Title: Peace + Perdition
Fandom: Les Misérables (Tom Hooper-inspired)
Pairing: Montparnasse x Éponine
Genre: Angst
Rating: M
Warnings: Mild violence, character death
Notes: Based on movie events because it made more sense with Éponine's willlingness for sacrifice and the nature of her death. Both she and Parnasse are a mix of musical and brick as usual.
"What on earth are you up to? You look a fright." A chuckle of pretension cannot diffuse the reality of the situation, which is hardly a jovial matter.
She squats amid dust and splinters with bound breasts, oversized shirt, hair packed into a cap. "I've some business."
"…So you're going along with them."
Over recent weeks he has seen her glide into distance, and it is not because she has internalized this 'revolution.' Even now she hovers on the sidelines, a wraith trapped in limbo between the dirt she comes from and a future that is neutral to her at best. Montparnasse is aware of the true reason behind her facade, and he wonders how he can feel envy towards a boy that has never kissed, never touched her in intimacy.
Éponine climbs to her feet, shouldering the bulk of the coat that is three times too large for her. "I have friends there."
"Friends, ha! I dare you to say just three of their names. And say who among them knows yours! I don't understand you at all. Forget this nonsense, you'll come with me." He lunges to grapple her hand, to hold it as she used to hold his, but there is an agency which does not lend well to frolics.
"No! You're right, you don't understand me. Go and be cowardly, I have somewhere to be." She moves, but he obstructs her, clumsy for all his vulturous design, and chances a kiss as though this is just another foreplay. She brawls against him, rapping her fists on his ribs, kicking out: he pushes her hard, she pushes back, they dissolve into a sparring turmoil.
""Ponine—-!" He stiffens the muscles in his stomach as she punches him roughly there - she is ferocious, trying to escape the sway of his presence, and his frustration builds until his palm makes callous contact with her cheek. Regret quickly forms on his face, but she is impudent, on the verge of spiteful laughter while her skin glows bright from the lash.
"Strike me? Strike me again, Monsieur. Or better, kill me, I won't even fight if you want me dead. But if you only mean to bar the door, I will bite you, I will make you bleed and scratch out your eyes and screech in your ears until you're deaf. So kill me and have it done, if you won't let me by!"
No sweeter invitation, than to choose whether she must die at his hand or risk her life for a fantastical suitor. Yet he tries to dredge up the impulse for the former, and absolutely fails - not even a threat will materialize. She has no fear, he can't bargain by merely flashing a blade. His words are worthless, then, if not resigned: he tries for a final conviction.
"Pontmercy does not care for you."
"Well, I care for him," she retorts, bent on following her fate. Montparnasse is a drop in the ocean: she deserts him only so that she may drown, and he cannot stand it.
"You're a stupid girl, you deserve all you get!" He yells after her; she is running down the stairs; she has spoken her last to him.
He emerges from the refuge of a cellar whose tenants must have abandoned it for a safer, farther place - rounds of cannonfire have made sleep an impossibility, and his vision is weary as he keeps to shrouded shortcuts near the streets. He promised himself he would not come here, there is no use in this… whatever the carnage, she has forsaken him already, and the law lingers close. It isn't wise to hold such a leisurely pace, but his shoes continue to stalk their path. He has a kinship of sorts with death, and death has a magnetism that draws him past the bloodied stones and towards the hollow husk that is now the Musain.
What immediately strikes him, is the red and gold corpse suspended from the first floor: their acclaimed leader, likely dense enough to have stood his ground against an army. Montparnasse scoffs, as if he finds some vindication in this outcome, still he knows it is petty, and little more than a mask for his sense of forboding.
When he comes upon the fallen, his gaze hits two familiar bodies on the row - little Gavroche, staring up like a doll whose eyes do not close. And his elder sister, pasty and lifeless with a bullet wound.
A peculiar spasm seizes his gut and he feels, for all his experience, as if he's going to vomit. The whim passes, but he can barely swallow the bile, glaring at the remains of she who lived and perished by her own stubbornness. How dare she lie so tranquil, slumbering in harmony with her fellow fools while his heart cracks in two? But his ire stays unvoiced. He cannot make a mark here, and so he removes himself from the scene.
On the surface he is stoical, though he staggers with an almost drunken gait to the site of their hostile goodbyes. In the corner of the garret lies a heap of cloth - her garments, the ones she shed for her disguise, and he crouches to lift handfuls of soiled gauze that smell so strongly of her and the world she has departed. His lips tremble with livid anguish, breaking into a bellow: he wrings out the fabric, his stolen rings catch on threads, he mangles the weak stitching and pulls it all to pieces.
Then, a slight repose, eyelids bloated with tears as he slides down the wall, basking in a furious serenity. There is nothing left of her that won't rot away, and he cannot help but think of church tapestries and hymns and the hateful holy book. The notion of God is never really in his conscience - except when he uses His name in vain, snarling it in the throes of ecstasy - no, Lucifer is the one who welcomes the damned with open arms. At this the killer smiles, sourly: she will greet him one day at the gates of Hell.
He's almost certain of it.