thecapitol | (no subject)

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✘ eva salazar

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Who: Eponine and Eva
What: Mother-daughter times
Where: Eva's house
When: After Eponine's arena death

Warnings: Mentions of death, suicide, branding, sex, erm...

There is nowhere that Eponine feels safer in the whole of the Capitol than in Eva's bed in her little house. When the nightmares come, and they do come more and more frequently now, it's to Eva's bed that Eponine runs, crawling beneath the duvet and cuddling tight to Eva, smelling her hair, her pyjamas - anything to remind herself that she's real and alive and that somebody loves her. It's the first place she came after being woken from the arena, and it's the place she keeps returning to, night after night, even when Eva is not there.

Eponine is ignorant of Eva's relationship with Wallander: she suspects Eva is at a man's house, but she's too wrapped up in her own woes to question. She just longs for Eva to return, to embrace her and love her and to love in return.

Whilst she waits, she wraps herself in one of Eva's ball gowns, all horns and sharp. Eponine doesn't like the dress, but already, she feels just a little bit more confident in herself. She feels like Eva. She even has a brand like Eva. Looking at herself in the mirror in Eva's bedroom, Eponine touches her brand again. It's as raw as ever, but she doesn't care. In a way, despite it's hideousness, she sort of likes it. It makes her the same as Eva, and Eva is the best person she knows.

She stays in Eva's room, still wrapped in Eva's dress, playing with the odd bit of makeup she can find, until Eva comes home.

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Eva tends to be a bit drunk when she comes home from Wallander's, if she isn't spending the night. It isn't that she needs alcohol for the ritual of confession and sex, but it helps her sleep afterwards. She's finding herself fond of Wallander, for all his many, many faults, and that makes her hate herself just a little bit. And thus, she drinks.

She tries to clean herself up before she enters the house each time, so she can put on her best face for Eponine. Before she comes upstairs - she sees Eponine isn't sleeping in the bedroom Eva provided right now, and the sheets and duvet are scattered across the bottom of the bed and the floor - she stops in the hall bathroom of her massive house and fixes her hair and makeup. She wipes the cover-up from the brand and applies vaseline instead.

She isn't unused to finding Eponine in Eva's own bedroom. She cracks open the door. "You're up late, dear."

"Eva!" Eponine drops the makeup she's holding guiltily, and instead holds her arms up and out for Eva to come and sit on the bed and hug her.

"I were thinking you weren't coming back till the morning, but I were hoping you were. God, I am glad you are back."

She snuggles against Eva's hair, breathing in her sweat and alcohol and that odd smell of burned skin and vaseline that comes from Eva's burn.

"I had that dream again, Mama. Of Charles and the cannon - but then that horrid Molotov, and that Harley were there and they were drawing on me when the peacekeepers held me, and it all turned into burns and it hurt. They burned thief on my head. I am sick of these dreams, Mama."

She comes into Eponine's arms like a breeze, fully and all-encompassing. She wraps an embrace around that skinny body.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here."

She's a terrible parent, but then again, her dead son should be evidence enough of that. She hardly needs to build a case against herself when she already has a conviction. She sits next to Eponine.

"You woke up knowing yourself safe though, didn't you?"

"You shouldn't have to be." Eponine murmurs against Eva's skin. It's horrible that either of them should feel guilty, for being there or no. Eponine shouldn't have to need Eva to comfort her after a bad dream and Eva shouldn't have to look after her at all. Eponine knows this, and she's just grateful that Eva came back at all.

"I put on one of your dresses, Mama. I hope you do not mind. It makes me feel brave, like you. That sounds silly, doesn't it? I am glad we are the same now though." She pulls away, lightly touching Eva's burn, and then her own.

"We could truly pass as mother and daughter, I think. I like that. I want to be like you."

"Is that so?"

Nothing Eponine says could break her heart more. She pulls away from Eponine only to return again, like waves lapping the shore, and begin the ritual of braiding and smoothing.

Who would ever aspire to be this person made of sticks and blades, held together only because her ugly heart continues to pump?

"I don't mind at all. Although I think your brand looks a little better than mine."

"Yeah?" Eponine laughs a little. "Perhaps all these stupid Capitol people will rush to a shop and demand one."

She stays still whilst Eva braids. Its so comforting with the slight scrape of Eva's fingers, the little tugs on her hair to make it conform.

""I love you the most, Mama. The most from everyone. I should do anything for you. I should die before I allow it for you. You are so good to me. Who else has stood by me here? I wish I could do that for a child when I am old, but I am not so kind as you. I wish I was though."

Eponine is honest, achingly so at times, and even as she speaks, she begins to cry. She cries for her losses, for Ian and Parker and Mona and Orc, the handful who liked her before the Capitol ripped them away. And she cries for those here; Sigma and Dave, and Elsa, who have turned away. And she cries for Eva.

"I'm not going back to the arena next time, you know? I've had enough. I want to stay here with you."

"Give it ten years and our brands will become stylish. 'Vintage', they'll call it. 'Throwbacks'. And they'll take their sleeping pills before they're put on..." So that, unlike Eva and Eponine and everyone else, they won't have to feel the pain of their skin sizzling and melting and being pulled along the hot brand.

Eponine's tears nearly bring them to Eva's eyes. She continues to tease out knots with one hand, but her other rubs small circles into Eponine's back.

"I am only kind to you. You're special that way." And in an awful way, it's true. "But you have to do the Arenas until I find a way out for you."

"They won't let me be a citizen. I know it. But I shall fight them. I shall find that stupid Snow and slit his throat and shoot his knees and his eye and have a monster eat him alive. And then I shall stay with you forever ." She cuddles into Eva's comforting warmth. Itsa horrifying ending to her little fairytale, as if Snow White had suddenly poisoned the Queen and the dwarfs to boot, or Little Red Riding Hood had shot dead her granny. Eponine makes herself laugh .

"Maybe that's why you pick me. I am as horrible as you already..." She trails off as she debates whether to bring Felicity up.

" Felicity says you said you'll kill her if she comes near me . She couldn't believe I love you. But I tell her she's stupid , for why should you say it?"

Eva laughs too, and it's a sound that rumbles in her breast, under Eponine's head. She doesn't mention the parts of Eponine's hair that fall out from the starvation, that making the braid reveals a balding patch. She doesn't pick at the nits where ticks and lice had made their homes before the Stylists bath-bombed the girl. She treats Eponine's hair as if it's the finest silk for a king's robe.

Eva's voice hardens, not at Eponine but at the idea of Felicity spiting Eva's command. "I did say that to Felicity. I didn't like the way she treated you, so I hoped to make an impression."

"When she were horrid to me? Oh Mama!" Eponine hugs Eva close. "Oh, you are lovely - to think you should do that for me! But... she's IS nice, you know. We are friends now - but she thinks you will kill her because we are close. You will tell her, won't you? I don't want her talking bad about you. Not nobody - I told that Mrs. Blackfoot to shut up about you. I spat at her - she didn't like that, though. She had Peacekeepers put the needle in me and make me asleep." She means Jennifer, of course, but she's got the name wrong.

Eponine's grip tightens on Eva. "She said you were a criminal, and that they were going to execute you. She said you might already be dead. But I won't let it be. I have told that Mr... Mr. Regan. I told him that if they take you away from me, I shall turn completely against them, and they shan't like that. " She hugs Eva close as if she'll never let her go. Eva is Eponine's rock - she's about the best thing that has ever, ever happened to Eponine, and she is willing to forgive and ignore all of the less favourable bits of her personality to keep Eva close.

"You can tell her I won't hurt her. I have very little interest in meeting her again."

It's fortunate Eponine can't see Eva's eyes right now, fixed on a place on the wall as she continues to work her fingers over the girl's new plait. Eva's eyes convey a depth of sadness for something so flat. She wonders, maybe, if she could have made a life with Eponine, could have found satisfaction without the revenge that animates her like a corpse from the grave.

If she gave up her vendetta now, she wonders what would happen. She doesn't entertain the thought long, but for a moment...

"You know all our time is but for the grace of God, Eponine. I may yet die."

"I don't believe in God, Mama. What God would do this to us? No, i will not let you go. You'll see."

Eponine smiles. "When you're old, I will be there to fix the blanket on your knee and to brush your hair, and cook your food. I'll look after you proper. And I will kiss you when you die, Mama." She can picture it as well, her and Eva looking after one another until they are both old and wizened. They could make a life together - even a life interrupted by the arenas. Eponine is already sure that they have. She is never happier, nor more calm than when she is with Eva.

It's a nice fantasy - a beautiful one, even. And yet Eva knows it's not one meant for her. She can't tell Eponine why, can't explain how imminent her plan is, can't trust the girl not to sabotage her out of love.

What cruel irony that honesty and love are the greatest threats to her now.

"Bring me flowers when I die, alright? I do love orchids." She pats Eponine's cheek. "And I'll teach you all my favorite recipes for you to cook."

"There shan't be a day when I don't bring you a new one, Mama." She smiles, and strokes a tendril of Eva's hair forward, so she can play with it. "But it's a long time away. Come - come, happy thoughts now, Mama. We are alive and together, with no arena to bother us. Come. Let us have a lovely day."

She kisses Eva on the cheek. "I am not going back to sleep. There are too many people who haunt my dreams."

Eva's slept just a little bit at Kurt's, and as such she can make it an early day. She has nothing else to do, no Tributes to tend when all her accounts are frozen and most of them have been blacklisted. To tell the truth, she no longer feels bad about abandoning them. Soon enough she'll be giving them a greater gift than some bandages in the Arena.

So she presses her palm to Eponine's kiss, as if to save it there. "Alright. I'll teach you to make sopas and then we'll spend time in the garden. Does that sound nice?"

It's the only thing she can do to try and throttle and dismember those that haunt Eponine's head.

"That sounds lovely." She has no idea what a sopas might be but she doesn't care either. Spending a day with Eva is always a happy day for Eponine, even in the arenas.

"Come on." She stands up away from Eva, and steps out of her Mama's dress, and folds it neatly on the bed. Beneath it, she had on her own grey pyjama top and grey, orange and white checked pants. She was dressed enough. She'd do. She doesn't want to waste time getting changed.

Eva, on the other hand, requires a few moments. She doesn't bother with modesty in front of Eponine, changing into something plain by Capitol standards aside from the pin in her hair, which drips beads.

It's a habit from her home, years and years ago, where glamor was a conceit relegated to the details if it was there at all.

The kitchen seems messier than when she remembers leaving it, but still cleaner than Wallander's; Eva's own depression is hardly so debilitating. She starts to scrub at a pan. "Can you find me some flour and cinnamon, dear? I think you'll like these, they're very sweet."

Eponine isn't at all fazed by Eva changing. Her own upbringing hasn't exactly been modest, after all. She bounces after Eva into the kitchen. It's messy, not only from Eva, but from Eponine as well, who had been helping herself to the biscuits in the cupboard and the ice cream in the freezer.

She hums as she fetches the flour and the cinnamon. Between Eva and Carlos, Eponine has learned enough of cooking to know what the spice is and where to find it. She's back within minutes, standing almost on top of Eva.

"I like sweet. I like anything you cook for me, though. You are my favourite cook in the world, you know?"

Eva laughs. It's different than her normal laughs; it's warm, it's unguarded, it's like a summer breeze rather than the cracking of ice underfoot. "Oh, child, sometimes I forget how deprived you've been, having me as your favorite cook."

She gestures with quick flicks of her wrist to where Eponine should help her gather ingredients, the girl like a bird doting on a princess. "Baking powder and lard, dear."

"I am not deprived." She grins, and rolls her eyes at Eva. "You are just a silly. You should just be happy that I think you are wonderful. What should you do if I hated you and said horrid things about you? Just take the - what's the word? You know as I mean. The good things."

She skips for the ingredients quickly, watching carefully so she can repeat the processes and the measurements back to Eva. Baking has helped her with her numbers no end. She is starting to feel confident now.

"I like it when you laugh. You look so much prettier, you know?"

"'Compliment'. The word is 'compliment'." She starts the process, explaining to Eponine as she goes, making the little pillows of bread that eons ago were called sopapillas. In a time before Panem, before Eva.

"I'll try to laugh more often for you, guagua. Would you like to try one?" Eva moves her fingers deftly, plucking one up and rolling it in cinnamon sugar. "Careful, it's still hot."

"So." Eponine accepts the correction, and goes on to repeat out loud and then mutter Eva's instructions over and over as she learns them off by heart. She knows it'd take her an age to write, and then she'd only lose it, or not bother to ever read it again because of the effort involved. She'd rather just know.

"Yes!" She holds her hand out for one, not at all worried about burning her hand. After the burns to her cheeks, Eponine doesn't think she'll ever be bothered about hot fingers again.

She tries it tentatively, and then again with more enthusiasm.

"Mama, this is nice! It is all hot and sweet and... and good for breakfast. I shall make them for you next time you stay away all night. "

She looks swiftly at Eva to see if she's picked up the hint. And then, just as quickly, she adds,

"Are they from your District special?"

Eva positively beams at Eponine's excitement. It's not a face anyone but Eponine gets to see, ever.

"I stay away all night but I always return in the morning, dear. But if you'll be making me sopas, then I'll have even more reason to." What is it about love that makes lying so easy? That rationalizes every untruth?

She reaches over and pats the side of Eponine's hair as she sits next to her at the breakfast table. Her other hand is covered in cinnamon sugar and the grease of the sopas.

"Yes, only my District makes these, and only when we can afford it. Cinnamon is expensive where I'm from, and lard must be imported. My mother used to make this when I was little."

And that smile is an expression that Eponine loves. She loves to see Eva so happy, even if it is for a little while.

"You will always come back though, won't you?" She holds her hand out for another sopas.

"And now you have taught me. And I will teach my daughter. And she hers - for I am part of your family now, aren't I? And we shall make sure that everyone in the District has some. Everyone. And cinnamon and lard. As much as they want. I am not afraid to work hard to make sure they have everything they want."

Eva places it in Eponine's palm, then wipes grease from her hand with a towelette in a canister on her table. Better to clean up lard than wine, than blood, than snot and tears. She does not answer Eponine's appeal for a promise.

"You're family, Eponine." She doesn't know how much she trusts Eponine's promise, how much is genuine altruism and how much is just the urge to impress her, but she doesn't much care. "You can start calling yourself Salazar whenever you like."

"Eponine Salazar. I like that." She dumps the sopos on the counter and jumps up to hug Eva close. "I should offer you my name, but I do not think you should want Thenardier or Jondrette, for they are the names of conmen and thieves."

Eponine genuinely means every word of what she says to Eva. She's long since trying to impress her Mama. She's reassured now, more than ever, that Eva will love her no matter what.

"The Capitol will love it, you know? They kept using me to say for adoption and second chances. And they say you have a child again."

"That's not why I don't take your name. A name is something passed from mother to daughter, not vice versa." And she feels that she gets to give Eponine so little, not being her biological parents. She almost feels robbed by some cosmic force that this girl isn't her own flesh and blood.

"They're not wrong." She smiles. "Come on, eat the rest of your sopas and we'll garden."

"Well, I am happy about being your daughter." She reaches to touch Eva's brand with her sugary, sticky fingers.

"I shall ask them if I can keep my burn forever and ever. I thought it were ugly at first, but you are the most beautiful woman in this stupid place, and I should like to be as brave and as true as you are. Then we'll be the same."

She crunches her sopas as quickly as she can, and, wiping her hands on her jeans, she holds her hand out so she can lead Eva to the garden.

"Will you show me how to grow flowers proper, Mama? I want to make Orc's grave beautiful, and not with their stinking weeds. I want to do it for him."

Eva closes her eyes as the fingers are put to her brand, as Eponine leaves little traces like a snail. She doesn't mind.

"You're more like me every day." She remembers the scar on her mouth, the one that seems so small now compared to the brand, that she wore with pride. Soon the brand will join that league.

She lets Eponine lead, content for someone else to make the call right now. "Of course. I'll help you bring some to him."

He had been good to Eponine. That was all that mattered.

"He were stupid... but he did love me so." Eponine shakes her head. "And I let him die even when I were kissing Dave when he weren't looking. That was wicked of me. I didn't even try to tell him I didn't love him. Have you ever done that? Not lain with someone you don't love. I know we have both done that. But... pretended so hard and made them like you and laughed at them elsewhere?"

She picks up a watering can and begins to fill it from the outside tap.

"Will it go away? That squidgy, twisting feeling in your belly?"

Yes. Yes, she has, even if the laughing at Wallander is left in her head. Even if it's less laughter now and a grim sense of guilt. She's acted with the best of them, and it makes her simultaneously sad and proud that Eponine's capable of the same.

She nods. "It goes away eventually. He still died feeling love for you, feeling happy in that. That's something that can't be taken away."

"You think it's alright, then? That he didn't know?" Eponine cheers up a bit. If Eva thinks it's ok, then it can't be so bad.

"I think you're the only person I proper love, you know? All the boys, the men. I just say it so they'll love me. The men I go with especially. They give me a coin, or a pretty necklace or something, and I like that. And Dave and them - I like being with a man who is so beautiful, that all the others stare and are jealous of me. I like making them fall in love with me. I like laughing at them like everyone else laughs at me. I don't think I care if I am wicked!"

"I think him not knowing caused him the least pain, and for that it was the best of circumstances."

What she says next comes from the heart, comes from a place of honesty that's painful. It's not spoken so much as birthed, ripping through flesh and the barriers of life and death to reach the air.

"You, Eponine, are the only living person I love as well. Everyone else is just useful at best."

Eponine drops her watering can and just goes to Eva, putting her arms tight around her mother.

"I am so glad I found you, Eva. You make every day so much more bearable. I should have tried to kill myself a long time ago without you. I do not even know of any such way I can ever repay you. For everything. I do so love you."

If Eva were a worse actress, she would cry right now. She would give a face to all that guilt she feels for leaving this girl who loves her alone, this chance at a second parenting that she's willingly severing.

But she doesn't, because she's kept a stiff upper lip through worse. She just wraps her arms back around Eponine and pats her back.

"I'll never ask for repayment, dear. You've given me a second chance at love. That's all I've wanted."

She lies.

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