Je t'aime

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine and Orc
What: Eponine has arranged a picnic date with Orc
Where: On the roof of the Tribute centre
When: After she's recovered from her TB enough not to be infectious, and sometime after the D3 reveal as well!
Warnings: Awkward teenagers trying to date.

It's been a hard few weeks in the Capitol. Without Ian, and with Howard scarce, and Felicity still in the arena, and Jessica being upset and Albert cross and Terezi - just everything, it's not been so nice. And she still blames herself, in part, for what's happened to District Three.

But for tonight, she wants to forget everything. Tonight is going to be her special night to convince herself that she really and truly loves Orc.

She's worked hard. The final flight of stairs up to the rooftop are wound about with fairylights, leading the way to her little picnic. More fairylights are [unartistically]thrown into the trees to light the quilt, which she's taken from her bed, on the floor. Her pillows and chair cushions are scattered about it, and candles stood in the grass about. On top of the quilt sits a few bits of food: bowls of porridge and tinned vegetable soup that are slowly cooling, and sandwiches - banana and peanut butter and chocolate spread, and strawberry jam and ham, and chocolate and cheese, and ham and cheese - and bits of mis-matched cakes she's found in the kitchen cupboards. There's sparkling wine, too, and delicate flutes to drink from, and lemonade and brandy. It's a random collection, and nothing's quite neat, quite right, but she's still proud of her efforts.

Eponine waits in front of the quilt for Orc, her hands clutched nervously in front.

"So... what do you think?"

Comments

[gardienne]

She laughed, and took up a bowl of porridge. It was quite cool now, and Eponine spooned it up quickly. "I couldn't think how to make it all hot, but I didn't know what else to make cold. You don't mind, do you? You know, you're always too kind. You know I am not so perfect. But I am trying so hard to be good to you. You are such a good boy. You deserve a proper princess."

Or, he deserves, at least, a girl who does not have eyes for so many other men in the Capitol too.

[paidinbeer]

"I think we're both working really hard for one another." Orc observed in a moment of lucidity. Taking up his bowl he spooned some of the thick concoction into his mouth and considered it for a moment before his lips melted into a smile and he took another few healthy spoonfuls.

"S'great." He praised after swallowing. It was a little more difficult going down due to it's consistency but a sip of water helped.

"Dad used to say Oatmeal like this sticks to your ribs." He reasoned, betraying that his family had never called it porridge except when referring to the three little bears.

[gardienne]

"Do you usually try hard?" Eponine hadn't tried hard at all with Howard. Actually, she hadn't really tried at all. So did it matter that they were trying hard now?

She laughed at his reference to oatmeal. "Me - I do not know that word. Carlos says porridge - but oatmeal is so, yes? And it sticks to your ribs? Like - this!"

She flicked her spoon. still loaded with the gluey porridge, at Orc.

[paidinbeer]

"Well...yeah." He confessed looking sheepish. "I want to be good enough for you. I want to be a better person then I was back home."

Such lofty goals that seem out of reach even for someone as tall as he is.

He's about to answer her about the oatmeal porridge issue when she catches him in the face with porridge. He blinks startled and then smiles and scoops up a glob to fling it back at her.

So much for a mature and elegant picnic.

[gardienne]

"You're more than good enough. I keep telling you I am scum - and NO! I don't want you to say it because I am. I am a murderer and in any other place, I would be in prison. So DO. NOT. TELL. ME!" She squeals as the porridge hits her in the face, and she wipes it back into her hair, which becomes plastered to her head. As she yells, she flicks more porridge, and then throws a sandwich.

"Just... please. I don't want to try. I just want... this, you know?" Porridge dripped off the end of her nose.

[paidinbeer]

What had almost been a perfectly reasonable and romantic lunch was quickly becoming a food fight. Orc peeled the sandwhich off his jacket sleeve and bit into it happily.

"Say what you want. You're wrong." He explained through a mouthful of sandwhich.

"And the more you try to tell me you're scum the more I'll tell you your wrong. So just give it up princess."

[gardienne]

Eponine just rolled her eyes. She didn't want to be a princess, not any more. She just wanted to be normal. And she wanted Orc to stop looking at her in such a way because she was more than certain that she would disappoint him in the end.

But she said nothing, and instead tried to smile at him and picked up a sandwich.

"I wish you'd believe me, Orc. Charles. I'm not as lovely as you think. I am nastier than Howard, you know? You know, that boy is horrid? He has not been near since, not since I said I would get him out of the arenas."

[paidinbeer]

Orc decided to wash down his sandwhich with a drink before he tried to have her see reason.

"Howard is a Capitol Citizen now. He doesn't have to spend time with us. He's probably just trying to start life over again. Maybe get a job that doesn't require him to get killed every couple of months." He explained and then added "And you're not nastier then he is. Remember I've known him longer then you have."

[gardienne]

"I've seen his nastiness, though." Eponine didn't like that Orc disagreed with her on this one. She sipped her lemonade too, trying to think it all through, to make Orc see that she wasn't all sunshine and roses.

"I have seen exactly how nasty he can get - he has been so, so vile to me, you know? But... I think I am worse. I am worse to so many more people. Do you think he only spent time with us because he had to, though? I thought we were friends. I thought - well. I thought he cared for us."

[paidinbeer]

He wanted to comfort her and make her happy again...but he also didn't want to lie just to please her.

"I think he still does." Orc mused out loud while looking up at the sky for inspiration.

"But I think it's hard for Howard to care about other people. It scares him because when you love someone you can get hurt really bad."

This was a surprisingly astute observation for the usually thick and simple minded rock boy, then again it had been some time since he'd been properly drunk so perhaps his mind was stretching it's unused muscles.

"He's really sneaky...he could still be checking up on us without us knowing."

[gardienne]

"Like me." Eponine realised. She realised then how similar she and Howard were - except Howard was clever enough to have learned his lesson. She got up, and moved around the rug so that she could cuddle up to Orc, lifting one of his heavy arms so she could crawl underneath and hug into his gravel.

"I hope he is, you know. I hope he's happy now for us."

[paidinbeer]

He lowered his arm around her and she may be pleased to find up close that his normally rough stones were more smooth on the underside of his arms. One of his stylists had figured out how to smooth him out in places but hadn't informed Orc of the process. It was as much a surprise to him as anyone.

"Last time we spoke he was happy for us. But he's too proud to apologize."

That was a lie. But Orc was starting to realize that Eponine needed lies just like Howard did.

[gardienne]

"Yeah?" Eponine snuggled further into Orc's stony arm. She traced patterns with her fingertip over his skin.

"Can you feel that?" She sighed. "I am glad, really. That he can't say it. It would have made me feel bad. You know, he really did make me love him, even if he never did love me. It would make me feel bad in my belly for all the things I have done to... well, to get revenge on him."

She grips Orc's arm. He hadn't started off as part of her revenge - she genuinely likes Orc. But now, going this far... perhaps it had been, a little bit. But now it's more and Eponine is completely confused as to what Orc is to her, and how she feels about him.

[paidinbeer]

Orc nodded to let her know that despite how dull the sensation was he could still feel it and it meant the world to him.

"We've all made mistakes. Howard's no different." If anything Orc's mistakes made him who he was.

"Best we can do now is try to move on. Stick together and try to win so we can get out too."

[gardienne]

"D'you think they'll ever let us?" Eponine didn't think so. She thrummed lightly on Orc's arm. "I think people like me and you, we are less trouble when we are in the arenas, where we can't do anything bad and when we are so concentrated on living that we say nothing of any importance, or what they think is bad. You know, it is why they have moved Mr. Enjolras back. in. Miss. Jolie told me herself.

[paidinbeer]

He tried to give her a reassuring smile even though they both knew he had no real proof.

"Of course they will. They let all the other winners out right? And so long as we don't mess around like Enjolras does..." He fumbled on Enjolras as the name was a bit complex for his stupid tongue.

[gardienne]

"Yeah, but too often I am in trouble for opening my mouth. Even Mr. Albert has had to plead my stupidity with those awful Cruentus and that Penny. You know, Miss. Cruentus, she made me say that I am stupid and horrible? I just said it because I don't want to be an Avox but it made me feel a worm."

She frowned. "I shouldn't want to get you into trouble, you know. But you will always be here for me, won't you, when I am being shouted at again. You might be stupid, Charles, but you are cleverer than I am by far." She cuddles up to Orc, hugging into him, despite the rough gravel of his skin scratching her a little.