FLINT - an enjolras x éponine hunger games au
they say every revolution begins with a spark
so this is pure crack. excuse me. i'm not really even going to follow Hunger Games lore to the letter (re: reasons for Reaping entries), but hopefully everyone will be in character. so, yeah. hop in, there's gonna be plenty of tears along the way. rating for cursing, violent, and sexual content in future chapters.
also: sorry for my shitty writing style.
i. it won't be long
Her name was in the Reaping 63 times.
It was seven years worth of Tesserae for five people, as well as numerous petty offenses. You know, like pickpocketing and truancy and that one time she dumped a bucket of slop on the head peacekeeper.
Well, it was worth it anyway.
(She said that to herself when she looked at the scars.)
Éponine Thénardier was written on 63 slips of paper in a giant glass bowl.
But she was 18. It was her last year in the Reaping and odds were, chances should be, that she was safe. I mean, if the Grim Reaper intended on plucking her so quickly, he probably would have done it by then.
(Hell, he probably would have stolen her breath that morning the head peacekeeper sliced out his retribution from her back. Or the night before she discovered you could eat bark, if you really needed to.)
But he hadn't.
So, that's why Éponine stood out in the square on Reaping Day, wearing her Sunday best, chewing on a lock of hair and holding her sister's trembling hand. The only thing really on her mind was the basket of apples she planned on pinching off the Mayor's porch as soon as this bullshit was over.
That's why they had to call out her name three times before she realized her life was over.
"—Miss Thénardier," a purple haired man was saying, shielding his eyes against the sun, "I know you're here, why don't you step up, dearie and —"
It didn't feel real, not really, as she shook off Azelma's hand and walked down to the grand stand. Everything sounded too quiet, too silent for real life. Why couldn't she hear the wind? Why couldn't she hear her shoes against the dirt? The collective sigh of relief from anyone who wasn't her?
She was at the stage before she really knew what happened, being yanked up the stairs by the man with his purple coif and eyebrows less than two centimeters from his hairline. He mumbled something to her — "Okay, just smile now, dearie." — as he wheeled her around. Then she was face-forward, staring at hundreds of dead-eyed faces.
"Congratulations!" He exclaimed as his affected Capitol tongue rolled the r's into oblivion, "Here, District 12, is your newest representative and I am just sure she will do you all proud! Won't you, Miss Thénardier?"
Her response was to continue staring into the sea of bored spectators, the Purple Haired Man attempting to tuck her hair into some sort of presentable shape. It wasn't surprising to her, the dead eyes and the dull faces, stripped of anything close to sympathy. The Capitol had taken 146 other tributes to the Hunger Games. Éponine was just a conman's daughter, not much better than him herself. Taking her would only do District 12 a favor, no doubt.
The only ripple in that spiritless ocean was her parents. Her mother let out a sob that nearly shook the birds from the trees around the square. Her father placed a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder as his own silent tears fell.
Éponine rolled her eyes. Drama Queens. They'd been telling her for years how she should do the family a favor and volunteer. It'd be one less mouth to feed, you know.
It was funny. They never seemed to say that when they were forcing her to sign up for each and every Tesserae she was eligible to take.
After the Purple Haired Man was done attempting to pretend that Éponine had won some major prize, he pulled a name from the boy's bowl. He opened it and smiled his plastered Capitol smile and called out: "And District 12's boy Tribute will be Corbett Montparnasse!"
And Éponine laughed.
She didn't chuckle. She didn't giggle. She laughed until tears welled up in her eyes and her stomach hurt. When Montparnasse finally made it up the stage next to her, he smirked and whispered from the corner of his mouth:
"You're an asshole."
(Welcome to the 64th Annual Panem Hunger Games.)
(May the odds be ever in your fucking favor.)
It didn't matter how long they waited for her parents to show for their last goodbyes, she knew they wouldn't be there. No, everyone would be falling over backwards to shower sympathy upon the poor couple who didn't even have time to kiss their daughter farewell before the Capitol stole her away to the Games.
And she really didn't care about them anyway.
But when two peacekeepers escorted Azelma and Gavroche in, she nearly broke in two. Azelma looked scared, all big wet eyes and quivering lips, and Gavroche simply looked confused. He yanked his arm away from the guards as soon they entered the room.
And they all just kind of stood there, staring at one another. Arms to stiff at there sides. Mouths open, but no sound. What was there to say? Sorry, they've decided to serve you up for some District 3 brute to rip your face off. Not much we can do about that. But sorry.
Azelma looked so small next to the guards, twisting the hem of her dress and looking at the floor. She hadn't gotten her growth spurt yet, her legs weren't gangly and long like Éponine's yet. Yet. Éponine would never live to see the beauty of a woman's grace her sister's features, turn her lips to cherries and her smile to a dark, knowing thing.
"You know that dress of mine you like?" Éponine asked as she kneeled down, holding out her hand. Azelma grabbed it, lightly, hooking her finger's between Éponine's own.
"The one with the ribbon?"
"Yeah," she squeezed the little hand, "you can have it." The girl's answer came as a hiccup and Éponine bit her lip to focus on staying dry eyed. It wasn't much, but it was really all she had. And Azelma knew it, judging by the soft tear that made it's way down her sunken cheek.
Gavroche watched on, eyes hard despite a twitching lower lip. She had no idea what to say to him. There were no delusions. They all knew where she stood. The impossibility that they would ever see her again.
"Take care of your sister, okay?" And he nodded, but it was really an obvious request that he probably wouldn't heed. Gavroche had given himself to the streets long ago and Azelma still chased after their mother's skirts. But maybe he'd try. Maybe for Éponine he'd try.
Then peacekeepers decided their time was up and grabbed the two children to cart them away. Azelma squeaked when her hand was ripped away from her older sister's, her ragged fingernails ripping a red trail into Éponine's palm. But Gavroche growled, "Wait, get off me, prick," before slipping from the grip with a practiced duck. Everyone stood motionless while he shook his arm to straighten out a rumpled sleeve.
Her little brother. The bravest person she knew.
"'ey Sis," he turned, eyes blazing over his shoulder, "make it count, yeah?"
With that the peacekeepers picked the pair up and slammed the door shut. It was deafening. Like the lid to a tomb. Crash. Slam. Darkness. His words echoed around the peeling cement in her head.
Make it count.
Make it count.
The tears came, hot and silent, and she gasped, clutching her chest as she was finally allowed to melt into the shadowed recesses of the last sliver of District 12 that would ever lie under her feet.
She didn't know how to handle this.
She didn't know how to survive this.
And she certainly didn't know how to make it count.
"I think this is worth it," Éponine said to her fellow Tribute, laying out on the table in the train's dining car. Her usually hollow stomach was now a bulge, filled with so much over-rich Capitol food she'd probably need to be sick in a few minutes. She laid on her back as she sucked marinated meat off a chicken wing, hair fanned out around her. "I just ate more than I have in the past two months. I could die now. I could die happy."
The train was clean and immaculate and indulgent in a way that she was prepared to lose herself in. Not a dulling of the pain. No, merely an offering to a child with no future. A life traded for a few days of square meals and luxurious fabrics. She'd said her goodbyes, right?
Montparnasse sat in a chair next to her, daintily peeling off pieces of a raspberry danish to pop into his overly plush mouth. The room was vacant, save for the pair of tributes and their appetites. The portly handler went running when Montparnasse sent a knife flying at his face for suggesting their table manners were lacking. Then the Purple Haired Man became the Sweaty Red Faced Man.
Their "mentor" had yet to show up, but something about the painfully bare liquor cabinet gave Éponine the distinct feeling he didn't plan on imparting much wisdom upon them.
Not that it would do her any good.
"Don't you think, Montparnasse?" She leaned up on her elbows to meet Montparnasse's gaze.
"I'm not dying," he said in a matter of fact tone, looking down casually at his pastry.
Éponine chuckled. "Yeah, okay."
"I don't have to explain myself to you." Montparnasse grimaced, only slightly, his lips pressing into line and his eyebrows dropping.
"Yeah, okay."
They ate in silence after that. Silly self absorbed boy and his delusions. He could have them. She had no contract that bore her to reminding him of history and fact. District 12 didn't win the Games. It's just the way things were. A lifetime of sleeping in the dirt hardened Éponine, made her a realist. Sure, she lived for the stolen moment her dreams wrapped her in warmth and spun her toward the stars, but that's all they were. Dreams.
A resounding clatter of metal against wood when Montparnasse stood up, graceful in his conceit. She raised an eyebrow and watched him move across the room. "Where are you headed?" He continued on, content to pretend like he didn't hear her.
"Hey, 'Parnasse," Éponine sat up, brassy voice a tone impossible to ignore. "I asked you what you're doing."
He didn't turn around, but he paused in the doorway for the barest of seconds, casting out a begrudging line to a flailing girl.
"If you must know," he scoffed, "I'm going to check out the competition."
Arrogance and vanity demanded Montparnasse watch the Reaping tapes from the bottom up. That meant starting with District 12 and watching their lives end in high definition.
It wasn't really something Éponine needed to see again. On a screen. Staring herself in the face. The whole thing had been an out-of-body experience. A nightmare where a girl that looked like her, with the same long, lanky legs stood up on the stage. Her hair a dark, unruly scribble against a distressingly sunny sky.
And the girl looked scared until her partner in crime joined her, this good looking boy with a charming sneer and a brutal glint in his eye, and she set about laughing.
Then they cut a troublesome picture, at least.
Maybe District 11 would be scared of her, with their fields and their calloused hands and their freckle-faced tribute. That freckle flecked boy who walked forward with his chin high despite the clear sheen to his eyes.
Or it could be District 10 or 9 or 8 or 7 or 6. The endless parade of criers and howlers and catatonic bodies ushered forward by their own feet. Betrayed by muscles conditioned to obey obey obey.
District 5 was too busy to worry about a mad shadow girl lost in the sun over the coal mines. No, District 5 was swept away by a young man walking with a dignified gait, silent tears slicking his cheekbones, jaw clenched tight until he reached the stage. Then the Mayor's daughter had to be removed from his arms by three peacekeepers, the cherub cheeked female Tribute and the Mayor himself as the young man crumpled to the ground.
"What a show," the audience cooed. "What a show."
Perhaps the bumbling duo from District 4 would tremble at the thought of the gauche curve of that dark haired girl's lips as they tripped to the stage, checking their skinned knees and scraped elbows like their skin was certain to fall apart. Perhaps the willow limbed boy from District 3. Or the broad shouldered girl from District 2 and her peacock of a male counterpart, Career status underlined in their sure step.
Or District 1's solemn, bespectacled female Career; she walked forward slowly, the weight of the world laying heavy across her shoulders. 'Atlas' was written in the fine line of her lips. 'Athena' shone in the heavy lids over her pensive gaze.
But not him. Not the boy from District 1. He had a wildfire in his eyes and a winter thunderstorm in his voice. "Me, I volunteer as tribute," he said and the whole arena gasped. Wilted where they stood. Turned to the friend at their side and said "Him?"
And he said "Yes" with the way he stalked to the grand stand. With the way the floor burned under his feet. The way the atmosphere crackled as he passed through, blonde hair falling wild across a harsh brow.
"Yes", his devastating glare said to the camera. To the world.
(Yes, I have come to burn your throne to the ground.)