All I Want is to Be Your Harbor [Closed]

[vissernone]

Who| Eva and Eponine, Eva and Timaeus, Eva and Eridan
What| Business as usual in Evatown. Team momming all up ins.
Where| Timaeus' penthouse, a Capitol cafe and the District 3 Suite.
When| Before the Aliens plot.
Warnings/Notes| Sexual abuse and prostitution in Eponine's thread.


She makes a point of checking on Eponine, bringing a little gift with her each time. She never presents it, but she always leaves it where the girl can't possibly mistake it for someone else's. Today it's a fine silk scarf, folded up into her pocket, with embroidery of elephants and birds on it. Not anything Eva would ever be interested in wearing, but the colors will look nice with Eponine's eyes.

She mostly wants to subtly remind Eponine that someone's watching out for her, that someone would notice if she tried to run again. She has no inclination to explore Eponine's romantic relationships, and as such won't rely on them. She needs to keep an eye on the girl herself.

And so every few days, she's at Eponine's District 3 door, patiently waiting.

-/-

By noon she's making another visit, this time to the winding labyrinths of Panemian penthouses. It's a path she knows well, and the people have seen her here often enough, since she was just a teenager with saggy skin around her belly.

It sickens her, to use Timaeus as her safe harbor. She isn't sure when the roles reversed, but sometime in the last year her tide of alcohol and bad decisions pulled her out to sea and washed him to the shore. It's not that she hates to rely on others, although she loathes that as well; it's that she should be taking care of him, as she did when he was just a child.

But she knows it cheers him up to visit, and he seems a bit out of sorts lately. She doesn't respect it, but she loves him, and so she coddles his melodramatic angst as best she can. And as such she shows up at his door every few days, having done her best to hide the injuries, to carry herself with a pride she has to artificially inflate.

Sometimes she just tells him that her back hurts when she slouches.

-/-

The bombing interrupted her prior plans with Eridan, and she imagined that the last thing the young Victor wanted to see of one of his favorite Mentors was her bruised and bloodied face. It's only once the piss-yellow of the bruises finally fade that she reschedules for their coffee date, for her attempt to give him advice. The whole affair seems rather laughable now. She should be the last person to be giving advice.

She arrives early, as always, and sits in the back of the cafe. Capitol citizens tend to give her a wide berth these days, although the clip in her hair, a beautiful glittering piece made of what appears to be a bird with its neck conspicuously broken, seems to attract some stray glances. She drums her fingers on her coffee mug and sucks the inside of her cheek as she waits, cursing her punctuality for always making her worry she's been stood up.

Comments

[gardienne]

"Madame!"

Eponine never fails to smile when Eva pays her a call, and today, of course, is no exception. But she doesn't look particularly well. She's paler than she has been recently, thanks to Howard spreading his flu. But she's thinner too; since Cosette had arrived, her appetite has all but dried up. She pecks, rather than gobbles now. She doesn't want it any more. She doesn't care.

Dressed in an oversized aron knit sweater and skinny jeans, she still smiles as she ushers Eva into her room. Her room is spotless, her pride and joy, filled with treasures she's collected; Howard's jewelley hanging in pride of place from a decorative hook over her bed. A cheap doll, dressed in one of Eponine's t-shirts, tied with a ribbon, sits on the pillow.

"It is good to see you, Madame. Your face, your bruises are looking better, too! That is good, no? Please, have my chair."

She gestures at the desk chair, before curling up on her bed.

[vissernone]

Eva graciously takes the chair, but not before taking Eponine by the shoulders and giving the girl a once-over. "Eponine, dear. You need to eat. You look more sickly than I did after my first Arena."

And to soften the blow, she says "no need to thin those lush lips with malnutrition." It's not that she thinks Eponine's the prettiest girl in the world, but she hopes tossing compliments Eponine's way each time will help her crawl out from under a lifetime of insults. It's a vain hope, but worth a try.

She flattens her skirt against her lap, eye catching one of the baubles hanging from the hook. One of those heart necklaces, the type that makes half of a whole. She wonders which boy has the other half.

[gardienne]

She grins, even as Eva admonishes her.

"I do not look so bad, truly, Madame." She sniffs, and wipes her nose with her sleeve. "Only, I have such a cold, as from Paris, you know? That is all - I am not used to a cold now, but it is nothing really. Always in Paris I had one. When we livedd under the bridge that winter, I thought it should kill me. I imagined my fingers blacking and falling from me, and the rats nibbled my toes, but it was too cold to feel them in the snow, so I didn't know until Azelma screamed, and I thought it should kill me. The cold, not the rat. I am not afraid of rats."

Curling up on the bed, she messes with the tasselled throw which she tucks over her lap.

"Have you seen Mademoiselle Cosette, Madame?" She can't look at Eva as she asks; rather, she keeps plaiting the tassel strands, and unplaiting them and re-plaiting them all over again. She wants Eva to say no, and who cares anyway. She wants her to - but everyone always cares about Cosette in the end.

"Her lips are more full than mine, Madame."

[vissernone]

"Yes, but you shouldn't be going into the Arena with a cold. I have high hopes for you this time around." She runs a hand through her hair, twirling a lock of her bangs in her fingers.

"I've seen Ms. Fauchelevant but haven't spoken to her. I can't recall anything altogether too impressive about her lips." Eva shrugs. She knows what Eponine's doing, comparing herself, and she won't play into it. There's no way it'll end well.

[gardienne]

"We grew up together, you know? Me and her. Her mama dumped her at our inn."

She shrugs. "It is hard to believe, isn't it? That she should have grown up with me. The proper lady and the street rat together. If that man had taken me away, I would have looked like her."

She sneezed, and once more wiped her nose on her jumper. "Well, I am not fighting anyway this time. I have had enough. I am not playing their game any more, Madame. Truly this time. They have brought me here to laugh at me whilst they make me look at Monsieur Marius and that Cosette. Mademoiselle indeed. Well, I will not play. I will not be laughed at any more, ever again. I shall run for that cornucopia and I will die quickly and then I will come here and stay in my room, perhaps with Howard and that will be all. I will NOT be laughed at again."

[vissernone]

"Give her a few weeks in the Arena and she'll be as mud-crusted as everyone else, dear."

Eva reaches into a pocket on her dress for a tissue. "Your nose is running. I can try and give you some medicine before the Arena, so you at least don't go in miserable."

[gardienne]

"And he will still think of her as an angel, as if she's perfect." Eponine sighs. "I think, even should she kill, he would not care. I have been here more than a year now, and only once have I killed, and that was an accident. It's not fair."

She takes the tissue, dabbing at her nose, and sniffing as best she can.

"You should save your money, Madame. In Paris, always I had a cold. I had no shoes, you see, and in the winter, the snow went through my feet, up and up to make me ache and shiver and sneeze. I do not mind. I suppose it is like being at home again. It will do no good for the arena anyway. This time I shall run for the Cornucopia and die at once, Madame. I am not being a killer and I am not playing their stupid game any more."

[vissernone]

Eva pauses, resting her palms on the knobs of her knees, hidden by her aged, flabbier flesh now. "Why is it that you care what he thinks when you already have a boy who dotes on you."

She lifts her gaze back to the jewelry. "You may need to be more secretive if your eyes are wandering."

[gardienne]

"I'm wicked, aren't I?" She follows the direction of Eva's gaze, staring at the jewellery. She stands up on her bed, and unhooks one of the necklaces, and brings it back to hand to Eva.

"He gave me this the night I ran away. He thought I was running from him - but Madame, it is not so. I have never had.... I've never had someone who loves me. Not properly. P'raps Montparnasse, but it is not the same with him - he were too often making me do things or threatening his knife on me."

She sighs again. "I love Howard, you know. I didn't think I did, but I do. I would die to save him, you know? And when we kiss, I have a feeling in my belly that I have never had before. It is like bubbling, as if my belly is upset. But no - it does not feel bad. It is nice. I let him touch me, you know? I let him take my blouse from me so he could see - touch. And it wasn't bad. It made me feel... it made me feel proper. Like I... Like how it should feel. I would have let him... you know? I DO love him - so much. If it made him happy, I would have... I would let him pick me up. That is love, I think.

But Marius..." She look guiltily at Eva. "I think always I will love him. He made me see, you know, how wicked I am. He is so, so good. It hurts how good he is. And it hurts me to know how horrible I am and how horrible he thinks I am. It hurts inside me. But it makes me want to be better. Howard, he is as wicked as I - or perhaps no, but nearly so. He is a thief too - but Marius... he shows me that people can be good. Do you know, in Paris, he talked to me on a time. He gave me back my begging letters when another man would have had me arrested. He was the most beautiful, the kindest man I have ever known. And of course he loves Cosette, for she is beautiful... They are of the same class. He could not have a whore and a thief for his wife, could he?"

[vissernone]

Eva listens for a while, letting Eponine sort her thoughts out, acting as a kind of living diary that the girl can pour her scattered ideas into and make some sense out of. She doesn't judge, and she doesn't really move, except to fidget a few fingers against each other and let her eyes occasionally drift from Eponine's face to the belongings of her room.

When Eponine is done, she says, "don't imagine that the Arena won't debase him just as much as Paris has degraded you."

She reaches over. "Let me braid your hair."

[gardienne]

"Braid my hair?" Eponine looks back at Eva with an expression of pure disgust.

"Madame, that is your answer to everything. I tell you I have been executed in the woods, and you braid my hair. I tell you I am a whore, and you wish to braid my hair again, Madame, I do not CARE about my hair. I DON'T CARE. I DON'T CARE. IDON'TCAREIDON'TCAREIDON'TCARE!"

She begins to yell, to pace, stopping only to snatch her necklace from Eva.

"Do you know? I say he LOVES me - that I love him, that he made me feel PROPER. For ONCE in my life, I thought he LOVED me. But you know after I let him touch me? You know what he did? He told me to get out. He told me that he couldn't see me now. That, if I were a whore, he would not pay for it. Do you KNOW how that feels, Madame?"

She stops and chucks the necklace as hard as she can against the big window in her room. Of course, the necklace just bounces off it and falls to the ground.

"And that is all I'll ever be, isn't it? I see it now. Whatever I do, wherever I am, however I look... I'll always be a WHORE and nothing more. The girl that nobody likes. The girl that they just give THINGS to for charity. Well, I have had enough. I WILL NOT play along with it any more."

She starts, somewhere in the middle of her rant, to sob in earnest. She lashes out at Eva, but it's nothing to do with Eva really. It's just every bit of pent up rage that Eponine has had over the years, that she has never been able to express before, boiling to the surface.

"It's not fair. It's not fair, it's not fair. But what does fair matter? You know what they used to call me in Paris? Even my Papa - my own Pa? They call me a slut and a bitch and a whore. And what can I say? It is true. I will go with a man when they say to - because otherwise there is a beating and I don't like that. But Madame, to be a whore - to sleep - to - and he locked me away in that horrible prison, with chains about my wrists and my feet and they made me sign on as a prostitute and - and do you know what it is, to be dragged into the yard of the prison, and laid on a table, with your skirt on the floor, and men lifting your legs so a doctor can stare inside you? Madame, it is HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. It is the worst thing I have ever had. But -"

She sits down heavily on the floor, her face hidden in her knees. Her shoulders heave with sobs, with rage, with disgust and sorrow.

"But Howard is the second worst."

[neclectus]

Timaeus was quite visibly marinading in his own misery and almost enjoying the process, and didn't bother to get up from his repose on the low couch to let Eva in- she had the access codes and the like, what was the point? He was listening to old, forgotten music- a rolling, romantic melody with assorted hiccups and jumps where the needle on the ancient record player he'd brought upstairs for the occasion met a scratch, each swell of crying violins transformed into hopping, muted screams, the lyrics incomprehensible.
He didn't really know it wasn't supposed to sound like that.

"Eva," he said, glancing up and pulling himself upright. "It's good to see you. Taking a break from another hard day at the Tower?"

[vissernone]

"Leaving me at the door, Timmy?" She lets herself in, leaving her purse by the door and listening to the security system lock behind her. She takes a seat on his couch, letting her shoulders slump ever so slightly, and brushes a lock of hair from her smiling face.

"I practically have to start from scratch with my District. A large chunk of them never returned."

[neclectus]

He sighed, shifting his weight forward. The lack of an apology for his behaviour was further evidence of his misery- while he cared about how Eva thought of him, he was too wrapped up in his own unhappiness to give much thought to it.
"I don't suppose we're fortunate enough to have lost the bad mannered ones, just the ones I dared to care about. I feel almost personally victimised, Eva, it's terrible."

[vissernone]

"If you're asking, we kept Parker." Eva's upper lip curls a bit. The smile disappears. "Why do you suppose you're being victimized?"

She's tempted to reach over and stroke his hair, to remind herself of the bond between them. To reassure herself that she hasn't rent it with her public displays.

[neclectus]

"I don't know. I'm just being ridiculous. But they know about- they know how much I care about you. They wouldn't be taking them away to punish me for supporting you, would they?"

He shook his head and looked over to her. "Or for caring about them too much. People are always making fun of me for that."

[vissernone]

"That's exactly how they get at people, Timmy. Kill your babies, so on." She presses her lips together. "And heaven forbid you care about Tributes."

She pauses. "Do you have tea? Or coffee?"

[neclectus]

His fears confirmed, he sighed, pressing his lips together firmly before getting to his feet and taking the needle off the record, turning the player off. He was no longer in the mood.

"Yes, of course. What can I get you?"

[vissernone]

"Either. Whatever you're having, guagua." She waves a hand. "And the company? I'm afraid I haven't been reading the business section of the news."

[neclectus]

"Oh, the company is doing fine," he assured her, slipping through to the next room to retrieve coffee for the both of them. It didn't take long, all the marvels of Capitol technology at his disposal.
"Father even complimented my work on popularising luxury yachts with Sponsors, apparently, though not to me."

He passed her a streaming mug with a smile. “The day that man says a kind word to me will be the day I know he's finally ill enough to die."

[vissernone]

She sits back, propping her feet on a low bar of his fancy table, stroking the coffee mug with her hand. She smirks. "Don't get your hopes up, Timmy."

[neclectus]

He laughed, a little bitterly. "Oh, no, believe me, I gave up hoping he would just get it over with years ago. It only seems to encourage him to keep going just to spite me. Father's nothing more than a miserable sack of bones held together with spite, these days. Spite and millions of assi that he wants to use up on prolonging his suffering rather than leaving me a penny of his fortune."

what late tag there is no late tag here

[victorofhope]

Eridan is later than he wants to be. He has no reason to be stressed or anxious, no excuse for the fitful night's sleep he's gotten lately. He's spent too many nights wondering about the strange, otherworldly tributes that seemed to notice him, and then worry at the bombing, and everything that had happened.

He groans, rubbing at his eyes and almost knocking his glasses clean off. He's never had good vision, and the glasses were just one thing he treated himself to with his winnings so it's still a bit strange to wear them. (He could have very well gotten corrective surgery, but...that thought sets him on edge.)

He trots up to Eva, sparing a glance and a raised brow at the head piece, sitting down across from her and trying not to look so nervous. "Sorry for bein' so late."

[vissernone]

"In which case, I apologize for being early. Sit down, please. I presume you like your tea hot?" She can only imagine, what with his Arena. Hers was baking sun, and a few of her opponents withered of dehydration, but at its coldest her Arena never dipped below freezing like his did.

"You don't look well."

[victorofhope]

He sits down obediently, nodding slowly. He prefers coffee over tea, but he doesn't want to give Eva a bad impression. "As hot as it can get."

He shrugs, picking at the end of his scarf. "There's been a lot goin' on, for everyone." God, he's so nervous, and so awkward. She's his hero, and he's just going to make a fool of himself. "Are...you doin' okay?"