the utter destruction of the barricades. How little and how much it meant.)

She has stumbled into some tumult and been brought to tears. For that, at least, he owes an answer.]

I was drunk. Behind the barricade. And I slept...

[Still hard to come close to it or regard the situation at all, the loss of it the shame the good lord there might even be humor in it, the emptiness of oversight of not achieving what he might have welcome and--Finish it. Finish this much, at least.]

When I awoke, it was over.

Edited 2013-04-21 19:46 (UTC)

[Despite knowing him, it shocks her to hear it. That he had to suffer that much, knowing that his friends were dead. That his Apollo, that distant boy that R adored, was dead. And he had survived.
In a way, she understands that pain. Because she had gone through it. But things like this erase with time, and her pain... But he was back. Even though he was the shell of the man he had once loved. That she still loved.
This time she does lean forward and takes his hand between hers. He'll probably find her touch a bit too warm but she doesn't care.]
My poor R. [she manages to say, in almost a whisper.] If I had only known...

[He cannot.

As he registers the touch, burning and welcome and terrible, he withdraws his hand, standing abruptly and taking a step away from her. Maintain the distance. You cannot, you ought not-- He doesn't know how to understand that moment of contact, but its searing threatened to tear the world, and he cannot endure it. Can scarcely stand to remain, and for an instant he considers fleeing, following that impulse to leave behind what can't be helped and what she has said, the expression in her eyes and what any of this could yield could reveal could destroy--

His conduct is absurd.

He cannot say whether it is deep-grown instinct or his recent training, but something shakes him into recognition of the situation. That he has left her when she offered... Whatever it might be called. However passing it might be. He cannot simply break away. Not now, not anymore.

It is with a sharp effort of will that he regains his seat. Though he sits as far from her as he can, though he cannot look directly into her eyes, he forces himself to look toward her. Acknowledge somehow.]

I beg your pardon. [A shoddy-seeming effort, perhaps, but it was an attempt.]

It was my own doing.

There is nothing to mourn.

[Irma watches him with a sense of confusion and worry. She should not have done that.
But she did and that was his reaction. Maybe that'll teach her to be more careful.]

There's no need for you to beg my pardon.
[And she looks back at him, into his eyes. She does try to not show that it hurts. Come on, Irma. You are better than that. ]

But I did mourn you. And now that you are here... I wished I knew how to help you.

[He looks down, avoiding her gaze, grasping to keep hold of focus. Keep her away. Because nothing. Because nothing. What he knows is that there is no clarity and no great call to seek it. That there is no helping. But don't pull her down. Don't let her reach down. Those who can remain above the surface had best be left to life.]

Consider it ended. I am not as I was, and you...

[He moves to meet her eyes again, willing himself to keep calm, willing that his eyes might be shielded. (...if appearances can mislead, if he can only slip away...)] You must have more immediate concerns.

Take your farewell; you need not linger.

[Leave it there. Leave it there, and perhaps it will be all. Think not on what could be think not on assuaging emptiness, think not on what it means to mourn and speak of mourning. Let it be.]

Edited 2013-04-21 23:35 (UTC)

[She should have imagined this would happen. That he would end up like this if Death herself decided to spare him. He's the shadow of what he was, but shadows always carry a part of the hidden truth of a human being.
He was Grantaire still, after all.]

My more immediate concerns are fast asleep already. All the five of them, thankfully. [She stands up] But I promise you I won't bother you, if that's what you want.

[As if he could begin to discern what he wants, or as if wanting has any place in him, at all. There is compulsion, perhaps, and that only for sinking and silence. The more she speaks and the more he hears, the louder the clamor becomes. There is a way to mute it. There is always a way to mute it.

And if part of him wants her to stay (to speak, to reconcile, to rejoin pieces reconnect make some wholeness of these fractures), its voice is stilled by other callings and a wrenching, half-heard understanding. Better not. And no one, no one-- There is no place. Thus does he stand, steeling himself to keep his eyes in coldness, fixed directly on her own. Look without seeing. Look without taking her in.

He nods, a truncated gesture.]

Goodbye, Mademoiselle Boissy.

[There are other words, but they do not come.]

Edited 2013-04-22 00:50 (UTC)

[She should walk away, it's easy.

Then why she doesn't...?

She needs to hear him say it. And when he finally does...]

Au revoir, Monsieur Grantaire.

[ Only then she starts to walk away. Even though the thoughts make her stop and start a phrase she never finishes before regaining the reign of herself.
Leaving him alone]

[Accept the farewell and let her go. Better this way. Better this way.

Even if there were coherent words to express, even if there were some solution or parting thoughts, he isn't certain that he could have given voice to them. Throat stopped by time and bewilderment, he can only watch her recede.

If she goes, it is an end. If she stays, it is no beginning, nor an advisable continuation. There is no desirable route, and this is no matter of desire. This is merely what must be. What is least imprudent.

Better this way.

(But how much better if time had never been, or if sense could be found in this impossible disorder...)]

because he'd really rather not exist as an idea, period.

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enjolrassssssssssssssssssssssssss

Slow motion running to arms on beach

they would have the best cheesy reunion video. then they could bake cookies. (...what.)

woo! cookies

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unexpected sock in the feels, ungh O_O

Feels everywhere (also just ordered today the DVD of the 25th so I was like: It's destiny)

(yesss 25th for all time, yessss.)

(indeed my preciousss Gollum voice We likes Hadley. We likes Ramin, we likes almost all the cast

happily, the stellar majority makes up for those less-than-thrilling pieces. >.>

Indeed it does. :D

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I might be crying a bit IRL atm. Poor R.

They're both going to need some serious sunshine after this, ghh.

I agree, sunshine and happy tiemz PLZ

x1000000.

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because he'd really rather not exist as an idea, period.

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enjolrassssssssssssssssssssssssss

*Slow motion running to arms on beach*

they would have the best cheesy reunion video. then they could bake cookies. (...what.)

woo! cookies

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unexpected sock in the feels, ungh O_O

Feels everywhere (also just ordered today the DVD of the 25th so I was like: It's destiny)

(yesss 25th for all time, yessss.)

(indeed my preciousss *Gollum voice* We likes Hadley. We likes Ramin, we likes *almost* all the cast

happily, the stellar majority makes up for those less-than-thrilling pieces. >.>

Indeed it does. :D

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I might be crying a bit IRL atm. Poor R.

They're both going to need some serious sunshine after this, ghh.

I agree, sunshine and happy tiemz PLZ

x1000000.

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Slow motion running to arms on beach

(indeed my preciousss Gollum voice We likes Hadley. We likes Ramin, we likes almost all the cast