Accidental Break-In
Or 5 times Eponine and Enjolras run into each other, and one time it isn't accidental
Her head hurts.
With the amount of alcohol she'd been mainlining the night before that should not have been such a surprise. Basically, it's karma. Drinking is a terrible way to deal with her problems, and she should not be indulging in it this much – that is what Marius would say. Actually, that is what Marius will say when he sees her on his couch for the third time this week. And it's only Thursday – or Friday morning by now.
Fuck, she is so going to have to face Best Friend Wrath again.
She pulls the blanket over her head and ponders how Marius managed to find the time between work and dates with his new girlfriend (the girl she still has not met, damn it) to buy a new blanket. This one is way less scratchy than the old one.
As the sound of feet hitting the floor reaches her sensitive ears, she takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to decrease the chances of puking all over her best friend – again – before she even gets to explain or apologize. And knowing Marius as well as she does (over ten years of friendship will do that to you), she will have to do both.
"Nice upgrade on the blanket, dude," she speaks from underneath said blanket. "I mean, this one has a way lower scratch factor. I approve. Also, before you see anything else that will mentally scar you, I'm not wearing pants. Again. I think R puked on them last night because they really fucking stink. Don't worry, I'm wearing a shirt. Yours, of course, because mine was… well… fucking gross."
The shirt is fucking fancy, but her best friend is a fancy lawyer now, so she is only happy that he finally managed to upgrade his wardrobe to match his profession. Gone are the sweaters his grandma made – fugly as they are – and Marius has moved up in the world, to some stylish three-piece suits. She couldn't find his college band shirts either – which was much more disappointing – so she had to sleep in a crisp white blouse. But at least it's soft and it smells vaguely of fabric softener.
Really, the new girlfriend has left Marius almost unrecognizable.
"Is it safe for me to come out?" she asks, still hiding under the blanket. "Please don't hate me too much! I promise to quit drinking so much. I swear on my mother's life. I hate my mom, I know, but I really don't want her dead. So, I swear!"
Still there is no response from Marius. And even though her best friend is an awkward little shit, he is not usually so quiet, even on a Friday morning. Something is wrong.
So she peeks, dropping the blanket from her face inch by inch, hoping that she has not interrupted some kind of sexy interlude between Marius and his special lady friend – because she does not want to see that freckled ass again.
"What the fuck?" she makes her own head hurt with that screech.
The man staring down at her, holding a baseball bat in his nicely muscled arms – JFC, focus Éponine – is most definitely not her best friend. He is not wearing the ugly flannel pajamas Marius always wears to bed, and he doesn't have those adorable freckles that almost match Marius' slightly ginger hair. This guy is taller than her best friend, with slightly wavy blond hair kept in a short ponytail at the base of his neck. His eyes are narrowed, so she can't really tell what color they are. He looks furious with her.
"My head hurts," she groans, gently sitting up. "I don't know where Marius is, but I'm sure he's around. Or you can leave a message. I'm going back to sleep."
She pulls at the blanket again, only to stop when her bleary eyes catch sight of something that she certainly did not notice when she climbed the fire escape last night: there is a gorgeous cabinet where the TV should be. It's all vintage looking and she has got to ask Marius where he got the damn thing.
Only, not a single place of furniture in the apartment looks familiar. The couch is much more comfortable – and probably much more expensive – and she is clutching the softest blanket that has ever touched her skin. There are bookcases everywhere, made of dark wood, and some of the cases are in the exact spot where Marius keeps his stupid PlayStation – even though she beats him every time, he still likes to play.
He would never get rid of that damn thing, not for any girlfriend.
Well fuck.
"I broke into the wrong apartment, didn't I?" she wants to facepalm badly.
How did that even happen? Sure, she was pretty damn drunk, but she cannot have been drunk enough to enter the wrong apartment. She knows the route to Marius' place by heart, and the window was slightly open as usual. Keys are too complicated when she's drunk, because she has ruined many a key or a lock with drunken stupidity. It's why Marius refuses to give her a new one until she gets her life together.
"Who are you?" the blond guy is still gripping the bat tightly.
"You wouldn't happen to know Marius Pontmercy?" she avoids the topic. "Cuz I really thought this was his place."
Giving her name to a stranger is a bad idea, but this stranger could get her into a lot of trouble, seeing as she basically broke into his apartment and helped herself to some of his stuff – she is wearing his seriously high-quality shirt, and nothing else. It is making her feel kinda sexy, to be honest, and that is not a feeling she usually relates to hung-over mornings. But her legs are bare and tanned as she slips them from underneath the soft blanket – and she watches this stranger get more and more flustered as she reveals more and more skin.
She's got some kickass legs, so she's gotta flaunt them – not just to distract the cutie from filing charges, but also because she doesn't often get to feel this sexy. The urge to vomit has pretty much passed, so she has no problems standing up, facing the stranger with what she hopes is a sultry smile on her face.
"But I really like this a lot better than facing an angry best friend," she grins.
With a final peck to his cheek, she is out the door, holding her stinking clothes at a distance, hoping to figure out how she ended up at the stranger's apartment. And trying to figure out how she can 'accidentally' end up there again.
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Her drinking habits have improved a little after that night – 'cause she's sure the next stranger won't be so nice about it. She kinda wants to keep her record as clean as it's gonna get, so anymore accidental break-ins would not be a good idea.
Seriously, if she's ever gonna finish up grad school (so fucking expensive), she'll have to stay on the right side of the law. Seriously, no one is gonna trust her with kids if her record gets any worse than it already is. Some minor infractions from her wild teenage kicks aside, she's being doing pretty well. She shouldn't fuck that up.
So she only goes out drinking on weekends now, and she takes either Marius or his new girlfriend – who knew he was dating her old foster sister? – with her as a chaperone, to make sure she gets home safe and doesn't flash any more strangers her panties.
Though she doubts that apartment guy minded all that much.
She was wearing her good panties and everything; the ones without tears or holes in them, the ones that make her skin look tan and gorgeous. So if he did get an eyeful when she hightailed it the hell out of there…. Well, she committed a stupid crime, but she did look gorgeous when making her escape. At least there's that.
Really, she's been waiting for the cops to arrive at her place every day now, and it's been about a week without so much as a word. No flashing lights or angry beat cops, no hostile knocks on the door – at least not from anyone looking for her. Her roommate has managed to piss off some sorority girls, which was entertaining for a little while.
Since they're both grad students, they should not be involved in this petty shit. But it's just so fucking entertaining.
So it's with a bounce in her step that she walks into the seriously boring office building that happens to house the law firm Marius works for. Sure, in a few years she might work in a boring office of her own, but there'd better be some really fucking awesome decorations to make things bearable.
There's a ridiculous amount of security present, but they don't make her feel a damn bit safer about Marius' employment at a firm that has a reputation for taking on controversial cases. She sneaks past all the men with ease, making a note to tell Marius that the lobby is totally not safe. At all – because let's be real, if a retired petty thief can sneak past these people, dangerous people can do so as well.
On her way upstairs, she takes a flying leap into a mostly empty elevator of which the doors are about to close. She makes it just in time, landing against a hard surface that feels surprisingly like a man's chest.
Her good day just turned into a great one.
"Thanks for catching me," she grins before extricating herself.
"It's you!" the man in question speaks.
She looks up – well fuck! It is the guy from last month, the one whose apartment she broke into during her quest to get drunk every single night of the week. That epic quest had to be discontinued after that night – because breaking and entering is bad, mmkay?
"Shit," she is eloquent as usual.
This kind of coincidence is ridiculous? What even are the odds of running into him a second time, especially a second time when looking for Marius? She is sure one of Marius' brainiac friends could calculate that for her. But that's so not the point, because right now she just really needs an exit plan.
Getting arrested again would be really bad – it would ruin the excellent streak she's been on since she started being a good girl in senior year of high school.
"Please don't have me arrested," she decides to just come out with it.
They are the only two people in the elevator, and she only has about seven floors to convince him. And since this elevator is shooting up way too fast, that does not leave her with that much time to get persuasive.
"It was an accident," she tells him, hands moving frantically. "Your apartment is like, exactly where my friend's is, only one building to the left. Total drunken accident!"
With one eye on the doors, she tries to guess just how much time she has left before she can make her escape. Ten seconds? Fifteen? Maybe twenty if she is really unlucky and other people need to join them in awkwardness.
When the elevator finally stops on the right floor, she jumps out, trying not to trip over her own feet as she makes her escape.
Guess this is the last time she'll pick up Marius at work.
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Supposedly the guest lecturer is this brilliant mind who graduated from high school at age 16 and managed to get through college and law school so fast that he's one of the best and the brightest in the law world before his thirtieth birthday. Nobody is telling her his exact age, but he should not be that much older than the students.
And while she hopes the class is actually interesting, she mostly just hopes that the guy is hot. She needs someone else to think about other than the guy whose apartment she broke into – she should not still be thinking about how hot he was and about his shirt that is still hiding in her closet.
Yeah, she might actually keep that, like the pathetic weirdo she is.
Anyway, so, this guest lecture. She doesn't technically have to be here, but she figures her presence might appease the professor – because she's been a bit absent in classes lately. She blames the guy she burgled. The shirt totally counts as stealing.
That just makes it worse. Great.
"Welcome everyone," the professor wears a smug grin. "I want to introduce Gabriel Enjolras, graduate of this very university and now a prominent lawyer at Chandler, Finn, and Smith. He will be speaking today on his experience with family law."
She looks up just in time to see familiar eyes boring into hers – of course it's the same guy she was just thinking about. Of course she actually accidentally broke into the apartment of a sort of famous lawyer. Well, fuck.
There goes her career.
"Thank you for having me, professor Mendez," he has to acknowledge their leader. "I know that the details of law might not be to your particular interest in this class, but I will try to focus on the cases that be most relevant to you as a class."
Now she has to remain focused on this lecture – because she really is interested in family law – while hoping she can escape immediately after this class. And at the same time, she has to try not to be too obvious about her drooling over his stupid physique that she should not be focusing on.
Seriously, somehow she noticed his looks that first time, and apparently her drunken/hung-over memory is much better than she ever imagined it to be, because she has been unable to get him out of her head ever since that moment. The wavy hair, still in a ponytail. The eyes that might be gray or blue depending on the light.
He is still the same and she can't stop staring like a stupid, naïve high school girl.
Maybe she should just get all the staring done while she still can – she doubts that the police officers he is undoubtedly sending her way after this will be as visually appealing as he is. Shit, she is so totally fucked, and not in the good way.
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When she finds him in her favorite chair at her favorite coffee shop, she is seriously fucking tempted to back away slowly and just go on without her desperately needed dose of caffeine. Seriously, if he hasn't had her arrested yet, she can't keep tempting him to do so by showing up everywhere he is.
Not that she is doing that on purpose, but karma is a fucking bitch, and she has clearly pissed off that bitch one too many times.
But really, if she has to deal with an all-nighter for that fucking paper she should have gotten started on days ago, she is going to need that coffee. And this is the only place around that actually has decent coffee for a decent price.
So she might just have to face the beast.
"Funny running into you here," she decides to just walk up to him and get the awkward encounter over with. "Enjolras, was it?"
She does have the advantage of knowing his name when he does not know hers. Sure, giving him custody over the shirt would be going too far – it is just so damn comfy – but she is going to at least try to be nice to him.
"Éponine," he acknowledges her and she tries not to look too flabbergasted.
It is taking everything for her to keep her mouth shut and not ask him just how he knows her name. As far as she knows, they are complete strangers. Heck, the only reason she knows his stupid name is because he is semi-famous in his field. There are no such honors attached to her name, so it makes absolutely no sense for him to know anything about her other than her terrible drinking habits.
"Well, I think we've moved past mere coincidence at this point," she waves at 'Chetta behind the counter, trying to keep things light and pleasant. "Once is awkward, two is a coincidence, and three is a pattern. We're at accidental meeting number four."
Maybe they should just talk things through, get the awkwardness – and inevitable arrest – out of the way. Because if things keep going like this, next week she is going to find him in her dorm room, talking to her roommate like they're old friends. That is how Bizarro World her life has gotten since she first met him.
"I doubt this will be the last one," Enjolras looks her in the eye ever so briefly before looking away again. "I do work at the same firm as your friend Marius. I assume our paths are bound to cross again because of him."
She can be civil if he is too – well, shit, not that civil is the right word here.
"I promise not to have you arrested," he adds, and she takes a relieved breath.
"That's all I ask of you," she awkwardly quips.
Because he damn well discombobulates her, she is off like a shot, snagging her coffee from 'Chetta and tossing a crumpled bill at her friend that hopefully covers at least some of her outstanding bills. No time to talk, no time to even look at her friend or that damn guy again before she is out the door and on her way.
Dwelling on how he flusters her would just be a bad idea. It's not just the threat of arrest that was hanging over her head until now, it's just how she can never be composed around him.
Well, clearly she'll have to learn, because karma still has a bone to pick with her.
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Azelma's clunker stands out a bit in the midst of the drive-in, but they're paying that no mind. And why would they, when Casablanca was about to start on the biggest screen they'd ever been able to watch it on?
Of course, the minute the lame previews start and her attention starts to drift, she spots a familiar figure a few cars over. His blonde hair is still in that ponytail, and he is dressed a little too formally for a night spent watching a movie in his car.
He's everywhere she is, so why not here?
"I told Courf to meet me here," Azelma is so very late to mention. "You won't mind entertaining his friend, right? If he's super boring, you can always ignore him to watch the movie."
Ever since Azelma and Courfeyrac (what even is his first name?) started getting serious, she's been bailing on sister time for her damn boyfriend. Really, Eponine should have known when Azelma agreed to the outing without concern for a night spent away from her boyfriend – because she wasn't going to be apart from him.
"Fine," she huffs.
At least she'll always have Paris.
"His name is Gabriel something," Azelma continues.
Seriously? Does karma hate her that much? Is that still a thing? Does she really have to run into him everywhere?
Not that she doesn't want to see him – she is very appreciative of the visual he presents – but to be forced to see him and have it be so awkward every single time is not really her idea of fun. Somehow she always comes across as such a complete mess when he's around, and he seems all too put together. For once, she'd like to see him on her terms, when she's ready for him.
She's sure she can make his jaw drop a time or two, leave him discombobulated for once – she can be pretty and funny and impressive. Well, for twice maybe, because she did leave him kind of stunned and in awe when she ran out of his apartment half naked. Maybe nudity is what it takes to surprise him.
"Courf, baby," Azelma is already all over him – no surprise there.
Gabriel Enjolras is trying really hard to avoid getting in the way of the way too amorous reunion. Luckily for him, Azelma and Courfeyrac appear to be heading in the direction of his car. Only, that does leave Enjolras with Eponine.
"We meet again," she grins.
"So we do," he is not a man of many words right now.
Well, she can deal with that. She climbs back into Azelma's car, motioning for him to follow – she doesn't want to miss the movie.
"This does explain why Courfeyrac suddenly wanted to see Casablanca," he mutters as he climbs into the passenger seat.
He has to slide the seat backwards quite a bit, and she is trying not to be too obvious about how she's eyeing him. He's just so tall, and he's looking handsome, and if they'd met any other way, she might have tried to make something out of it. But not even the great Eponine Thenardier can make burglary into a meet-cute, right?
"If you're saying you hate this movie, I'll kick you out of this car," she warns.
She is not even joking much.
"I could never hate a true classic," he quickly replies.
"Good," she grins. "And I promise not to steal anything this time."
Why not make a joke out of it? He already said he wouldn't report her, so it's time to let it be an inside joke instead of a source of anxiety.
"Sounds like a plan," he's smiling too.
And then they're quiet, listening to the movie and trying to pretend they aren't looking at each other. She's sneakier about it than he is, but even the great Eponine Thenardier gets caught sometimes.
If they keep getting thrown in each other's paths, why not enjoy it?
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It's been a whole week since the drive-in, and she hasn't seen him. She hasn't accidentally run into him at the coffee shop again, she hasn't been by to visit Marius at his office, and clearly the universe is sick of throwing them at each other. And that sucks, because it chooses to quit just when she actually wants to run into him.
She had a great time at the drive-in. He didn't try to talk through the movie, and he snuck back to Courfeyrac's car to get them some snacks that technically weren't quite allowed. When she teased him about her being a bad influence on him, he went with it, displaying a sense of humor she hadn't seen much more than a glimpse of before. She was intrigued, even more so than before.
So here she is, standing in front of his door on a Friday night, hoping he'll actually be home. Actually, she is pretty sure he will be home, but she is just unsure if he will want to see her again. He didn't ask for her number after the movie, so clearly he isn't interested in her the way she is in him.
Ugh, this feeling is so disappointing for a badass such as herself, but she is going to power through it.
The doorbell sounds, and she waits for a response, awkwardly holding the newly washed shirt. She hates that she has to return it, but if he's not interested, it might be for the best. It would be too awkward to have a random shirt belonging to him at her house, especially if their paths crossed again in the future. They probably will, knowing how the universe likes to mess with her.
"Eponine," Enjolras is smiling when he opens the door.
"Gabriel," she has to grin in return. "I came by to bring back your shirt."
Or, actually, she is using that shirt as a damn good excuse. Hopefully he'll see right through her and appreciate the effort. Ugh, she is so beyond wishful thinking, but he's making her.
"It probably looks better on you," he says.
And then he blushes, making her think that he really did not mean to let that slip. It's a very good sign, and the blush is actually working for him.
"Do you want to come in?" Enjolras recovers quickly.
She walks in without another word – because did he really think that she was going to say no to that?
When she walks back out the next morning, she is wearing the shirt.
At least this time she didn't have to sleep on the couch.