thearena | You could be my luck

Entry tags:

You could be my luck

Who| Courfeyrac, Marius, Cosette, Joly, Max, and other invited (or uninvited guests)
What| Courfeyrac brings home a stray. Later, the campers gather to watch the nightly soap opera on the projection screen.
Where| 4th floor, near the mammals
When| Week 2, after this & this.
Warnings/Notes| N/A? No tagging order, make your own threads if you want. Let's make new CR and tag around!

Courfeyrac was waiting in the hallway outside of the mammal exhibit with his new acquaintance, X5-452, knocking out a pattern on the wall. It wasn't any sort of standard pattern, but it would be recognizable to the people he hoped were still camped out around the corner as a sign that the approaching footsteps were his and not someone coming to kill them all.

He waited for a response for several seconds before repeating the knocking, then, becoming eager, he called out to the campers in French, "You must answer when I knock, otherwise I will think you are dead. Fools."

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Ian got comfortable and was quiet for a moment, because he had no idea how to start this. He had had very few friends, and the few times he had ever confronted Lip about girlfriends it had ended in them punching each other.

He wouldn't risk losing his temper. "It's about Eponine." He told him finally, and waited, wanting to see what kind of reaction that got before continuing.

Marius remained wide-eyed and mildly puzzled until the words left Ian's lips, or specifically the name. His face fell, his eyes reflexively averted, his body tensed.

He was still rather disconcerted with the memory of her advances towards him during the district tour, and it likewise took him a moment to finally ask, "W-What of her?"

He noticed the change in body posture and took a moment before he spoke again, "You do know she likes you right? I mean. I know you are married and everything but you did actually notice... right?"

A sudden and abrupt memory of the night Eponine died in the barricades flashed before Marius's eyes, and he pressed both hands against his face, silent for a while save for the soft inhalation of breath. When he set his hands back down to his sides, he cast Ian a cautious sideways glance.

"Yes, and she has told me, once." His voice was steady save for the end. "Why do you ask?"

Ian nodded, "Well at least you know." He shook his head, "You still have been pretty much a dick to her though."

Really, with how round and large Marius's eyes have grown when those words reach his ears, it looked almost as if he was playing up his innocence and bewilderment. But he was genuinely befuddled, and he stared at Ian for several seconds, hastily recalling his conversations with Eponine in the Capitol.

Eventually, he said, "I do not understand."

Ian just looked at him, wondering how someone could just be so bad at dealing with other people. "You make her feel like shit, I mean, it's not like she has much self worth anyways." He shrugged.

His eyes cast to one side, a mild guilt seeping through his features. Oh. That. And, sadly, he could assume that she indeed felt dispirited after he turned down her advances back during the district tours.

"Then how am I to approach her?" Puzzlement tinged his voice. "I want us to be friends, but nothing I tell her makes anything better."

"Well it won't, damage is already done." He shook his head.

"It'll take a while for her to trust you. I know you didn't realise but..." He shook his head, "She expects the worst in everything but it doesn't stop her being pissed when they prove her right."

Really she was angry at Ian on a weekly basis, he just took it in his stride.

"She needs to know you respect her." His eyes narrowed, "You do respect her right?"

At Ian's look, Marius found himself leaning back as if he could retreat from it. It made him feel guilty, even when Ian's assessment about Eponine's psyche genuinely surprised him.

He fell silent, eyes drifting to the ceiling almost enveloped in darkness. Perhaps he had never reflected on it before, but there was a goodness in Eponine. He had to believe there was a goodness in her, for he still recalled how she led him to the garden of Rue Plumet, to Cosette. Remembered that he lasted, just a while longer, at the barricades because she took the bullet meant for him. She may have done questionable things both here and in Paris, but at least that still existed. At least that deserved respect.

So he opened his eyes and nodded. "Yes."

Ian had expected it to be a bit harder, but he realised that though he liked Marius, he still knew a lot about him from Eponine, and that probably coloured his expectations a lot.

"Good, now you just need to make sure she knows that."

"How?"

The tone in his voice was genuinely curious, despite the fact that he doubted her recent advances towards him was one that a respectable lady would do. He never understood her, after all; pitied her, yes, but for the first time ever since he made her acquaintance he began to consider that perhaps pity was not enough.

His eyebrows drew together in thought. "Must I simply go up to her and tell her so?"

"You could do." Ian shrugged, "But depending on how much you managed to offend her she might not listen."

Probably not, seeing as it was Eponine and there had been moments where she had refused to talk to Ian whenever he accidently offended her.

A pout materialized on Marius's face. What would be the point then, if she did not listen to him? Fortunately, though, he managed to stop himself before he could express it. Perhaps there was value in Ian's advice, after all, and he would very much want to mend his troubled relationship with Eponine.

He let out a soft sigh and stared into a random spot in the darkness. "Then I will try."

"Yeah, sorry I'm not much help." He shrugged, "She's mad at me every other week."

And he gets back onto her good side with a lot of determination on his side.

Marius blinked again. Was she? He understood so little of her, or women in general, save for Cosette. "Why? That seems an odd friendship."

Ian shrugged, "I do stuff to piss her off." He doesn't know much about friendship, "It's easy to piss her off." As Marius would know far too well.

There was another pause and a furrowing of his brows. He seemed to be doing that a lot in this conversation, but it was simply such a confusing matter.

"Should you avoid doing it, in that case?" Not that Marius was particularly good at not angering Eponine.

"Well I don't do it on purpose." He sounded defensive. "I try not to piss her off, it just happens."

Oh. Immediately, Marius flustered. He had uttered something offensive, hadn't he? "I-I am sorry, I did not mean it in that manner."

"Don't worry." Ian laughed, "I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite, coming to tell you to not piss her off, when I don't know how to myself."

The laugh was enough to make Marius relax and even smile a little. He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. "Regardless, I have never sought her out with the intention of hurting her. I hope you can at least tell her that, when you speak with her again?"

"I will." Ian smiled softly, "I'll tell her you're an idiot who doesn't actually think before he speaks."

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