Thermidor
by Ka-li-ko

Philippe Le Bas stretches his legs, asks what day it is, and receives no reply.

He peers over his shoulder at the man on the couch. He, in his turn, is keeping himself busy by being absolutely unfathomable.

"Antoine," Le Bas calls patiently.

Still no answer.

"Monsieur de Saint-Just?"

"Don't call me that," he says shortly before falling quiet once more.

Le Bas laughs ruefully. "Ah, so you do respond to some endeavors at discourse. I suppose it is then up to me to choose the right prompts... Antoine?"

After a short struggle, Saint-Just relents. "Yes?"

"What a miracle!" Le Bas marvels. "He not only answers the question, he asks another back! I must write this down somewhere, what a pity I don't keep a black notebook with his name across the front cover-"

In spite of himself, Saint-Just laughs at the allusion.

"An emotional response. Now aren't I very good at this," Le Bas mutters as if to himself. He chances another look at Saint-Just, who has now softened slightly.

The silence is much more comfortable.

"Philippe," Saint-Just says abruptly.

"And this is where I become inexplicably mute," Le Bas muses. "What a game it is, to make believe one can't talk -- and then to take turns and watch the other make believe. Truly a worthless pastime of epic proportions."

"Philippe," he says again, a little less mildly. "Don't pretend you have no capacity for seriousness. You've called me here -- you've got something to tell me. Wandering off into idle chit-chat isn't getting anything across."

"Please, Antoine!" Le Bas whirls on Saint-Just, who is slightly surprised at this outburst. "Why can't we pretend, just for a little while? Why can't we pretend we have all the time in the world, that we could be talking like this of nothing over and over again, the same time tomorrow, the same day next week? Ceaselessly reminding yourself that- that things are drawing to an end, does that make life any happier for you?"

Saint-Just has his downcast eyes fixed on the table and is frozen solid, as is Le Bas. But it is again Le Bas that thaws first, sighing and running his hands through his hair.

"I'm sorry."

Just when he is about to repeat himself in a louder voice, Saint-Just meets his eyes. "Don't apologize," he mumbles.

Then Le Bas sees that this man would rather drive himself to his death than postpone it, so he takes a deep breath and starts with the wrong sentence.

"Henriette will not be engaged to you."

"Excuse me?" Saint-Just asks warily, immediately alert.

Unfeigned, his tone and words are much too official. Le Bas can easily imagine what a lover would have said -- a wide-eyed "What?", or perhaps a furrowing of the brows, "Is anything wrong?" But this sort of "Excuse me?" can't be mistaken. He had guessed, he had been almost sure, but he hadn't been this positive about it before-

"You don't love my sister," he says simply.

"I do," Saint-Just counters simply. He sounds so unenthusiastic that Le Bas has to chuckle.

"It's no obligation, Antoine. You don't have to love her."

For a while Saint-Just thinks about this, leaning forward and slowly tapping his fingers on the edge of the table. Then, as he has the disconcerting habit of doing from time to time, he says something totally unexpected.

"I can."

Le Bas raises his eyebrows, at a loss for words.

"I can love her," he repeats, surer now. "It won't be hard."

To his own surprise, Le Bas suddenly realizes why Saint-Just is saying such things. It is also a surprise that Saint-Just should care about such a reason.

"I gave up that dream," he says bitterly. "That clique of trite happiness, of stale comfort, that I'd always wanted. A house with pots of flowers by the windowsill. You, Henriette, Elisabeth, and me."

Saint-Just looks bewildered in a remotely subdued way, like an errant orphan. "But why..."

"Because before long, half the household would be gone."

He smiles dryly, composure back. "You've noticed."

"It's hard not to have." Le Bas sinks back into his own chair. "The heat pulses with the screaming of it, and every suffocating night I wonder if it will be my last. Something frightful is drawing near, and I know it's looking for me."

"But why the engagement, Philippe? Surely such weak ties won't harm her?"

"Our executioners won't be hers, if that's what you mean." Le Bas winces. "But she will be harmed. Leave no trace of yourself in her life. I suppose that's the least -- and ironically enough, the most -- we can do for her."

"...I see."

"It's dreadful, Antoine. Think of her future fiance. What he will be facing. She'll cherish you forever in the prison of her mind, and there you'll be eternally twenty-seven. Even when she's a hundred and ten, she'll pine away for you. He has a monster to overthrow. And an invincible one at that."

"So to make things easier for him..."

"And for her."

"...Yes. I understand. What it would be like for him." Saint-Just swallows hard, and when he begins again his voice is almost shaky. "To have that most formidable of rivals. And of course, the image in her memories will grow more idealistic every day, won't it? Until it turns into the figure of a god, nothing like what I ever was."

"Don't say that," Le Bas snaps weakly. He had felt, in Saint-Just's words, the knowing despair of someone who has already experienced that pain -- and shuddered to hear it.

Saint-Just looks at him questioningly. And Le Bas has so much to tell him, but knows that each syllable will add a burden to his already overworked shoulders. So he shakes his head with a smile and doesn't say anything.

If you're not God, I don't know what to believe in.