[closed] let's make the most of the night

[jondrette]

Characters: Dead, Miserable, French People
Date: Early March
Location: A pub somewhere out of the way
Situation: Courfeyrac is gone. We'll drink to that. Javert is gone. We'll drink to that.
Warnings: Swearing, debauchery, miserable French people, Pontmercying.

Yes, yes, everyone had a lovely time in and out of the bottle, but the remaining citizens of the turtle who had been lucky enough to die together at their home (and Marius) still had something else on their minds. After returning from the bottle, they'd been greeted with a half-empty suite that had formerly belonged to M'sieur de Courfeyrac, and a completely empty suite that belonged to Police Inspector Javert.

Whomever had organized it, it didn't matter. What mattered was that the remaining members of their party, Eponine, Enjolras, Combeferre, Joly, Bossuet, Marius, were all there to drink to their lost friend. And while that in and of itself was a sad occasion, no one was about to mourn the loss of Javert, particularly not Eponine.

So come on in, take a seat, pour a pint, and drink with us to time gone by.

Comments

[saisamour]

Marius has never loved anyone until he found Cosette, and he thinks he never will. People will die, civilizations will crumble into ruin, France can burn—and Enjolras may not forgive him for that thought, but that is what he truly feels—but all that pales if she is lost to him: she is his greatest salvation and his ultimate ruin.

But that is what love is. Perhaps Alcuin (gone, too, he reminds himself, too many gone at too close a gap from each other) speaks truth when he claims that the boundlessness of love traverses all modes of social construct. That even Enjolras can love Combeferre.

Is he himself Eponine's downfall? He would not like to think he is. But the wildness in her actions, the desperation in her eyes and her voice and her very being, makes him tense, and he fights back the strong urge to flinch away when she reaches for him. His breath is held, he realizes, his hands quivering mildly; a product of nerves, and he wishes that in this very moment he could be anywhere else but here. But he locks eyes with Eponine this time, silent until she asks once more for the knife.

"I know you took the bullet for me." His voice is surprisingly steady, though he casts a quick, warning glance at Enjolras—in retrospect he doesn't know why he did, for he trusts that Enjolras will not return the knife to her—before fixing his gaze back to her. "I apologize if my gratitude is all I can give in return."

And desires it now, more than he has ever desired before. He wants to simply disappear as Cosette did, without warning or whisper, like a wisp of wind.

[solo_patria]

The Enjolras of the past would probably do more than not forgive him, if the thought was voiced, but this Enjolras has seen that there are things, whole worlds beyond France, so perhaps Marius would merit only a scowl and a few weeks of frosty silence, but it IS still better that it stays as a thought just now. He does not know that Combeferre is anything like his ruin, but a salvation, certainly, he could agree with that thought now.

Ruin seems to have a different place in things, but then, what does he know of ruin yet, when he has yet to experience it as connected to a love? Enjolras may say differently later, if he's pushed to it. But love IS the sort of thing, as he has found it, that possesses a power to redeem, to teach one how to better find himself, to be a comfort then, and open someone to the wider, greater world around him, as winter unfolds to spring, or one of Combeferre's moth...larvae things unfolds from its cocoon to unfurl wings for the first time. Yes, even he has known it now, and to look at Eponine, well.

Enjolras knows, for Eponine has told him, what Marius means to her before, and he has said that he might try to help her, but even so, he also knows that one cannot cast aside a love, any love, even if he should wish to. It is terrible for Eponine, and he knows that it must hurt, though he is not sure how, and that he regrets causing that sort of pain for anyone, but he cannot, all the same, advocate that Marius cast everything aside himself, particularly when a part of him wonders just how Eponine loves Marius. That it is strong, he has no doubt, but rather, her reasons behind it seem...suspect, and likely would not have her happy long.

He keeps his foot where they are, as Marius speaks, glad, at least that Marius knows what the girl has done for him, that he acknowledges and is grateful for it. There is no other kindness, really, that one could expect of Marius, or of anyone, within their rights, he thinks, as suddenly a new thought takes him.

Marius is not the only one within this conversation whom someone has died for, is he? Could Grantaire...his reasons...have been? And the thought is flooring as he suddenly blinks deeply, and feels himself more drawn to Marius's side of these things than before. Such a position is not easy, and he's sympathetic, has to be, as the thought rushes over him just now.

Sorry Eponine. But now that he understands it, well. He's certainly keeping that knife, thank you.

[jondrette]

No air.

There was no air in the room. There was only the sound of blood in Eponine's ears, and the only thing she could see was Marius' beautiful eyes. That was all she wanted to see. The last thing in this world and the one before that she wanted to see.

There was no air the room, and less in her lungs, as Eponine staggers backwards, a hand on her stomach, and another moving to her mouth. How could- how could someone look at another, knowing what she had just told Marius?, and say that? He was glad, yes! Good! But now...

Was she glad?

She stumbles, falling to the ground, her hands out in front of her to try to catch her as she falls to the feet of the two men in front of her. Apollon, who might have been her brother. Marius, who would never be her lover.

How long has it been since she's tried to breathe, she's unsure, but all she knows now is she no longer has desire to draw in breathe. She wants to die. Oh, let her die at his feet! Let him kick her body as he seems to have already done! He shall kick her to the side, and be done with her. They may continue feasting and drinking as she bleeds out. It shall be no different than it always is.

She begins to wretch, the wine she had drunk so plentifully spilling out of her, as red as her own blood. If only it where. If only they would move from her knife, and let her end it here.

But there was no such luck. Just ragged sobs between heaves, with salty tears blurring her vision. Her throat was raw when at last, it was done, but now her head ached worse than it ever had. With a frantic cry, she fell back on her heels, clawing at the place where the bullet had pierced her skin a lifetime ago.

"I would be so lucky," she finally resigned, her words ragged, as she looked at these mens boots, at the mess she had created on the floor, her cheeks burning, "if I could find the strength to loathe you."