[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]

Marcus doesn't look irritated, just faintly surprised as he opens the door. "I know it's early," she says, hands twisting at her dress. "I -- needed to speak to someone. I think...I didn't know who else to go to."

She twists a sort of wretched, wry smile at him. "You don't still receive confession, do you?" It's mostly a joke, but if he could tell her right now she could say the right number of prayers and feel clean again, she might try it.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"It's fine," he says, pushing the door wider and taking a step back so Eponine can come inside. He's glad she hadn't come the night before, when he'd been at Matthias's, recovering as best he can from the things he'd seen, because she looks unwell, very much like she needs someone. He'd hate to have left her hanging and alone, even unintentionally.

"Come on, duck," he says. "Come inside. I've got some tea on. If confession's what you want..." He trails off, leaving the rest unsaid. Marcus knows better than most a few prayers aren't going to make a person feel better, no matter what they're all taught. God may very well absolve them, but it's not saying ten Hail Marys that makes it happen.

And at the end of it, he thinks it's more important for people to forgive themselves than for God to do so.

[daughterofawolf]

"See, knew I was coming," She tries for a smile, and follows him inside. There's something so nice about the way he calls her, and some of the other children, duck, the way he listens, and that's a good half of why she's here right now: that and that she knows that Marcus knows a bit about having a dark side.

Still, 'Ponine feels terribly unworthy of it all, duck and tea and the invitation inward. Sort of filthy, in a way, and she blurts out, on the precipice of the kitchen, "I killed a man."

A little defensive. Like a shield from the niceness. And like a warning, so he can properly retract the offer of tea, now he knows he has a murderess in his kitchen, and instead decide if he needs to call the police.

"Me and a friend, I guess." Now that she's talking, it comes out in a rush and stops and starts again unexpectedly, like being sick. "We didn't plan it, it just ...didn't go how we meant, and then it was happening. And then in that evil theater, he came back, and he knew everything about me..." Her hands are shaking, and she clutches them together into a fist.

"The worst part is, I don't think I'm sorry for it. Even now. Isn't that horrible?" She looks up at him, eyes a little wild and a little helpless.

"He would have just kept -- hurting people."

[pushbackthedarkness]

It's not at all what Marcus expects her to say and he pauses for a moment, absorbing those words, then goes to the teapot and pours over the water from the kettle now that it's been sitting a bit and has reached the right temperature. She's not the only person in this kitchen who's killed a man and Marcus doesn't feel particularly sorry for the man he killed either, so it's not as if he's going to chase her out of his home, which he thinks is what she's waiting for.

"Start at the beginning," he says to her once he's poured the water. "Sit and start at the beginning."

He very much doubts Eponine and this friend went out looking for trouble, went out in search of someone to hurt. She says he would have kept hurting people and Marcus feels a chill at those words, the knowledge of what tends to precipitate something like that. His father would have been the same. He would have just kept hurting people.

[daughterofawolf]

She can see him pause, and absorb that information, but instead of telling her leave -- or even looking aghast, or startling, he processes it quietly and pours the tea. And then he tells her to sit, and Eponine feels very much on the verge of tears, once again, uncharacteristic and weak feeling.

Eponine has been imprisoned for lesser crimes than this.

She looks hard in another direction, and sits. "I was out," she starts. "Just out, wasn't even trying to get a drink or sneak in somewhere, just at a show. Anyway, a man noticed me smiling at the music, and we started to talk. About music, at first. He was nice, passionate. Acted like he enjoyed just talking, not all hands the way men can be, sometimes, you know."

"He told me he was a promoter, and he could get me back to meet the band." Her hands tremble a little and she looks away. "It's stupid. I was stupid."

[pushbackthedarkness]

If the man wasn't already dead, Marcus very well thinks he might kill him, based on Eponine's words. She doesn't have tell him all the details for him to understand where this story is going and Marcus brings the teapot to the table and sets it down, breathing steadily through his nose at the same time. It won't do either of them much good for him to get angry and he doesn't want Eponine to think the rage is directed at her.

"You're not stupid," he says, setting two mugs down on the table as well. They clatter together lightly, just once, betraying the shaking of his hands.

He's got to know the whole truth, though, and he sits down across from her and doesn't reach for her hands. Not right now, not with the question he's about to ask. It's not remotely the same thing, but he remembers how reluctant he'd been to let even the nurses touch him after the abuse of the boys at the care homes.

"Eponine, did he rape you?"

uh, if it wasn't already apparent, tw: description of child rape

[daughterofawolf]

Rape.

It's not a word she's ever said aloud about herself, even now after telling a few people what happened, sort of. It's not a word she's really dared to think. Rape is a thing that happens to good girls, by strangers probably a bit like the thugs she's kept company with since she was small, who appear out of alleys. That's part of the point, isn't it? She had to stop him, not for what he did to her, but so that it didn't ever happen to Cosette, or Verity, Rosie, Betty. Any of them. So that they don't ever have to harden up quite like her.

If he raped her, then she's been raped by a good few men, and just thinking about it makes her feel dizzy and sick and like she might need to Go Away again.

So she pauses, and takes her tea in her hands as if the heat itself will center her.

"I didn't say no," she hazards, "not like that, but he wanted his way with me, and sometimes it's just so much easier..."

She takes a breath and stares at the edge of her mug. "My father," she starts, and it shouldn't be related but it is. "He'd have us go out to deliver letters to wealthy men. Asking for money, you know? Telling a story to make us seem more noble than just beggars on the street. It's better when it's a child. Twelve and eleven when we started. It looks better than an unshaven man in the same rags, doesn't it? Sometimes they were good people, and they wanted to help."

She shrugs one shoulder, diffident and distant. "Sometimes they wanted a little more for their coin. Plenty of ladies did it. After the first time I knew it was something I had to offer."

"So I'd just go away in my head and let it happen. Tried to keep Azelma from it, too much." Her voice shakes a little If she's dead, back there, no one's keeping Azelma from anything. She takes a sip of tea and flattens her tone out again.

"Anyway. That's what happened that night. Without the coin, of course. Just -- I went away, and let him have his way with me, because it was easier. Couldn't have fought him, didn't want it to be worse, and who'd believe me anyway? But he said something, while he was at it."

"Said that he liked the way girls my age were." She can't -- won't -- go into detail about the fact that it was a bit of a whimper, a sound he'd liked. Marcus can't know that. Some things she has to keep. "That they tried to put up a front but they wanted it."

The sick, shaky part of her in her roils with anger even thinking about it. "I couldn't stop thinking about it."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"I believe you," he answers in a fierce voice and he knows, he knows killing the man wasn't the right thing to do, but even though Marcus believes her, he also knows she's not entirely wrong. He knows if she goes to the police, they only give her a hard time about something. About waiting too long to report it or about wearing something they think makes an assault the obvious end of the night or about not explicitly saying no, like she's just told him. None of those things matter, none of them should matter, but when it comes to the law, Marcus knows it's not always as easy as that.

There's nothing he can do now to take back what's happened to her, the world her own father sent her into, but he can make sure it doesn't continue to happen now.

He's hardly even thinking of the dead man anymore. He's dead. And good riddance to him, as far as Marcus is concerned, because a man like that doesn't deserve grace or forgiveness or the ability to move through life without a single worry. He deserves what he got. But Eponine doesn't deserve to carry the guilt of having been the one to deliver it to him.

"It doesn't matter if you explicitly say no or not," he tells her. "Or if you say yes and then change your mind. No one is allowed to touch you without a clear yes. I want you to hear me say that. Even if you can't accept it right now, I want you to hear those words and I will say them as many times as is necessary, love."

[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."