A/N: I don't ship Éponine/Montparnasse as anything more than friends and allies. I think Montparnasse was super gay and that that was part of what drove Éponine to Marius (though obviously there was a lot more to it than that). Yeah, I know they were semi-engaged in the Brick, but I don't think there was that kind of affection. I think it was an arrangement of convenience, but neither of them really wanted it. I prefer the dynamic they could have as friends.
Éponine straggled into her best and only friend's lair- for that was the only word for the dark, rotting crawl space by the alley which he inhabited- after a long day of pickpocketing and running errands for her father. She was another day sadder and another day closer to starvation. Montparnasse wished there was something he could do to make her feel better, he truly did. In lieu of something real, he doffed his hat to her in mock chivalry as she pulled back the faux-velvet drapery that hid his squalid yet cozy nest from prying eyes.
"Hey, 'Ponine, you look glum. What's the matter?"
"None of your business," Éponine snapped. "It's stupid anyway."
"Come on, my girl, out with it. No one can keep a secret from me."
"No, really. I don't want to talk about it."
"If someone is hassling you, I can give him the old classic flick-of-the-switch- "
"It's not that," said Éponine sadly. "It's someone who's been very kind to me, in every way except one."
Montparnasse put his hands on his hips. "I've been kind to you, haven't I?"
"Yes, but this is different. This is someone who could really change my life for the better, but he just tosses me aside like I'm nothing."
Montparnasse smiled knowingly. "Ah, I bet I know who it is. It's that next-door neighbor of yours, isn't it? That law student? What was his name? The Baron of something-or-other- "
"Pontmercy," Éponine told him. "Marius. I just found out that he's in love with a bourgeois girl."
"Well, he's obviously blind to your subtle charms and beauty, my dear," said Montparnasse smoothly, taking her by the arm.
"You're not jealous? I thought for sure you would be."
"Nah. Though I would like to carve out his throat for what he did to the gang and your family. If it weren't for him, your father's plan would have gone perfectly."
"He didn't actually do anything, you know," said Éponine defensively.
"He tipped off the cops, remember? I don't call that doing nothing. Because of him, you spent two months in prison."
"I'd spend another two months in prison if it would make him notice me," said Éponine sadly.
"Snap out of it, girl!" Montparnasse scolded her, losing his patience. "I thought I taught you better than this. No wonder your father doesn't think you're an asset to the gang. You're way too emotional. Going to prison never accomplishes anything." Here he had a sudden flashback to a conversation he had had with an old man a few months ago, one whom he had tried to rob but who had gotten the better of him. He decided not to tell Éponine about this, as it would only worry her.
Suddenly Montparnasse said, "I think I know how to help. I can take this- " he gestured vaguely to her bony body- "and turn it into something beautiful."
Éponine nearly jumped. If there was one thing Montparnasse knew how to do besides rob and murder, it was how to make someone- or something- beautiful. "What's the catch?" she asked suspiciously. "What do you want from me in exchange?"
"Nothing," he replied.
"Nothing? Really? I don't believe you."
"My dear, I take pleasure in the satisfaction of a job well done. All I ask in exchange is your solemn promise that you'll go and talk to this boy, find out everything he knows."
"About what?"
"About everything."
Éponine folded her arms. "'Parnasse, I highly doubt that he knows anything that would be useful to us."
"Then go to him with your beauty and make him yours. And if he still refuses you- teach him a lesson." He made a swish-and-flicker motion.
Éponine gasped in horror. "'Parnasse, you know I could never hurt Marius! I love him! Don't you know what that means?"
"'Fraid not." He shrugged carelessly. "I bet you'd hurt him if you got pushed to the limit, though."
"You've never loved anyone?" she challenged him. "You honestly have no idea how it feels?"
"Me? Ha! I have no soul, Éponine; you of all people ought to know that. I have no capacity to love anyone; I simply do not allow it."
"How I wish I had thought to do that before it happened!" Éponine said sarcastically, gesturing wildly with her arms. "Simply do not permit it; say, no more, love is not for me but for fools. How convenient, Montparnasse! How easy to wall off one's heart! And to think that all this time I thought you cared for me!"
"Oh, I never said I didn't care for you," said Montparnasse, leaning back against the creaky wall. "In fact, I am quite fond of you. I just never saw you in the way that everyone presumes."
"Y- you don't?"
Éponine knew it; she had known it all along; it was no surprise. Nevertheless, she slumped onto the worn-out ottoman cushion in disappointment. Her fragile ego simply could not afford to hear another man tell her that he didn't see her "in that way". Not that she would have wanted him; not that she would have seen him in the same way she saw Marius. But that could be even a greater comfort, to have so many men desiring her that she had the luxury of saying no. She wondered vaguely for a moment what it would be like if Montparnasse had been born into a bourgeois family, if he would still enjoy the same hobbies; but she stopped because she couldn't imagine it. She took instead to wondering what would happen if Marius and Montparnasse were to trade places for a day. She doubted that Marius would survive a day in her world, but that was part of why she loved him. He and Montparnasse were complimentary, in a way; same slick black hair, same fair complexion, same ivory teeth, red lips, strong hands, seductive voice. She envied Montparnasse his ability to stay like an embalmed corpse while she rotted on the outside. She thought that Marius was the unspoiled version of Montparnasse. Éponine wished that Montparnasse would let her borrow some of his unspoiled youthful beauty just for a day, just for long enough to win over Marius. She had always regretted that she had not been able to love Montparnasse "in that way", thinking that it meant there was something wrong with her; but now she was quite glad that she had dodged that bullet.
"You're depressed," Montparnasse observed, approaching her. "Here, have some opium."
Éponine got up. "'Parnasse, if you're not attracted to me, why do you keep up this ruse?"
"Because it's easier than the truth."
"What's the truth?" Éponine asked him.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me," Éponine challenged him.
"The truth is, that I am not... I do not... love women."
Éponine wrinkled her brow. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said.
"See? I knew you wouldn't believe me."
"But if you don't love women, then who do you love?" Éponine asked, afraid that she already knew the answer.
"If you ever tell anyone what I'm about to say, I'll slit your throat," Montparnasse warned her menacingly.
Éponine looked up at him in tired defiance. "Slit my throat right now, if you want to. I don't care. I'd welcome it."
Montparnasse took a deep breath. "...Men."
Montparnasse was so surprised when Éponine started laughing that he jumped a foot back. "You mean, like sodomy?" she asked, unable to control herself.
"You're the only one I can tell," he said, expertly making his admission of vulnerability sound like a threat. "You know what your father would do to me if he knew."
"My father can be surprisingly tolerant in such matters," she said, with a touch of humor.
"You know what I mean. If the marriage is called off- "
"The marriage was never going to be to begin with." She shifted confidently in her seat and sat up straight with her hands folded in her lap. "And it's not like you have much to offer the family that we don't already have."
"You truly are beautiful, Éponine," he said sincerely, coming closer again. "But you're like a sister to me. Even I can see that, and I can't control my urges."
Éponine laughed drily. "You'd make a great brother, 'Parnasse. I'd rather it be you walking me down the aisle on my wedding day than my pa."
"We both have our own ways of coping, I guess," said Montparnasse, leaning down and beginning to apply the lightest touches of primer to her face. "You have Marius, I have all this." He gestured vaguely to the maroon curtains, the mirrors, the roses with which he decorated his tiny corner of the world. "Who am I to steer you away from your way of dealing with all the shit you put up with every day? To each his own, that's what I say. Your secrets are safe with me."
A/N: What do you guys think? I may continue this into a two or three-shot if I get enough feedback, so we can see what happens when Montparnasse is done and he has to persuade Éponine to go to Marius' door and actually (gulp) talk to him. But I don't really ship Marponine either, so I don't know how to make you guys happy!
Also, please tell me if you think either of the characters are OOC. I have no respect for Montparnasse-in-Leather-Pants.