A/N: Wow, I can't believe I wrote this a whole year ago. I was going to post it on April Fools' Day, but I didn't get an account by then. So I promised myself that this year, I would post this fluffy little oneshot. Written because I'm a sucker for Eponine/Montparnasse fanfiction. And yes, it is fluffy. Extremely fluffy. Go-grab-the-garbage-pail-I-ate-too-many-marshmallows fluffy. Get the point?
Oh! I almost forgot. Read this as if it's before Eponine met Marius. She doesn't know Marius even exists yet.
He was different that day.
It was a warm, beautiful spring day and all the bourgeoise were out in their finest clothes, walking arm and arm in the park. i was leaning against a brick wall in my usual ugly, torn gown, like a toad in a flower garden. I don't know what I was doing there, but I remember looking around and suddenly, there he was. Montparnasse.
"Hey, 'Ponine," he greeted me. His voice was unusually soft.
I smiled nervously. Wordlessly, he offered me his arm and I took it, knowing full well what would happen to me if I didn't.
"Spring's here," he said softly. I nodded. We were, as usual, walking in the general direction of his flat.
He suddenly spoke again. " 'S a beautiful day. You look lovely." I blinked, wondering if I had heard him correctly. Usually it was just, "There you are, ya little bitch." But today he'd called me lovely! I must have imagined it.
"'Parnasse, what'd you jus' say?" I asked him, unable to believe what I had just heard.
"You look lovely," Montparnasse repeated. We had reached the building he lived in, and he held open the door for me, stepping aside to let me pass. I entered the tennant, utterly perplexed.
"A pretty girl like you deserved a beautiful dress," Montparnasse murmered behind me.
I laughed. "And where would I get th' money for a beautiful dress, 'Parnasse? Do you think I'm really some kind a stuck-up little rich girl in disguise as a gamine?"
Montparnasse smiled, a curious thing that confused me all the more. "What if it were a gift?" We had reached his flat. He opened the door, and I entered. Suudenly, something caught my eye.
Lying on his bed was the most beautiful dress in any store's window, the one I had secretly admired for months. Caught up in the experience, I raced to the bed, holding the dress up to myself. "For me?"
"You like it?"
" It's beautiful, 'Parnasse," I turned to him, grinning with childish delight.
He smiled too. "The undergarments are all on the chair. Try it on," he coaxed gently.
Once I had put on the dress, Montparnasse took his brush from its sacred spot on his battered dresser and began running it through my hair. I was stunned. The first or second time I had been with him, he had beaten me just for touching this brush. And now he was idly running it through my hair like he couldn't have cared less about it.
"'Parnasse, you're actin' strange today. Wha's wrong?"
"Nothing," Montparnasse replied, now gently rubbing the dirt form my face with three slender, pale fingers. "I just thought I ought to start being a little kinder to my girl."
When he was finished grooming me, Montparnasse passed me a small, cracked hand mirror. I blinked as I stared into it, wondering if the girl I saw was me.
Now I look back on it, there really wasn't much difference. I was- I am- still a gaunt, ugly gamine. But at the time, the person I saw in the mirror was the most lovely woman in Paris.
"Eponine..." Montparnasse breathed, resting his hands on my shoulders from behind me. "You look beautiful."
"Really?" I asked, ready to believe whatever he would tell me.
"Mmm-hmm," he said absently, watching me as I turned to face him. Then, he seemed to come back to Earth. "Come to bed, Ponine," he commanded gently, taking my hand and leading me to the mattress on the floor. We sat down and he embraced me softly. At first I was disapointed, knowing what would come next and not wanting him to take off my only ticket to beauty. But he never touched the fastenings of my dress.
For the first few minutes I waited for him to begin, but he didn't. We just sat there in one anothers' arms, kissing softly. I couldn't remember ever having been so happy.
Montparnasse broke away form another short kiss and looked into my eyes, brushing a lock of hair from my forehead. "Eponine, my lovely..." he whispered.
"'Parnasse..." I murmured back, feeling particularly fond of him.
"I love you," he said suddenly, taking my hand.
"Montparnasse, I- really?" I finally managed to ask once I had regained my speech. My heart was soaring.
His pause was longer than I had expected. I frowned slightly as I spotted that familiar mischevious look in his eye. "'Parnasse?"
Montparnasse grinned. And as sweetly and gently as he had said everything else, he whispered, "April Fools."
And he was gone.
Silly 'Parnasse! Don't you know that behind every joke is a bit of truth?
Ironically, today my friend told me that in France they have this holiday called April Fish, not April Fools'. (they literally stick pictures of fish on each others' backs.) Ah, well. This story was fun anyway, even if completely inaccurate.