[for marcus]

[daughterofawolf]

[Backdated to 10/28]

Eponine had returned home after the catastrophe that was La Fin Absolue, half feeling as though she was in a dream and half more aware than she'd felt in months. Angry, almost, for the form her sins had taken and the speaker of her crimes. That was the proper response, she felt. Angry. How dare this forsaken place, or whatever God or devilry might rule it, send him to her to castigate her for her life? To hell with it all: she wasn't going to let it bother her.

But she wakes up in a panic, a sort of overwhelmedness of pain and loss and anger and terror, and has to hide herself in the toilets to half retch, half sob. For the last -- three months, almost -- she hasn't felt this strongly. She'd perfected the art of going away, to the point where days seem a blur. She hasn't been keeping up with friends, for she can hardly keep track of what they're doing and she needs to keep them safe from what she's been doing, she and Octavia and sometimes Eleanor and Rosie. She's been forging signatures acknowledging that she's doing badly in classes and needs to improve.

Something she had presumed about this place, about herself in this place, has been stolen from her, and it can't be given back and she's not sure she deserves for it to be.

Somehow, she dresses herself and leaves, in the still-frosty purple light of morning, and makes it to Marcus' apartment. Verity might be there, sleeping. Marcus might be asleep. Her face shows she's been crying, and she hates it, hates that vulnerability.

She rings the buzzer -- once, and after a moment twice more -- anyway.

Comments

[daughterofawolf]

There's a ferocity there, almost an anger, but it's not at her. It's about her not being believed, about her being hurt, and for just a slight instant, Eponine thinks she can see the barest flicker what he might be like to a demon. She'd spoken to Betty about knowing what it's like to feel like it was your fault, something that was really done to you, and she thinks he understands, too.

Her eyes go shiny, though, when he tells her, soft and stern and compelling, that no one is allowed to touch her unless she asks them to. It's so far from anything she's ever believed to be true -- at least, about herself. Even if she'd been in love with a good, kind man, someone like Marius who knew how to court properly and wanted to marry her instead of just being after her body, sex was one of those things that happened after marriage because it just did, a wifely duty. And those who weren't so kind --

She knows that here it's not like that, it's much freer. She's kissed Laura on the lips just because, and she's had to hear Eddie and Jamie talking around sex like they haven't figured out what cocks are. But for her...

"I don't know if I can," she says with her best attempt to keep her voice level, "I don't know, you might have to say it again. I just --" She leans forward, abrupt and wraps her arms around his neck in a hug, finding herself in sudden, breath-catching tears.

"I've done so many horrible things," she blurts out, "Not just him. Lying and thieving and being jealous and fighting and wishing my parents dead. And I think I might be properly damned. But you're always so nice to me."

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus is prepared to say it as many times as she needs to hear it and he's about to tell her as much when she's suddenly in his arms, her own wrapped tightly around his neck and all he can do is hug her back. His hand rests warmly in the middle of her back, a heavy, steady weight, and he shakes his head as she speaks.

"No, love," he says. "No, you're not damned. God loves you, He does, and He understands things we'll never be able to comprehend. When you're put in situations by other people, sometimes there are no good ways out, but that doesn't make you a bad person and it certainly does not make you damned."

He pulls back after a moment so he can look at Eponine and he knows the words might not actually convince her of what he's saying, but he wants her to see that he means it. He wants her to know, no matter what she feels, he doesn't believe for a second that she's a bad person or that she's damned. There may be some issues to take care of with the dead man, but Marcus isn't above cleaning things up to make sure she's never caught.

[daughterofawolf]

Marcus' hand on her back is solid and reassuring, and after a moment her breath slows. She feels very silly and babyish, but she's not really above being comforted, right now. She might never have had a father who cared one bit, and she's not sure she even wants a proper fatherly type like Cosette's adoptive father or even Hopper, the way he and Bev sit down for meals all together and go bowling. But Marcus is the sort she'd have wished was her father, if she could have chosen.

No one's ever said anything like any of this to her, and she sits back and takes it all in for a long moment, and wipes her eyes several times. "I'm sorry," she says, "I never cry, I just. Thank you." She's not sure if it's true, she's not sure if she can trust it, but she's certain he does, and Marcus has a closer in with God than she does, at least.

"I'm letting my tea get cold," she says, self-conscious, and glances up at him sidelong. "Are you all right? After yesterday, I mean." She hadn't seen what happened, but she'd spoken to him about who he'd seen, earlier, and she'd seen he was there, at the very beginning. So something must have, the way it did to all of them.

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus knows better than to push too hard when things have been... not settled, exactly, but at least calmed for a moment or two. He doesn't want Eponine to leave, he doesn't want to chase her off after he's tried to make her feel comfortable here and although he knows there are more things to talk about, given all she's told him, he also knows they are things that can wait. At least for a little while.

Instead, he considers her question as he reaches for his tea. An honest answer is best here, too, and it's strange to realize he's not as distraught as he'd been in the weeks leading up to the screening of that horrid film. Seeing Mouse had been terrible, he still regrets what he'd done to her, but he can't change that. He can't make it go away or fix it and honestly, even if he could, he's not sure he would. Those choices have made him -- and her -- who they are.

"Not as bad as I thought I might be," he admits. "There are a few things I have to do, some fences to mend, but overall... well, I'm still here."

[daughterofawolf]

She nods, tilting her head a little at fences to mend. She's not sure what exactly happened, so she can't know why he has to apologize to anyone for something happening to him. Maybe he had someone with him -- and if he did, she has a guess who; Eponine's not blind and she's becoming more keen to the fact that there are a lot more men that fancy men than she supposed, and women too -- but it still seems a little unfair to be angry with someone for their own ghosts coming to life.

"That's the most important part, when it comes down to it, isn't it? Still being here." She might as well be convincing herself: she's certainly lived that way for long enough. But right now, in this odd crisis, it's easier to believe that the ends justify the means when she means it about Marcus.

"I'm glad."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"So am I, duck," he says, reaching out and giving her arm a gentle squeeze. "Maybe we both deserve a second chance to just be here."

He's not going to tell anyone about what she's told him. A different person would and he knows it. Someone would report her to the police and ruin her life for this mistake when they likely would have been unwilling to ruin the life of the man who had hurt her in the first place.

"You'll be alright," he says. "Any time you need to hear something like that, you're welcome to stop by."