FIC : complacency
[Title:] Complacency
[Setting:] AU. Modern day.
[Character(s):] Mireille & Jean Louis
[Summary:] She is as dedicated to her job as he is, but tonight she doesn't wish to work.
[Author's Notes:] Companion piece to this.
It has become a tradition, how they dedicate their weekends to each other. After a week of living separate lives with different foci - his lodged firmly in the political world, over and underground, and hers rooted in her office at the university, if not at the Centre National de la Littérature where she spends a majority of her afternoons. They have become the embodiment of modern living, Jean Louis and her. An image upheld by every cover of every glossed magazine and the two-three or four-page analyses in Luxembourg’s multi-lingual tabloids. German and French gossip in equal amounts. All mixed up, isn’t that so?
Resting the book she was reading in her lap, she looks up at Jean Louis, seated across from her in the chair closest to the TV. Cutting the screen into squares, several news channels report on the happenings of the day in every language that they know. Muted, currently, but she is so familiar with Luxembourgish that she can read the announcer’s lips. Details on another civil war in Africa. Her eyes move back to Jean Louis, leafing through Financial Times. Five months have passed, since she found the receipt on what she is well aware must be one of many weapons deals - unaddressed, but goods and their price listed in bold. Of course they had argued when he discovered her in his office. And inevitably, he had hit her yet again, sending her into exile in the bathroom.
She watches him wordlessly. How he skims through articles at a slow pace. There have been multiple arguments and multiple blows since then. Nevertheless, she enjoys these moments of settlement. Has measured their weight and found them more valuable than... the intermissions. What he gives her, she will not throw away and what he does she cannot ignore, so the cycle must continue as it has done hitherto. For now, she remains silent. It’s Saturday night, meaning that Monday morning will arrive soon enough.
Critical interpretation is a part of her job, but tonight she does not wish to work.