World: Paris
Scene: Café Musain, date indeterminate.
Players: Enjolras = Abby; Darcel = Amy
Ten o'clock finds Enjolras alone in the cafe, his arms folded on the table and his face hidden in his arms. How long he's been there would be difficult to judge, for anyone coming in at this hour.
Darcel meanders in. It's too early to sleep, roaming directionlessly is just wearing his boots out and so far there's been no one about to talk at, so inside is at least a variation. The sight of Enjolras stirs a faint frown and he lumbers over, leaning both hands on the table. "Apollo? Doesn't do a lot for the neck, that."
A sharp intake of breath, and he sits up with a start, eyes flashing. He is paler than ordinary, and his "What do you want?" is considerably more hostile than usual.
Darcel snorts. "To be born somewhere where wine costs less than it does here. But that's got nothing to do with talking to you." Looks at the other with half-lidded eyes. "Euterpe's lost lyre strings and the Harpies' new hair ribbons, you look like someone marched over your grave. And then came and trod on you for good measure."
"God," Enjolras says, halfway through this oration, and an edgy laugh escapes him. (Hair ribbons...?) He presses a hand to his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you."
Darcel tilts a wry grin at him. "What you're good at. But if you're going to try it on the general masses I suggest you sleep in a bed, first. Heroes are supposed to be indefatigable. Achilles stubs a toe and the whole illusion goes to hell and Homer has to start over." He slumps into a chair.
Enjolras rests his head in his hands. "Don't mock me." It sounds peremptory, rather than plaintive. "And I wasn't asleep."
Darcel shakes his head. "I wasn't, Polemarch." Spreads one hand in an incomprehensible gesture. "No? Then you ought to've been. Just rehearsing your part as Endymion in the latest operatic farce?"
"I have a name, you know." That is rather plaintive.
"'Course you do. Not even divinities manage to escape human appellation," he concedes the point, "Enjolras." He shrugs. "If you misplaced it, there are plenty of others to be picked up."
Enjolras doesn't look up. "I haven't so far." He pokes at a paper lying on the table; a letter by the look of it. Seems to remember, then, who he's talking to. "What do you want?" he says again, though more mildly than before.
"I told you that, before. Not everything has a grand design behind it. If it did, we'd spend a hell of a lot more time peering at the plans and wondering where they went wrong." Reaches out a finger to prod the document in Enjolras' possession. "What's this? Your death warrant, by the look of you."
"I'm busy-- Nothing." Enjolras rescues it, refolds the paper without looking at it. A glimpse of childish handwriting might be seen before he tucks it away.
Darcel withdraws his hand to cross both arms across the table, but regards his companion sceptically. "Busy? You must've learned that word somewhere other than where I learned it, mon ami. Most things are nothing, when it comes to jabbing them with a stick, but that's general. 'Nothing' doesn't usually need to be recovered that quickly. It isn't worth enough."
"Nothing that's your business." He's recovered enough to be derogatory, apparently.
Darcel regards him calmly. "What else is my business but nothing, since I don't have any?" Tilts his head. "Couldn't kill you to tell me. You can call down from your pillar without breaking yuor neck."
Enjolras begins, "Why would I--" and then stops, glancing down, and consciously moderates his tone. "A letter. From my sister."
Darcel lifts his eyebrows. "They write those, sometimes. Sometimes the recipient even finds the energy to respond. Arcane human customs. Why's this one a greater problem than the next?"
Enjolras shrugs slightly. In the tone of an addendum, rather than an answer, and almost casually: "It was opened. Before it reached me."
Darcel lifts a hand to prop his head. Dryly: "Is nothing sacred?" Frowns. "Well, Apollo, who d'you suspect is amused by the scribblings of someone's sister?"
Enjolras slouches back in his chair, most ungodlike, and studies his folded hands. Equally dryly: "Either I'm a more dangerous radical than I thought, or my parents have stooped to reading their children's correspondence lest, God forbid, we communicate something worthwhile. You tell me which is more likely."
Darcel snorts. "You want odds, Polemarch? So you teach the girl to scrawl in code. Share the intrigue. God knows, one plot or another."
Enjolras glances up at him, blue eyes gone dark and hard. With frosty irony: "There, now. I should have known you'd have the answer. --Spare me your witticisms, Grantaire."
"By the sword that Justice stabbed herself in the foot with, Apollo! What d'you expect?" He hovers somewhere between amusement and exasperation. "Hell, from the worm that lost half of itself to a bird to Osiris who still can't find his left arm, the world's a mass of discontent and the only people who don't do idiotic things that other people can't understand are the ones doing idiotic things they don't understand. I sympathise, damn it. Of course I do. God knows it's not fair, but what is?"
"Don't call me that--" pushing to his feet in disgust. He has already started to walk away when the end of this monologue catches him, and he hesitates. The righteous indignation ebbs again, leaving him rather forlorn. "I'm sorry," he says, half-audibly, for the unprecedented second time in a night, and glancing back, does in fact look repentant.
Darcel half rises, though what good he thought that would do is beyond comprehension. Hardly expecting an apology, he halts and rests his palms on the table again. "Doesn't matter, Apol-- Enjolras."
It does matter, but Enjolraic pride will only bend so far. He glances down; half-smiles, maybe, at the correction. "Well." And then, rather shortly, "Evening."
"Or night, if you'd rather." He inclines his head in deference to the statue and drops back into his chair again.
Enjolras pauses perhaps another second, before departing without a backward glance.