Slinking back

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine and OPEN
What: Eponine slinks back to the Tribute Towers
Where: The Common Room of the Tribute Towers
When: Perhaps a week or so after her humiliating march through the Capitol
Warnings: I don't know. I'll update if necessary


She had vowed that she was never going to come back. She had vowed that never again would she take a single thing from the Capitol.

And yet, here she was, begging at their door.

She was still wearing the odd combination of dress and leggings and trainers she had grabbed however long ago when Harley had let her go, though they were coated in two week's worth of mud now, from where she had slept rough. Little bits of the orange wig were still stuck in her hair: bits of her own were missing from where she had yanked the wig free and pulled it out. But Eponine didn't care. She was hungry. She was cold and she was damp. And she was fed up of the peculiar looks, and the stares and the chortles and the whispers.

Aunamee will help me. Aunamee will show me how to fix it. Aunamee - the only man she was not too ashamed to go and see. Aunamee, who was every bit as rotten as she was - he'd tell her what to do. Surely he'd be dead by now?

She slipped into the Towers shortly after midnight had struck, hoping against hope that nobody would be about. First, a brandy. And then Aunamee.

Comments

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian was coming home early for once, exhausted, angry, full of displaced anger that he wasn't sure what to do with.

He was going to head to the training centre, working out had once calmed him and now, even though it was mixed up with preparing for the arenas, he hoped it might still.

But as he was passing by he spotted Eponine. He had given up looking for her after a few days, figuring she would be back when she had calmed down, or when she got hungry.

"'Ponine?" He leaned against the door frame of the lounge.

[gardienne]

Eponine looked around at the sound of her name. Was it -

No. Just Ian. She turned back and downed her brandy, before turning back to him.

"You didn't find the thing to make the hair come off." She said, accusingly.

[wantwhatiwant]

"Yeah, I tried." He looked embarrassed, "They all said they didn't have any, I think they thought I was in some sort of wig and was trying to spite my stylists."

"I'm sorry 'Ponine."

[gardienne]

She shrugged. "I had to rip my hair out. It bled, a little bit. But I got it off in the end. She put glue everywhere."

Her hand shook as she reached for another drink. "Have you seen Monsieur Aunamee? Is he dead yet?"

[wantwhatiwant]

"Shit. I'm sorry." he winced and then shook his head, "I haven't been watching."

Because fuck the arenas.

[gardienne]

"You should have been." She shot back. It was unfair. SHE should have been watching the arenas to see when he died. But she needed - oh, she was so full of ANGER she just had to spit it at somebody.

"Why can you not do ANYTHING? Why are you always so USELESS?" She downed the brandy, and wiped her mouth with her hand.

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian opened his mouth to tell her he didn't need to watch, everyone he cared about was already out. And he had more important shit to think about, but then she started shouting and he glared at her.

"I'm not the one who fucking disappeared for a week. I looked everywhere for you."

[gardienne]

"You didn't look far then. As though these awful men should let me stray. Pah!" She spat at her feet. "You're lying. You let her- why should you imagine I would come back? Everyone k pws what I am now, thanks to her."

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian moved across the room to her, "I'm not lying. I looked. Everywhere." He glared at her, "I thought they'd fucking taken you somewhere, tortured you or..."

He shook his head, "Fuck, you can't just run away like that 'Ponine."

[gardienne]

"And why should they waste their time taking me somewhere to torture me when they might have Harley do it for them." She shook her head. 'Would you come back after that?" She had almost never been so humiliated in her life, and Eponine had lived through a lot of humiliation and degradation.

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian sighed and nodded, "Yeah, I would have. Because I wouldn't worry people like that."

Said the kid that had ran away from home, but the circumstances were totally different. "You can't keep doing that."

[gardienne]

She shook her head. "Perhaps you worried, but I bet nobody else missed me, not even Sigma. Pah, he is a goat." She had lost a tremendous amount of respect for Sigma through his confrontation with Harley. Why had he not fought tooth and nail to get her free? Why had he not made Harley let her go? Why had he spoken about Eponine as if she was not stood in front of him? Because... because he didn't really love her. He didn't care, really. Same old, same old.

"Anyway, you know I can't run away again. Not properly. They'd kill... you. Monsieur Aunamee. Eva - everyone I care for. I can't do that. I won't kill you."

[wantwhatiwant]

"He probably did. You always think the worst of those around you." He shrugged at her, he knew Sigma, and was pretty sure he would have been worried about her as well.

Her words jarred him, because he didn't like the idea that he was being used as collateral for anyone. But if it was enough to keep her from doing something stupid. "Well thanks for that." He smiled softly at her, "Glad you don't want me dead."

[hanssome]

An inability to sleep shouldn't be a particularly surprising consequence of time spent in Arenas. Hans had always been a light sleeper, with twelve older brothers in one castle it didn't take much to wake him up for hours on end. In this case, it had been a snort in someone's sleep, easily mistaken for a snort of laughter indicating the possibility of a prank being pulled. It's enough to make him restless, so much so that he's opted to wandering around the center in the peace of the night.

It's peaceful, probably a bit too peaceful for it to be truly relaxing. He feels a little under dressed in track-pants and a white tee, but it's almost liberating not to feel obligated to dress up all the time. There's hardly anyone here to see him at this hour, after all, but that doesn't mean he won't smile as he sees a figure approach.

"Good evening." He greets, dipping his head into more of a nod than a bow. It takes him a moment to recognise her, but when he does he looks concerned. "Miss Jondrette? Are you alright?"

[akingalways]

Unfortunately, in a place like the Capitol, there was no such luck of being alone, no matter the time. Jack was just getting in, himself, disheveled from a museum dance-themed party. He was jostled, shoved, and made himself dance with nearly everyone. He needed to, as everyone was practically cheering on Joel in the continuing Arena. Joel, the last District 8 tribute in the game.

He needed to touch base with him - and with all his Tributes, come to think of it - once the Arena was over. It had been too long since the last time. He had to at least try and do something to connect to his Tributes.

It was while he was thinking about those things that he spotted Eponine. Frowning, he walked towards her table, folding his arms. She looked a mess, and looked like she needed the company - or at least a shower to wash herself from whatever crazy party she'd gone to.

He groped to figure out a way to express that tactfully.

"...So what the hell happened to you?"

Unfortunately, had it been anyone else other than Jack, the attempt at tact, at least, would have been successful.

[gardienne]

Eponine looked up. She had no idea who this man was, and quite frankly, she didn't really care. He was obviously taking the mick out of her. She replied coldly.

"I cannot believe, Monsieur, that you have not seen the newspapers. So many of them show me being led through the streets by Mademoiselle Harley, or carried over her shoulder, with my fake bottom on display. Do you truly expect me to believe that you do not know why I look so terrible?"

She tried to push her straggly hair back to hide the bald patches. "Is that enough for you, Sir?"

[akingalways]

"...I don't read the newspapers." For that matter, why was this girl so angry at him? "The only gossip I'm interested in at this point, is gossip that can help my District in the Games."

Particularly since the last time he'd paid attention to that kind of stuff, he got bitten. At the patches, though, he started a bit. He'd seen Harley before - pretty much she was one of the most annoying people in the Capitol, just nosy and interrupting conversations and weirdly violent in the Arenas and all that. It hadn't occurred to him, however, that Harley was violent outside of the Arena as well.

Maybe he should pay a little more attention, but...not too much. Or something. Jack didn't know.

"She...why haven't you reported her?!"

[gardienne]

"Who would listen?" She propped her left elbow on the table. Fastened tight about her wrist was a thick Capitol cuff, marking her out as a bother. Besides which... she was a thief. She'd get herself into trouble. Again.

"Monsieur," She turned back to her drink. "Leave me be."

[akingalways]

"But..." Well, yes, the cuff. It made him think of Calico. He quickly shook his head. "So what? She shouldn't be doing those things to you, anyhow!"

[gardienne]

Eponine shrugged. "I dare say it won't be the last time." She downed her brandy, ice clinking in the glass. "And there is nothing to be done. Perhaps I deserved it. Perhaps it doesn't matter anyway."

[gardienne]

"Monsieur Hans!" She smiled her first genuine smile in ages and ages. "I am better now that you talk to me, Sir. But, why are you awake? Ought you not be in bed? I came back now because I thought everybody would be out or asleep and so would not see me now. But you have, and... oh, I did not wish to look so untidy when we met in person, Monsieur."

[gardienne]

She thinks the worst of the people around her so that they cannot hurt her. She doesn't want to be hurt any more. But she couldn't explain that to Ian. So she just scowled.

"You're lucky I do not, Ian. Believe me, they know how to make you hurt. I do not think you'd be able to stand it, you know?"

[akingalways]

At this, Jack's face darkened slightly.

"If she keeps doing those things to you, you should report it. Just because you have a cuff, doesn't mean someone won't listen to you."

[gardienne]

"Doesn't matter, Sir." She laughed hollowly, bitterly. "It ain't the worst thing that has happened to me yet, and I dare say more will go worse. I am not reporting her. I do not like the police. I shall have my revenge."

She swirled the melting ice in her glass moodily. "Have you seen Monsieur Aunamee?"

[youbarium]

Carlos...well, he hadn't gone to sleep. He'd been working on revised drafts of a gadget whose purpose he probably couldn't explain even if he tried, and had reached a block. He hadn't made any progress in over an hour, so the best thing to do, he decided, was to take a walk and clear his head. He was in soft sleep-pants and a t-shirt, but he still had his lab coat on over the pajamas, glasses on his nose, and a mug of coffee in hand. He had gone to the roof first, but that was entirely too cold, even with the coffee. That was why he was downstairs, walking around the lobby and common areas of the Tribute center, and why he was there to see Eponine skulking around.

"Hey there," he called out, "where do you think you're going?" Someone walking around at night wasn't automatically suspicious, but someone who obviously did not want to be seen certainly was. He hadn't noticed the sorry state of her hair and clothes yet, but he would soon -- he took a few steps closer to her.