thecapitol | I Would Do Anything For Love.

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✘ orc

I Would Do Anything For Love.

Who: Eponine and Orc and Eponine and Eva
What: A jailbreak goes incredibly wrong
WhereAt the gates of the prison, and for Eponine and Eva, in their cell.
When: Very, very early morning, before the sun has properly risen and the streets are mostly empty.
Warnings: Torture, death, branding, tears

Eponine has a plan of sorts. It's to break Eva out, using a grappling hook made from scrap metal and her bed sheets. It's a vague plan at best, and a ridiculous one in actuality.

In the early morning, she slips from her bedroom, and dons the mask Ian had given her so long ago when she had said that she was sick of people recognising her. She shoulders her grappling hook, and goes to the lift to rouse Orc.

Orc. He hadn't been part of her plan at first. She hadn't told him what she was doing in an effort to spare him when she was inevitably caught and executed. But he'd caught her fishing for the bits to make the hook, had made her tell him, and had insisted that he was coming to help her.

Now that the plan's actually in motion, Eponine is glad to feel his craggy hand in her palm as she leads him towards the jail.

"You remember, don't you, what we're going to do?" She hisses at him, though there is nobody around to overhear.

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Orc nodded gently. He'd had a drink before they left but it wasn't a strong one. A single beer as sort of a good luck charm. He'd never felt more sober in his life.

Eponine had surprised him with her plan, as much as he loved her he never thought she'd take to thrilling heroics like some kind of wannabe superhero. But of course she loved Eva and was already a bundle of frayed nerves thanks to the Capitol.

So of course he had agreed to come with her. Dressed in a simple T-shirt with a Porcupine on it (He still had no idea what people called him that) and custom made jeans he followed her as quietly as his equally custom made shoes would allow.

"We're gonna rescue Eva." he stated plainly.

Eponine nodded. She was tense, definitely tense. This was about the most daring thing she had ever done, even more bold than murdering her father and trying to hide his body.

"We're going to get her out and back to the Training Tower, remember? We'll hide her in my room until we find somewhere better. Or perhaps Eva shall know of a place. "

She hoped Eva knew a place, because Eponine was fairly certain the Peacekeepers would think to check her room for her surrogate mum.

As they neared the jail, Eponine slowed down until she had come to a complete stop, just inside the doorway of a building.

"Look. See those gates, Orc? Charles?" She corrected herself quickly. "We must get through. Can you climb my rope? Or will you break them?"

Orc couldn't help but offer a gravely chuckle.

"Pretty sure I'd snap your rope." He cracked his knuckles in a most menacing manner. He had been expecting to have to bust some kind of door down so this came as no surprise to him. Trundling over with each step he sized up the gates and broke into a run. He wasn't very fast but as he built up speed he became a force to be reckoned with.

BOOM!

The gates flew open like they'd been hit by a car and Orc heard something in his shoulder pop from the impact. Hopefully that wouldn't hurt too much when he could feel it again.

Predictably, an alarm sounded in the distance.

Eponine sprinted after Orc. She hadn't quite expected him to set off so fast. She had perhaps wished to say good luck, for there'd be no time once their break in started. She wanted to finalise the plan. But it was too late.

She sprinted after Orc as fast as she could.

"Come. A window!" She hissed at him, taking his hand to drag him along, completely unaware that she might be tugging on a dislocated shoulder. "Can you see any? They'll be after us - quick!"

Perhaps Orc had been a little eager to get the show on the road, but history had proven that Orc was not one for a slow and methodical approach unless told otherwise.

Following Eponine and trying not to slow her down as they crossed the yard to the closest window.

"I don't see anyone." He grunted breathing heavily as each thundering step matched hers.

"There are no windows!" Eponine gasped out as they ran down the length of one of the blocks. That was it. Her plan was scuppered. She stopped abruptly. "Orc, what will we do? Where do we run?"

And, above the noise of the alarm, was that footsteps she heard?

"Shall we try for the front door?"

"Might as well." Orc grunted turning back the way they came. Already this was starting to seem like a bad idea. Maybe they could make it back out the front gate before it was too late...

...ah but it was too late wasn't it? Because as they circled around to the front door guards came pouring out, at least twenty of them all armed.

"Get behind me." Orc growled and squared his body to try and make himself as big as possible. The guards were hidden behind their helmets so he tried to convince himself they were scared of him.

"No." But she did as bid anyway. She was scared now: she had hoped that Orc at least, would have been able to make a run for it. But it seemed as if both she and he were caught.

She peeped out from behind Orc, trying to count the Peacekeepers. Too many for her in this sort of state for her to count.

"We'll have to fight." Orc would be okay. He had his strength. He could bash some guards, and his hard skin would save him from too much injury, right?And she had... a grappling hook.

"Can you do it? Do it!" She shouted at him, even as she stepped around him and began to try to swing her hook on the bed-linen rope it hung from. Perhaps they'd be so scared of Orc and her that they'd let the pair pass through.

He felt her move around his side and would have laughed if this wasn't such a stressful situation. What did she hope to do with the Grappling hook? They had guns!

It seemed like they were unwilling to open fire just yet though so rather then give Eponine the chance to get hurt he barreled forward, spreading his arms wide to try and knock down as many as he could in the initial charge. A handful were knocked clean off their feet and more dodged out of the way.

But now he was in the thick of it and began twisting and writhing about swinging his fists and trying to stay wary of Eponine so he wouldn't hit her by accident.

One landed on his back and he felt their fingers curl around in his open mouth. This brought back memories of them jamming sedative needles into his gums and a fresh rush of anger washed over him till he felt like his rocks were boiling hot.

"GET OFF!" He roared seizing the poor peacekeeper and using him as a weapon. Gripping him by his leg he swung the body around like a flail scattering more of the armored figures. He was sure he felt the man's leg crack but he would feel bad about that later.

...maybe.

"ORC!" Eponine screamed over the uproar the Peacekeepers were making. She had managed to keep some back, away from her for the time being, even knocked one out cold, by hitting him in the head with her hook.

In the blur, she didn't see where Orc had gone at first. She was too preoccupied by Peacekeepers trying to pull her hook out of her hands.

"ORC - CHARLES!" She screamed again. "RUN, CHARLES. RUN. RESCUE EVA AGAIN."

There were too many Peacekeepers for Eponine to fight off. She heard gunshots - not near her, but close enough to make her scream. Whilst she was distracted, one of the Peacekeepers grabbed her crude hook, and another touched a taser to her back

Oh my LORD - Eponine opened her mouth to swear but no sound comes out. Her whole body tenses - for half a second, she seems to go up on her tiptoes, with her shoulders shrugged right up to her ears, before she crumples completely on the ground. She feels as if she's been trampled by a horse, and she lies, breathing heavily, until a couple of the guards pull her to her feet and roughly fasten her hands in cuffs behind her back.

After a minute of simply breathing, not particularly conscious of what was happening, does she look for Orc. And when she sees him, she tries to start forward to him, but is pulled back by the Peacekeepers and held in an iron grip.

"Ch - Charles!"

All it took was her scream.

The moment he heard that logic and reason flew out the window. He was a rampaging monster again.

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HER!!!"

Bodies flew through the air and the peacekeepers became aware that there was no salvaging this situation. If they wanted to avoid anyone getting killed they would have to stop him fast.

With rage clouding his eyes Orc was tearing a path through the growing crowd of peacekeepers trying to get to Eponine. Just as he reached the edge of the crowd and was moments from reaching her a loud sound like pressurized air pierced the chaos followed by the scraping of metal on stone and a primal roar.

A three foot steel Harpoon had pierced his arm and a long steel cable was attached to it leading back and away from Eponine. When Orc raised his free arm to strike at it another found it's mark stabbing through his bicep.

The guards still on their feet seized upon the cables and ran in different directions to secure the bindings around thick poles. Orc's muscles strained against the metal piercing his stone and found he couldn't work his arms as well as he'd hoped. Blood was running down the harpoons as more peaccekeepers rushed forward with a large device like a canon.

"ORC!" Eponine yelled his name as she realised what was happening - that they were tying him down at least. It dawned on her all of a sudden that neither of them were getting out of this mess any time soon.

"CHARLES - LET GO!" She pulled away from the men holding her as best as she could, wriggling and shrugging her shoulders, despite it burning her chest and making her lungs hurt from forcing oxygen into them.

"LET GO OF ME! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM? LET HIM GO!!! THIS WAS MY IDEA! LET HIM GO. Please. Please let him go."

But the Peacekeepers held her fast, giving her not an inch of wriggle room, and not bothering at all when she stamped on her toes.

Instead, one of the Peacekeepers leaned in and whispered, "Watch." into her ear.

Orc glared defiantly down the barrel of the cannon which was warming up and glowing a faint purple.

"LET ME GO!" He demanded and gave a massive pull on both ropes dragging the peacekeepers forward. He was almost able to put his hands in front of him...

"FIRE!" One of the peacekeepers shouted and the tip of the canon burst with a familiar purple energy that raced through Orc's arms.

From the point of impact his stone skin began exploding in all directions. He let out a grunt of shock as concussive force ripped the very stones from his flesh leaving scraps of skin hanging off exposed nerves and muscles. The wave that washed over him bent the harpoons, but they were hardly necessary anymore after the first blast had stripped his armor off his limbs.

Eyes wide and numb with shock he sank to his knees and the peacekeepers pulled on the ropes once more dragging his arms apart exposing his head and chest.

"FIRE!"

Another shot, this one catching him in the chest. His back exploded in a shower of stones and dust exposing very soft and bruised looking human skin underneath. The Porcupine shirt he was wearing fluttered as shreds on the breeze and the stones on his chest fell off like a slab of ice melting off a glacier.

The stones around his face peeled away painfully as he twisted and writhed but he could not make a sound. The shot had done something to his insides.

They lowered the ropes knowing that the job had been done. Blood leaked out his ears and nose, dribbling from his lips.

Turning his head to get one last look at Eponine she could see the apologetic look in his eyes for only a moment before they rolled up into his head and he slumped forward. The heavy body hit the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut.

Charles Merriman died for what would be the fifth time at the age of fifteen and it would be his last. Dying to protect someone he loved while he tried to use his powers for good at least once more.

His last thoughts were of regret and the girl who had made him feel handsome and kind despite his monstrous appearance and the horrible things he'd done.

Eponine had screamed at the first blast, and tried to turn, to hide her face in the Peacekeeper's chest so she didn't have to watch. But this wasn't just to neutralise Orc. This was to scare her as well. Another Peacekeeper made sure to hold her head tight, to make her watch.

She vomited after that, and received a clip to the ear for it.

Oh God - his flesh - they forced her head up, forced her to watch them expose the poor lad again to the blast of the cannon.

"CHARLES!" Eponine's scream echoed into the silence left by the cannon. "CHARLES - YOU BASTARDS LET ME GO! LET ME - OH GOD!" She couldn't even cry. She couldn't -

"Oh God, Charles. Charles, I am so sorry. Orc - Orc, don't leave me. Don't die. Orc. ORC -"

The Peacekeepers let her go, and she lurched towards her - what was left of her boyfriend. She fell to her knees by his side, wishing desperately that she could at least reach out to him now. in his death.

"Orc - oh, God, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I loved you. Orc. YOU BASTARDS!"

The Peacekeeper who had been holding her throughout Orc's execution came forward again and forced her to her feet, ignoring her screams and her spitting and her name calling and her desperate protests. Eponine was bundled into the prison. Her last glimpse of Orc, when she twisted her neck to see, was obscured by Peacekeepers busily shovelling his stones into black bags. Eponine vomited again.

Eponine's uncharacteristically compliant by the time the Peacekeepers bring her to Eva's cell. Her hair is in complete disarray, indicating the struggle she must have put up at one point, and the dark finger shaped bruises on her neck show how hard they must have had to hold her down to apply the brand to her cheek. Oh, that brand. It covers the whole of her left cheek, and the very corner of her lips as well.

But Eponine's not crying. She's not fighting or arguing or dragging her feet. She's shaking all over. She looks like she's in shock, like she can't really process what's happening to her any more.

When they push her into Eva's cell, Eponine simply collapses onto the floor, branded cheek up, still shaking. It's only when they walk away that she drags herself up into a sitting position and looks across at Eva.

"I just wanted to help you, Eva. I swear - I didn't mean - " She bites her lip. "Are they to kill us as well?"

"Eponine!"

Eva is on her feet in a second, stumbling and scrambling over as close as she gets to the force field. Like Eponine, she's been branded, but her wounds have already been covered with bandages that make her speech slightly muffled, that trap her breath into a humid pocket between her lips and nose. Her eyes, however, are visible. Her eyes and the worry there.

"Oh, guagua, oh pobrecita..." She mutters and wrings her hands (her ring finger on one has been broken, the fingernail removed). "No, they won't kill you. They won't kill us."

"I'm sorry - I swear it -- is it you? Truly you or do you trick me? Are you a soldier waiting to get me?"

She doesn't know what to think any more. If they can kill Orc so brutally, then they can surely pretend to be Eva to kill Eponine. But she wants desperately to believe that it IS Eva. She puts her fingers out to Eva, drawing them back with a squeal when the forcefield shocks the tips of the fingers which touched.

How do you know - have they burned you too? Its all my fault! Iam so sorry, Eva. Do you think it'll be quickly over now? I'm... I want Orc back.

"It's me. A soldier won't bother to sing you lullabies tonight." Her heart lays heavy in her stomach, like a slab of meat bleeding onto the butcher's table. It hurts near as bad as the gruesome brand to her face.

And with pain comes fire, and her next words are hard as iron. She sits on her knees in front of the forcefield, not fearing to bare her dark eyes or the mutilated flesh there.

"I'll get us out, Eponine. It's hardly your fault. I'm going to end this."

"Lullabies?" Eponine pulls her knees to her chest, and wraps her arms about her legs, hugging herself into a little ball. "You have been here an age and you still want to comfort me. It don't matter, Eva. I deserve to be in prison. I deserve... this."

She gestures to her cheek. Her whole face feels like it's burning even still. She can imagine her skin curling back, almost crawling back over her forehead and nose and away from the area that stings so much in the cold air of the cell.

"I wanted to make it up to you. To show you I'm not so bad as my Papa. I am so sorry. I am sorry, Eva."

But... there's hope. "Don't do anything stupid, please, Eva. I don't want them to hurt you."

"You're hardly at the root of these problems." Eponine, if anything, is too loose a cannon to pull off something that required this much planning, and the punishments Eva's received on Eponine's behalf have always been much more transient and focused. This is a dragnet. The Capitol doesn't know what they're doing.

"You have nothing to apologize for. I can handle this matter on my own, and then we'll both walk free, alright?" She nearly presses her hand to the forcefield. "Oh, dear, I was hoping they wouldn't tarnish your face."

"I don't care what they do." Eponine mirrors Eva's action, putting her palm as close to the forcefield and to Eva's hand as she can without being electrocuted. She shakes her head. "It don't matter. What does it matter anyway? Nobody will ever look at me again, not like he did - oh, God, Mama."

She begins to shake again as she remembers the execution, that look of pure anguish and hurt and love all at once in Orc's eyes, and how the rocks had fallen away and he'd bled to death in the yard of the prison.

"Why don't they just kill me? Why Orc? It's me who is the trouble - why are they killing all of my loves and not me? Mama, I were so scared that you were executed, and now Orc and Ian before... all for me, and what I have done - God, but of course you don't know, I was so scared you were cross with me. Everything is so a mess - and it hurts so much. It hurts, Eva."

"I'm a very hard woman to cross, Eponine." That's probably one of the greatest lies Eva's ever told, and yet she feels Eponine needs to hear it - she feels she needs to tell it if there's any hope of keeping strong the bond between the two of them. Eva hasn't the patience for reassuring the girl throughout this, and Eponine hasn't the self-esteem to believe herself worthy of forgiveness.

Oh, how she wants to bring Eponine to her bosom and pet her straggly hair and leave kisses on the crown of her head.

"But you need to promise me you'll stay out of trouble while I handle this, alright?"

"You think you can help it?" Eponine shakes her head.

"I swear, not a word. I shall pretend to faint, if you like, or to sob inthe corner and take no notice. But not so they hurt you - they won't again, will they?"

Because then, all that Eponine had attempted to do would be completely in vain. She couldn't sit and do nothing whilst they hurt the only person Eponine had left to love. She would not let them take Eva away from her.

"Sob in the corner when they come in. Follow their orders and don't fight back, alright? Imagine yourself as water, sliding downhill with no resistance."

She sighs. Eponine, too, is the last person Eva has left. She wants to leave her in safety when all this - when the long plan - is all said and done.

Eponine nods. "Whatever you want. We will be okay, won't we? You won't be dead at their hands? Mama, I should rather die with you here now. I cannot lose another love. Already they made me see Orc." She smiles sadly. "I wish I could hug you."

But she does as Eva asks, and eases herself into a corner, where she curls up, and hides her good cheek against her knees ready for Eva's plan.

"I would hug you too if I could, Eponine. Maybe it's for the best, because I might not let you go afterwards." She smiles sadly, then gets wearily to her feet and paces over to the door of her cell. "But we won't be dying here. I promise."

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I Would Do Anything For Love.

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