Welcome to Standing at the Crosswalk, a Feiully/Éponine Modern AU. Written for eponinejondrettes on tumblr. I hope you like it, darling. :)
Disclaimer: I am not Victor Hugo. I do not own the book, the musical, or the film, and I certainly do not own the characters.
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Standing at the Crosswalk
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He falls in love with her at first sight.
It's corny and cheesy and ought not be possible in this day and age, but he does.
She is a pretty, dark-haired, olive-skinned young woman in a big green coat, hands shoved into the pockets, eyes squinting at the crosswalk sign, waiting for it to change, and he's nearly run over by a bicycle because he's too busy staring at her.
As he stumbles over apologies to the unfortunate cyclist, she brushes past him, dark eyes a little curious, and she gifts him with a small smile when he catches her glance.
He knows he's a goner from that moment on.
She knows he fell for her fast, intense and earnest in his feelings for her as he is about everything he loves, whether it's the planes he helps design as an aeronautics engineer or the inner city children he helps to tutor or simply the sunsets he adores watching, face quietly enraptured.
She takes a little longer—their backgrounds are not so different, both of them growing up poor, marginalized, introduced early to hardship and despair. She's not the orphaned foster kid he was, shuffled unwanted from home to home, but her criminal parents were little better than the system, vacillating between physically abusive and completely neglectful.
But where his struggles have made him gentler, kinder, his strong heart opening wide to take in absolutely everybody, hers have made her wary, mistrustful, the shattered pieces of her heart clutched protectively in both hands, kept close to her chest where nobody can hurt it, hurt her.
He's patient, though, patient and steady and so, so kind, kinder than anyone she's ever met, and almost before she knows it, she's entrusting her broken heart into the keeping of his careful, skilled hands.
He pieces it back together with fine, tiny stitches made up of a thousand words and looks and special smiles meant just for her, and when he is done he places it back in her hands and steps away, seemingly content with a job well-done and expecting no payment, no reparations at all.
He's tied no strings to her heart, binding it to his, so she clumsily does it for him with a blurted, "I love you."
His eyes crinkle at the corners right before he kisses her.
He is not afraid of many things, but he is afraid of losing her, so it takes him longer than one might suspect to ask her for forever.
After all, who is he to ask her for the rest of her life in exchange for the rest of his? She shines so much brighter than him, so much fiercer, a husky-voiced writer with an imagination like wildfire and a few novels under her belt.
Surely she'll not stay with him; surely she'll move on to better things.
(He's blind to his own worth sometimes, blind to the steady, constant, comforting glow he bestows on everyone in his life, but most especially on her.)
But gradually, day after day after lazy, contentment-filled day with him by her side, he realizes that maybe she wants him for forever, too.
He takes her to a random crosswalk at nine in the morning, a few blocks down from her publishing house.
"What's this?" she asks with a smile, wrinkling her nose.
He kisses her forehead. "Wait here," he says, crossing the street.
He stands across from her, staring at her, hands shoved into his pockets and a look of nervous, wondrous expectation on his face.
"This is where I first saw you," he shouts across the street. "You were standing right over there, and I was right over here."
She laughs. "What? Are you kidding me? You still remember that?"
His gray eyes warm with joy. "How could I forget? This is where I fell in love with you."
Her breath catches in her throat. The intersection light turns green. He walks to her.
"You came to me, that first day," he says when he reaches her. "And then you left and took a piece of my heart with you."
He pulls out a small box and places it in her hand.
"I'm giving the rest of it to you for safe-keeping now," he says solemnly.
She opens it to find a small, heart-shaped ruby ring.
"It's not a diamond," he says, shrugging, "but you were never a diamond kind of girl." He's looking at her a tad anxiously, rocking back on his heels in that endearing way of his. "Still, will you marry me?"
She's crying and laughing when she says yes.
His eyes crinkle at the corner before he kisses her.
Endnote: Thank you for reading. We hope you enjoyed. Please review. :)