Patterns - Musichetta/Grantaire, 585 wds., for Mandy
A birthday present for ladyknight30. She requested Musichetta/R, "just for the hell of it." Here's 585 words of just for the hell of it.
Patterns
There was a stack of dominoes still on the table. Black and white, little dots and lines, all perfectly, geometrically placed. Everything in order, just as Joly, fingers nervously shifting and adjusting the pieces, had left them.
Grantaire stared down at the small black tiles. One hand curled around the neck of a bottle - half-empty, his sixth this night. The other hand reached, trembling, out to the dominoes.
“Is anyone here?”
He started, fingers clutching thin air instead of the black rectangles, nearly dropping the sixth bottle.
“Jus’ me,” he slurred, his tongue displeasingly thick after some hours of being used for nothing but to taste the untasteably cheap wine.
He couldn’t see the girl’s face, standing as she was in the doorway with the light from the streetlamp outside turning her into a slim-waisted, full-skirted silhouette, but he recognized her voice. He’d heard it before, though not as often as he might have liked.
She moved forward, out of the doorway and into the dim, empty room. “Where has everyone else gone?” she asked, “if you are left here alone? Joly, mon Aigle - they can’t have just gone off somewhere without me!”
“They can, and have,” he answered, his voice a harsh croak in his mouth and harsher still in the dusty air. “They’ve left you, belle, for each other.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, but mildly, and she was crossing the room, coming nearer, nearer and nearer with each swish of her long skirts. “You’re drunk.”
“I am indeed,” he said, and laughed, the noise even rougher than his voice. “And you’re beautiful.”
She gave him a curious frown, and bent over the table where Joly and Bahorel had abandoned their dominoes.
“Aren’t these Alexandre’s?” she asked, picking up a domino. Grantaire, in whose left hand the bottle neck still was clutched, didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at, admiring the white of her slender fingers against the black of the tile.
“You must be very drunk indeed,” she said petulantly, and tossed the domino back onto the table.
“If they are not here, I shall have to go look somewhere else,” she said, but still, Grantaire didn’t answer. The domino was out of place, now, not in the right pattern.
There were too few such orderly things in his life to let this one be ruined, and he reached out to set it to rights...
“If they do come back, will you please… won’t you please tell them to come home to me?” Musichetta called back plaintively from the doorway, where once again she stood, a silhouette, an hourglass, a neat and tidy and beautiful pattern against the snow-etched yellowing glow.
“’F they come back,” he muttered, and she nodded a quick, sharp, anxious little thanks and vanished into the almost-morning, the black silhouette taken out of the pattern.
His fingers slipped on the dominoes, and knocked the whole stack off the table, into a clatter of tiles.
It didn’t matter, Grantaire thought, and sank down into a lopsided chair, to lift the half-empty sixth bottle to his lips, in the beginnings of an effort to fully empty it; it didn’t matter. There were no patterns in his life, and he couldn’t touch, could never touch, could never even quite see, the silhouetted shapes, the shadow puppets in their orderly, geometric pattern, in other peoples’ lives.
Patterns
There was a stack of dominoes still on the table. Black and white, little dots and lines, all perfectly, geometrically placed. Everything in order, just as Joly, fingers nervously shifting and adjusting the pieces, had left them.
Grantaire stared down at the small black tiles. One hand curled around the neck of a bottle - half-empty, his sixth this night. The other hand reached, trembling, out to the dominoes.
“Is anyone here?”
He started, fingers clutching thin air instead of the black rectangles, nearly dropping the sixth bottle.
“Jus’ me,” he slurred, his tongue displeasingly thick after some hours of being used for nothing but to taste the untasteably cheap wine.
He couldn’t see the girl’s face, standing as she was in the doorway with the light from the streetlamp outside turning her into a slim-waisted, full-skirted silhouette, but he recognized her voice. He’d heard it before, though not as often as he might have liked.
She moved forward, out of the doorway and into the dim, empty room. “Where has everyone else gone?” she asked, “if you are left here alone? Joly, mon Aigle - they can’t have just gone off somewhere without me!”
“They can, and have,” he answered, his voice a harsh croak in his mouth and harsher still in the dusty air. “They’ve left you, belle, for each other.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, but mildly, and she was crossing the room, coming nearer, nearer and nearer with each swish of her long skirts. “You’re drunk.”
“I am indeed,” he said, and laughed, the noise even rougher than his voice. “And you’re beautiful.”
She gave him a curious frown, and bent over the table where Joly and Bahorel had abandoned their dominoes.
“Aren’t these Alexandre’s?” she asked, picking up a domino. Grantaire, in whose left hand the bottle neck still was clutched, didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at, admiring the white of her slender fingers against the black of the tile.
“You must be very drunk indeed,” she said petulantly, and tossed the domino back onto the table.
“If they are not here, I shall have to go look somewhere else,” she said, but still, Grantaire didn’t answer. The domino was out of place, now, not in the right pattern.
There were too few such orderly things in his life to let this one be ruined, and he reached out to set it to rights...
“If they do come back, will you please… won’t you please tell them to come home to me?” Musichetta called back plaintively from the doorway, where once again she stood, a silhouette, an hourglass, a neat and tidy and beautiful pattern against the snow-etched yellowing glow.
“’F they come back,” he muttered, and she nodded a quick, sharp, anxious little thanks and vanished into the almost-morning, the black silhouette taken out of the pattern.
His fingers slipped on the dominoes, and knocked the whole stack off the table, into a clatter of tiles.
It didn’t matter, Grantaire thought, and sank down into a lopsided chair, to lift the half-empty sixth bottle to his lips, in the beginnings of an effort to fully empty it; it didn’t matter. There were no patterns in his life, and he couldn’t touch, could never touch, could never even quite see, the silhouetted shapes, the shadow puppets in their orderly, geometric pattern, in other peoples’ lives.