[open] 'cause you and i, we were born to die

[saisamour]

Who| Marius Pontmercy and OPEN!
What| Marius in the Capitol being Marius. Everything happens so much.
Where| Training Center Central Commons and some random place in the Capitol
When| First couple of days after his arrival
Warnings/Notes| suicidal thoughts; far too much pining for Cosette

} Central Commons

It takes a couple of hours for Marius to push himself off his mattress, and several more to drag himself outside his lodgings. A dazed and befuddled look eclipses his face as he walks aimlessly throughout the Center, still reeling from the explanation provided to him about the Hunger Games, and the absurd notion that he has to participate in an event reminiscent of the ancient Gladiatorial matches.

Is this truly real? It seems far too impossible, to be pulled into this unknown space, this unfamiliar world that makes him feel all the more lost and abandoned, now that he has been forced further away from his Lark. Now that he may never be found again. Where is Cosette now, he wonders? Does she think of him, even for a moment, the way he thinks of her even when he's dream-lands away?

Perhaps this is what it is, though: A strange, bizarre dream. He must have fallen asleep while taking a rest at the barricades. When he opens his eyes, this scene will disappear, and he will be allowed to die fighting for the France that his father wielded his weapons for. To die so that he can be the gentle wind that caresses her face and teases out her kind, loving smile.

He soon enters the Common Room, wherein an offer of drink to him is only acknowledged with an absent-minded nod of thanks. He wanders the area, wine glass in hand, with a hazy and distant look in his eyes that hints at his inattentiveness to his surroundings.

It is this preoccupation that causes him to clumsily trip and spill his drink on you. It might have only dripped on your shoe and perhaps soaked your sock, if you're lucky; it stains your entire outfit in a splatter of red, if you are not.



} Somewhere in the Capitol

How strange, he thinks, that he has yet to awaken.

For he has come to the conclusion that this is simply a long, odd dream; it is folly to think otherwise. Or, at least, that is what he has decided at the moment. As he roams through the streets, before the entrances of shops and restaurants, and among the people that his imagination could not possibly conjure, his mind shifts continually between belief and disbelief, real and unreal, wakefulness and dreaming.

When he is caught staring a second too long at two ladies with powder-white faces and wigs that strangely resemble horns, his face turns red and he hurries his footsteps, overhearing their high-pitched giggling and assuming it is because they find him amusing, or funny, or too pitiful to be taken any seriously.

That is when he bumps into you and... Well, he simply stares, with a befuddled look on his face as if internally debating on whether or not you are actually real.

Comments

[saisamour]

It takes a few more seconds before Marius is able to identify the owner of the familiar blond locks and compelling blue eyes, but the mention of his name assists in startling him into a momentary state of alertness.

And when he finally does recognize the owner of that same commanding voice in the barricades, strong and unyielding in the face of uncertainty, his eyes grow large and his lips part. It takes a few tries for him to say something, the onslaught of emotions—surprise, uncertainty, relief—having temporarily robbed him of words. When he does speak, however, his voice rings clear. "Enjolras."

For he is convinced that this man is indeed Enjolras; whether he is still dreaming, however, is a different subject entirely. One that will be dealt with later, perhaps, once he hears an explanation from someone he is actually acquainted with before all... all this.

It's not long before the questions come rushing out in a rapid surge. "What place is this? Where are the others? Have you..." Have you seen my Cosette? but he drifts off before he can finish the sentence, finding himself unable to say her name out loud, as if doing so would give her, and the strange sense of peace a memory of her brings him, away to someone else.

[orestes]

'The others are most likely dead. I thought you were, too,' is what Enjolras would very much like to say, but he's still startled. He isn't accustomed to finding himself without words, and yet this place seemed to make a sport of divesting him of them in the most heart wrenching ways possible. After a very brief moment of contemplation, he straightens up, eyes less clouded by dreary thoughts of ghosts apparently much longer past than he'd previously suspected. There's only a hint of genuine belief behind his confidence now, but it's enough to make a go of it. Enjolras is the chief, it's a role in which he's comfortable, most of the time. And even if he isn't exactly now, he trusts that Marius doesn't actually know him well enough to tell. Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise that it isn't Combeferre to find him today. Perhaps he should be damned for thinking that.

"Gavroche is here, with his sister and our spy." As he speaks, his voice regains more of its usual strength and assuredness. It's probably because he's stating fact as opposed to orating rhetoric. "If the rest of our friends are here, I have yet to find them. What District have you been assigned to? Have your mentors explained our situation?"

[saisamour]

And Enjolras is correct in thinking that; Marius fails to see the faltering confidence, nor the effects that this world had instilled in his friend. (A friend? perhaps Enjolras has become one, in a sense, a friendship born from fighting against a mutual enemy. Yes, a friend.) To him, Enjolras is the same as he always is. The distinguished leader of the Les Amis de l'ABC, the driving force behind the fight against oppression and the rule of a king.

His breath hitches as Enjolras confirms the presence of Gavroche, Eponine, and Inspector Javert. He has to swallow hard and force away a brief flash of the images of the deaths of the Thernardier children, and the sound of the gunshot that rang in his ears as a signal of Javert's demise—force it away in the deepest recesses of his mind in the hopes that one day it will simply disappear from memory.

So it takes a moment for him to process the question and respond accordingly. "Three." And his hands curl into fists, unconsciously, as he continues with a the slightest tremor in his voice. "I have been told we are to fight to the death."

Now that he has admitted that aloud, a panic starts to rise in him. Is Enjolras in the same situation, then? Does it mean that Enjolras is also here to fight? To fight against him?

[orestes]

"I represent District Five. Our deaths are inevitable here as they were on the barricade." It's still flat statements and while the guilt surrounding the revelation of their rebellion's futility is nearly enough to consume him, Enjolras was never and will never be afraid to die in the name of liberty and virtue. He'll cling to his principles in Panem just as he'd clung to them on the barricade. With that thought in mind, he's able to be stronger, slipping more easily back into his old role.

As he regards Marius and his (rather poorly hidden) panic, a thought occurs.

"They-- It is not quite death as you might be expecting." Which didn't make it any less traumatic, of course, but Enjolras doesn't think Marius needs that much explained to him. There is, however, something truly awful about waking up from a decapitation and just being told to continue on with your life, and above all, be put into a position to experience it again. Perhaps that would be worth noting at some point when he doesn't suspect it might make Marius physically ill. "They can heal us here, and they're disinclined to let us simply die if we can compete again."

[saisamour]

He doesn't react to Enjolras's first statement; when he had decided to fight in the barricades, he already assumed that everyone who was present was there to die. Those that follow are a little harder to accept, however, and there's a long pause as he averts his eyes and makes a struggling attempt to comprehend what he has been told.

"That is impossible." He says it even when he knows that Enjolras is not one to joke at a time like this. Or joke at all. But what else is there to say? If it is possible, then this is a fate worse than death, and something he cannot accept. What is the point of dying when death is only temporary? When he would return, again and again, to a world without Cosette?

He feels his heart stop at that thought. Cosette.

Suddenly all his other worries seem insignificant in the face of this sudden realization, and he raises his eyes back to Enjolras, saying, with urgency, "Have you met here a lady from Paris, with blue eyes and golden streaks in her dark hair?"

[orestes]

It’s all he can do not to roll his eyes. The girl, again Marius’ focus, out of all he had been told, is the girl. His devotion to Patria aside, Enjolras heavily suspects that such an attachment to another human is beyond him. It's to be both admired and, in certain cases (this one in particular) disdained.

"No, I haven't met anyone matching that description, though would you really wish to find her here?" There's a bitterness to his tone that speaks volumes as to his thoughts on the subject, especially in someone as tightly wound as Enjolras. "Having died once already in the Arena, I can say with some confidence that I would not wish it on anyone. Moreover, that I am sorry to have met you here, my friend."

[saisamour]

"I do not."

Which is why Marius is pacified when Enjolras attests that Cosette is not to be found in the Capitol, and his shoulders relax a little at that, and though he does note the sourness in Enjolras's voice it goes largely ignored. What's important is that she is safe, wherever she is, and that brings a momentary calmness to him.

And then his head tilts almost imperceptibly. If he is to be honest, he is more sorry to have heard that he could not die in the Games, although it is still far too strange for him to completely believe in the likelihood of returning from the dead, or the fact that Enjolras had already perished and yet was still standing before him in conversation.

"How is it possible, to die and then return?" Because it's nothing short of sorcery, to him.

[orestes]

Nervously, delicately and with a distinct lack of self-awareness, Enjolras brings a hand to his neck, running his fingers across where he knows a scar should be. It’s missing, of course. His stylist had explained the medical processes to him in a dismissive sort of way and between his confusion and consternation, it left him with no suitable response for Marius’ question. He has a lot to say on the matter, naturally. Enjolras always has a lot to say. But none of it is succinct or, for that matter, expository. The sensation of death and of dying is now all too tangible to him. He’s too close to it and can feel himself edging closer with every attempt to compartmentalize it.

“Medical science is truly impressive here.” It isn’t until he feels of the vibration of his voice along Adam’s apple that he drops the hand, not sure what to make of such a visceral response. He’d tried to speak, he remembers. Tried and been met with little success. “They can heal a multitude of injuries, and, in our case, bring us back from the dead as if nothing ever befell us at all. Moreover, there are no diseases here. Small poax, the cholera, consumption… They do not fear any of them.”

[saisamour]

It may take several more weeks for him to fully comprehend and appreciate the advancements of medical science, but even in his largely dazed and disbelieving state comes a small sense of wonder at how advanced the civilization of Panem is, how long the world has come from their own time. not that he had even been aware of the cholera outbreak though So when Enjolras brings his hand to his neck, Marius wonders whether it's related to the way he died, if something had been there before he was brought back. But asking outright is one of the last things he will ever do and so he simply says, "I am sorry."

A belated response to the news of Enjolras dying, but maybe Marius is also apologizing because of the guilt stemming from his thoughts—the idea that he finds it impossible to separate the correlation of Enjolras and death, as if it always follows him around like a shadow.

But he believes that Enjolras will always find something else to fight for, some grand idea to die for. Even here he doubts that Enjolras simply accepts that he has little choice but to fight in the Hunger Games and that nothing can change. As for himself, he is all the more willing to die for a cause now that Cosette is gone and his life no longer has meaning. So without the smallest tremble in his voice, he asks, "What must I do?"

[orestes]

"You accept your fate," Enjolras says simply. His tone is quick and clipped, almost blithe. It's as if there's absolutely no disconnect between that ever-so-simple statement and everything Marius must surely remember about him as an individual. "You accept your fate, to live and die for the entertainment of the Capitol and to do so a hundred times over, should they so wish it."

Almost idly (though when building rhetoric, Enjolras rarely did anything idly), he watched the city bustling around them. Like Paris, or Rome, or London, or any other great city in its age, the Capitol was a tribute, an ode to human achievement. He couldn't help but marvel at what all this society had accomplished while simultaneously sabotaging itself so directly. "However... Everything that you see around you has been built on the backs of those who have been beaten down and oppressed for almost three generations. They lived in fear for the lives of their children and now they have us. Our participation in the games gives them the ability to act. All they need now is to realize that."

[saisamour]

Of course. Of course it makes sense that Enjolras would say that, and Marius had little complaints about dying. To resurrect again, however? To continue a cycle of living and dying, when even one life is pointless, unbearable, godforsaken enough without Cosette?

He barely even hears what Enjolras has to say next. His eyes sweep the streets and the buildings and the people of the Capitol but he stares right through them, his mind slowly consumed by darkness and confusion, and then suddenly he is desperate to believe that this is not his fate, that this is some elaborate nightmare conjured by a muddled and fevered mind.

This is not real. It is impossible. He doesn't know what he would do to himself if it were.

He glances back at Enjolras, looking a little bit lost. "I am sorry, but this seems all a dream to me."

And yet there's a hint of hopefulness in his voice—and he finds it strange that he's still capable of hoping, and that it is in the desire that he might still wake up in a world with a death that is permanent.

[orestes]

Marius' aloofness doesn't exactly come as a surprise. Enjolras remembered his propensity for falling into adle minded reveries quite well, which had in fact called all the more attention to his sudden sharpness and attention on the barricade.

"It is quite jarring," he agrees, passively. Even Enjolras isn't always up for a debate, and besides which, his allies here could be counted on one hand. Any relationship he has with Marius, however secondhand or tremulous would be better preserved if he could find it within himself to hold his tongue. He studies Marius, searching for the correct path to pursue; the proper way to snap him back into the man from before who had been so brave in the face of all their deaths.

[saisamour]

He had been quite ready, honestly, to throw his life for a cause—it is what Cosette wants, after all, for him to die. Perhaps Enjolras could have seen that man, the one who fights like it is his only purpose in life, if he found comfort in the knowledge that fighting would lead to his demise.

But there is no death, not here, and not for him. And now he cannot be with his beloved even as the whisper of wind in her ear.

The cruelty of the world he has been thrust into suddenly crashes against him, and the urge to close his mind off, to shut himself from the reality too heavy to bear consumes him once more. He takes a step back, averting his eyes to the ground, and says with shaky voice,

"I... I need to return. To my lodgings."

[orestes]

"Of course," Far be it for Enjolras to have kept Marius any longer than he would agree to. Slowly but surely, he's realizing that everyone dealt with Panem and its realities in their own way. And that's perfectly natural, even if it's not necessarily to Enjolras' own rather militaristic inclinations. Tolerance, after all, is far simpler when everyone is agreed.

With a reserved politeness for his friend (Though perhaps Marius fell more into the role of an acquaintance. There's a distinct false-closeness he feels, but that can probably be attributed to the assumption that they would die together.), Enjolras bows his head ever so slightly. It's a parting gesture, one which he hopes will ease Marius' mind and make him forget about niceties in light of his own emotional state. "Be well, Marius. Please let me know if you need anything at all."

[saisamour]

Marius looks rather relieved at that; aside from the need to block the terrible news away from his mind, there's still the faint hope in him that he would soon find himself back in Paris.

"Thank you." He remains still for a moment, a brief look of confusion crossing his face, and he appears as if he's about to utter something else, You know I will fight with you, but in the end it goes unsaid. Instead, he nods and turns and resumes his walk, debating on whether to return to his room in the tower or continue to lose himself in the streets.

Or perhaps he should search for a garden similar to the one in Rue Plumet, or a meadow like the one of the lark.