fandomtownies | Fandom Post Office, January 14 (Tuesday)

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Fandom Post Office, January 14 (Tuesday)

Éponine knew that not everyone's holiday packages had made it to their destinations on time. There had been a slow but steady trickle of delayed parcels coming through the post office ever since Christmas, and she was accustomed to it by now. This did not, however, mean that she was prepared for the literal avalanche of packages in various shapes and sizes, some with postmarks dating back to mid-November, that spilled out of the sorting room as soon as she opened the door.

With a sigh, she resigned herself to picking through the pile to figure out what needed to go out for delivery today, and in the process try not to wonder too much about how some of those packages had acquired funny-shaped dents, glowing green stains, or what looked like teeth marks.

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Don't worry, the lobby is package-avalanche free.

Who might still be a little worked up about knowing Cosette's here now.

Tuesday was Visit Éponine day, and Kenzi swung herself up on the counter in one move. "Hey ya! Have you run into any weird voices lately?"

Éponine huffed loudly and tossed the package she was holding into the correct sorting bin.

"D'you mean last week, with the clockwork bits?"

She hoped that was it. Because she really didn't need any more old wounds getting opened up again.

"Yeah, that. That was me talking, sometimes... but I could've sworn I heard someone talking about teal deer in Caritas last night. So. Damn. Weird."

"And there was no one there?" Éponine guessed. "I used to have that happen, only it was because I hadn't eaten in days and everything had gone funny anyhow. Sometimes I still think I do, I can't be sure. I don't think that's the case for you, is it?"

"Noooo. And I didn't drink any of the sparkly stuff. Though usually that makes me see things, not hear things, anyway." Kenzi considered.

"The devil," Éponine muttered. "Talking of seeing things, I saw a man on a street corner last week, selling cabbages out of a cart, shouting like any merchant you'd find in a market stall, only not a sound came out of his mouth, and he certainly didn't seem to realize I was there. He seemed real enough, but how am I to be sure?"

"The hell?" Kenzi frowned. "Soooo maybe the Island is going weird again? Like that time places disappeared?... only now stuff's appearing. And vanishing. And... yeah, I got nothin'."

"Can it make people vanish if I ask nicely enough?" Éponine muttered before she could stop herself, and immediately looked -- well, halfway repentant about it.

"Hunh? Hey, who needs vanishing? Or a stern talking-to?"

"D'you remember the picnic, when you told me most of the new girls seemed to be from around my time?" Éponine snorted, a humorless laugh. "Seems one of them's quite familiar to me."

She was so thrilled about this, Kenzi, couldn't you tell?

"Ohhhhhh. And this is-- not someone you wanted to see again?" Kenzi guessed, wincing.

"Hardly," said Éponine, but without realizing it she had reached into her pocket to take hold of that five-franc piece again. "So I suppose it was only inevitable that she would turn up eventually."

Because the universe hated her, apparently.

"So what'd she do to you? Swipe your guy? Bully you?" Kenzi bounced on the counter. "Who is it? Want me to mess her up?"

The first question drew a flinch from Éponine, and the second prompted a guilty expression.

"It doesn't matter now," she protested, halfhearted and slightly perturbed that her instinct was to protect Cosette, as if that could begin to make up for everything. "We've . . . something of a history, she and I."

Kenzi drummed her heels, eyes fixed on Éponine. "So, she's a new student, hunh. Did you talk to her?"

Éponine nodded, staring out the window. "Enough to know she doesn't recognize me, and I'd rather it stay that way."

Which was partly a lie, but avoidance seemed much easier than the alternative.

Kenzi gave her a sympathetic look, then bumped her arm against Éponine's shoulder. "Come over to Luke's tomorrow. I'll get you some kind of French pastry for dessert... why doesn't she recognize you, but you recognize her?"

"What kind of pastry?" No, Éponine, you were not going to succeed at deflecting this time.

"Something with lots of whipped cream." Kenzi poked at Éponine's arm. "Not gonna tell me?"

"There had better be chocolate too." Éponine kept staring out the window, and when she spoke up again she sounded distracted. "I hadn't seen her since we were children, you know, in Montfermeil. She didn't know what happened to us after she went away -- living comfortably with her father, spoiled horribly no doubt, while we --"

She stopped short and drew a sharp breath.

"I know now, what it must've been like for her watching Azelma and me play while Maman made her do all the work. I wish I didn't."

Kenzi grimaced, and quit poking. "Ahh, jeez." What do you actually say to that? Kenzi bit her lip. "So Cinderella got her fairy godfather. And you got left?"

Éponine nodded once at that. "The clock struck midnight," she said half to herself. "Isn't that how it always is, in the stories?"

"Yeah." And it kinda sucked that not all the Cinderellas got special treatment. "How old were you guys, last time you saw her?"

It kind of sucked that some of them did, if you asked Éponine.

"I don't think I was more than ten," Éponine answered. "It all runs together after so long."

Kenzi squeezed her shoulder. "Hey. You don't have to see her if you don't wanna. I mean, it's pretty easy to avoid the students most of the time, right? And you can make someone else wait on her if she ever comes in here and needs to mail something. Especially if she didn't recognize you."

The habit of flinching away from contact reflexively was going to be a hard one to break, and Éponine looked chagrined about it.

Also about the fact that she couldn't make up her mind about whether she really wanted to avoid Cosette forever.

"I could always disguise myself," she suggested, trying for humorous and mostly failing. "It worked before."

Kenzi winced too, because she knew better, really she did. But trying to get into the habit of not making sudden moves wasn't all that easy either.

"Are we talking mustache, or a red wig, or what?"

Not your fault, Kenzi. Blame the people she'd grown up around.

"Oh, I found some boy who fancied getting himself up in a skirt and traded clothes with him," explained Éponine, offhandedly, as if this hadn't been part of an elaborate and complicated (and desperate) ploy.

"Well, if she's eighteen-whatever, yeah, that might be enough to fool her... in a dark room. I guess. What'd you do about your chest?"

There weren't many times she could say her wrecked voice was an asset, but that had been one of them.

"Oh, any old scrap of fabric does well enough as a sort of bandage, underneath a shirt." Éponine let out a short, rough laugh. "Why -- are you planning on trying it sometime?" With different motivations, hopefully, because no.

"Naaah. At least, not unless I need to sneak into a guy's locker room somewhere." Oh hey there, Bad Idea Bear. "...which sure, not outside the realm of the possible. And yeeeesh. That had to hurt. Was it worth it?"

And wasn't that a loaded question.

Éponine thought it over for a minute or two, then said in a slightly surprised tone, "It brought me here in the end." It had (as far as she knew) also gotten Marius killed, and she supposed she felt a little bit badly about that, but it had put an end to the bleakness of her life one way or another. Ultimately, that worked out for her.

"So yes, I think I can say it was worth it."

"Good enough. So? Moving forward from there. Oui?" Kenzi grinned. "And whatshername can find her own way around the island in her own time. So all is well."

Like she'd told Jack, it wasn't as if she had much choice in the matter.

"Forward it is," she said, though how much she was likely to convince herself of that was as of yet still up in the air.

The new Broadway cast is going to kill me of adorkable, and they just started rehearsals yesterday.

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Fandom Post Office, January 14 (Tuesday)

Mod Your Post Office [1/14]

Talk to Éponine [1/14]

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OOC [FPO 1/14]