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[solo_patria]

[Hello, Turtle. Here is an Enjolras who looks a bit embarrassed that he's even started this late night/very early morning post, but well. The question he wants to ask IS actually a valid one, now that he has TIME to ask it, and he finds the current most popular phrases to be incredibly awkward or childish so..The hell with it. People have asked all sorts of questions here, haven't they? He's clearing his throat, flushing a little, then glancing into the vid directly and clearing his throat.]

A question, everyone.

I find that most of the current terms for one's...romantic friend...but more than such are either juvenile or not quite accurate. 'Boyfriend' for example, makes us sound as if we were children, 'Partner' has several connotations that do not immediately state the obvious and 'Lover' sounds particularly awkward.

[And well, they have not quite gotten to the lovers stage yet. Enjolras is hardly ready for it and still accustoming himself to the kissing and cuddling things that he never let himself seek out in life.]

When others here speak of the other piece of their soul as he is to me...what terms seem to work best for you?

[He will deny this video happened later. He really will. He just...really wishes to know and can't sleep so...here it is. Have fun with it?]

Comments

[solo_patria]

[Somehow that manages, still, to be FAR less disturbing than Courfeyrac's breasts. Marius may say otherwise but Enjolras is at least not AS bad as all of that. Okay, so he's not looking at her knees or anywhere but...]

Whiskey can be done.

[And he's moving to do that almost at once, knowing that, yes, as much as he personally dislikes it, the fact is that people do relax with drinking, and he will not stop anyone else from doing that so...Yes. He avoids pouring one for himself of course but is handing Eponine a glass shortly after, and then, well. He may as well come out and say it since it seems that Marius's Cosette is part of the problem here.]

...She was here for a time, Marius says. But has disappeared and not returned. I do not know if that is any hope but it is something?

[jondrette]

Thank you.

[Eponine brings her knees up to her chest on the sofa. She sniffles, trying to make herself small. When Enjolras hands her the whiskey, she eagerly accepts, taking a long drink, enjoying the burn it gives her down her throat.

After she finishes the glass she hands it to him, desperate for more.]

It does not matter. When he returns home he shall have her. He has never noticed me, always in favor of her. I was nothing but a way to meet her, to help him and I did it like the fool I am all for a glance and a kind word! I should have let him die first. But to live without him- and now! Now I shall!

[solo_patria]

You may not as such.

[Enjolras is hesitant about touching people who are not les amis, or being touched but he finds himself reaching to steady her with a hand on her shoulder, as he might Jehan or Courfeyrac. While he does think there is nothing, truly, to keep Marius from Cosette if he returns to the same world, or if she comes here, well, for the moment, Cosette is not a factor, certainly. If that should make Eponine feel any comfort, well...]

I cannot think it likely that he will return anywhere. Marius has been here for a long time. So long, I think it is unlike he'll be returning anywhere. I do not know if it is any comfort or not but even so...

[jondrette]

[The hand on her shoulder is rare and strange, stirring her out of her hunched over position, drawing her eyes up towards him, wide with wonder. No one touched her when she cried. If she cried, they did not speak of it. She didn't let anyone see her cry. But here she was, and the hand on her shoulder is enough to cause her to turn her entire body, curling up against Enjolras, her arms wrapped around him, crying freely again.]

But if he does! All things are possible, Enjolras. If he leaves, when he leaves, he shall be with her. The girl who took everything from me! She will leave me nothing! No happiness in the world!

[solo_patria]

[This is the part where Enjolras freezes a bit, automatically, and it is not because of Eponine herself, though the fact that a woman is hugging him is sort of bizarre, it's the idea of being touched in such a way by someone not of les amis that strikes him as...he is not sure, and for a moment, there is something in him that is overloaded.

If it provides her comfort now though, he reminds himself, he can surely grant that and awkwardly, with his arms quite tense, he attempts to arrange them like he has seen before when others comfort someone. What would Combeferre do, he wonders, then wonders why he did not think to simply GET Combeferre to fix this problem in the first place. But he is hardly going to leave her alone to contact him now.]

I am sorry then, Eponine, but surely there are happinesses to be found outside of Marius, and happiness to be had with him here while you both remain.

[jondrette]

[She is not used to comfort, either. But now she craves it so desperately. It's as though her last moments in Marius' arms have awakened that desire, and here Enjolras will give it to her. She sobs into his chest, holding on for dear life. If he is awkward, she does not recognize it. She's too wrapped up in her emotions.]

I do not care! Not now! I am happy to be his friend, more than anything. I have never had friends, and have always considered him one. But- I had no happiness. It is what brought me to your barricade that night. I knew I would not survive. And I did not wish to! I longed to die there in his arms and I did! I knew he would perish with me. But he did not. That is why I gave him the letter at last. If he has her to go back to, he will never care for me here. She will always be there. A ghost haunting me since we were children!

[solo_patria]

[And Enjolras...stands there trying to think of what to do or something he might say, though nothing comes to mind. He's thankful that she doesn't SEEM to notice he is having issues with this at the moment, though. That would be terrible, and he does care about her and does not want her to think otherwise for a moment. So...he awkwardly begins to pat her head, in what is probably not entirely a soothing way.]

Perhaps not all is settled as that, Eponine. And here we find ourselves in the midst of possibility. I had never thought, there, to have what I do here, and we have all of us changed. Including Marius, I think.

[jondrette]

Of course you did not! We did not know this place existed. But I? I dreamed of such things. Having him, being with him, letting him look at me and smile. It is all I wished for! Do you know why I came to your barricade? I care not for France or patria or liberty! I went to die, m'sieur. I knew there was nothing left for me. Death was the choice I made. And now I am here, and all is lost!

[solo_patria]

Well, no I mean... I never would have thought that I could have him...or...Perhaps I do not approach your situation right because I never did dream I could have them, or thought to dream of them. They belonged to someone else there.

[As far as the rest of this? Enjolras goes quiet, listening as she speaks. It was clear, really, that she had come for Marius from the start of this conversation, but to die instead of to do anything else...well. He cannot blame here for that, but as for some kind of comfort here.]

Perhaps Marius does not dare dream himself that he might be happy with someone who is not Cosette, but time will tell him differently? I cannot say for certain,and I hardly understand how those things work, but that may be the case. Or perhaps YOU dare not dream that there may be another like him. Perhaps...I do not know much of these affairs but it may well be possible too. There is little here that is set in such stone, after all. It is the one thing I have learned.

[jondrette]

I told him here- that he should be happy. That she would want him to be. [Her breathing is slowly steadying, but she has yet to remove herself from Enjolras' arms.]

There is no one else like him. Not for me. I have been with others, as you now know. But they are not him. There is no one who can compare to someone like Marius Pontmercy.

[solo_patria]

[It occurs to Enjolras that she must not know Marius all that WELL if she thinks SO highly of him as all of that. He won't comment on that matter now; since it is clearly not the time for it, but, well. He nods as she speaks there.]

I quite agree he should, and yes, if the girl is everything he sees her as, then surely his happiness should be what she holds most dear herself.

Perhaps though, time, [Or Eponine meeting someone else who is able to love her as Marius could not, he thinks might be some sort of a solution too] may improve things.

[jondrette]

Perhaps... [She sighs.] She is the reason I am in this position, Enjolras. If it had not been for her... We would not have lost all our money.

[At least, that was the truth as far as Eponine was concerned. After Cosette had been taken away, the Thenardiers had worked hard to brainwash their children into believing it.]

[solo_patria]

Oh?

[From what little Enjolras knew of Cosette, well, he knew nothing, really, he had assumed Eponine only knew her from a far perhaps.]

What is it then?

[jondrette]

It was us that raised her. When her papa came- the man in the yellow jacket- he took her away. He did not give my father all the money we were owed from her mother. And we shortly loss the inn.

[She sniffles for a moment and then her entire demeanor changes. She sits upright, her eyes wide and wild.] Tell no one, m'sieur! Marius does not know, nor can he ever know! Not until I say it is the right time.

[solo_patria]

[Enjolras finds himself nodding at the story. He can believe that the matter of even that sum of money for caring for an extra child would make a difference certainly, and it is only too easy to see the downward slope that it would cause. ]

And I assume there was no avenue of pursuing the money with no way to pay the lawyer either.

[he does not know that he considers it the fault of Cosette, or even of her parents, either set of parents, given WHEN that must have been and the situation at the time for many people,if her father's wealth came later, but a matter of the economy and, well, people like his parents who contributed to keeping the sharp divide of money and resources where they were.]

Of course I will not say. Not ever if you do not deem it so.

Marius's Cosette seems lucky when compared to this

[jondrette]

There was none. We lost the inn and moved to Paris, and you have seen what has become of me since! The laughing stock of the street, finding our home in the gutters. So often we did not even have a home to call our own. Our apartment where I met m'sieur Marius... It was a gift we had it even that long. We spent our winters under bridges huddling together for warmth, sure we would not see tomorrow.

[Her entire life, there had been no promise of a tomorrow.]

Lucky! Oh, she is! The tables have turned, and I am in her place and she is in mine! But the slope has been increased and I am dead and alone and she lives with my Marius and her father whom loves her!

[solo_patria]

[So Enjolras had seen. If he had known in life, perhaps there would be something else that he could have done differently. There was not much in the way of resources, but L'ABC had done what it could do, when it could do it to help those in need of it. They might at least have helped her to find work of some sort, if any would have taken her. It would have been worth a try, at least.

But that had hardly come to pass, and it was something that one must simply accept as they tried to move onward, so...]

At least she does not live with Marius who is here now?

[Worth a try, certainly.]

[jondrette]

[It's a shot in the dark and she knows it, but, she appreciates it, somewhere deep inside. But all the same, she meets his words, his genuine kindness, with a short bark of laughter.]

No, no she does not! Does time move forward while we are here? Perhaps she will find love in some other man and forget all about our Marius! Perhaps he will forget about her and find me instead. She is not here. She would want him happy. I could make him happy.

The way he makes me happy.

[solo_patria]

And, with some time, perhaps he will realize that. I know that Marius cannot be forced, but growing to a knowledge, well. He DID grow to our cause.

[Yes, Enjolras still believes that Marius came to the barricade for Patria, instead of to die in despair. He'll never actually believe otherwise until directly told otherwise, and probably from the source himself. After all, what greater thing to die FOR?]

[jondrette]

[Oh, she wants to laugh at that, but she can't. She can't ruin Enjolras' image of Marius. She knew the real reason he had gone to the barricade. She had ensured it, after all. He would never have been there if it hadn't been for her.]

Then you must help me.

[solo_patria]

Oh?

[this gets a blink from Enjolras.]

In matters of Marius? But...how precisely would that work? I have no knowledge of how...anything like that begins to work. You know I had not so much as kissed someone before I came here? How is it that I might know what to do?

[jondrette]

You understand the minds of men better than I do! And are certainly closer than him. This is the sort of thing you talk about, I am sure. Simply... plant the seed in his mind of me. And water it. Tell him that I am pretty! There, start there.

[You've got her going now, Enjolras.] It does not matter if it is not true, for I know it is not, but tell him just the same!

[solo_patria]

I...may do that, yes.

[Seriously, Eponine? Worst wingman ever. Not that he even would understand the concept but...]

I can certainly bring that up though no, we've never spoken of such things. Do men often speak of their romances in such ways, and so plainly?

[jondrette]

[WELL THEN ENLIST ETIENNE AND COURFEYRAC! It shouldn't be too hard, right? Desperate times, alright, Enjolras?]

I am sure you shall find a way. I believe so, from what I have witnessed.

[solo_patria]

Then I shall do my best.

[Courfeyrac, certainly. He has to live with a crushed over Cosette's departure Marius, after all, and with people asking if Marius is sleeping with him. Clearly it's a wonderful option!]