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[makeflowersgrow]

Who: Eponine and Wesker
What: A reunion on the roof of the training centre
When: Sometime at midnight, around a week after the Valentine's drugging.
Where: On the top of the training centre
Warnings: Some gentle manipulation for Miss Thenardier, methinks. 'Cheerful' reunions galore. Possible language?

 It's late at night - midnight now, to be exact, and it's cool up on the roof of the training centre. But Eponine doesn't feel like going inside. Not yet. It might be chilly, but the stars, the big, full moon, are all so beautiful. Eponine feels her spirits raise even from just looking on them. It's been so long since she's seen them - the last time was in the arena, before her death...

Eponine shivers and sits down near the edge of the roof.She likes looking over, and watching the people below. Only, there are no people on the streets now. The whole city is quiet. It's just her and the stars. Just like in Paris.

Eponine lies back, looking up at the stars. Maybe she can just live up here from now on? Sleeping rough is nothing new to her, and it is certainly better than waiting for Javert to arrest her in her sleep. So she lies back, for once feeling perfectly secure and perfectly relaxed. After a few minutes, she begins to hum, and eventually to sing...

She sings nonsense, about lost loves and nightingales dying; it's an old French ditty she knows, full of crude words and images, but her high, pure voice somehow makes even the worst of the swearing sound relatively innocent. In the quiet of the night, her voice echoes and drifts out, perhaps attracting a surprise visitor... 

Comments

[makeflowersgrow]

Eponine shrugged. "It is what many men I know would do. That or..." Her eyes lost their focus on his face, and drifted down his body speculatively, before she raised her gaze to meet his own again.

"But I will warn you, Monsieur, I will not let you do either to me now."

[president_evil]

His chin dropped, nostrils flaring as he breathed.

"If either of those were truly my attention," he stepped forward, the silent movement of a predator, "You would have no hope of stopping me." Closer... closer, he came, slow and graceful and unhurried. "But as it is-" and he suddenly stopped and turned his head to look out over the sheer edge, city lights reflecting off his pale hair and painting him in shades of blue and green and red, "-I came for the view."

He looked back at her after a beat. "And then to listen."

[makeflowersgrow]

Eponine began to back away as soon as Wesker came towards her. She was neither graceful nor unhurried; she moved with as much haste as she was physically able to, without turning her back to him. She raised her hands, balling her fists; she was NOT going down without a fight. Though Eponine was sure, privately, that if Wesker really did want to kill her again, then she would be dead within seconds.

But then he was talking about the view, and Eponine's hands dropped. The VIEW? Oh. Oh - well... well, that was much better. Her head cocked on the side as he added the last bit.
"To listen, Monsieur? To my singing? You like my voice so much?" That made her laugh.

[president_evil]

"It does have a certain charm," he replied, silken voice not missing a beat. His mouth turned upward again. "It suits the view well."

[makeflowersgrow]

"I am not a whore, you know? A 'Lady' or anything like that?" Eponine practically spat the words out. She hugged her jumper closer to her stomach, arms folding tight around her waist.

[president_evil]

Behind the lenses, the red-gold eyes rolled, but he resisted the urge to sigh.

"Did I say you were?"

[makeflowersgrow]

"Well... it is what you might think, Monsieur. After you saw me in the state in the Arena. And now you hear me singing such songs. It would be a fitting conclusion for me. But it is a wrong one, I promise you."

Eponine edged just that little bit further away, just in case.

[president_evil]

He could have easily turned back into the elevator when he'd heard her, or could have simply ignored her presence until she took it upon herself to leave, but he'd seen an opportunity to amuse himself. To perhaps draw an enamored, unwitting fly into his web... but now, he considered, briefly, that continuing this little charade might require more effort than it was really worth.

But Wesker was never one to admit defeat. Not this easily.

"Fitting conclusions for some, perhaps,... but I promise you, I don't much care for the taste of the words of others."

[makeflowersgrow]

"What do you mean? You don't believe me?" Eponine once again shrugged. Well, she couldn't force anybody to believe her words.

[president_evil]

What an amazingly obtuse child.

"Merely that I don't believe the choice of 'whore' is an apt one."

[makeflowersgrow]

"Well, maybe I do not care what you think of me, Monsieur." Eponine stuck her chin up high.
"So you may think of me as you like. I do NOT care!"

[president_evil]

His back teeth ground together, but he found the strength to shrug.

One final attempt, and then even he would have to admit the lost cause.

"So I shall continue to think the best of you, and you only the worst? Now there's a true shame." He allowed himself a heavy exhale and turned to the ledge, turned his back on her, as if disappointed. Resigned.

[makeflowersgrow]

"The - the best of me?"

Eponine frowned. The best? But... how? Why? She had done nothing to show him a positive side of herself.
Still, even as Wesker turned away from her, Eponine found herself drawing closer, sidling up to him so that she stood next to him, looking out at the same view.

"You think I am good? You like me, Monsieur?"

[president_evil]

His eyes closed, at last, and he counted a calmly ten heartbeats before he replied.

"I think, you have a great deal of potential. But then..." he looked at her, a slow turn of his head, lenses black and fathomless, "...you don't care what I think. Do you?"

[makeflowersgrow]

"Do you?"

Eponine glanced at Wesker in confusion, before looking quickly back out over the city.

Didn't care what he thought? No - no, that was wrong. Said quickly when she thought this man thought her scum. A reflex reaction, defiance against her station in life compared to those of superior class. No, Eponine craved approval from anyone that would give it to her. But how could she tell this man any of that? He would laugh for sure!

"I -"

She bit her lip, clenching her hands.

"Do you really think I have potential, Monsieur? For what?"

[president_evil]

He continued to watch her, please once more, now that he'd found the trigger.

"With such a lovely voice, such daring, and fiery spirit... a great many things, I would imagine."

So this one needed things a bit more directly. He could do that.

"But the secret, is that it can only be realized if you believe it as well."

[makeflowersgrow]

"You like my voice? Papa always said that I sound like a cat being strangled and then trampled by a horse."

She beamed openly though. Nobody ever paid her such lovely compliments.

" Perhaps I believe... I do like to sing, even if I am bad. I say what does it matter if I am happy? It hurts only the ears and nothing else if I am truly so bad."

She doesn't, not really. Not yet. But she wishes his compliments were true. So that is part of the battle won, no?

[president_evil]

"'Perhaps,' hmm? I'd said that's not very convincing." He paused purposely, knowing the power of well placed silence. "But still a step in the right direction."

He smiled softly and slowly, gently, reached over to brush back a lock of her thin hair, his fingertips like moth's wings against her cheek, there and gone. "Perhaps someday, you'll believe enough to sing for me."

(OOC: Let me know if this goes too far, I'll be happy to edit.)

[makeflowersgrow]

She shrugged - and then freezes as Wesker's fingers come towards her. She braced herself for an impact - but it never came, and his fingers traced briefly over her skin as he gently fixed her hair. Gentle. Eponine looked up at the man in wonder.

"Do you want me to sing for you, Monsieur?" She asked.

Did Wesker really like her? He was treating her as if he did... Eponine just couldn't understand it, nor work out WHY.

[president_evil]

"Would you?" he murmured, voice soft and low - the whisper of a siren, drawing her toward a silken web. "If I asked?"

[makeflowersgrow]

((before I forget again - I am ALWAYS cool with however fay you wanna push things. Just let me know before you kill her or change her life and that is enough for me!))

Eponine found herself moving closer to him, though she didn't realise it, but soon her shoulder touched his arm, and he'd be able to feel her head nodding as she replied,

"If you want me to... only what shall I sing?"

[president_evil]

"Such a sweet, brave girl."

He smiled again, the one corner of his mouth turning up handsomly, and stepped back, moving toward the nearby bench.

"Surprise me," he instructed as he sat, as regal and composed as if he were attending an opera. Not listening to a ragged, dirty girl atop a freezing rooftop.

[makeflowersgrow]

She turned round to face him nervously, fidgeting with her sleeve. But she can't do it.

So she turned her back again and closed her eyes. She was imagining - imagining her self back home, in the streets of Paris, by herself. That song that she always sung to herself as she wandered at night. The one that made her cry, every time.

Slowly, she began to sing.

By the end of the song, she had turned around, though she wasn't looking at Wesker. In fact, she had lost herself completely in her memories and her longing for Marius.

[president_evil]

Wesker listened, and watched, his slightly cocked to one side, his expression inscrutable.

The words, combined with the passion in which she sang them, had an almost - religious fervor. For some, he might have assumed just that, but for her....

He recalled the recent holiday and the way she had begged for his favor. The favor of the man she had believed him to be.

That unknown Marius.

He turned the name over his mind thoughtfully, wondering what use it might be to him, even as he smiled and applauded her gently.

"You sell yourself far too short, dear heart."

[makeflowersgrow]

Eponine blinked when he spoke, quickly moving a hand to wipe away a tear that had fallen. And she laughed, just a little.

"It was a song I sang at home sometimes. When my Papa didn't want me in the room and I had nowhere to go. I used to wander around Paris until I was so tired I could bear to lie in the ditch or the street. Did you really like it? I did not hurt your ears?"

[president_evil]

"Not even a bit," he assured. Another smile. So handsome. So genuine. "I could listen all night."

[makeflowersgrow]

She smiled a smile that lit up her whole face at that comment. Nobody had EVER given her such compliments.

"Could you really?"

She sidled over to Wesker, sitting down next to him. "I don't think I could sing all night. I don't know enough words!"

[president_evil]

"Perhaps some other time then," he chuckled. "When you've had more time to prepare."

[makeflowersgrow]

"You want to listen to me? You want to be friends? With ME?" she laughed, incredulous at the thought.
"I can try to prepare - I can read, you know? I can read and learn songs. I am cleverer than I look."

[president_evil]

"I don't doubt it, dear heart. Not for a moment," he agreed with a slight nod of his head, a gentle pull of his lips. "And when you're ready, you just let me know."