Hey, Mervin.

[jamesmcginty]

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From JMcGinty [@] Free.net

How was the flight?

I am taking a course in first aid. Or a refresher one? I had one for Victorian style emergency triage for ships, but that's hardly modern. So I'm taking another one. The uh - painting class is mostly for the fun of it. I keep feeling like I should apologize for signing up for it, but the teacher's been - all right. He finds my accent quaint.

I have not grumbled about that.

The college is up and going again. The students have started three competing papers. A charming spotty youth that looked about twelve offered a subscription to one to me, and I took him down for coffee and lunch and talked politics. He was of the young and clueless sort, but he looked like he was due a lunch in the world.

He asked if I was good at setting type.

Well, I could toss the name by folks and see if it's dangerous, right? He seemed all right, and it'd be type for all the papers.

Love,

James

Comments

[mervinmcginty]

Well - it's definitely more like visiting Lorena out here. I got frowned at a great deal by some tiny very blond man with the port, but some of the other officials were pretty pleasant. There's a very company town feel to some of the areas. We're kind of planning on being migratory for a while.

Apparently the tiny blond man's son heard me talk in Perth, and wanted to discuss my ideas about engine efficiency in damp weather.

Suddenly, my ship became a lot less suspect. Tedious.

Either way, not troubling you with things like that. Damian got very ill from - I'm not sure what. Stress? Some med. interaction? It started when we loaded up, and got worse on takeoff. Waverly had some anti-nausea meds, and that ended up with Damian being very - chatty and kind of dizzily cheerful, but at least not ill.

Painting sounds amazing. Please send me the lumpiest pear painting, if possible.

As always,
M.

[grand_error]

James has painting today, and Grantaire has, well, R doesn't have much going on here right now. He has a campus studio space, according to the independent study capstone he's slowly dragging himself through, which he mostly uses as extra storage and naptime space, and sometimes a place to hide snacks that he doesn't particularly want his friends to uncover and devour. Joly's an eating machine, he swears, and honestly, Combeferre can be one too. He's got theories about that, but as it is, he's spent the day hanging around up there, splashing some watercolors around half assedly, and bothering the hall-mates who are doing all sorts of other interesting projects.

He might take a pottery class next semester, since he's never really explored it beyond tossing a vase with a hole in the bottom as a teenager at camp, and Pierre's looked fairly cool. And Magdalene has a fantastic looking welding project that he might actually paint at some point in future. The others, he's mostly left alone today, since he's fairly sure that Louis, who gets a lot of mocking for his name, was close to strangling him if he touched his darkroom, so, really.

At any rate, given everything that's just happened, Grantaire's pretty relieved to be getting out of there when he realizes James is almost out of class, and he's hanging around in one of the lobbies, waiting to go and pick him up after, for now. Or maybe he'll sneak over as the class is just about to end, stick his head in the window and make faces. He knows the instructor and they get along well enough he'll probably get a laugh, maybe make him end class a few minutes early. And then he'd get more time with his boyfriend.

That'd be acceptable, wouldn't it?

[jamesmcginty]

James does look like he's looking for R as he peeks out the doors and grins. "I agreed to wash some water glasses to help clean up a little before the weekend. How would lunch sound after that?"

He's got a blue smudge on his cheekbone, and his glasses are a little crooked like he was nudging them up to blur his painting to check the contrast. It looks like a couple of kids are still finishing up the last touches on their work.

[grand_error]

"Sounds like a rare oppurtunity to see some fantastic bits of art in action." R muses, smirking as he lets himself in, because he can. "Before the colors fade to completely dingy sewage brown. I sort of like the moment when they swirl."

And he's grinning at the little street on James's face, there. "And you have some on your OWN face. Fantastic. A living representation of...what concept IS that?"

He's also waving to a few people he knows vaguely, who seem a little stunned to see him in a classroom. Really? On a day that's not the first or last of the term? That's newish.

[jamesmcginty]

"Uh -" James scrubs cautiously and checks his now blueish thumb. "I suppose the sky is too easy an answer, and the divine is pretentious, so I could go for multiculturalism?" He cleans up a little using the reflection off a glass before heading to the sink.

"How was your day? Do you need to check in with anyone here, so I'm not stealing you entirely?" Since - well - James should make sure of that, right?

[grand_error]

"There we go. Maybe it's some sort of secret message." R muses, "And please, art definitely has pretentions if you mean to go THAT route. It wouldn't be the most unheard of idea EVER. "

He smirks, grabbing a few brushes to clean while he's here. Might as well do that, even if he's leaning against a counter, half sitting, while he does it.

"I'm completely free. The only obligation I have is to the angel Gabriel at the moment. And he can wait his turn to get the details on his wings finished. I need to blend more red as it is. Besides. I think he'd want me to become inspired."

[jamesmcginty]

James laughs. "I think I've still got that book of bird paintings. The one with the spread wings is with Feuilly right now. He wanted to experiment with translucent panels, I think."

He leans a tiny bit as he watches the colors swirl in the drain. "The place that does three stews and a tin of rice is open. If you're up for Ethiopian via Paris IV. Their couscous is also good, but it's pretty spicy. Comes with a hard boiled egg."

[grand_error]

"Ooh I'm intrigued." R admits, and really, he is. Feuilly usually seems torn between wondering if he's joking when he brings up his work and compares it to serious art, or serious about things, but he really IS serious about the man's ability with a brush. And it's kind of a shame he can't really end up coming here.

Not that most of them can go places for the time being. R escaped by means of having his face hidden, at least, and he's relieved by that much. It allows him to keep living without raising suspicion, which is a good thing.

He studies the colors too, musing a little as they fall, considering the place James mentions.

"I'm up for giving that a try. I like the atmosphere. It's very lively."

[jamesmcginty]

"Anyone else free? I'm game for trailing along while you hunt for inspiration for Gabriel." James is - trying to not blush a little at - it's not even innuendo, is it? It's not like R said he was basing that painting off of James' face. He doesn't think he'd look good with a horn to start with.

The Ethiopian place is more of a generalized "pick three things and we'll toss in a tin of a carb" kind of tiffin place. James likes the prices and it's clean and bright. He's pretty sure Joly's found something safe there. Thinking of Joly - "I think Joly ate at the Ethiopian place."

[grand_error]

"Possibly." R considers. "That is, I'm fairly sure most of them are skivving off classes at the moment. Law students." He adds, shaking his head, rather amused by the whole thing. "Admittedly, the pooling together notes so not all of them have to go every day is a good SYSTEM." Like it's not the sort of thing he would do if he was in a field where that was acceptable. Classics or something, maybe. If he ever tries for another degree in something relatively unproductive and invoking of judgment it'd have to be Classics. For right now, he's just grinning at James a little.

"You do know what they say about muses and spending time around your personal one, right?" No, James isn't so much a Gabriel as all of that. R's pretty sure silver is better suited to him than gold, but it doesn't mean being around someone he likes to look at will hurt the painting at all. The opposite, in fact.

"Even Joly? Then it's certainly workable if he emerged and didn't decide to die. I'm in."

[jamesmcginty]

James is definitely a little pink as he picks up his coat. "Right. I've been dutiful enough, I think. Do I need to scrub my face again, or shall we head out, painter of angels?"

He's game for trying to grab medical students a lunch or a law student to join them. He still kind of wants to make sure that everyone is fine and safe ever since the riots. It's probably why some of them started taking medical jobs with the prison to keep an eye on fellow rebels.

It's why he's taking that first aid class, at least. So he wouldn't ever run into Dr. Combeferre in the night looking so exhausted.

[grand_error]

"Looks that way to me." R agreed. "Teacher's pet, even." That was said with a little bit of a wink. "And I think it's mostly gone." He didn't notice much of any paint anywhere at least.

"Let's take to the streets then, see who we can round up, if you'd like. The medical students SHOULD be finishing rounds by now."

[jamesmcginty]

James waits till they're in the hall to touch R's elbow and give him a half hug. "Sounds like a plan. I heard Tom's in town too, so we may run into him. I think he was doing some traveling around for family stuff."