Deleted scene, Les Miserables
Mar. 8th, 2016 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wildestrangerToday is my birthday; I was hoping to post a fic but unemployment and academic stress have made that plan undoable. I do, however, have a deleted scene from my current WIP, which I've decided to cut from the story because other things need to happen, but which amuses me too much for me to destroy it entirely.
This is the story it's from (Les Miserables, Enjolras/Grantaire, modern British AU), but you don't actually need to read that to get this.
Then his phone rings, and ruins everything.
The things with phones is that now that we have emails and texting, there is really no reason to ever call anyone. The only people who call Grantaire are British Gas, who seem to think that he owns his own boiler and wants to buy a winter cover for it, and his mother, who likes to chat. British Gas called last week, and his mother four days ago. He’s not due another ring for days.
He looks at the phone, which is resting on the kitchen table – too far for him to see who’s calling. It’s probably a wrong number, or someone selling PPI. He could easily ignore it.
But Grantaire is having a good day, and so he finds himself picking up a phone, and giving himself the second heart-attack of the day, because the caller is Enjolras.
Definitely should have ignored it. But then there would be the anxiety over calling him back to ask what he wanted.
Grantaire answers.
“Hello?”
A short silence, and noises of shuffling.
“Hello, Grantaire?”
“Yes, hello?”
“Hello, it’s Enjolras.”
“Hello.”
Well, you can’t argue that they are not at least part British; they’ve definitely got the awkward hellos part down. In the silence which follows, Grantaire starts a bet with himself over whether Enjolras is going to say another hello.
“Hi, how are you feeling?” Would ‘hi’ count, Grantaire muses. “I wanted to make sure you were all right, I texted you yesterday but I never heard back, so I thought I’d call. How are you feeling?”
Wow, Enjolras is much more awkward on the phone than Grantaire could have ever imagined. Worse, he suspects Enjolras is unaware of this. There is a careless confidence in the way he speaks, as if three hellos (Grantaire has decided that a hi counts) and two how are yous within the space of one minute would be ok rather than gringeworthingly embarrassing.
“You sounds better,” he adds. As if Grantaire had spoken more than four words. This is getting worse and worse. Or better and better – Grantaire will have to decide whether he’s going to laugh or cry about this later.
“I’m feeling much better, thanks,” he says, because this is getting embarrassing from his side as well now, and someone needs to sort out this conversation.
But Grantaire is not great at talking on the phone either, and another awkward silence follows, because what do you say after that? Enjolras says “Great!”. And then there’s some more silence.
This is ridiculous. The person who makes the call should take responsibility for the talking. It’s their fault that this is happening, after all. But since Enjolras clearly (so very clearly) has no idea about how modern people talk on the phone (or even, how modern people avoid talking on the phone because there’s no need for it), Grantaire is going to have to step up.
“How’s your, eh, your blog going? Combeferre mentioned that you’ve been working on it?”
There. Small talk. He knows how to get shit done.
“That’s actually…I was going to ask you about that at next pub quiz. I don’t suppose you’ll be coming tomorrow, though?”
Grantaire takes a moment to enjoy the fact that he is allowed to miss one because of his illness.
“No, probably not. Still feeling a bit weak.”
“Well, I hope you feel better soon.” Enjolras sounds perfectly sincere, if perfectly sincerely uninterested. “What I was going to ask you was if you’d mind me mentioning some of the things we talked about on Tuesday. I’m writing about arts education and how it’s packaged and marketed…”
“The evils of capitalism, sure…”
“…quite, and since I now know that you agree with me about the evils of capitalism as they relate to arts education in the UK, I was hoping you would let me use some of your thoughts, suitably camouflaged of course, on the blog.”
That’s. Well.
“Sure.” There is only one answer when Enjolras asks you, and it’s not because you don’t want to disappoint the revolution (Grantaire is frequently prepared to disappoint the revolution). Enjolras speaks as if he has discovered a new way to make the world less terrible, something new and unthought-of which is actually going to work; a miracle. Grantaire does not believe that the world will allow idealistic people to make it less terrible, but the thought of a miracle is something he can’t resist. The thought of getting relief from the terrible is something he can’t resist.
And in any case, this is easy enough to give. If something he said sparked a thought in Enjolras’s head, good luck to it. He is unlikely to use it himself – best it goes with Enjolras.
“Great, thanks. I’ll let you know what I end up with, you can have a look before I publish.”
Which is unusual enough, but Grantaire notes that Enjolras does not offer him final approval.
“Ok, thanks.”
“Thanks.”
And it looks like they are back to awkward greetings. Grantaire is going to nip that right in the bud, because a thank you loop is nobody’s friend.
“Right, so, um, I’ll see you next week. Thanks for calling.”
A brief silence from the other end leads him to wonder if Enjolras is, in fact, familiar with the code of ending a phone call. Grantaire is almost fascinated to find out.
“Great, thanks, see you then. Bye.”
And it’s over. Grantaire sits down and breathes deeply.
He’s going to need a third cup of coffee.
This is the story it's from (Les Miserables, Enjolras/Grantaire, modern British AU), but you don't actually need to read that to get this.
Then his phone rings, and ruins everything.
The things with phones is that now that we have emails and texting, there is really no reason to ever call anyone. The only people who call Grantaire are British Gas, who seem to think that he owns his own boiler and wants to buy a winter cover for it, and his mother, who likes to chat. British Gas called last week, and his mother four days ago. He’s not due another ring for days.
He looks at the phone, which is resting on the kitchen table – too far for him to see who’s calling. It’s probably a wrong number, or someone selling PPI. He could easily ignore it.
But Grantaire is having a good day, and so he finds himself picking up a phone, and giving himself the second heart-attack of the day, because the caller is Enjolras.
Definitely should have ignored it. But then there would be the anxiety over calling him back to ask what he wanted.
Grantaire answers.
“Hello?”
A short silence, and noises of shuffling.
“Hello, Grantaire?”
“Yes, hello?”
“Hello, it’s Enjolras.”
“Hello.”
Well, you can’t argue that they are not at least part British; they’ve definitely got the awkward hellos part down. In the silence which follows, Grantaire starts a bet with himself over whether Enjolras is going to say another hello.
“Hi, how are you feeling?” Would ‘hi’ count, Grantaire muses. “I wanted to make sure you were all right, I texted you yesterday but I never heard back, so I thought I’d call. How are you feeling?”
Wow, Enjolras is much more awkward on the phone than Grantaire could have ever imagined. Worse, he suspects Enjolras is unaware of this. There is a careless confidence in the way he speaks, as if three hellos (Grantaire has decided that a hi counts) and two how are yous within the space of one minute would be ok rather than gringeworthingly embarrassing.
“You sounds better,” he adds. As if Grantaire had spoken more than four words. This is getting worse and worse. Or better and better – Grantaire will have to decide whether he’s going to laugh or cry about this later.
“I’m feeling much better, thanks,” he says, because this is getting embarrassing from his side as well now, and someone needs to sort out this conversation.
But Grantaire is not great at talking on the phone either, and another awkward silence follows, because what do you say after that? Enjolras says “Great!”. And then there’s some more silence.
This is ridiculous. The person who makes the call should take responsibility for the talking. It’s their fault that this is happening, after all. But since Enjolras clearly (so very clearly) has no idea about how modern people talk on the phone (or even, how modern people avoid talking on the phone because there’s no need for it), Grantaire is going to have to step up.
“How’s your, eh, your blog going? Combeferre mentioned that you’ve been working on it?”
There. Small talk. He knows how to get shit done.
“That’s actually…I was going to ask you about that at next pub quiz. I don’t suppose you’ll be coming tomorrow, though?”
Grantaire takes a moment to enjoy the fact that he is allowed to miss one because of his illness.
“No, probably not. Still feeling a bit weak.”
“Well, I hope you feel better soon.” Enjolras sounds perfectly sincere, if perfectly sincerely uninterested. “What I was going to ask you was if you’d mind me mentioning some of the things we talked about on Tuesday. I’m writing about arts education and how it’s packaged and marketed…”
“The evils of capitalism, sure…”
“…quite, and since I now know that you agree with me about the evils of capitalism as they relate to arts education in the UK, I was hoping you would let me use some of your thoughts, suitably camouflaged of course, on the blog.”
That’s. Well.
“Sure.” There is only one answer when Enjolras asks you, and it’s not because you don’t want to disappoint the revolution (Grantaire is frequently prepared to disappoint the revolution). Enjolras speaks as if he has discovered a new way to make the world less terrible, something new and unthought-of which is actually going to work; a miracle. Grantaire does not believe that the world will allow idealistic people to make it less terrible, but the thought of a miracle is something he can’t resist. The thought of getting relief from the terrible is something he can’t resist.
And in any case, this is easy enough to give. If something he said sparked a thought in Enjolras’s head, good luck to it. He is unlikely to use it himself – best it goes with Enjolras.
“Great, thanks. I’ll let you know what I end up with, you can have a look before I publish.”
Which is unusual enough, but Grantaire notes that Enjolras does not offer him final approval.
“Ok, thanks.”
“Thanks.”
And it looks like they are back to awkward greetings. Grantaire is going to nip that right in the bud, because a thank you loop is nobody’s friend.
“Right, so, um, I’ll see you next week. Thanks for calling.”
A brief silence from the other end leads him to wonder if Enjolras is, in fact, familiar with the code of ending a phone call. Grantaire is almost fascinated to find out.
“Great, thanks, see you then. Bye.”
And it’s over. Grantaire sits down and breathes deeply.
He’s going to need a third cup of coffee.
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Date: 2016-03-08 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-09 02:27 pm (UTC)