thecapitol | (no subject)

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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"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.