"Ah!" The Eagle of Meaux did not need his namesake's eyes to see that his friend and flatmate was quite engaged , and bowed to the girl politely. "Where i am going, Musichetta. Nice to see you." And, with a nod to Joly, he turned to leave.
"Wait!" Musichetta lept up, pulling the consumptive with her, "Don't go! We were just talking about you."
"You were?" Asked Bossuet, confused.
"We were?" Asked Joly, also confused.
Musichetta nodded enthusiastically.
"We certainly were! We were discussing our plans for the evening, and that includes you, as I was just about to say before you miraculously appeared... what excellent timing you have!" Bossuet nodded humbly
"but a trifle premature, my dear. You could not have been talking about me if you were just about to bring me up."
"Oh what's a word more or less? Here you are! Come and sit with us!" And Musichetta, a laughing nightengale, pushed Joly back onto the sofa and nested snugly in his lap. Muddled in the extreme, but always obliging to a lady, Bossuet sat in a chair opposite them- only to find his own lap occupied by the delicate small feet of the still laughing damsel. Bossuet's glance danced to Joly above Musichetta's dancing feet, and the look belied lostness. Joly returned it to him; they both wandered in their minds and wondered in their eyes. For while Joly knew that Musichetta was among the many things he shared with Lesgles (and grudged it not, out of fondness for both), Musichetta herself had never before alluded to nor geven credence to that fact. Decency and courtesy, above all, right..? the two marooned minds watched and waited on their sometime lady, who giggled after the manner in which she was named.
"So," she smiled coolly, content for now to let the lads be lost, "What do you two wish to do on this most enchanting and opportune evening?"
Bossuet's plans had included a light dinner, Aeschylus (borrowed from Jehan, and quite overdue) and sleep. Joly's plans had included Musichetta. Which was, in point of fact, what they had been discussing immediate to Bossuet's arrival. Joly, not at his most creative- (his imagination being more than taxed of late, considering the delimma of what could possibly be wrong with him now- he had been without symptom for almost a week, and this was starting to worry him) had not the slightest idea in what point or capacity Bossuet was to enter their plans; Bossuet, for his part, shared now his friend's density- he had no idea at all what to say to Musichetta. Fortunately, Musichetta herself lacked for ideas none.
"Nothing? You dissapoint me. Joly, ma cher, you must expand you horizons." She twisted in his lap and kissed him fiercely. Bossuet raised his eyebrows mildly, not understanding, but not troubling about it, overmuch. He turned to retrieve the Orestia text from the table, and so was startled utterly to find, upon turning back, Musichetta firmly ensconced in his own lap. Having distracted thusly; her pretty, predatory face perssed in for the conquer; the eagle fell utterly before the nightengale (who had perhaps become a minx in these past moments, her mouth being occupied with affairs more jocular than laughter) and where in the name of the Most High had Joly gotten to? A vauge awarness that guilt was perhaps a relevant emotion in this situation birthed that last question; and, by the grace of god, it was shortly answered. In as much of an eyeblink as it had appeared, Musichetta's triumphant facade was vanished and replaced, and by nothing less extraordinary than the suprised puss of his friend and flatmate, towards which a firm hand upon his back pressed him.
Not even Musichetta's considerable talent for the addling of male wits could subvert the force of this recognition, and both faces swiveled to stare at her in disbelief.
"The devil..." Said Bossuet, a little breathily.
"Par Dieu..." Said Joly, and what for Bossuet is 'breathily', for the medical student, translates to 'athsmatic'.
"For me?" Said Musichetta, fluttering her eyelashes prettily and pressing the two lads closer together.
Over the space of a tremulous inch, Bossuet and Joly exchanged a look, looked back at the capricous and mendicant Musichetta, and, still in the woods, back at each other. Finally, Bossuet shrugged.
"Who am i to deny a lady? Are you game, Jolllly?"
The consumptive did not sneeze nor sniffle, but looked still vaugely ill; and athsma a distinct possibility. Trading another look with the lady, he affected a wan smile and, with a sigh, that smile traversed the remaining, minute distance to his friend's more bemused expression.
A cry of delight escaped Musichetta and she clapped her hands in lascivious ecstacy over the two young men she so commanded. This excitement was not lessened by the interminable period of time that the girl could content herself only with watching the thus engaged boys, and was heightened by the profound expressions on their subsequently seperated faces. Bossuet, at the very least, bordered on the philisophical, and Joly's eyes were wide with a brave new wonder.
"Have I missed something?" He asked rehetorically, which was well, for Musichetta was far too busy with her pretty laughter to hear him. Bossuet simply stared with an erudite keeness. This reverie was broken by Musichetta, who slipped coyly between them and caused him to blink.
"Now that we're all better aquainted..." She giggled, pulling Joly in for a kiss and wrapping Bossuet's arms around them both. Joly, for all his mouth was engaged in Musichetta's, stared at Bossuet over her shoulder as if to say- "What was that!?"
Bossuet's eyes, independant of their master's token attentions to Musichetta's delicate neck, replied silently,
"My friend, I am entirely baffled."
Half-orchestrated by their eager companion, their faces met once more; the dialouge nevertheless continued in a hazy combination of eye meetings and the fantastic language of hands moving across backs.
I feel strange Said Joly in this manner, Perhaps i am coming down with a new parasite, or some sort of respiratory disorder?
Whatever it is, i swear that i too have contracted it... Mused Lesgles silently, from somewhere entangled in the sudden heap the trio now formed on the sofa, Describe your symptoms, if you will.
To begin with, my breathing has become quite shallow, and my heartbeat irregular. Regarde. And he manuvered until one of Bossuet's hands was pressed against his somehow bare chest, over the heart.
I see... yes, me too, i must confess. But tell me- (for you are in a position, at the moment, to know-) what of our petite copine? Shows she similar symptoms?"
joly, excercising his medical aptitude, deftly checked.
I don't think so. He informed Bossuet, over the nevertheless increased noises and undulations of the sandwiched Mcusichetta.
Hmm. replied the Bald Eagle, speaking in tounges, as his again found that of the quasi-consumptive's. Have you any other signs?
Well... an abnormal amount of perspiraton in the palms of the hands, accompanied by a slight feverish sensation, lightheadedness becoming occasional dizziness and, um, tell me- does my tongue feel funny to you?
Bossuet examined it thuroughly, then double checked just to make sure.
"No, not in the slightest." he was pleased to finally report, "but now i am certain that i suffer from precisely the same condition as you." He accentuated this belief by submitting for examination- one abnormally sweaty palm across the back of the fledgling physician, who then found himself siezed by one of theose dizzy moments he'd mentioned previously. Fortunately, both Bossuet's arms and the supple back of Musichetta prevented his collapse, though he found himself uninspired by the latter support when compared to the former, much to his wonderment. He expressed this phenomenon to his friend cricket fashion, that is to say- by means of one his legs that had become entangled in one belonging to the Eagle of Meaux. the latter considered this thoughtfully, with a bemused expression that soon became irritated as it dissapeared beneath the head of the utterly oblivious Musichetta. This lady however, in blissful ignorance of the concerns of her two companions, was enjoying herself quite completely.
Some space of time later, the irrepressible mam'zelle emerged from the Menage with the formality of a ringmaster, announcing to a mixed reaction from her preforming tigers (who had found no lessening in their rather alarming symptoms over the period) that the evening's activities were at a close, and that she would depart. Obligingly, and with great effort not to appear over-eager, Joly politely helped her to her feet while Bossuet helpfully gathered up her scattered clothing. She dressed, content and happy; completely unaware of the fact that her coy smiles and giggles were going utterly unappreciated. In fact, the seemingly rapt attention paid her by the grinning flatmates was, in reality, entirely superficial. To be perfectly frank, the illusion of dotage to her svelte charms served soley as half-welcome diversion from the temptation of staring at one another. But such an idea did not even occur to Musichetta as she paused in the doorway to remark,
"Well, mes copains petits, THAT was an evening better spent than with boring old dead greeks, eh Bossuet?" she laughed and winked at the blushing boy, "We Shall have to do it again sometime."
Here, for the first time since Musichetta had disembarked, did Joly chance a glance at Bossuet; who had, simultaniously, the same idea.
"Yes, most definately." Said Joly, and the deepened color of his voice pleased Musichetta so that she did not for a moment suspect that niether the words nor the ardency were for her. The Eagle of Words, currently at a complete loss for them (the nature of his illness having more correctly ascertained the meaning and direction of Joly's agreement) simply nodded. Musichetta, simple in a way her worldly laugh did not admit, deposited a chaste kiss on each of the young men's cheeks, and disappeared down the hallway.
Now that their tounges were free for actual conversation, both of the young men found it terribly difficult to speak. Joly scratched his head and stared, surruptitiously at Bossuet, who returned the gaze sheepishly, blushing to the peak of his hairless pate. After an awkward moment, Joly's look became a bit curious, then downright puzzled. Bossuet raised an eyebrow.
"what is it?"
"I think... i think i'm cured."
Bossuet raised both eyebrows.
"Oh?" the guiltily disappointed note in that 'oh?' made Joly smile, and also blush.
"Oh no, not that. i think..." *he grinned at his friend, "...That i have been completely cured of Musichetta."
"Really?" Bossuet grinned back. "Bahorel would say, 'what did i tell you!'."
Joly nodded with a grin.
"Yes... but now it is this other affliction concerns me. It seems to have grown more potent than ever."
"Hm... yes, i see." He took Joly's hand and felt for the pulse at the wrist, "It seems, my friend, that your heart rate is even more accelerated than previous..."
"...And shortness of breath..." Gasped Joly.
"...that too." gasped Bossuet. "And excessive persperation..."
"Wait a minute, mon copain. Aren't you a law student?"
"Ex, if you will recall- an'd i've read enough of your textbooks to diagnose- say- athsma..."
"And?"
"This isn't athsma."
"I thought not." Joly sighed. Bossuet still hadn't let go of his hand, suddenly overcome with a heavy bout of dizziness himself.
"Perhaps we ought to sit down." He suggested, voice breathy in the extreme, "Or rather..."
"recline..." A glance assured that, like everything else, they shared similar ideas, and they nearly tripped over each other and every piece of furniature in the flat on their way to the bedroom. They'd just reached the doorway when, all of a sudden, Joly sneezed. Bossuet, taken by utter surprise, did trip then; sprawling across the floor, from whence he looked up at the returned consumptive in concernation.
"A relapse of Musichetta?"
"Not at all." Jolly assured him with a grin and a sniffle, "An acute flare-up of Bossuet."
"That's a fine thing; to cure one malady with another." Retorted the alleged affliction as the afflicted helped him to his feet.
"it is." Replied Joly, and he'd hardly gotten the fallen Eagle standing than he had him once more supine; flat on his back this time, however, and in far more comfortable conditions. "I'm perscribing myself a rather generous dose, to be taken at least once, nightly."
"And what do you perscribe for me, doctor?"
"Fortunately, cause and cure compliment each other nicely."
From then on, though it could be certainly said that Bossuet and Joly shared everything, they were both personally pleased to report that their definiton of 'everything' had altered enough so as not to include poor Musichetta at all. Although that development was to her, for some time, quite upsetting, the enterprising young lady soon moved on to other, equally colorful adventures. let it also be said that Bossuet and Joly both remained eternally greatful to her for their mutual state of health in latter days, and reccomended her highly to any and all seeking to find suitable cures for like ailments.