Michel Combeferre (etre_libre) wrote in angellogs, @ 2019-03-11 20:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | balthier, combeferre |
Who: Balthier, Combeferre
When: Recent (after Combeferre's message.)
Where: A phone call. Balthier's at the college.
What: Combeferre's had a bad shock at the hospital, and Balthier offered to call him. They're mostly chatting with the freshmen music lessons going on in the background.
Rating/Warnings: Combeferre's rattled, and discusses his stabbing death by bayonet in some glossed over detail.
Status: Complete
Balthier's got a mug of coffee, and he's put a call in to Basch to see if Basch is free, just in case, but he's settled in a comfortable corner, on break, when he calls Combeferre. The warned tuba practice freshmen group are tubaing, sounding almost like music, in between the occasional sad hooting quack.
“Hey.” Combeferre’s sounding, well, actually quite tightly controlled at the moment, like it’s obviously the thing he’s going for above all else. “I do appreciate this a lot by the way.” He’s taking a long pause, clearly counting in his head as he breathes. At least he knows his techniques to use.
“Sorry, I’m a little...parallel deaths to mine are...not the most fun.”
"I can imagine. Do you want to lay some ground rules? Just - stuff I should do, or shouldn't?" Balthier leans back and looks out over the courtyard. There's an octave and then someone starts up a bit of what sounds like Schubert, mixing in with a low rumbling tuba noise.
“I can’t really think of anything in specific.” Combeferre shrugs. “It’s nothing that avoiding helps or hurts, simply a fact. And it hasn’t happened since before COLLEGE, but the exact combination never happened before either. I suppose it was jarring. My patient...we’ll just name her, since it’s obvious, Michelle C, was assisting wounded people at a street demonstration that turned violent, and she got stabbed near the heart for her troubles in the confusion they think, or the uh...not quite an enemy insurgent did it on purpose. That’s...pretty much what happened to me, though it was a guardsman who was staggering and I went to help him up. I’m still not sure…”
He’s pausing a moment, counting breaths again, and there’s the sound of him sipping something quickly. “Sorry, tea.” he explains, “I’m still not sure if he was confused then, and thought I was still an enemy, or if it was on purpose. I hope it was the first, but then again…”
He’s never been certain, when he analyzes it. “We WERE a threat to the national security.”
"I've got coffee. And a call in to someone else, and I'm on break. It's fine." Balthier trails off thinking. "Jehan talked about that. Sort of - Courfeyrac was important to him, and it was a shock to go from dying to here, and finding Courfeyrac younger than when he first met him. But he wanted me to know that - you all were insurgents. Is that the right term?"
Balthier hesitates. "I remember dying."
“Those two were a couple.” Combeferre says, wondering if he should have said that or not right now. “I can’t imagine that’s been a simple thing to come back to. And yes, we were at that. And I would support our cause again. The problem was less in what we did or in any sort of thing we could have fixed ourselves than with those who had promised and withdrew their support. A few from the city’s other barricades survived, others like Enjolras, leaders of their smaller cells who were part of The Rights Of Man society, but no one had the out and out victory that…” he shakes his head.
“A lot of the businesses and their owners, and journalists and others said they would stand with us, but when it came to it...some people have a further definition of honor than you could imagine. And you too, hmm? Reincarnation is an odd thing. How does it sit with you?”
"Strange, I suppose. I think if I hadn't ended up here, I would've died again." Balthier makes a face and has a sip of his own coffee. "This is the - we never had Noah happy, or Basch safe like he is. Or me without a criminal record on my name. So - there's that. I have my siblings here."
Balthier swallows. "I think it was - there was forces - affecting the world at home. Trying to bring up puppet rulers, to do their games. So I feared the repeating was - them, again, playing."
Combeferre nods at that part. He was certainly luckier in this regard. He does expect, at some point in his life, to risk death, or had, but not in quite the same way. He’d always considered the idea he might later take a term somewhere considered dangerous, to serve a population in harm’s way, but that’s a bit different too.
“And that IS a good thing here. I think it’s better for most of us who’ve gotten here. Enjolras doesn’t like the circumstances but that’s less to do with the place, if I’m being honest, and the fact that people still don’t seem to care that the visions he was given and is compelled to bring about have not come. He told us that the nineteenth century had been great, but the twentieth would be happy. The fact that that one came and went and no one is happy still...that’s the problem for him, really. But Jehan is doing well enough, and Bahorel would be thriving anywhere. You could drop that man in a pre-historic world and he would come out on top of it, riding a dinosaur while proclaiming that he is their king.”
And that seems reasonable.
“Ah so patterns that emerge again. That COULD certainly be an issue.”
"I just think Enjolras wants to be - on the front lines, and not stuck young. Which is fair enough. I could see that being - I was terrible when I started remembering. I think I was - eleven? Thirteen? Father took me to the lab, and I had a bit of a cold. Noah ended up having someone lead me to my dad's office so I could rest, and I thought I saw -" Balthier waves a hand, not that Combeferre can see it. "My dad looked a lot like me, at my age. My dad, dressed like a fancy theater fan, with a pirate, and a viera, and I thought it was the coolest thing. In a mirror. I didn't realize I was remembering me."
Balthier takes a deep breath. "But I don't remember - it wasn't like that. Wondering if it was accident or malice, that ended things for me."
“I suppose because, for me, the circumstance WAS so clearly carried out during a time when it could have been nothing but one or the other. I imagine other circumstances would be far more…” Combeferre considers. “Either clear cut or at least with some sort of a different circumstance to them.”
"I'm sorry you died in the -" Balthier trails off. "Medics, in my experience, put so much of themselves on the line, with their duty."
“In the revolt.” Combeferre might well call it what it was. Not full fledged enough to be remembered as a revolution, though that was their intent. “Served me quite right for the fact I was helping an enemy. But I would do that part again. No sense in being INDECENT to another person.”
"It makes sense for me, that you'd try to help." Balthier exhales. "I'm sorry - is this helping? Should I change the subject?"
“It IS the foremost subject on my mind at the moment, so it’s hard to simply change it?” Combeferre offers, “And it seemed the only thing TO do, even now. It’s more of a…” he isn’t sure how to put it. “Well, I can’t get it out no matter what. I suppose I’ve never given it much thought before.”
"Makes sense to me. It's - I've got things like that. I wake up, and it's too cold, or I'm aching, and nothing feels real until I move." Balthier sips his coffee and sighs. "I think that - happens, with bad memories? Normally happens, I mean."
“Probably is meant to.” Combeferre nods. “I think it just hasn’t managed to catch up to me before, if that makes sense. Too much else going on. But, well. At least it ought to get better now. I hope.”
"Aedan . . . ." Balthier trails off. "Not my story to tell, but Noah implied he had some rough times, when he got here, and was startled to feel worse when things were getting better. And Noah guessed he never had the chance to think about things. Does that - ring true with you?"
“Well. Aedan’s thing’s pretty clearly there if you google it.” Combeferre says, quite seriously there. “I’m not surprised most of the stress didn’t settle in until after he wasn’t actively in danger of being killed. It’s a fairly normal thing with a lot of stressful accidents too. But mine’s more a...it would have caught up long before I got here, I should think. I always KNEW how i”d died but…” He shrugs. “Nothing so close to it had happened that close to ME, I suppose?”
Is that fair?
"You felt like it was far away, people dying the way you did. That makes sense." Balthier winces. "But you're not alone, and you have people who care about you."
“Probably true.” Combeferre has to agree with that. “And no, I’m lucky. I mean, I hate that it could have interfered at work, I’ve had ENOUGH things doing that lately, well, this year anyway. Not the last couple months lately.”
And he laughs. “There’s a theory chronic things are caused by stress early in life. I wonder if past life would push it. Though I’ve always had the migraine part of things.”
"I could see that? How do - I know nothing about modern medicine. Which - was probably clear when we ended up talking. The most I know is that I might have - uh - how'd you put it? Asthmetic stuff? The chills and cough I'd get regularly. But it's not as bad here." Balthier could guess it's just a change and the lack of stress. "Would you like to hear about things here? Courfeyrac and all?"
“Asthmatic?” Combeferre says. “That’s dealt with easily enough. Well, usually. There’s people it IS worse for. Joly has it. I’d bring it up to your regular doctor, see what they can do in the way of warding off attacks. They get bad sometimes. And sure. What IS all going on? I mean, besides Marc Anthony.”
"Mostly Marc Anthony. And - I'm not sure it's - you're dealing with the medical knowledge issue. I think it's - allergies, that go into a lung complaint? Versus chronic lung issues, but I don't know the words." Balthier leans his head back, and there's a long low blat echoing up from the tubas. "I did warn you about the tubas. And Courfeyrac seems determined to get into fencing, seriously. I think it wouldn't hurt him, over the summer, to look into it, but - I worry he'd push too far to make someone happy. I spoke with Jehan. He's wanting to spend time with people. Perhaps you could call him up?"
Balthier tries to think of what else has been up. "I've gotten the seed catalogs for this year?"
“He always WAS serious about the fencing.” Combeferre says. “Started when he was...I think about seven and had a bit of a crisis about it when he was twelve and off balance a lot.” He laughs about the tubas.
“And so you did. Courfeyrac is...he did know what he was doing, after a point. There are a lot of things he wouldn’t risk for it at home, so he’s probably just excited at the idea that he could DO something with it. I wouldn’t worry until it BECOMES a problem. And hopefully it won’t.”
And the Jehan bit….
“That IS a good idea. I know he was settling in for a bit, so...good to hear that’s getting better. I’ll see what days he has off from the shop. And seed catalogs? Anything special? I’ve been blogging.”
"Tell me about your blogging, and I'll tell you about what I'm up to?" Balthier leans back. "There's this thin leafed heat tolerant lettuce, for example. I was talking about putting in a garden bed where we've got more sunlight."
“Sounds like that would work well.” Combeferre laughs. “And the blog’s ah...entymology, actually. I was a bit of an amateur one then. And it’s easier than ever now.”
"So - is that . . . insects, right?" Balthier's guessing on Latin roots.
“It is.” Combeferre sounds really pleased. “Moths, specifically. Always loved them. They’re so fascinating. And beautiful. And there are just so MANY of the species.”
"That sounds amazing." Balthier suspects he's about to hear more than he ever wanted to know about moths, but if it'd have Combeferre not sounding so haunted by the past - "What's the ones that always get shown when people are talking about them?"