Title: Duty
Rating: T
Summary: Marius is teased by Les Amis at his lack of experience with the fairer sex and Éponine has just been kicked out of her home for the last time. The two now have a proposition, no matter how uncomfortable it makes Marius. M/É, M/C.
A/N: I am trying to make this fic and Marius and Èponine (as well as the other characters) as like Les Mis as possible. Marius will, therefore, begin his story-life as a (hopefully) lovable lout and Èponine will begin hers as a scarily practical but social grace lacking although slightly-more-attractive-then-usual street girl. It will be my job to work a romance out of the two who never had a chance. The story begins before and during the events of the book, as the rebellion is in June.
In Which Stone Streets are Chilled
"Right, my girl!" Marius heard shouting through the thin walls of the tenement his desk and sighed. It was most annoying that Jondrette had no respect for his neighbors, or his own privacy. This was the third night this week that, when the older daughter came home, Jondrette had begun to shout.
The older girl, Èponine, came home a few nights a week at the unholy hour he was awake now. Marius knew this because this was almost dawn (it was too cold to sleep, in his room, so he worked through the long December nights instead) and he had seen her leaving with freshly painted red lips—whore's work, he supposed. It disgusted him slightly.
"I won't have any of this, girl!" Jondrette yelled. There was a slapping sound and Marius flinched. Did no one have any respect for people on the other floors or those who may be sleeping?
It should now be mentioned, as the reader has probably guessed, that the Jondrettes were actually the Thenardiers under a different name; it can be assumed that inside the Thenardier apartment Èponine was receiving a beating. Marius had not come from a household where domestic violence such as this was common, as it often is in poorer areas, and he had lead a relatively sheltered existence when it came to violence of any kind. Thus it can also be assumed that Marius was mostly (completely) unaware of what was happening in the Thenardier apartments, which was as follows, or what to do about it.
Thenardier was raging like a storm. He would never smash a dish or break a chair, for it would waste money, but his rage was not quiet and terrible, either. Instead, it was loud and violent, and he hit the only thing he could be sure wouldn't break in an expensive manner: the nearest person.
This person happened to be his eldest daughter, a girl of no more then seventeen named Èponine Thenardier.
Now a brief profile of Èponine is presented: she had been a beautiful child but years of poverty had taken their toll. Her cheeks were hollow, her face gaunt, her chin sharp and her bones bird-like and hollow. She had the malnourished look of a child and her hair's color had dulled and tangled. Blood, scratches, and dirt streaked and smeared across her body, her old dress and thin wrap. The only thing she had been able to retain from her childhood were her eyes, which had the same sharp gray-blue color; but now patches of red marred the whites of her eyes. Most of her pretty, long, black eyelashes had fallen out of been ripped or burned away in accidents.
The reason why he was hitting Èponine was exponentially clear to everyone who lived in the building, as Thenardier yelled for all to hear that Èponine had not brought in enough money and if she kept this up she would have to be whoring full time.
Marius silently pleaded for them to be quiet in his head. He had studies! 'If I do not complete this,' he thought, 'I will be unable to be on time for the meeting at the Cafe. If I am not on time, Enjolras will look on me as if I am uncaring of our ideals.' Marius disliked this idea. 'The others will turn to look at me. They will, perhaps, demand an explanation.' Marius's neck heated at the thought of the others turning to look at him. He disliked being the center of attention; too many things could go wrong. He could look like a fool, be discharged from his group of friends, even, and be alone in this confusing and often frightening place of poverty.
'And I shall have to give them one,' he thought, 'I can tell them that Jondrette in his apartments yells at his daughter until the sun rises and I was unable to complete my studies.' then, 'Oh! The poor daughter; as Enjolras talks about the wretched poor, here is one in front of me, in my midst.' Marius was very pleased with himself that he was living with the true poor. Despite this, it was bitterly cold, and he was wearing most of the clothing he possessed and blowing on his hands every so often to stop them from freezing.
Whilst in the Thenardier apartment, Monsieur hit Èponine with his chair; her mother loved her daughter enough to bit her cheek in pity, but was too afraid of Thenardier to warrant an intervention.
Then Èponine made the mistake of striking back at her father after a particularly good lash to the face, taking care not to damage her eyes, which her mother called her 'selling feature' and her father called 'the only unspoiled bit of your shitting face'. She jumped back immediately and put her hands over her head, but Thenardier hit her once more before shoving her out the open door, screaming curses into the hall. Before Èponine was able to stand, her father was screaming "And stay out, little bitch!" but a few moments later, her mother tossed out her coat and hat, waiting until her father had his back turned.
Èponine staggered to her feet before turning, grabbing the coat and hat but not putting them on; instead she ran past Marius's door and into the night. Or, now, at least, the morning.
Marius spared a moment of pity for the girl before turning back to his studies. They, at least, would not wait.
The gamin did not stop running of several minutes, until her side began to ache. Then she looked both ways in the manner of one who is being hunted before allowing herself to lean against the wall of a building. She pulled the wrap tighter around her shoulders, but it was too thin to warm herself. Èponine thought of summer in terms of her childhood in M. sur M.; golden and hot and carefree. She could not seem to remember the last time she had felt warm enough; she wondered if anyone in the drafty building could.
Èponine bet that Marius Pontmercy could. She knew him only in passing but had rather come to fancy the sight of him; he did not look like the others she knew, who had grown up with poverty and understood why there would never be enough food for everyone, why things would never change. They had a hopeless look in their eyes.
'Not,' she thought to herself, almost warm from thinking of the boy in the rooms near her family's, 'like Monsieur Marius Pontmercy.' having interacted only with people of the street she rarely used the honorific she did then, and, having done so, felt very pleased and grand indeed, until she realized how very cold it was, and her lips, which where almost blue, twisted into a frown.
Now a brief profile of Marius Pontmercy will be presented: his time living at the tenement had done little to dim the light of youth in his eyes which even the youngest of street children lack. His face forever held a notion of perpetual confusion; though this made him appear thoughtful. He did not look skeletally thin from lack of food nor overly robust from fighting for his money, he did not stink of drink, or of more unlawful substances, and he did not take whores. (This was a very important point for the gamin-turned-woman of the town. Èponine took the slavery she was forced into very unhappily) therefore in the eyes of Èponine M. Marius Pontmercy was like the summer she would not receive; so different from the rest of the characters in her life.
'But,' the thought came to her and made her give out a little sound of something the poverty-stricken equate to joy, 'I shan't have to participate in such acts again, for I do not live underneath the thumb of my father!'
Perhaps this would have brought her more happiness was she not practical enough to understand that now she had no money, no income of any sort other then working the streets. Nor did she have any sort of place to live and a few days on the streets would freeze her to death.
Èponine might have cried, but she had lived in Paris long enough to know it would not help her. This was an additional reason why she tried very hard not to reminisce on her childhood in M. sur M. in excess; she did not think that she would be able to cease dreaming, or crying, or both.