thecapitol | I Want Your Flowers Like Babies Want God's Love [Closed]

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I Want Your Flowers Like Babies Want God's Love [Closed]

WHO| Enjolras and Venus
WHAT| The ship finally sails.
WHEN| End of week 6, a few days after Venus dies.
WHERE| District Five Suite
WARNINGS| Shippy shit. You've been warned.

As with all Tributes upon their return, Venus isn't conscious when she's returned to her Capitol bed, isn't conscious when she's revived from death. She's brought back into her roof, dressed in soft pajamas, having already been prepped slightly by Stylists in the interim. Her hair's in soft, big curls, her fingernails done. There isn't a scratch on her, and she's entirely unrecognizable from the bloody mass of entrails and bone smeared across the floor in the Arena, in footage that's still being played at least once an hour.

She sleeps for a while. She dreams, and that's the first she knows she isn't dead. In her dreams someone is playing Operation on her body, and they're replacing each of her internal organs one by one, but it doesn't hurt, and she isn't scared. You're going to be a whole new person, they say.

And for the first time in a long time, she isn't sad that she wakes up this morning. She's sad when she wakes up, because she knows Kankri and Courfeyrac are still back there in the Arena, now thoroughly traumatized by her badly thought-out decision to spend the moment of her death with them (in retrospect, she should have gone out with dignity in the fall to her demise). But she isn't sad to be alive.

It's a strange feeling. She gets up and wrinkles her toes over the carpet in her room, looking at the rosy pink paint on them, and runs a hand over the bridge of her nose where Kevin cut her up. She takes a moment to cry, but she isn't sure why, and she can't put words to the strange sadness that settles into the folds of her brain, or to how fast she forgets it's there.

And then she feels her pendant from District Five around her neck, and opens the door to her room and into the District Five hallway.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He'd been, rather predictably, reading a book. In the final weeks of the Arena, Enjolras had taken to spending his time in the common areas of the District 5 suites, ostensibly to make himself available to any Tributes seeking council, but ultimately because he found it easier to watch the Games in public rather than with only his terrible imagination for company. Following her horrific death, however, he couldn't deny that there was a certain element of expectation to his now customary presence.

Ultimately, he still can't decide if he's angry at Courfeyrac for being the one to kill her, or for taking so long to put her out of her misery. It's an ethical dilemma peculiar to their circumstances and one he hopes never to encounter again, one he dreads that he will be forced to endure again. One that had only been intensified by seeing the doctors and then stylists bustle over her seemingly lifeless body.

While he's only just willing to deal with the true rational behind his concern, he can at least appreciate that it's a delicate mixture of the Appetitive and Rational elements of his soul, one in which perhaps the Appetitive should win, as difficult as that is to accept. After all, he couldn't deny the lump in his throat as he'd watched her die, nor the shame he'd endured at not being of any use to her in it. Rationality and ethics, Enjolras had decided belatedly, held little appeal in Panem. In fact, they hardly even figured. The best one could hope to find was an Appetitive Justice.

Thus, it was with a great sense of expectation that he looked up from the paperback volume to find her standing sleepily in her doorway. The stylists had done well in their work and she looked beautiful. Beautiful enough that, especially after the trauma of her death, he felt his breath catching. How stupid, how foolish, how hypocritical it all was.

"You're awake," the observation is flat, delivered from behind surprised blue eyes that are fighting to disguise just how please he is by her presence. "I--" He closes the book, getting up to walk toward her, to verify perhaps that she really is up and moving and alive. "How do you feel, Venus?"

"And you're reading."

He looks older. That's the first thing Venus notices, and it takes her a second to realize that that isn't being weathered but being tired. She remembers the lines under his eyes from his expression at the Crowning, too. Were she a more selfish person she might feel some smug satisfaction at that, but she doesn't, at this moment.

"I'm fine. Good as new."

It doesn't matter that she's told herself that from this point on, to spare them both, she'll let him set the tone of their relationship. It's easier to not push past the boundaries of friendship only to end up chilled, easier to accept the moments of affection when they are as-if unexpected, pleasant surprises.

None of that matters as she opens her arms and embraces him. It's been a long six weeks, a difficult six weeks, and some part of her wonders if she's woken at all. The feel of his shoulder against her cheek should be anathema to that.

Obligingly, he hugs her. Even if it weren't just obliging her implicit request, he probably would've done it anyway. It's convenient to have the excuse, of course, better for his pride, but it doesn't truly express the motivation for such an action.

"I wasn't reading. I was pretending to read." The confession is easy with her against him and he wonders at the logic behind it at all. Suddenly everything seems like a hideous amount of pretense, a terrible performance for an unseen but malicious audience that he can't be bothered to deal with right now. The book forgotten on the sofa, he takes her hand, guiding her to a seat. She's whole, and complete, and with every step, this is seeming more real to him. It's funny to think that although he's lived through the process at least three times before, Enjolras has never had to deal this closely with anyone else in it.

They're together again, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand. At least in his mind, uneasily taking stock of everything between them. He has weeks worth of questions for her, apologies for being unable to help, a review of strategy for when he was, ideas for how they might act in the future. It all seems simultaneously like too much and too little right now. There are things that should be clarified first. Things that don't involve corrupt governments, at least for the moment. "I suppose I owe you an apology. Will owe you more of an apology in a moment..."

Her hand closes over his, the automatic response of a flytrap closing over prey or an anemone protecting its vulnerable insides from intruders. She lets him lead her, sinks into the seat next to him with a quizzical look on her face that soon falls into a distraught expression.

She's ready to move on now, she thinks. She died, she returned. It should remain a non-event to her as much as possible. And yet she has a desire to preserve this moment as much as she possibly can. It's something she's felt with Enjolras before, the desire to slow time, to live inside a moment rather than through it. It strikes at odd moments, not entirely dissimilar to vertigo.

She wants to freeze the moment before either of them apologizes, because, in this one instant, she doesn't know what they are, and she's afraid of what the answer to that question may turn out to be.

"If this is about what was on the screen, you were right, I was the one being inconsiderate." Max had approached it as a soldier, zealously protecting one side's interests. It had hurt to hear in the Arena, but Enjolras had had a point, albeit one muddled by poor word choice and defensiveness. "Then I was trying to give you whatever space you need. I mean, before the Arena."

"And I needed too much space." He says, tone muddled by that same defensiveness as he looks away from her. For anyone else, this would probably be simple, but he's spent too long thinking of attachments as distractions, and not enough time considering them as a form of motivation. So much time, in fact, that he'd lived them without ever really stopping to examine them.

"We were both inconsiderate, but I would like to think that we had, more or less, gotten over it until I acted so foolishly." They had, after all, either ignored each other or argued for months. Surely that was enough time to have settled anything between them. "That is what I would like to apologize for. I acted unfairly toward you and it took being shown those actions forcibly to appreciate them."

It's then that he lets go of her hand in favor of reaching up to cup her cheek. The gesture is awkward, all a priori knowledge and no skill at all, but it's well-intentioned nonetheless. He can't think, can stop to analyze the motions because if he does, he'll talk himself down from them and perpetuate their vicious cycle. Courfeyrac will make fun of him whenever this makes it onto the screens in the Arena.

"I was unable to be honest with myself, and so I was unable to be honest with you," he says, not waiting for a response before he crushes their lips together. Again the motion is all impulse and no finesse, clumsy, but sincere.

He looks away from her, and the defensiveness creeps back in, and she feels that moment she wanted to preserve slipping away. There's a sinking in her chest, like a patch of quicksand between her lungs.

She's made a living out of putting on masks and holding people away, making them believe exactly what they had to about her to get through an audition, through an interview, through an interrogation. She never had to let men get close, because she knew it was entirely superficial. Now that something genuine has come along, she finds that there's nothing in her repertoire that's equipped to manage it. Enjolras was never the only one lacking honesty, with him or with her.

Yet his retreat is temporary, and the next thing she knows he's still talking and she's only partially listening because her mind's distracted by the heat of his palm against her face, pressed a little too fervently to be gentle and yet with all the tenderness in the world.

And then he kisses her. And then they kiss. Kissing him back is the most true thing she's ever done in the matters of intimacy, even though she, too, doesn't know the first thing about how to make a kiss a showstopper. She knows how to make a kiss look good on camera - her first kiss was when she was seventeen, on set for a jeans commercial that never aired, shot over and over and over again until her chin had a rash and her lips were chapped - but that is fundamentally different from making a kiss that communicates the want, the need, the elation, the sincerity and the ease of love.

She isn't kissing for the camera now.

Their kiss is over before it really gets going. Something about the feeling and intimacy of having her there against him spooks Enjolras. Again, he retreats and while there's a trepidation, a pensiveness to his expression, he only gives them so much room. They're still easily within each other's personal space, easily too close to have this be mistaken for a poor attempt at an apology or any other platonic misunderstanding.

"I always seem to be apologizing to you for something. Perhaps now I can explain, instead." His voice is low as he reaches for her hand again. There's a sincerity to the offer, even through it only leads him to question its wisdom. At what point would explanations become excuses? How much could he stand to consider without frightening himself out of it all again? He didn't know, but he did know that offering nothing, maintaining the silence they'd so awkwardly cultivated wouldn't be fair to either of them.

"I'm listening."

She bites her lip, both from nerves and as if she could usher the memory of the kiss into her mouth, make it a part of her. Some spidery thought in the back of her head says that he doesn't realize how this is coming off, that he has no interest in what this looks like at all but is simply assuming this sort of intimacy is par for the course for modern friendships. After so many misunderstandings, after months of having him withdraw and having her lash out in frustration, the prospect of that status quo settling back in is daunting and unwelcome.

She longs to reach for his hand again, but can't, and he rescues her by reaching for hers. She longs for words to appear in her mouth to tease him, but they're nowhere to be found. She teases him and everyone else as a way to redirect the conversation, to force a barrier of levity between her and everyone else, but at the moment he is too close, and her defenses are disabled.

Over the last year, nearly, he's become her best friend, and if she sat down to chart that trajectory she'd be baffled by how much of it was spent fighting or apologizing. But that doesn't make it dishonest; he's one of the few people who didn't want her for something, who willfully engaged her latent interests, who listened, and though he had never before prized compassion or empathy, when he had needed it she had been there with open arms. The fights seem petty, in comparison. Petty and yet insurmountable, at times.

She gives his hand a squeeze.

That's it, then. She's taken him up on the half-gamble and now he'll have to reason through it. He did have reasons, of course. Enjolras always had had reasons, but whether or not they were sound moral judgments made with the proper intentions, of that he was less sure. In retrospect, so many of their arguments seem to have been unfortunate, but entirely petty, misunderstandings.

Anxiously, he bit his lip as he struggled to find the right way to begin. Was it better to admit that his stubborn inexperience had led them astray, or should she first hear of the existential dilemmas faced when one's entire reason for being is suddenly not only futile, but entirely non-existent? Would either of them be sufficient explanation for just how badly he'd set them off time and time again? The only way to know is seemingly to begin.

"I have never done this before." His tone is soft, rendered weak by the sleepless nights with them in the Arena. "Any of this.

"In Paris, I dedicated my life to a revolution that refused to come. In many ways, I wasted my life. I cannot regret it, but it would inaccurate to say that I do not have regrets."

He squeezes Venus' hand in return, blue eyes searching for reassurance in hers. Enjolras could feel himself stumbling, the impulse to over explain and speechify rather than clarify overtaking him. "That is to say that I thought that was all I needed in my life. And in Paris, it was. I lived and died very happily for the Republic and her people. Here, I have none of that. If I work from my previous life, as I have been trying to do for the passed year, I have nothing for which I should live."

She knows most of these things, has figured them out just from knowing him so long. It's been nearly a year now. She knows nothing of his family and his home and his culture, but she knows him, knows the elements at his core, the base, the cells.

She doesn't know how to explain that her situation has been reversed. Back home, she had so little to live for that she devoted herself to finding an acceptable way to die. Fame and glory served as a good proxy for actual self-esteem, confidence for self-worth, and all the while she was sleepwalking into her early grave. And she was alright with that.

She has something to live for now, for the first time. It's not just him, although he surely paved the way and propped the door for Ellie, for Kankri, for Max and Courfeyrac and Joly. He helped her rearrange her insides to allow for righteous anger, for justice. The ability to fight for something, to fight towards something that wasn't death.

It occurs to her now that what he's done to her is why she wasn't sad to be alive when she woke.

"I have a confession, but you've probably already figured it out." Her own dark eyes meet his, framed by a crinkle of anxiety between her brows and the slight puffiness of having just woken beneath her lower lashes. "I've never done any of this before either. Not for real."

Not for herself.

"But you'll never be the sort of person who lives for romance. You're not Marius." The corner of her mouth quirks slightly, the trace of a weak tease.

"No," he says and if a look of mild surprise and vaguely bemused horror crosses his face, it's certainly nothing against Marius. Rather, his friend's singleness of purpose is admirable to him, even if Enjolras feels it poorly placed. And it is poorly placed. Marius' politics had been annoying in Paris and they were almost criminally stupid in the Capitol. Especially when one considers that the woman to whom Marius is so devoted is isn't truly capable of defending herself.

All of that, interesting though it is, and appealing though it may be to shift the conversation into nitpicking his friend, is not what he should be discussing and Enjolras knows it. The expression fades into a small, almost playful smile after a moment and he shakes his head at her. "No, I could never live solely for romance. I could never be Marius. Furthermore, I think he does himself and his wife a disservice by not living for more than her well-being."

Tentatively, he laced their fingers together, studying the texture of her palm only half visible as it disappeared, melted against his. "If we have any hope of being able to live happily here, either for ourselves independently or for someone else, we have a duty to pursue change. Marius whiles away the days worrying over his beloved and that is understandable, I suppose. Still, you are correct, I will never be that man. With you, I would not have to be."

It was out now, at least implicitly. Things still felt unclear, however. Abruptly, his smile slipped into a small, worried frown. "That is to say, if you would consider a man who cannot promise to love you completely. Someone whose first thought will always be for the good of the people. And, truly, I can understand if that is an unacceptable compromise to you."

"I don't want a man like that anyway." And it's true - whether because there's a burden of expectation, or because she doesn't find herself worth that myopic focus, or because she'd find that tedious, or because it was Enjolras' passion for more than individual wants and needs, for humanity as a whole, that so drew her to him, she finds the idea of such a man entirely repellant.

And that's the appeal of love, isn't it? Venus has always heard that trying to change a man means you have the wrong man to start with, and she agrees. You don't change your loved ones, you cultivate them, nurture the preexisting virtues she saw long ago. Courfeyrac, out of line as he was, was right to see that the bond was more than sisterly.

And his confession, too, shows that he's considered her as she is, the ebb and give of her needs, the refocus of her passions. With her, he can still love the people most - and vitally, through him she has come to love them too. The kiln of her soul has made compassion out of innate goodness.

"Courfeyrac is going to be merciless," she says, and she heals the concern on his face with another clumsy kiss.

Again they're quick and inexperienced as they move against each other. This time, though, he doesn't back away. This time there's a contentment instead of a furtive, clandestine feeling to it. When they separate again there's a witty comment have formed on his lips, but he lets it die in favor of taken in her expression, memorizing the way in which her lashes hide the color of her eyes half lidded as try are. Courfeyrac can entertain himself all he wants with whatever this is. It won't matter to either of them.

"I should be more worried about your Roman friend." Which, as jokingly as he means it may be a valid concern. Still, even Maximus can't scare him right now.

When he's certain he'll be able to recall her sleepy, dazed expression perfectly, Enjolras leans forward again fort another kiss. This one is slower, purposeful and deliberate, completely the opposite from his earlier skittish effort. With both his free arm and the hand still laced in hers, he pulls closer into him. There's suddenly a need for intimacy again, a need to affirm she's really alive and present. It's ridiculous and childish and he'll probably end up apologizing for that as well later.

Venus' cheeks flush, and she lowers her gaze to their hands knit together. "I didn't ask him to do that. I'm sorry."

She'll take it up with Max later, indignant despite the end result. She hadn't meant to get others involved, although she supposes she should have known better. She'd had no idea that Maximus had felt protective of her as well as fond of her - the two have only just linked in her mind.

She doesn't protest at the physical contact; in fact, she savors it, and it's all she can do to keep from running her hands all over him. A dark thought crosses her mind, one where she accidentally gets him killed with her explosive powers, and even knowing that she's had them stripped and that she's had them under control for years can't banish the image entirely. And yet it doesn't push her away from him - instead it makes her want to be closer now, to take the time they have, as if it's brevity is guaranteed.

And so she lets him kiss her, and she kisses back, surrendering and granting all at once. That which has been previously exiled to idle fantasy enters reality. She wraps an arm around his waist, she smiles through the collision of their lips. Their mouths meeting are the gate closing over their uncertainty.

There's something inside of him which flutters at her touch. He's still too proud to admit to it really, or even take the time to analyze the exact motivations and physical responses involved in the feeling. All of that he's content enough to ignore for the moment. It's a fallacy if ever there was one, a subjectivity he would find repulsive if only he allowed himself, but it's also a matter of practicality. Sometimes one has to compromise a lesser good for one that is greater.

"It's alright," he murmurs when they part again, taking advantage of the height he has on her even in their seated position to place a fond kiss on her forehead. "I think I needed the perspective." Which isn't to say, of course, that Enjolras is particularly keen on the idea of facing a resentful Maximus again, no matter how deep the hole into which he'd dug himself.

He leans back, not to escape her, but rather to allow hem more room to settle. She's just come back from the dead, after all, and he hasn't slept solidly in almost two months. They have matching lines around their eyes from the stress of it all, and every small comfort is worth taking while its available to them.

"We should make a plan for tomorrow." The statement lacks any real power, though it's not entirely idle either. Now that things are mostly settled between them, they can move on and hopefully stop distracting each other with miscommunications and mixed signals. Honesty is always the simplest solution, though it's often also the most difficult. "I have come up with a plan for something, but I think it will require your help. Once you are feeling able, of course."

"I'm going to yell at him anyway. But nicely." She settles into him like sand in the bottom of an hourglass. She pulls an elbow in, rests her head on his shoulder, tucks her feet under her rear to keep them warm. As before, with the absinthe, she finds the feeling of his heartbeat under her palm as she rests her hand on his chest to be a surprisingly effective sedative.

They could plan for tomorrow, for how to support Courfeyrac should he survive the next few hours. According to expectations they should be backing Diana Ladris and Initiate Fraysong until the end, but Venus finds that idea distasteful for the moment, at least regarding Initiate, and she has no doubts where Enjolras' loyalties will lie. So she doesn't mention it.

"I'm ready when you are." And she is. Venus has always been capacity without concept - point her at a target and she'll get the job done with little regard for her own state up until it comes to holding her very molecules together. Since she can't teleport anymore, isn't a swirl of matter held together by will, she has to listen to bodily signs of exhaustion, and those are still getting the best of her at times.

So it is now, and she realizes how deeply tired she is. It feels like only moments ago Kankri was holding her in a not dissimilar position while she bled and sagged and burst like overripe fruit on the floor. She's overwhelmed, not entirely in a bad way, but in the way that says she should close her eyes. So she does.

For a few moments her breathing matches his heartbeat, and then it doesn't anymore, and instead becomes the leisurely stroke of the tide against the beach.

It's with a heavy heart that he lets himself ponder things. He can sense the lie, the fiction she's trying to develop for his benefit. Fortunately, he's too tired to call her on it, too tired to press more deeply. They're easy now, comfortably slumped against each other and the plush upholstery of the sofa. The lights in the common room are low, more or less limited to the lamp by which he'd been reading. It's blessedly, atypically quiet, and he'd like to appreciate the lack of bustle as long as physically possible. Soon enough Azula, or someone equally troubling, would wander in to ruin it and they'd be forced to collect themselves properly. They might even have to relearn how to settle together into an abeyant. The prospect is both appealing and deeply inconvenient.

He doesn't notice at first, perhaps for several minutes, when she falls asleep. The gentle rise and fall of her chest against him had, at first, been enough for Enjolras to monitor. He, too, rested his eyes, letting his mind wander to thoughts of Courfeyrac, and what strategy might be best to preserve his friend's chances as long as possible. Venus would be a help in this, of course, but it seemed cruel to wake her now, and by the time he'd formed a truly coherent question anyway, he no longer had the will to move or even idly ask it. It was somewhere in the fog of his thoughts and their perfect synchronization that he lost their separation.

"Courfeyrac will be merciless," he agrees quietly, to an earlier point of hers. He still can't be bothered to open his eyes, much less move, but even in his sleepy state he can recognize the truth of that statement. In a few days' time, Enjolras would be wanting to talk strategy Courfeyrac would be mocking him with anecdotes. That prospect is also appealing, and yet deeply inconvenient.

And Courfeyrac won't be the only one...

At first she silently glares at the scene before her. Though she realizes it's hypocritical of her to be angry at him for favoring a tribute, she can find any number of other reasons to be angry for this.

Should she take one of her pills? No...no she wants to be angry. She wants this to burn.

Stalking closer she watches them a moment longer before clearing her throat irritated and when it seems they might not be awake enough for that she casually shoves a glass water pitcher from a nearby table so it shatters with beautifully loud and sharp sounds. An Avox will be by to clean that up surely.

In many ways, Venus is still in the Arena, and as such, when she hears glass shattering she leaps awake and to her feet. It's a good thing, too - were she given the choice between getting up or staying where she is, warm and comfortable and feeling Enjolras' slow breath washing over the side of her cheek, she doubts any threat in the world could have compelled her to rise. Better than her subconscious instincts take that roll fo her.

Her hand slips over her waist, looking for a knife in a pocket that isn't there, and her body stands as a shield between Enjolras (still on the couch) and Azula (looming over them like a vulture). It takes only a second for her to wake up and assess the situation, and she relaxes her shoulders slightly, lets the hand fall forward as if it was never going to curl into a fist.

"Here to welcome me home, Azula?" She sits back down next to Enjolras, trying not to let being irritated to be woken show on her face.

Golden eyelashes fluttered at the sudden, sharp sound, but he can't bring himself to really stir. It isn't until he feels Venus get up that Enjolras decides there might be something more urgent to the noise, and slowly (too slowly), he opens his eyes to take stock of what's happening around them. Venus' stance is protective which is at once charming and insulting. He can take Azula. Not particularly well, perhaps, but he's hardly afraid of her.

"Good afternoon, Azula. I hope your day has been a pleasant one." The greeting is polite, but there's a terseness, a reservation apparent even through the sleepiness in his voice. More awake now, he moves to join Venus, reaching for the hand that was definitely more a fist than not only a moment ago. "Would you like help cleaning that up?"

It's less a question than a critique, and one with which she is by now doubtlessly familiar. Enjolras would never approve of the way she made undue work for the Avoxes. She can dislike him, or be angry all she likes. She doesn't need to take it out on the already unfortunate.

"I'm glad you made it back." She answered with a tightly strung tension in her voice "you've settled in rather quickly. I wasn't aware that Enjolras had room in his heart for any tributes at all given how little he's done to aid them. You really must share your secret dear." She was just going to act like he wasn't there for a moment lest she lash out in a way that was unbefitting of someone in her position.

The option was still open though.

Already a nameless Avox was scurrying out of who knew where to clean up the class, water and slices of cucumber.

Venus doubts this is the last time she's had snide remarks made at her for being in the company of a man, and it's certainly not the first. So, who'd you have to blow to get this gig? Her friendliness, which was already taut, doesn't last long in the face of Azula's hostility. Still, looking irate doesn't have to mean showing vulnerability, so Venus doesn't.

"So, I take it that not all the fighting was in the Arena while I was gone?" She doesn't get up to help the Avox, not because she likes to leave messes for them (those that she does she usually intends to clean up later, and just forgets that they'll vanish before she gets a chance to), but because she doesn't want to make it seem as if she's obeying a whim of Azula's. In terms of positions, Venus is the weakest off, and she doesn't want to undermine herself further.

She doesn't grandstand for Enjolras, though. While she'll shield him with her body, she trusts him to parry with words. Venus knows of the gifts that came to her and Kankri in Enjolras' name, as well as those to the barricade boys. She doubts the latter will go down well with Azula, if she isn't already aware of them.

"There have been disagreements, but I would hardly deign to call them fights. Azula is my colleague; it would be unprofessional and present a poor image of our District." Which was about the most diplomatic way he could put it. They aren't friends, and they don't work together, not really. Frankly, he avoids the woman whenever possible, even now. Her fixation on things that do not matter and never will is grating to him. The best either of them can do once their Tributes have entered the Arena is to soften the blow, victory is in their own hands. Maybe it's actually the demands of passivity that get to him, and not her priorities.

The Avox moves with fluid, practiced motions. It's probably done this a dozen times before when she's lost her temper over something stupid, but Enjolras hates feeling like the underlying cause of it. Being cruel to an Avox is like a prolonged exercise in kicking someone when they're down, and she should recognize that. She shouldn't be taking her misery out on those who cannot fight back. He can feel the anger over her attitude rising up, dusting his cheeks with a blush that a moment ago would have been from boyish embarrassment. He frowns and the expression draws hard, unpleasant lines around his mouth. "Did the pitcher do something to offend you, or have you had too many of your pills today? Perhaps we should send for a doctor. One should be called to check on Venus anyway. I'm sure it would be no trouble at all."

Oh great, he had noticed her medication. Well it wasn't like she was keeping it a great secret lately.

"The pitcher is hardly the point. It was attractive but ultimately expendable. Like any one of us." Even as she hated to admit it.

"And he's correct, the day he irritates me enough to actually lash out at him, I intend to make sure he never forgets it."

So many threats, she wished she could prove them not to be idle.

Back to the clearly more important issue at hand "What's wrong with Venus?" She turned her gaze on the woman in question. "Why do you need a doctor...aside from this." She gestured to the two of them to make her point.

"So this wasn't lashing out at him, it was lashing out at the furnishings?" Finally, Venus loses the tense pose, sitting forward with her chin on her hands, her elbows on her knees, her toes pointed in some subconscious pose with high heels.

And medication. Venus had her suspicions about Azula, having seen so many of the same side effects in her own body and behavior before, but confirmation is welcome, even if she doesn't entirely approve of Enjolras turning it into a jibe. He wouldn't know, naturally, and Azula's hardly doing anything to endear herself to either of them, so Venus doesn't speak up about that, either.

"I don't need a doctor, he's just worried because I busted open like a watermelon on live TV. Honestly, Azula, you didn't even bother to tell me how good I look with all my blood and guts on the inside."

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