ataraxionlogs | EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

"You tell me to eat, but now you ask me not to!" Eponine looked at Combeferre indignantly, as she rose to her feet. "He is very much himself. See! Look, look at how he looks at me!"

Marius was practically doting on her.

"He has only looked like that at me in my dreams, and now, see, they have come true! We will go to his apartment. He will care for me there."

Marius put a protective hand back on Eponine's shoulder. I will. Come, Eponine. Our carriage is just outside. He began to lead her towards the door.

"When it is safe, you should eat, yes." Combeferrre agreed, quite firm on that point. "But here I think that, well, I am reminded of a story from the Greeks." Figuring that Eponine will not have heard of it before, but needing to save time, the explanation will have to be GOOD.

"Persephone came into the underworld with Hades, the god of Death and the Dead. And when she ate the foo he offered, she was bound to remain there with him. The only way she was a little saved is that she only ate a bit of what was offered, and was able to return to her mother, and the other gods for Spring and Summer. I think that this...eating here may trap you...Eponine!"

As Eponine starts going off with Marius, Combeferre is running close on their heels. "This is not Marius, lovingly as he looks at you. He wears his face, but Marius would never want to take you away from everything, Marius would remember both insult to the Empire and everything that happened at his first meeting. Those are not things he could put aside so easily."

Passionate nostrils though he has, Combeferre is on the heels of the Not! Marius, launching himself at the man's back in order to tackle him. "Eponine, do not go any further please! Listen to me! This all seems like a trap!"

Sometimes, Eponine loved story time. Right now was not one of them. At Marius' insistence, she stood, letting him direct her towards the door with the strange light. Perhaps it was morning, she decided, but really, did not care. For all she knew, she was with Marius and all was right with the world.

Then everything changed when Combeferre attacked.

He knocked not!Marius to the floor, but Marius was quick, being an imposter, and turned on to his back so that he could better punch Combeferre. Eponine, meanwhile, shrieked and grabbed Combeferre around the waist.

"Get off of him, you oaf!" She screamed, using all of her tiny weight to try to pull him off.

Yeah, storytime seemed to be taking too long as it was, so Combeferre had been propelled into action time. He hated to hurt Eponine by harming what she thought was her true love, but sometimes,sometimes you had to hurt people a little, in order to save them.

You obviously apologized and made it right later, but in the moment, well, you tackled. And if you were Combeferre, your spectacles, badly mended with that bright and sticky substance duct tape, went flying off your face as you did so.

"Eponine, you cannot follow!" He tried to insist, as firmly as he could. "This is not Marius. Our Marius would never do any of this. He could not love you, because he was not...because he never saw you, though he should have done."

Personally, he felt it was more that Marius and Cosette had been meant, locked together in the way that he and Enjolras had been, soulmates first, romantic prospects later. But he did not dare say that just now. He did not want to hurt Eponine more than he needed to after all.

Unfortunate as it was to need to cut into someone in order to put them back together, unfortunate as it was to clean out wounds with cures that were sometimes worse than the initial problem, and that caused pain, sometimes, sometimes one needed to apply the knife, but that did not mean he had to wield it cruelly and at random.

Trying to fight off Eponine when everything around him was blurry, and to do it without hurting her as he tried to get a hold on her instead, took all the skill he'd mustered up, and he only hoped that it could work.

No. No- he was wrong. He had to be. Marius was here, and he had shared pop-tarts with her! He had cared and touched her, and they were to leave for his apartment.

"You're a liar!"

Tears ran down her face as Combeferre grabbed on to her. Still, she tried to fight, using her nails as claws against his face and hands, kicking at his shins. Marius, too, joined in the fray, trying to release Eponine from Combeferre's grasp. The fracas only worsened, Marius getting hurt in the confusion. In an unlike-Marius move, he began to retaliate, and the whole thing was really just a huge cluster-fuck, with fists and feet flying everywhere as Eponine cried.

"He could! He could love me!"

"He could HAVE." Combeferre was doing his best to just hold on to Eponine, to keep her from going further, even though that meant she'd raked a pretty good scratch down his nose, and more everywhere else. "And he should have done."

But this, this was not Marius, not fighting back like this. He was, Combeferre thought, a little too coordinated on top of making this a fight instead of an attempt to hold Eponine back.

Considering that Marius was taller than him, the other man...whatever he was, had an advantage over him really, but Combeferre could try to use surprise as part of his plan of defense. Of course, to really defend himself, he was going to need to let go of Eponine, and even though his hold lessened a little, enough that one hand slipped free of her, he was still determined that he could not let her go. Not now.

There was still a chance though. To try another tactic.

"Eponine, this is not Marius. I am not sure who or what he is, but think. Marius would not join in a fray like..." There was Marius swinging, and connecting with his jaw, and the pop Combeferre heard did not bode really well for him. Or the pain that followed. It was enough that he lost his hold on Eponine completely, though, the moment it happened, he was running forward again. He could worry about checking his injuries later, but for now, following was the only thing to do.

Because it was not Marius, he did not really feel BADLY about the fact that he was going to a knocked over chair, and, following a crack already in it, breaking the thing completely and running at him with it. If he could knock Marius out, at least he would buy some time. Time in which he might convince Eponine, though he doubted it.

"Think! Eponine. He does not know even the basics that our Marius would."

Referring to him as 'Our' Marius was something Combeferre hoped that he would never have to do again, incidentally. And damn, but talking HURT. Talking hurt a LOT. He probably ought not to do that now. He COULD continue fighting though, and running after Marius, with the hope of doing something to help Eponine see reason.

"Would he to the barricade, either?" Eponine demanded as she pushed and shoved at whomever was around her. Combeferre had finally let go of her and she dashed to Marius' side, wrapping her arms around him.

"No! He cared little for your cause! He was there to die, same as I was! I lead him there!" Marius did not seem even to register this, and held Eponine closer to him, his arms around her waist. Eponine smiled at this, though there was no warmth radiating from him as it should have been. But this thought was short-lived as, just as Combeferre ran to them, Marius used Eponine as a shield, the chair catching Eponine at her shoulder and sending her to the ground, tearing her dress.

"Of course not." Combeferre agreed quite reasonably with that. "I was rather shocked to see him there though he arrived at a good time."

Still though, Marius had never been a lover of their cause. He had been their friend, well Courfeyrac's friend and Bossuet's a bit, and they had spent some non political times together as a group, though Combeferre had been rather uncomfortable around him then, because of what had happened at that first meeting. He'd always thought that Marius avoided him after that, though he had not been trying to be severe with him then.

"I'd not have thought that he had come to die, the way Marius fought there. He was brilliant. But it always seemed very odd."

That he had come to die did make sense in a sort of odd way though. Perhaps that accounted for his fearlessness. All of this said, of course as he advanced, and then everything was happening at once and Combeferre was falling to the ground next to Eponine, hitting his knees and already checking her for major injuries.

"Eponine, I..." He looked stricken, rather grey in fact, because he was horrified by all of this. First of all because Marius had used Eponine that way, secondly, because his swing had done it, but most of all because she'd been hurt.

"Please, I need to check you for any injuries." And then he was glaring at Marius for all that he was worth. "How dare you?" He asked simply, keeping the words short and rather clipped, as he had done that first night they had met.

How dare he harm her? How dare he try to pass himself off as Marius when he would NEVER have done such a thing to any woman, at least not in the physical sense of it. And Marius had never INTENTIONALLY hurt her any other way before.

Marius had been a great deal many things that Combeferre had not agreed with, but he had been a gentleman above all else. This spectre, who, or whatever he was came nowhere near that standard.

"Do not touch me!" She barked, moving away from him. Marius was standing nearby, gesturing towards the door.

Eponine, we must get going. Combeferre, stop this silliness. She belongs with me, and she will go with me. The light beyond the door seemed to grow brighter.

It spoke a great deal, that Eponine would still prefer Marius, who had used her as a shield, who had been cruel to her in the past, always unaware of how he hurt her, that she would turn to him, find comfort in him, over the man who truly did care about her. But he had hit her, on accident or not. And for once in her life, she had not deserved it.

Slowly, she moved to her feet, Marius helping her, his arm around her shoulder as he whispered sweet things to her.

"I assure you, she will not." Combeferre stood up again, quickly,glaring at the light beyond that door. He saw it too, and he did not trust it in the least. In no way was Eponine going there while he still lived.

It did not matter now that Eponine may hate him forever. He was willing to risk that if it meant that she was saved from going with 'Marius',wherever he wished to take her. Perhaps that light was where all who had left here went, but it was no time to speculate on its nature. He supposed they would all learn it in their time, when their trip through space had ended. But it must happen in its turn, and certainly this was not it. There was one approach, well, actually, there were about three variants of that approach...sub approaches, perhaps?

Not that it was the time, it was only that his mind was firing these questions at him, even as he grabbed the makeshift weapon again, and swung it at the back of Marius's head, wincing at the thud as it connected sharply.

When violence must be used, he was , of course, well prepared to do so, but this crude method of it seemed more awful than the rest. Still, he only did what he must, when he must do it. But now, to see to Eponine...

Marius crumpled the moment the bit of chair hit him, sprawling indignantly on the floor. Eponine shrieked, and, though her arm was bleeding, moved over to his side.

"Marius! Sweet, sweet Marius! I took a bullet for you at the barricade, only to see you die here!" Or be knocked out. "Please- live! Live so that I may see you here again. May you die at the barricade with the rest of us!" She reached out, stroking his hair, touching his face, holding him to her breast. She did not look at Combeferre. Not now.

Combeferre had hoped that upon crumpling in defeat that the features of not! Marius would change, that Eponine might see why Combeferre knocking him out was a necessary, even a good thing. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case, and the only real way he had of protecting Eponine, although she very rightly, given her perceptions, hated him now, was to get her out of here before he managed to regain consciousness. Since Combeferre was sure that he was not even quite human, they might have very little time for that.

"Eponine, I am sorry, but it needed to be done." He followed after Eponine, using her distraction to wrap his arms around her shoulders, giving a tug to get her up and out of here.

"I swear to you, should we find the true Marius among us once again, we will help him and I shall do my best to show him he could love you, and the reasons why and how he should."

It was the sort of promise that obviously was painful for him to make, for even if Marius never returned, he did not suppose that Eponine would ever wish to love him either in the face of that. The true Marius would have protected Eponine; he would have never used her as his shield or allowed for her to come to harm. And he would certainly have never struck her, even though it had been accidental, and had happened rather quickly. Certainly, those were things that both he and "Marius" had failed at rather badly here.

It surely meant that Combeferre was not yet ready to love someone again, perhaps that he never COULD be ready. After all, his last relationship, at least the last reciprocated one, had ended with a knife and a slashed throat. It was a heavy thought, and rather an awful one, but it was hard to deny a truth that stared straight through you all the same.

In any case, it was a truth for later, when Eponine was safe again. Right, getting her out of here mattered far more. Though he was not much taller than her, he had the advantage of weight, and strength, and could use that to pull her up and along with him, as he was trying now.
“Eponine, we must get out of here.” He spoke again, quite somberly, as he continued hauling her to her feet. “Hate me if you must, but your safety is something that I will ensure, right now.” No matter what he had to do to make that happen.

Eponine hunched her shoulders inward, shaking with the force of her tears. Despite it being Combeferre who grabbed her, she leaned back against him, still reaching for Marius when he lifted her to her feet. She was a small girl, in stature and weight, but seeing her Marius prone like that did not stop her from fighting.

"How could you!" She demanded, scratching at Combeferre's arms and hands as eh dragged her backwards away from Marius. "This is my home! You have injured Marius and myself here! I cannot go with you! Yet I shall hold you to your promise, though I know all men do break them. You are a brute, monsieur!" Even as she fought, her strength began to leave her, the result of the days running and fighting taking it's toll on her.

Combeferre had rather expected she would reach yet. Whatever this was, it seemed designed to wreck havoc with the minds of the people the scenarios were designed for. If Marius was any guess, Combeferre had a few uncomfortable ideas about what might happen if he managed to find the room meant for him.

In Eponine's case, Marius was someone who she loved dearly, likely who she missed the most, and someone she would do anything for. Judging by those examples, Combeferre had about four guesses as to what may await him down the line, and hoped, quite fervently, that he would be able to hold back from doing as Eponine had done. If he fell victim to the trick, and could not get her out of here, or worse, if he fell victim and she managed to slip back to "Marius", then he would never forgive himself. Granted, it was not as though he expected any of them would be conscious in their knowledge of what was happening once they had made connections with their "loved ones".

In a way, that was what had made it all so very much worse, that someone's mind and body could be made to control them in such a way. Smiley, he decided, hating the entity even more than he had ever hated it before. Smiley's hand was in this somewhere, and while Smiley had been given much satisfaction by their emotions in the past, he was still not going to win this time, or at least, not in this case. It meant he must be calm, even as Eponine's words hurt, mostly because he could acknowledge they were true.

"I did all those things, yes." He agreed, keeping his voice steady as he continued guiding Eponine towards the door, pausing when he noticed her failing strength to scoop her up into his arms instead. "Or rather, I injured you and whoever this is playing at being Marius. And you have every right to call me a brute. In this case, it is true enough, and I am sorry for it. I...perhaps you will be able, in the end, to see why it is necessary that I do this now. I hope you will be able to. And I assure you, I will keep my word. Is there something that you would like for me to swear it on?"

She kept her gaze focused on Marius, though she no longer struggled in Combeferre's arms. Something about this felt strangely familiar.

"You have done the same as all the other men to me. They hurt, with words or fists, as have you, now." She wanted to get out of his arms. But she couldn't dare.

The door, back to the kitchen, away from the inn's dining room loomed in front of them, Eponine's hand still reaching for Marius. She had not stopped her crying, and likely would not for some time. "No- no. There is nothing. Nothing to swear on. I do not believe in promises."

Something about it felt rather familiar to Combeferre too. Not with Eponine, persay, but...this would not be the first time he had needed to haul a friend away from something they were quite intense about. Of course, this time was rather worse, because, where he knew that his friends would forgive him, someday, he had no idea at all if Eponine ever could, even if this were proved to be the work of Smiley, or other forces that had harmed them before.

He winced though, at Eponine's words, and at the actual truth in them. He could not deny that it was true, that even, with a purpose behind hurting her, it was the same thing after all.

His jaw, where Marius had managed to land that particularly hard blow was swelling badly now, there were small cuts on his face from Eponine's scratches, and from his destroyed spectacles, which made everything blurry as it was, but he kept going, crossing through that kitchen where he hoped that Eponine would not be able to get free and claim a weapon.

"I'm sorry." He managed, though damn, that hurt to say it, more than speaking had earlier, now that all his pains were setting in. He had to get them out of here, and back to something like sanity. He hoped, that after all the days of this endless wandering, something ought to send them back. Engineering had let them go, eventually, as unpleasant as that had been. Surely, the same thing must happen here?

Sorry.

The word hung in the air between them, out the door and into something else. As the door swung shut, the world around them began to change, bringing them to another room, another time, another place. Marius was behind them, the door shut, the way sealed off. She'd tried to enter doors she'd exited through before, to no avail. This one, she did not doubt, would be the same.

Sobering, Eponine looked up at him. "Sorry," she repeated softly. "You are sorry. ...Michel, you are the first to tell me that in all my life."

It was a word that did not mean very much, in the scheme of what had just happened but Combeferre was, and clearly so. He breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut between them, glad that 'Marius' was far away from them now, that they were not likely to see him, in that form, at least, again.

He met her gaze squarely at that, and found that he could really only nod at her right now. The fact that no one had told her that was, like anything he learned of Eponine's life, not surprising, although confirmation of that, really, was rather sad.

He tried to use his jaw again, to respond to her, but only got so far as opening his mouth a fraction before turning rather pale with the pain of that motion. Well, the leeches would have a job if they ever got out of here. For now, though, they had to choose a path and to move on, to find another door. Combeferre almost didn't want to do that, given what they'd just been through here.

"Say nothing," was her response as she looked at his jaw. Gingerly, she put a hand against it, to assess the damage. "You have done a number on it. Raw meat, if we had any, would do some good."

He was her companion, now. And he had apologized. That meant, in her mind, that he was good, even for the pain. Even for her Marius.

"We shall find some, in one of these places, injured as we are." Her tears had quieted enough that she could speak.

“Leeches...later.” Combeferre supplied, before actually shutting up and nodding at Eponine.Surely, somewhere in all of this, there would be medical help available. If not someone who could help, then things that could be used instead to help repair the damage. He also had his kit up in his room, to repair any injuries she might have found.

There had been so many others as this started that surely they'd wandered into things like this and been injured badly too. He'd prefer not involving the other, actual medical staff if he could help it. They would likely have worse things to treat than a swollen jaw and cuts.

“Are you...” he nodded towards her injured shoulder to indicate what he meant. That was worrying as well right now. At least they were together, yes, companions. That was something, anyway.

In truth, her shoulder smarts, and bruising is visible around the gash left by the chair leg. She holds her arm to her chest, but will not let it show that it does hurt.

"I have had worse. Set me down. I shall not run. We shall find a way out of this place. And you shall have your leeches."

She had had worse. It obviously was true, for she had been shot at the barricades if nothing else, and her life before then, from the way Eponine was with so many people indicated a lot more than that, but the doctor in Combeferre leaned close to examine her anyway, and would have frowned, but settled, instead, for shaking his head a little. It was very much not good, and likely hurt, and it might have shattered something on her collar bone.

Combeferre did hope not, for all of those things, but until they were safe to look at them, he did not dare waste any time. Instead, he set Eponine down, and shrugged at her, indicating that he was perfectly fine with going whatever way she thought was best. He had been on the ship and through parts of it longer, and had combed over its maps planning the assault on Smiley, but Eponine was the one who knew her way around anywhere, so it was up to her for now, if she should care to navigate.

EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

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