[for marcus]
Nov. 14th, 2018 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-04 03:16 am (UTC)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."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-07 06:51 am (UTC)"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."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-08 08:12 pm (UTC)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."