Shameless Self-Promotion
Mar. 27th, 2014 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranI've been really neglecting my DW account, haven't I? Like, badly enough that I never even posted links to my Yuletide fic. Oops. Fixing that now, with bonus other stuff what I wrote recently (all Les Mis because that absolutely is The Fandom That Ate My Brain for the foreseeable future). All of it's gen, and all of it's extraordinarily safe for work.
First of all, my Yuletide fic formelannen, an excellent writer in their own right. "Five Times Enjorlas Dropped a Barricade on Someone." No, that is not a typo, as this is an Arm Joe fic. Yes, Arm Joe, the cracktastic Les Mis fighting game, where Marius summons armies of undead revolutionaries, there's a robotic version of Jean Valjean, and Enjorlas (as the game calls him) can drop barricades from the sky on his foes. AO3 link here or you can read it behind the cut.
vs. Tholomyes
The first time Enjorlas dropped a barricade on someone, he was twelve years old. It wasn't much of a barricade, amounting to little more than a cheap dinette set falling from the sky. But Tholomyes was being such a jerk, and Enjorlas was angry, because he was wrong — so wrong, and couldn't he see that the oppression of robo-clones simply because of their inherent nature didn't make any sense?! True, many of them were violent and dangerous, but that was only to be expected if society's expectations of them were so low.
Anyway, Enjorlas had been building up a really good rage when the bar stool fell from the sky, narrowly missing Tholomyes. It was quickly followed by a trio of cheap folding chairs and a small card table, which did not miss. Enjorlas was pleased at the effect this had, as Tholomyes immediately conceded the argument, saying he wasn't about to mess with someone who could drop furniture out of the sky. As Tholomyes crawled out from under the card table, two paving stones belatedly crashed into the folding chairs. He screamed like a little girl and ran off.
~~~
vs. Ponpon
Enjorlas had always regarded Ponpon as a myth, a fairy story told by his nurse about a mysterious rabbit and its enormous mustachioed baby companion. He was seriously reconsidering that opinion, however, in light of the fact that he was under attack by a mysterious rabbit and its enormous mustachioed baby companion. It bounded about, pummeling him with its tiny fists and occasionally sending the baby barreling into him. Something that small should not, by all rights, have a reach that long, but it seemed able to stretch its limbs at will.
When Ponpon nearly ran him over with some sort of huge, green horseless carriage, Enjorlas decided he had had enough. He concentrated, raised a hand to the sky, and a door came crashing down from the sky, followed by tables, chairs, paving stones, and more building materials, all falling into a small barricade. Ponpon squeezed itself out from under the barricade and made a rude gesture before scampering off.
Enjorlas chalked the incident up to some bad oysters and decided not to try eating at the café he'd had lunch at ever again.
~~~
vs. Police
Rumors had been swirling around Paris for weeks that the police had brought in a foreigner — Ken, some said his name was, or perhaps Rue? Roo? Something like that. At any rate, whatever his name was, the foreigner had been training the police in some sort of new technique that involved focusing the user's energy and releasing a fireball. Enjorlas had dismissed such rumors as nonsense, but now, as the rally had turned into a riot, and the riot had turned into a melee as the police arrived, it was clear that there was more than an element of truth to the rumor.
In between dodging fireballs and kneeing policemen in the face, Enjorlas caught a glimpse of a young workingman. He was fighting valiantly, fending off the police with — were those fans? But the odds were stacked against him, five-to-one, and he was no match for the police's lightning-fast fists coming at him from so many directions at once.
Enjorlas felt a swell of anger at the police, at the injustice that one man, armed only with a pair of fans to defend himself, should be so beset by foes. He cried out and raised a hand toward the heavens, summoning a torrent of furniture and building materials, which crashed down into a barricade on top of the police.
The young man with the fans looked around, confused, for the source of the barricade, which was already starting to fade. His eyes found Enjorlas, and he smiled. "My thanks, Citizen. That is quite the technique you have there."
"Your technique is a bit unusual as well," Enjorlas pointed out. "I would never have thought to use fans as a weapon."
"They're reinforced with steel," came the reply. He snapped the fans shut with a metallic snick. "I had heard about a princess in the Mushroom Kingdom who used a fan as a weapon and decided to make my own. It feels a bit wrong to imitate a monarch, but I excuse it as an exercise in widening my horizons to the worlds beyond our own."
"Not only those ruled by monarchies and dictatorships, I should hope," Enjorlas said.
"Of course not! I have the greatest admiration for the land of the Bad Dudes, and their representative democracy."
"Ah, the Bad Dudes! It's only a shame that their president keeps being kidnapped by ninjas. I would love to discuss this with you, Citizen, but — behind you!"
The young man whirled around, drawing a fan, hitting a policeman in the face, and turning back to Enjorlas in one smooth move. "But now is perhaps not the best time or place," he acknowledged. "My name's Feuilly. I work at the fan and sword shop down the street there," he said, gesturing behind him. "If you wish to stop by some evening as I get off work, we can perhaps continue this conversation in a more civilized setting."
Enjorlas hit a policeman with the butt of his rifle. "I would enjoy that very much."
~~~
vs. Marius
"So, new guy," Bahorel said, leaning in close to Marius and grinning like a tiger that's just cornered its prey, "Courfeyrac said that you had a very unusual technique?"
"Well, I mean, it's generally just sort of punches and kicks, y'know, like most people do, nothing special," Marius said, leaning away from Bahorel in an attempt to regain some personal space.
"Oh, come now," Courfeyrac said, "What about that thing you were talking about earlier? The one that you got in such a fight with your grandfather about?"
"Oh, that," Marius said. "Er, I don't know if you really want to see it. It's a bit — people don't tend to like it very much."
"You should see the looks of horror that Combeferre's moth summons sometimes draw. Don't worry, we won't judge here," Enjorlas said. "Come, there's a courtyard behind the Corinth that is fairly private, yet should offer enough room for a demonstration."
Marius sighed, but let himself be led out the back door. "Moths?" he asked.
"Giant ones, big enough to ride on, although I've never been able to maintain them long enough to try doing so," Combeferre told him.
The courtyard was indeed spacious, suspiciously so considering the size of the buildings it bordered. Marius inquired about it. "They say old Father Hucheloup, in addition to being a fine cook, was also a bit of a wizard," Bahorel told him.
"Well, you'll have to step back, this takes up a lot of room," Marius said. "Or, no, wait, I can't do it unless I've taken a fair amount of damage already."
The others hesitated. "If that's the case, then we don't wish to hurt you," Enjorlas said.
"No, it's fine, I recover quickly."
"Are you sure?"
"You'll probably see it sooner or later, if we really are to do battle against the police and the government. It's best if you're not taken by surprise," Marius said.
"Well, if you're certain it's all right."
"Just, please, don't draw it out."
Enjorlas glanced over at Combeferre, who gave a slight nod. He focused, and reached up towards the heavens. Furniture and building fragments came crashing down on Marius, forming a barricade that, after a few quick moments, faded away, leaving Marius slightly stunned.
"Are you all right?" Combeferre asked.
"Fine, I should be able to do it now," Marius said. He closed his eyes, balled up his fists, and bowed his head. Suddenly, an army of skeletons rose out of the ground, dressed in rags and wearing tricolor sashes. Some of them looked disturbingly familiar. Everyone else jumped out of the way, although Jean Prouvaire got hit once. They quickly faded, like most large techniques.
A horrified silence followed this demonstration, broken only by the crash of Grantaire dropping his wine glass and then running off to be sick in the bushes.
Prouvaire tapped Marius on the shoulder. "I don't suppose you could teach me how to do that?" he asked.
~~~
vs. Justice
"Does anyone else hear organ music?"
"Shh, no, you're hearing things, Marius."
"But I could swear that —"
"Shush! I'm trying to hear Lamarque speak."
"Enjorlas." A tug at his sleeve. "Enjorlas, look."
A dark figure was approaching the crowd. People were already starting to run. "Justice!" cried Courfeyrac, growing pale. "Come on, Enjorlas, we need to go. Now."
The square was quickly turning to chaos. Justice was said to only appear when there was too much power concentrated in one place, and apparently a group of this size had attracted him. It. Did Justice have a gender? It looked masculine, but one could never be sure with non-human entities.
Now was probably not the time to ponder such things. Courfeyrac had tripped and Marius was trying to pull him up. All the while, the dark figure was getting closer and closer. Enjorlas called out, but he was too far from them, and he had left his rifle at home, curse it. There was only one thing to do. He quelled his panic, concentrated it, focusing it, and summoned a massive barricade from the sky. It landed on Justice, who was almost upon Courfeyrac and Marius.
"Run!" Enjorlas yelled, as the barricade was already starting to fade, and Justice was getting up. They fled from the square.
~~~
Secondly, my fic for Miserable Holidays, the Les Mis holiday fanwork exchange. I received a spectacular moon colony AU fromgenarti, which you can read here on AO3. They've also written more in this 'verse on Tumblr.
As for what I wrote as a gift for![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
downtheroadandupthehill, it's "Saturn, Astronomy and All That Jazz," a modern AU fic centered around Combeferre and Grantaire. Genfic, because I am pants at writing anything else (although there's mention of one-sided Enjolras/Grantaire), mostly just banter. On the AO3 here or hiding behind the cut.
Quite frankly, when Combeferre had put out an open invitation for anyone who was interested to stop by his and Enjolras' apartment Thursday night for a demonstration of his new telescope, he hadn't expected much interest. But Joly had gotten excited over the prospect of seeing the craters of the moon up close, and he and Bossuet seemed to come as a matched set ever since the latter had moved in with the former. Joly's enthusiasm had rubbed off on Feuilly, who was eager for the educational opportunity, although skeptical they'd be able to see much with the city lights. Courfeyrac had arrived with a shopping bag full of wine that he had apparently chosen solely based on whether the bottles had a picture of a star or comet on their label, and Enjolras, in addition to living there, had taken an attitude that anything that Combeferre was this enthusiastic about was probably worth a look. The only ones missing form the core group of Les Amis were Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire, who had a previous engagement. Jehan had looked entirely torn before being reassured that, due to overwhelming interest, this would not be the only Telescope Night. Even Grantaire had showed up, drifting along in Joly and Bossuet's wake.
A viewing of the waxing moon earlier in the evening had been a huge success. Everyone had marveled at how the moon's topography had sprung to life, with the mountains and ridges in especially sharp relief along the terminator at the edge of the crescent. Combeferre was now trying to find Saturn. His telescope was of a high enough power and quality that it could theoretically make out the planet's rings. Such a sight would, he felt, be a perfect capstone to the night.
In the meantime, Joly had appropriated several props and some paper and was attempting to explain the illusion of retrograde planetary motion. "So, we've got the cork, which is red, at least on this one end, for Mars. And for the Earth, there's this blue stress ball, which — whoops, can you get that please, Enjolras? Thank you. Hm, maybe I should choose something that can't roll away. Ah, thank you, Feuilly. That'll work. So, for the Earth, there's this stapler, which is also blue, and which we can pretend is round just for now. Now the planets travel along in their orbits …"
"Er, Joly," Bossuet said, eyeing the wobbly lines Joly was drawing. "Won't the planets run into each other if they keep on those orbits?"
"Oh, fragnabbit, here, let me redraw them. Agh, that's no good either."
"My friend," Enjolras said, "maybe you should let someone whose hand is a bit steadier draw your orbits?"
"Someone who's still fit to drive, you mean? You're probably right. You want to try?" Joly asked, trying to hand the pen over to Enjolras.
"I was thinking more like Feuilly. He's much better at drawing than I am."
The tips of Feuilly's ears flushed red with embarrassment, as they often did under unexpected praise. Joly reached across the table and put the pen in Feuilly's hands with a grin.
Combeferre smiled at his friends' antics, then turned back to the night sky, giving it an appraising look. A planet was a much smaller target than the moon, and although the optics in his telescope were high quality, it was pretty much no-frills otherwise, with no computer to aid in finding targets and no motor drive to track objects. It would be difficult to find Saturn and keep the planet in the telescope's field of vision for long. Still, he felt up to the challenge.
"You know, if you're just going to tilt your head back and look at the stars like that, I don't know why you bothered spending all that money on a telescope."
Combeferre started at Grantaire's voice, looking over at him in surprise. He could've sworn the man had just been sitting next to Joly. Perhaps he was part cat, to be able to move so quietly.
Grantaire had appropriated an entire bottle of wine for himself. He took a swig from it, then looked at the glittering star on the label. "Have you tried some of this stuff that Courfeyrac brought? A lot of it could be a good lesson in why one shouldn't judge a book by its cover or a wine by its label. This is not living up to the pictured sparkles at all. On the other hand, I suppose if people expected wine to taste like whatever's pictured on its label, then Yellow Tail wouldn't sell nearly as well. I've never licked a kangaroo, nor do I care to, but I can't imagine that it'd be something I want to put in my mouth. Or Barefoot. I know some people go for that sort of thing, sucking toes and whatever, but not I'm not into the whole foot fetish scene. So I have no right to complain, but that doesn't change the fact that this wine is not living up to my expectations, and I think I've been a victim of false advertising."
"You don't have to drink it if you don't like it, you know," Combeferre said. "There's soda in the fridge, water, I think Jehan might have left a bottle of that aloe drink…"
"No, no, I've already claimed this," Grantaire said, hugging the bottle to his body. "It's drinkable enough, not turned to vinegar, not corked, and besides, it's probably full of my backwash by now, and I doubt anyone wants to swap saliva with me. Anyway, I'm not overly picky, especially when someone else is buying."
"I sincerely doubt it's healthy for you to drink that entire bottle by yourself in one sitting," Combeferre said.
"Ah, but I'm standing right now, not sitting, so you don't need to worry. And what about you, standing over here all alone by yourself? You know, that's not being a very good host, ignoring your guests in favor of fiddling with your instrument."
Combeferre glanced over at the table, where Feuilly seemed to have somehow managed to bring the topic of Tibetan independence into a discussion of planetary orbits. "I think my guests are managing to entertain themselves," he said dryly. "But what about you, Grantaire? Why come over here to me 'fiddling with my instrument,' as you put it? You're not always at the center of the conversation, but you're usually at least lurking around the edges."
"Truthfully? Joly's over there talking about orbits and lines of sight, which, topped off with the equations he's throwing out, is a heavy enough meal to upset my stomach. It's been a perfectly fine night, and here he is, ruining it with math. But I suppose you'd have a different opinion on the matter."
"One must feed the mind as well as the body," Combeferre replied.
"But force-feeding is hardly an act of kindness. If I don't want to be lectured on the delicate Newtonian balance of the planets, then I reserve my right as a free citizen of this great nation to avoid that lecture. Besides, if we keep going with your metaphor, then an overfed mind is like an overfed body, all bloated and slothful. If that were true, and you've fed your brain with half of what's in your bookshelves, which, I might say, are quite overstuffed themselves, then you would be in an overstuffed stupor. Since you obviously don't have any problems from the rich diet you feed your brain, this metaphor has fallen apart, and we should stop talking about it."
Combeferre raised his eyebrows, but said nothing in response. He squinted through the telescope's eyepiece, then crouched down to consult a book that was lying on the floor, held open by a thick anatomy textbook on one side, and a book about the life cycle of lobsters on the other.
Grantaire watched this with interest. He took a swig from his wine bottle, then bent down and asked, "What're you reading so awkwardly?"
"Star charts," Combeferre said, straightening up. "Normally, I keep them on a chair next to the telescope, so they're within easy reach, but since all the chairs are in use …" he trailed off and gestured towards the table, where Joly, Bossuet, and Courfeyrac had managed to work each other into fits of laughter, while Enjolras' mouth was quirked up in a smile, and Feuilly, face buried in his hands, was probably laughing as well, given the shaking of his shoulders.
"So you're using the floor to hold your book instead," Grantaire said. He set down his wine, and picked up the book, leafing through it while keeping a finger within the pages to mark Combeferre's place. "Why so many charts?"
"Because the stars move around in a slow cycle throughout the year. What you can see is different from month to month."
"Oh, like how you can only see Orion around the winter, and you get the Zodiac cycling around the sky."
"You're interested in astronomy?" Combeferre asked, surprised.
"Just tangentially. I don't spend my nights staring up at the stars like Jehan does, but a lot of the constellations are just the Greek myths tacked up into the sky. I mean, have you seen how much of the sky Perseus' story takes up? He's a total sky hog, I swear. And then you get that couple, Cassiopeia and Cepheus, spinning around the North Star, stuck upside-down half the time. I've read that was part of Cassiopeia's punishment for her vanity, being stuck standing on her head. I suppose that makes some sort of sense, since when you stand on your head, all the blood rushes to your face, and turning all purple isn't very attractive, but then why give her husband the same punishment? The gods had an odd sense of justice, is what I'm saying. Sort of like the North Koreans. One of your family members gets declared an enemy of the state, then poof, whole lot of you, off to the gulag. But then again, not like the North Koreans, on account of being Greek, not Korean. Also, immortal. That's another important difference. Me, I wouldn't want to be immortal. I'd rather not have to watch all my friends die before me, stuck living an empty existence 'til the end of time. Besides, there's only one of us who reaches godlike heights, and that's definitely not me."
"Enjolras is as human as you or me," Combeferre said gently.
Grantaire pressed his lips together, looking away and drumming his fingers on the book, obviously uncomfortable with where his ramblings had led him. His expression then changed as he saw something that caught his eye. He shifted the book so he could hold it open with one hand. "What's this here, going through the Zodiac?" he asked, pointing at an arc that swept across the star chart. "An elliptic? Like the orbits Joly was going on about? He's a good guy, but no one should ever be that excited about ellipses."
"Ecliptic," Combeferre corrected, looking at where Grantaire was pointing. "That's what the planets travel along. Actually, if you could go forward about ten pages or so, there should be a chart showing where I can find Saturn at this time of year … ah, thank you," he said, as Grantaire obligingly flipped to the correct page and turned the book so Combeferre didn't have to read it upside-down.
"See, I'm a better book holder than your chair. And way better than the floor."
"A vast improvement," Combeferre agreed. "So Saturn is in … Leo. Okay, so find Regulus, and … there, Grantaire, you see that bright off-white dot there?"
"Which one? Combeferre, I don't know if you've noticed this, but the sky is full of bright white dots."
"Okay, you know how to find Leo?"
"I think so. Follow the left side of the Big Dipper's bowl down, and there's Regulus, I think. I can't really see too much else of the constellation. The lion must be sleeping tonight."
"There, just to the right of Regulus."
"Oh, that? That's a planet? Huh. Somehow I thought it'd be bigger."
"Well, it is thousands and thousands of miles away," Combeferre said. "Give me a couple minutes, I should be able to find it with my telescope."
Grantaire paged through the book of star charts as Combeferre searched. "Hey, Combeferre, whoever wrote this is full of crap. I'm pretty sure they made up that spelling for Cronus' name, and he's Zeus's father, not his brother."
"I bought that book for its charts, not the mythology," Combeferre said.
"And you're not offended that they didn't care enough to get that part right?"
"I am, but not enough to complain about it."
"You're no fun at all."
"Just for that, you're not getting to look at Saturn and its rings," Combeferre said, standing up from where he'd been hunched over the eyepiece.
"No, I'll be good, can I see? Pretty please, with sugar on top?"
"Fine, you can get first look, since you did such a good job as a book stand."
"Good to know that I'm on par with an inanimate object," Grantaire said sarcastically. "Just look in here?"
"Yes, just make sure not to jostle it," Combeferre said. "The rings are those little bumps to either side."
A pause from Grantaire, then, "Whoa. That's insane."
"Galileo, when he first saw them, described them as being like ears."
"All the better to hear the music of the spheres, I suppose," Grantaire said, stepping back from the telescope. "You want me to get the others?"
"If you could, please."
"Oi, nerds," Grantaire yelled. The group at the table looked up. "Get over here. Boy Genius has found Saturn. It is, as the youth these days say, 'hella tight.'"
"Hella tight?" Combeferre echoed.
"Hella," Grantaire said, nodding. Then, in one smooth motion, he picked up his wine bottle and took a drink from it. "I'll step back and let the peanut gallery take a gander. Here's to you," he said, raising the bottle in a toast. "And Saturn and astronomy and all that jazz."
~~~
And lastly, a short, quick one, wherein Joly and Bossuet go to the Jardin de Plantes, visit the camel, and wind up laughing so hard that they disturb the other zoo-goers. "Still Life With Camel," based off a prompt by![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
pilferingapples, at the AO3, or under the cut.
"Look at it!" Joly exclaimed, face pressed up against the bars of the pen in the Jardin des Plantes.
"What is it?” Bossuet asked, fascinated and repulsed in turn by the bizarre beast.
"A camel, just arrived from Arabia," Joly said, stepping back.
"What’s that great lump on its back? It’s not deformed, is it?"
"It does look a bit like a highly deformed version of the giraffe, doesn’t it?" Joly mused. "I think I read somewhere that it’s a great inner sack of water. They’re creatures of the desert, so it would make sense for Nature to have provided them with a built-in water butt."
"And if they’ve drank all their water supply? Does their hump deflate like a crumpled bag?"
Joly, struck by this image of the camel with a flabby, deflated hump flopped over its side, snickered. “I don’t know. That would be a sight to see, though, wouldn’t it? Or, oh! But they ride them — the Arabs do, I mean. And can you imagine? Sitting on the back of the camel, and its hump just goes fffffft,” Joly said, pressing his hands downwards and imitating the sound he imagined a deflating hump would make.
Bossuet started laughing, too. “Just sinking down.”
"Fffft," Joly said again, breaking out into fresh laughter.
"It’d—it’d make dismounting easier," Bossuet gasped out before cracking up again.
"No, but if it’s inflated, you could," Joly said, trying to get the words out between fits of giggles, "you could slide down off it. Like a banister." More laughter.
An elderly couple, who had also paused to admire the camel, shot the two laughing young men (Joly by this point was starting incorporate hiccups into his giggles) a look of severe disapproval.
"Sorry, Madame, Monsieur," Bossuet said, trying desperately to maintain a serious expression. "Jolllly, are you all right?"
"I’m — hic — fine, I’m just…humps, you know?”
"Come, perhaps we’d better leave these fine citizens to admire the camel in peace."
“Hic — right, I just — hic — right.” Joly took a deep breath, pressed his lips together, and smoothed down his coat, schooling his expression, then quite ruining the effect by hiccuping again. “Do you want to — hic — want to look at the giraffe before we go?”
"A capital idea! Lead on, my friend," Bossuet said. Then, grinning mischievously, he added, "Ffffft."
Joly completely lost his newfound composure, and Bossuet joined him in laughter.
~~~
Whew!
First of all, my Yuletide fic for
melannen, an excellent writer in their own right. "Five Times Enjorlas Dropped a Barricade on Someone." No, that is not a typo, as this is an Arm Joe fic. Yes, Arm Joe, the cracktastic Les Mis fighting game, where Marius summons armies of undead revolutionaries, there's a robotic version of Jean Valjean, and Enjorlas (as the game calls him) can drop barricades from the sky on his foes. AO3 link here or you can read it behind the cut. vs. Tholomyes
The first time Enjorlas dropped a barricade on someone, he was twelve years old. It wasn't much of a barricade, amounting to little more than a cheap dinette set falling from the sky. But Tholomyes was being such a jerk, and Enjorlas was angry, because he was wrong — so wrong, and couldn't he see that the oppression of robo-clones simply because of their inherent nature didn't make any sense?! True, many of them were violent and dangerous, but that was only to be expected if society's expectations of them were so low.
Anyway, Enjorlas had been building up a really good rage when the bar stool fell from the sky, narrowly missing Tholomyes. It was quickly followed by a trio of cheap folding chairs and a small card table, which did not miss. Enjorlas was pleased at the effect this had, as Tholomyes immediately conceded the argument, saying he wasn't about to mess with someone who could drop furniture out of the sky. As Tholomyes crawled out from under the card table, two paving stones belatedly crashed into the folding chairs. He screamed like a little girl and ran off.
~~~
vs. Ponpon
Enjorlas had always regarded Ponpon as a myth, a fairy story told by his nurse about a mysterious rabbit and its enormous mustachioed baby companion. He was seriously reconsidering that opinion, however, in light of the fact that he was under attack by a mysterious rabbit and its enormous mustachioed baby companion. It bounded about, pummeling him with its tiny fists and occasionally sending the baby barreling into him. Something that small should not, by all rights, have a reach that long, but it seemed able to stretch its limbs at will.
When Ponpon nearly ran him over with some sort of huge, green horseless carriage, Enjorlas decided he had had enough. He concentrated, raised a hand to the sky, and a door came crashing down from the sky, followed by tables, chairs, paving stones, and more building materials, all falling into a small barricade. Ponpon squeezed itself out from under the barricade and made a rude gesture before scampering off.
Enjorlas chalked the incident up to some bad oysters and decided not to try eating at the café he'd had lunch at ever again.
~~~
vs. Police
Rumors had been swirling around Paris for weeks that the police had brought in a foreigner — Ken, some said his name was, or perhaps Rue? Roo? Something like that. At any rate, whatever his name was, the foreigner had been training the police in some sort of new technique that involved focusing the user's energy and releasing a fireball. Enjorlas had dismissed such rumors as nonsense, but now, as the rally had turned into a riot, and the riot had turned into a melee as the police arrived, it was clear that there was more than an element of truth to the rumor.
In between dodging fireballs and kneeing policemen in the face, Enjorlas caught a glimpse of a young workingman. He was fighting valiantly, fending off the police with — were those fans? But the odds were stacked against him, five-to-one, and he was no match for the police's lightning-fast fists coming at him from so many directions at once.
Enjorlas felt a swell of anger at the police, at the injustice that one man, armed only with a pair of fans to defend himself, should be so beset by foes. He cried out and raised a hand toward the heavens, summoning a torrent of furniture and building materials, which crashed down into a barricade on top of the police.
The young man with the fans looked around, confused, for the source of the barricade, which was already starting to fade. His eyes found Enjorlas, and he smiled. "My thanks, Citizen. That is quite the technique you have there."
"Your technique is a bit unusual as well," Enjorlas pointed out. "I would never have thought to use fans as a weapon."
"They're reinforced with steel," came the reply. He snapped the fans shut with a metallic snick. "I had heard about a princess in the Mushroom Kingdom who used a fan as a weapon and decided to make my own. It feels a bit wrong to imitate a monarch, but I excuse it as an exercise in widening my horizons to the worlds beyond our own."
"Not only those ruled by monarchies and dictatorships, I should hope," Enjorlas said.
"Of course not! I have the greatest admiration for the land of the Bad Dudes, and their representative democracy."
"Ah, the Bad Dudes! It's only a shame that their president keeps being kidnapped by ninjas. I would love to discuss this with you, Citizen, but — behind you!"
The young man whirled around, drawing a fan, hitting a policeman in the face, and turning back to Enjorlas in one smooth move. "But now is perhaps not the best time or place," he acknowledged. "My name's Feuilly. I work at the fan and sword shop down the street there," he said, gesturing behind him. "If you wish to stop by some evening as I get off work, we can perhaps continue this conversation in a more civilized setting."
Enjorlas hit a policeman with the butt of his rifle. "I would enjoy that very much."
~~~
vs. Marius
"So, new guy," Bahorel said, leaning in close to Marius and grinning like a tiger that's just cornered its prey, "Courfeyrac said that you had a very unusual technique?"
"Well, I mean, it's generally just sort of punches and kicks, y'know, like most people do, nothing special," Marius said, leaning away from Bahorel in an attempt to regain some personal space.
"Oh, come now," Courfeyrac said, "What about that thing you were talking about earlier? The one that you got in such a fight with your grandfather about?"
"Oh, that," Marius said. "Er, I don't know if you really want to see it. It's a bit — people don't tend to like it very much."
"You should see the looks of horror that Combeferre's moth summons sometimes draw. Don't worry, we won't judge here," Enjorlas said. "Come, there's a courtyard behind the Corinth that is fairly private, yet should offer enough room for a demonstration."
Marius sighed, but let himself be led out the back door. "Moths?" he asked.
"Giant ones, big enough to ride on, although I've never been able to maintain them long enough to try doing so," Combeferre told him.
The courtyard was indeed spacious, suspiciously so considering the size of the buildings it bordered. Marius inquired about it. "They say old Father Hucheloup, in addition to being a fine cook, was also a bit of a wizard," Bahorel told him.
"Well, you'll have to step back, this takes up a lot of room," Marius said. "Or, no, wait, I can't do it unless I've taken a fair amount of damage already."
The others hesitated. "If that's the case, then we don't wish to hurt you," Enjorlas said.
"No, it's fine, I recover quickly."
"Are you sure?"
"You'll probably see it sooner or later, if we really are to do battle against the police and the government. It's best if you're not taken by surprise," Marius said.
"Well, if you're certain it's all right."
"Just, please, don't draw it out."
Enjorlas glanced over at Combeferre, who gave a slight nod. He focused, and reached up towards the heavens. Furniture and building fragments came crashing down on Marius, forming a barricade that, after a few quick moments, faded away, leaving Marius slightly stunned.
"Are you all right?" Combeferre asked.
"Fine, I should be able to do it now," Marius said. He closed his eyes, balled up his fists, and bowed his head. Suddenly, an army of skeletons rose out of the ground, dressed in rags and wearing tricolor sashes. Some of them looked disturbingly familiar. Everyone else jumped out of the way, although Jean Prouvaire got hit once. They quickly faded, like most large techniques.
A horrified silence followed this demonstration, broken only by the crash of Grantaire dropping his wine glass and then running off to be sick in the bushes.
Prouvaire tapped Marius on the shoulder. "I don't suppose you could teach me how to do that?" he asked.
~~~
vs. Justice
"Does anyone else hear organ music?"
"Shh, no, you're hearing things, Marius."
"But I could swear that —"
"Shush! I'm trying to hear Lamarque speak."
"Enjorlas." A tug at his sleeve. "Enjorlas, look."
A dark figure was approaching the crowd. People were already starting to run. "Justice!" cried Courfeyrac, growing pale. "Come on, Enjorlas, we need to go. Now."
The square was quickly turning to chaos. Justice was said to only appear when there was too much power concentrated in one place, and apparently a group of this size had attracted him. It. Did Justice have a gender? It looked masculine, but one could never be sure with non-human entities.
Now was probably not the time to ponder such things. Courfeyrac had tripped and Marius was trying to pull him up. All the while, the dark figure was getting closer and closer. Enjorlas called out, but he was too far from them, and he had left his rifle at home, curse it. There was only one thing to do. He quelled his panic, concentrated it, focusing it, and summoned a massive barricade from the sky. It landed on Justice, who was almost upon Courfeyrac and Marius.
"Run!" Enjorlas yelled, as the barricade was already starting to fade, and Justice was getting up. They fled from the square.
~~~
Secondly, my fic for Miserable Holidays, the Les Mis holiday fanwork exchange. I received a spectacular moon colony AU from
genarti, which you can read here on AO3. They've also written more in this 'verse on Tumblr.As for what I wrote as a gift for
Quite frankly, when Combeferre had put out an open invitation for anyone who was interested to stop by his and Enjolras' apartment Thursday night for a demonstration of his new telescope, he hadn't expected much interest. But Joly had gotten excited over the prospect of seeing the craters of the moon up close, and he and Bossuet seemed to come as a matched set ever since the latter had moved in with the former. Joly's enthusiasm had rubbed off on Feuilly, who was eager for the educational opportunity, although skeptical they'd be able to see much with the city lights. Courfeyrac had arrived with a shopping bag full of wine that he had apparently chosen solely based on whether the bottles had a picture of a star or comet on their label, and Enjolras, in addition to living there, had taken an attitude that anything that Combeferre was this enthusiastic about was probably worth a look. The only ones missing form the core group of Les Amis were Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire, who had a previous engagement. Jehan had looked entirely torn before being reassured that, due to overwhelming interest, this would not be the only Telescope Night. Even Grantaire had showed up, drifting along in Joly and Bossuet's wake.
A viewing of the waxing moon earlier in the evening had been a huge success. Everyone had marveled at how the moon's topography had sprung to life, with the mountains and ridges in especially sharp relief along the terminator at the edge of the crescent. Combeferre was now trying to find Saturn. His telescope was of a high enough power and quality that it could theoretically make out the planet's rings. Such a sight would, he felt, be a perfect capstone to the night.
In the meantime, Joly had appropriated several props and some paper and was attempting to explain the illusion of retrograde planetary motion. "So, we've got the cork, which is red, at least on this one end, for Mars. And for the Earth, there's this blue stress ball, which — whoops, can you get that please, Enjolras? Thank you. Hm, maybe I should choose something that can't roll away. Ah, thank you, Feuilly. That'll work. So, for the Earth, there's this stapler, which is also blue, and which we can pretend is round just for now. Now the planets travel along in their orbits …"
"Er, Joly," Bossuet said, eyeing the wobbly lines Joly was drawing. "Won't the planets run into each other if they keep on those orbits?"
"Oh, fragnabbit, here, let me redraw them. Agh, that's no good either."
"My friend," Enjolras said, "maybe you should let someone whose hand is a bit steadier draw your orbits?"
"Someone who's still fit to drive, you mean? You're probably right. You want to try?" Joly asked, trying to hand the pen over to Enjolras.
"I was thinking more like Feuilly. He's much better at drawing than I am."
The tips of Feuilly's ears flushed red with embarrassment, as they often did under unexpected praise. Joly reached across the table and put the pen in Feuilly's hands with a grin.
Combeferre smiled at his friends' antics, then turned back to the night sky, giving it an appraising look. A planet was a much smaller target than the moon, and although the optics in his telescope were high quality, it was pretty much no-frills otherwise, with no computer to aid in finding targets and no motor drive to track objects. It would be difficult to find Saturn and keep the planet in the telescope's field of vision for long. Still, he felt up to the challenge.
"You know, if you're just going to tilt your head back and look at the stars like that, I don't know why you bothered spending all that money on a telescope."
Combeferre started at Grantaire's voice, looking over at him in surprise. He could've sworn the man had just been sitting next to Joly. Perhaps he was part cat, to be able to move so quietly.
Grantaire had appropriated an entire bottle of wine for himself. He took a swig from it, then looked at the glittering star on the label. "Have you tried some of this stuff that Courfeyrac brought? A lot of it could be a good lesson in why one shouldn't judge a book by its cover or a wine by its label. This is not living up to the pictured sparkles at all. On the other hand, I suppose if people expected wine to taste like whatever's pictured on its label, then Yellow Tail wouldn't sell nearly as well. I've never licked a kangaroo, nor do I care to, but I can't imagine that it'd be something I want to put in my mouth. Or Barefoot. I know some people go for that sort of thing, sucking toes and whatever, but not I'm not into the whole foot fetish scene. So I have no right to complain, but that doesn't change the fact that this wine is not living up to my expectations, and I think I've been a victim of false advertising."
"You don't have to drink it if you don't like it, you know," Combeferre said. "There's soda in the fridge, water, I think Jehan might have left a bottle of that aloe drink…"
"No, no, I've already claimed this," Grantaire said, hugging the bottle to his body. "It's drinkable enough, not turned to vinegar, not corked, and besides, it's probably full of my backwash by now, and I doubt anyone wants to swap saliva with me. Anyway, I'm not overly picky, especially when someone else is buying."
"I sincerely doubt it's healthy for you to drink that entire bottle by yourself in one sitting," Combeferre said.
"Ah, but I'm standing right now, not sitting, so you don't need to worry. And what about you, standing over here all alone by yourself? You know, that's not being a very good host, ignoring your guests in favor of fiddling with your instrument."
Combeferre glanced over at the table, where Feuilly seemed to have somehow managed to bring the topic of Tibetan independence into a discussion of planetary orbits. "I think my guests are managing to entertain themselves," he said dryly. "But what about you, Grantaire? Why come over here to me 'fiddling with my instrument,' as you put it? You're not always at the center of the conversation, but you're usually at least lurking around the edges."
"Truthfully? Joly's over there talking about orbits and lines of sight, which, topped off with the equations he's throwing out, is a heavy enough meal to upset my stomach. It's been a perfectly fine night, and here he is, ruining it with math. But I suppose you'd have a different opinion on the matter."
"One must feed the mind as well as the body," Combeferre replied.
"But force-feeding is hardly an act of kindness. If I don't want to be lectured on the delicate Newtonian balance of the planets, then I reserve my right as a free citizen of this great nation to avoid that lecture. Besides, if we keep going with your metaphor, then an overfed mind is like an overfed body, all bloated and slothful. If that were true, and you've fed your brain with half of what's in your bookshelves, which, I might say, are quite overstuffed themselves, then you would be in an overstuffed stupor. Since you obviously don't have any problems from the rich diet you feed your brain, this metaphor has fallen apart, and we should stop talking about it."
Combeferre raised his eyebrows, but said nothing in response. He squinted through the telescope's eyepiece, then crouched down to consult a book that was lying on the floor, held open by a thick anatomy textbook on one side, and a book about the life cycle of lobsters on the other.
Grantaire watched this with interest. He took a swig from his wine bottle, then bent down and asked, "What're you reading so awkwardly?"
"Star charts," Combeferre said, straightening up. "Normally, I keep them on a chair next to the telescope, so they're within easy reach, but since all the chairs are in use …" he trailed off and gestured towards the table, where Joly, Bossuet, and Courfeyrac had managed to work each other into fits of laughter, while Enjolras' mouth was quirked up in a smile, and Feuilly, face buried in his hands, was probably laughing as well, given the shaking of his shoulders.
"So you're using the floor to hold your book instead," Grantaire said. He set down his wine, and picked up the book, leafing through it while keeping a finger within the pages to mark Combeferre's place. "Why so many charts?"
"Because the stars move around in a slow cycle throughout the year. What you can see is different from month to month."
"Oh, like how you can only see Orion around the winter, and you get the Zodiac cycling around the sky."
"You're interested in astronomy?" Combeferre asked, surprised.
"Just tangentially. I don't spend my nights staring up at the stars like Jehan does, but a lot of the constellations are just the Greek myths tacked up into the sky. I mean, have you seen how much of the sky Perseus' story takes up? He's a total sky hog, I swear. And then you get that couple, Cassiopeia and Cepheus, spinning around the North Star, stuck upside-down half the time. I've read that was part of Cassiopeia's punishment for her vanity, being stuck standing on her head. I suppose that makes some sort of sense, since when you stand on your head, all the blood rushes to your face, and turning all purple isn't very attractive, but then why give her husband the same punishment? The gods had an odd sense of justice, is what I'm saying. Sort of like the North Koreans. One of your family members gets declared an enemy of the state, then poof, whole lot of you, off to the gulag. But then again, not like the North Koreans, on account of being Greek, not Korean. Also, immortal. That's another important difference. Me, I wouldn't want to be immortal. I'd rather not have to watch all my friends die before me, stuck living an empty existence 'til the end of time. Besides, there's only one of us who reaches godlike heights, and that's definitely not me."
"Enjolras is as human as you or me," Combeferre said gently.
Grantaire pressed his lips together, looking away and drumming his fingers on the book, obviously uncomfortable with where his ramblings had led him. His expression then changed as he saw something that caught his eye. He shifted the book so he could hold it open with one hand. "What's this here, going through the Zodiac?" he asked, pointing at an arc that swept across the star chart. "An elliptic? Like the orbits Joly was going on about? He's a good guy, but no one should ever be that excited about ellipses."
"Ecliptic," Combeferre corrected, looking at where Grantaire was pointing. "That's what the planets travel along. Actually, if you could go forward about ten pages or so, there should be a chart showing where I can find Saturn at this time of year … ah, thank you," he said, as Grantaire obligingly flipped to the correct page and turned the book so Combeferre didn't have to read it upside-down.
"See, I'm a better book holder than your chair. And way better than the floor."
"A vast improvement," Combeferre agreed. "So Saturn is in … Leo. Okay, so find Regulus, and … there, Grantaire, you see that bright off-white dot there?"
"Which one? Combeferre, I don't know if you've noticed this, but the sky is full of bright white dots."
"Okay, you know how to find Leo?"
"I think so. Follow the left side of the Big Dipper's bowl down, and there's Regulus, I think. I can't really see too much else of the constellation. The lion must be sleeping tonight."
"There, just to the right of Regulus."
"Oh, that? That's a planet? Huh. Somehow I thought it'd be bigger."
"Well, it is thousands and thousands of miles away," Combeferre said. "Give me a couple minutes, I should be able to find it with my telescope."
Grantaire paged through the book of star charts as Combeferre searched. "Hey, Combeferre, whoever wrote this is full of crap. I'm pretty sure they made up that spelling for Cronus' name, and he's Zeus's father, not his brother."
"I bought that book for its charts, not the mythology," Combeferre said.
"And you're not offended that they didn't care enough to get that part right?"
"I am, but not enough to complain about it."
"You're no fun at all."
"Just for that, you're not getting to look at Saturn and its rings," Combeferre said, standing up from where he'd been hunched over the eyepiece.
"No, I'll be good, can I see? Pretty please, with sugar on top?"
"Fine, you can get first look, since you did such a good job as a book stand."
"Good to know that I'm on par with an inanimate object," Grantaire said sarcastically. "Just look in here?"
"Yes, just make sure not to jostle it," Combeferre said. "The rings are those little bumps to either side."
A pause from Grantaire, then, "Whoa. That's insane."
"Galileo, when he first saw them, described them as being like ears."
"All the better to hear the music of the spheres, I suppose," Grantaire said, stepping back from the telescope. "You want me to get the others?"
"If you could, please."
"Oi, nerds," Grantaire yelled. The group at the table looked up. "Get over here. Boy Genius has found Saturn. It is, as the youth these days say, 'hella tight.'"
"Hella tight?" Combeferre echoed.
"Hella," Grantaire said, nodding. Then, in one smooth motion, he picked up his wine bottle and took a drink from it. "I'll step back and let the peanut gallery take a gander. Here's to you," he said, raising the bottle in a toast. "And Saturn and astronomy and all that jazz."
~~~
And lastly, a short, quick one, wherein Joly and Bossuet go to the Jardin de Plantes, visit the camel, and wind up laughing so hard that they disturb the other zoo-goers. "Still Life With Camel," based off a prompt by
"Look at it!" Joly exclaimed, face pressed up against the bars of the pen in the Jardin des Plantes.
"What is it?” Bossuet asked, fascinated and repulsed in turn by the bizarre beast.
"A camel, just arrived from Arabia," Joly said, stepping back.
"What’s that great lump on its back? It’s not deformed, is it?"
"It does look a bit like a highly deformed version of the giraffe, doesn’t it?" Joly mused. "I think I read somewhere that it’s a great inner sack of water. They’re creatures of the desert, so it would make sense for Nature to have provided them with a built-in water butt."
"And if they’ve drank all their water supply? Does their hump deflate like a crumpled bag?"
Joly, struck by this image of the camel with a flabby, deflated hump flopped over its side, snickered. “I don’t know. That would be a sight to see, though, wouldn’t it? Or, oh! But they ride them — the Arabs do, I mean. And can you imagine? Sitting on the back of the camel, and its hump just goes fffffft,” Joly said, pressing his hands downwards and imitating the sound he imagined a deflating hump would make.
Bossuet started laughing, too. “Just sinking down.”
"Fffft," Joly said again, breaking out into fresh laughter.
"It’d—it’d make dismounting easier," Bossuet gasped out before cracking up again.
"No, but if it’s inflated, you could," Joly said, trying to get the words out between fits of giggles, "you could slide down off it. Like a banister." More laughter.
An elderly couple, who had also paused to admire the camel, shot the two laughing young men (Joly by this point was starting incorporate hiccups into his giggles) a look of severe disapproval.
"Sorry, Madame, Monsieur," Bossuet said, trying desperately to maintain a serious expression. "Jolllly, are you all right?"
"I’m — hic — fine, I’m just…humps, you know?”
"Come, perhaps we’d better leave these fine citizens to admire the camel in peace."
“Hic — right, I just — hic — right.” Joly took a deep breath, pressed his lips together, and smoothed down his coat, schooling his expression, then quite ruining the effect by hiccuping again. “Do you want to — hic — want to look at the giraffe before we go?”
"A capital idea! Lead on, my friend," Bossuet said. Then, grinning mischievously, he added, "Ffffft."
Joly completely lost his newfound composure, and Bossuet joined him in laughter.
~~~
Whew!
