So, since I caved and wrote an Enjonine one-shot (if you wanna check it out, it's called 'Bang Bang'), I had to write this one as well. Enjoy and please please please review!
I've been high, I've been low
I've been yes and I've been oh hell no.
The doctors told him that it was fast. That there was no pain. That the most important person in his life slipped quickly into death without an inkling of a second knowing what was happening.
That should have comforted him, but it didn't. He sat in the hospital long after they told him the news, and his head rested in his hands because his neck felt too thin to hold it up. Someone sat in the seat next to him, causing the cheap chair to make a few squelching noises. A hesitant hand began to stroke his back.
As far as Courfeyrac knew, a stranger was comforting him. He leaned into the figure's comfortable caresses. After a few content minutes in which the guilt was lessened, he managed to look up. When he did, all the pain came rushing back to him in a huge wave. How could he have forgotten about his favorite person's sibling?
Gavroche's sister was comforting him as tears rolled down her cheeks. Courfeyrac knew that the two siblings weren't the closest, but Éponine cared for him enough to protect him from the conniving lives of the rest of their family. She'd contacted Marius after Gavroche got his first beating and begged him to take in Gavroche. At the time, Marius was living with Cosette and her father, leaving no room for a twelve year old boy. Marius felt so bad about it that he actually contacted Les Amis (After he and Cosette got together, Marius and Enjolras got into a huge argument, resulting in his unofficial departure from the group) to get someone to help him. Courfeyrac being Courfeyrac, he offered to take in the unnamed kid.
Courfeyrac knew that Gavroche had a sister, a little pathetic shadow of a girl who used to follow Marius around like a lost puppy. He'd only met her when she brought Gavroche to his house the first day. After that, she disappeared from their lives. As Gavroche said, "Good riddance."
Courfeyrac had chosen to not comment on the hidden pain in the preteen's eyes. And here she was, sitting there with tears soaking her slightly dirty face. Uncomfortably, he wrapped his arms around her thin shoulders, pulling her close to him. She buried her head in his chest, and strangely, he found that he didn't mind.
After a while, she finally spoke. "How did it happen?"
He gulped sharply and released her, returning his head to his hands in guilt. It was all his fault. If he hadn't been so goddamn stupid, Gavroche would be there comforting the both of them with his mischievous smile and sky blue eyes. Éponine, in her short patience, grabbed a handful of his dark curls and yanked his head back up so that he was looking her in the eyes.
She repeated her demand with a little more edge to her voice. "Tell me what happened."
Courfeyrac took a deep breath and steeled himself. "He was walking around the slums and there was a guy in a car with a gun…" He trailed off, the image of little Gavroche collapsing to the ground too prominent in his mind. "One shot to the head, the doc said he felt no pain."
"But what about the fear?" Éponine's voice was soft and forgiving even as she second-guessed the doctor's words. "There must have been at least a nanosecond in which he saw the gun and knew what was going to happen. He must have been so scared…"
"I'm sorry," Courfeyrac's voice broke. "It's all my fault."
"How the hell is it your fault?" She asked him, genuinely confused.
"I was stupid enough to give him a curfew. He's- he was- a free spirit. I couldn't hold him down, but in an attempt to I told him he wasn't allowed to leave the house after nine. He did it to prove that my curfew was stupid…"
"With logic like that," Éponine snorted, "It's my fault that this is happening…" She raised her shirt just a touch so that Courfeyrac could see the bruises covering her pale stomach. He winced and went to touch them lightly, but she knocked his hand away.
"But it is my fault." He tried again to argue his point, but to no avail. Éponine smiled sadly at him and placed a hand on his arm.
"It's not, Courfeyrac. You tried."
Then I met some ladies from Marin
We took the highway to the sun
Up the coast to catch some sun
They left me with these blisters on my skin.
They started dating a few months after Gavroche's death. For a while, everything was okay. He would come home from class to a clean apartment and Éponine, whose smile always foretold of an event better than dinner. They were the poster couple for sexually active, and there wasn't a single surface in his apartment that hadn't supported them as they reached a shattering climax.
Everything was going great, and he was moments away from saying he loved her when Marius proposed to Cosette. He'd forgotten all about her previous infatuation with Marius, so when he got home he eagerly told her the news and was confused when her face fell. When he remembered, he felt wounded past anything he'd ever felt before.
They got into their first argument that night. He blamed her for refusing to let go of Marius. She blamed him for not trusting her. He screamed that she was the one who couldn't be trusted, because she was still in love with his best friend for heaven's sake. She brought up Gavroche's death, which was the last straw for him. In his flash of anger, his arm twitched and Éponine was on the ground, clutching her cheek.
He couldn't say a word, he just watched as the girl he loved lay on the ground with her face so adorably crumpled as she cried. Then he spun on his heel, grabbed his coat and left her there.
That night, he went to a club and drank more than Grantaire did that night (which is no easy feat). In his drunkenness, Courfeyrac forgot about Éponine as he flirted shamelessly with girls whose hair was lighter than hers, whose skin was healthier, whose eyes were bluer. He met a pair of sisters from Milan, and the three of them left the club together. That was all he remembered.
When he woke up, he was laying in a bed with two girls curled into his chest. He could hear waves crashing against the shore in the near distance. The pain in his heart increased upon the realization that they were all naked. He cheated on her. He fucking cheated on his Éponine on the same night that he hit her. How could he be so terrible?
He peeled himself away from the girls and stumbled to where his pants were in a dirty heap on the ground. Courfeyrac reached for the cell phone in his pocket and dialed the number he knew by heart. She picked up after the second ring, but from her tone he could tell that she was still mad.
"Where are you?" She asked, and he looked back at the two curvy forms under the blanket. He couldn't find the heart to tell her the truth.
"I'm with the guys, we got a beach house for a night or two." The lie came smoothly. Then he tried apologizing, "Ép, I'm so sorry about last night, I never meant to hit you, and when I left I just wanted to forget about doing that to you after everything…"
"But you didn't forget." She reminded him, coolly. "You tried."
With that, she hung up on him.
He came home two days later, his soiled polo poorly hiding the hickeys that covered his neck in purple splotches. She was sitting in the living room, and his heart felt near to bursting with guilt when she turned her face and she had a black eye. Then he saw what surrounded her.
All her stuff was packed and she sat amongst it, looking at him with her unwavering gaze.
"You found out." Was all he had to say. She nodded, shortly. He sat down next to her on the couch and buried his face in his hands again, waiting for her small hand to ease the pain away. But she didn't touch him.
"All the guys were in town and Azelma dances at that club." She sighed, and Courfeyrac could hear the snotty residue from when she must have cried. "You hid it from me." Then she stopped and took a breath. "Or, you tried."
I drove into Seattle rain, fell in love then missed the train
That could've took me right back home to you.
With her gone, nothing was the same. The bed was too cold, the drinks were only empty kisses on his lonely lips, and the many many girls meant absolutely nothing to him. Her side of the bed still smelt like juniper and ginger, and there was still a box of tampons under the sink. When he got bored and cleaned the apartment, her bobby pins would click inside the vacuum cleaner like the empty crescendo of his new life.
This time, it actually was his fault.
Unable to stand his empty apartment (because it wasn't home without Éponine), he packed his valuable belongings into a few boxes and loaded his car. Without a second thought about class or work or his friends, he drove to the cemetery and stopped by Gavroche's grave.
Tears sprang to his eyes as he apologized for everything. He apologized for trying to hold Gavroche down. He apologized for dating his sister so soon after his death. He apologized for hitting her. He apologized for cheating on her and then letting her leave without a fight.
With all of his pain off his chest, he left the graveyard, not noticing the shadow of a girl that watched as he was driven to tears by his own mistakes.
He drove all night, heading north. He didn't know where he planned on going, but he hugged the coast for a good amount of time before slowly heading inland. He ended up in the outskirts of Seattle; he quickly grabbed a hotel room to get out of the relentless rain that poured down his back. He ignored the pretty maids in the hotel and instead collapsed on the slightly musty bed and slept the entire night for the first time since Éponine left.
In the morning, he wandered the city. He found that he liked the calculating gray sky and the mysterious shapes of the skyscrapers. He meandered through a crowded coffee shop and snagged a seat by the window. As he sat, the rain began to drip from the clouds and soon thundered into a steady beat that trickled down the window pane by Courfeyrac's head. He imagined that the over-abundant rain was washing away his past and giving him room to start over. He sipped his phenomenal coffee and decided that he was in love again. Not with another girl, because Éponine would always have his heart, but with a city.
It was his second month in Seattle, and he was at the coffee shop that became his favorite niche in the city. His phone rang, and he froze at the familiar ringtone. The barista he'd been flirting with backed away at his stone expression, and he cautiously answered.
"Éponine." Was all he said, and her breathing on the other line indicated that she was climbing stairs, presumably the ones to his old apartment in San Francisco.
"Please, let me in, I need to talk to you." She said as she caught her breath.
"I'm not there. I'm living in Seattle now." He said. There was an extended pause on her side of the line as she seemed to mull over his words.
"I love you." She finally said, and it was the sad truthfulness in her tone that caused his heart to skip a beat.
"But you won't forgive me." Courfeyrac said in response, trying to get over the fact that there was a chance she might.
"Please come home." Her voice was broken, and suddenly the coffee in front of him was nothing compared to the bleak taste of San Francisco's. The coffee shop was nothing compared to the café Musain. The pretty barista was a gorgon in comparison to Éponine's rough good looks.
He wanted her. He wanted home.
"I'll try." He said, and he meant it with all his heart. She was quiet for a while before responding.
"Okay."
She hung up, leaving Courfeyrac in distress. He ran out of the coffee shop, leaving his half-finished cup on the bar. He flagged a taxi to bring him to the train station, because he had no time to go all the way to his new flat and get his car. He stumbled over the many people and he bought a ticket to San Francisco. He pushed his way through all the necessary procedures with a desperation that impressed those around him. Courfeyrac told himself that this was a test; if he managed to make it to the next train, he and Éponine were meant to be together. Otherwise, he would stay in Seattle.
But when he finally made it to the tracks, the train was pulling away, leaving him behind in a sweaty, panting heap. He whipped out his phone and called her. She answered before the first ring was done.
"I missed the train." He informed her.
"You wanted to." She accused, hurt radiating through the little speaker of his iPhone. "You tried to."
I've been up, I've been down
I've been so damn lost since you're not around.
He caught the train after that and made it back home before sundown. However, when he got to his old apartment, she was no longer there. He went to the café and then to the Corinth, but there was no sign of her. The area he'd grown to love was a maze of twisted turns without her crooked smile and daunting eyes.
He saw her again when he went to Les Amis's meeting. She was sitting with Enjolras and Combeferre as they discussed an upcoming protest. With the withering glares most of the guys sent him, they were all on Éponine's side. Even Grantaire, who was cynical towards everything, seemed even more so towards Courfeyrac.
He pulled her aside after the meeting when he caught her outside with a cigarette. She knew how much he hated those.
"Éponine," he began, but she cut him off.
"Don't."
"I love you." He tried, but she shook her head in disbelief.
"If you loved me, you wouldn't have brought up my schoolgirl crush. You wouldn't have fucking hit me. You wouldn't have cheated and then left. Courfeyrac," She ignored his wince, for she usually called him by his Christian name. "I can't trust you."
"I was upset, okay? I didn't want to lose you," He grabbed her shoulders gently while he spoke of the Marius portion of the argument.
"But you did." She laughed ruefully, and all he wanted was to kiss that teasing mouth until the only noises she could make were those mewling sounds that escaped her lips when she was in heat.
"I wanted to drink away everything, and when I woke up I was with those girls. Ép, I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't have the guts to come home," he released her shoulders and gently cupped her face, causing the cigarette to fall from her lips and to the pavement. "I love you." He repeated, hoping for her to say it back.
She gave him a lingering kiss to avoid responding, but he couldn't complain. For the first time in months, Courfeyrac slept with the only person he ever truly loved. He fell asleep with her small form tucked into his arms, and he held her close in fear of her slipping away.
When the morning light woke him, she was gone.
Immediately, he called her. The phone rang longer than it usually did before she picked up, her voice tired. "Courfeyrac-"
"You don't forgive me." He said it without question, his heart breaking at the terrible thought that she never would.
"You tried." She supplied him before the line cut.
To tell you the truth, I miss everything, everything
It's a wild, wild beautiful world
But there's a wide-eyed girl back there
And she means everything, everything.
The day of the protest dawned with the forecast sunnier than foggy San Francisco was used to. The rolling hills felt comforting beneath his car as Courfeyrac met up with Les Amis at the café. Éponine was there, helping them to make signs. Her hair was half twisted up with her paint-stained cheek on display. Her threadbare sleeves were rolled to her elbows as she and Jehan finished their combined sign.
He managed to ignore her whilst they made the preparations. Enjolras reminded them that they were pairing with a more violent group, so the protest was bound to get physical. At this Courfeyrac immediately looked to Éponine. She met his eyes and shifted her gaze to make it look like she was staring out the window. But he'd seen her look, and his heart swelled when she was worried about him.
As they started to get into their various cars, Courfeyrac pulled Éponine aside and handed her his car keys. "Please," He begged. "Don't go to the protest."
She pursed her lips but turned away as if heeding his request. His worry was tamed for the duration of the drive to the square, where hundreds of other students stood with signs in their hands. It was an uplifting sight, and for that moment Courfeyrac forgot about Éponine.
The first shot rang out when he noticed his car parked along with the others. The police, who had been waiting for someone to get violent, began their terrible pathway to cease the protestations. More shots filled the air, and most of them were from the police force. Courfeyrac, in his hurry to get away, pushed an officer. Seeing this, another one took careful aim at Courfeyrac only to have their gun blocked by a flittering figure. Courfeyrac shouted with all his lungs could muster.
He knelt by her side, cradling her head as her shirt blossomed with red. A small trickle of blood eased out of her mouth and down her chin. Courfeyrac's shaking hands wiped it away. He gathered her limp form into his arms and tried to carry her. When he lifted, though, she yelped in intense pain. He couldn't bear to hurt her anymore, but he couldn't allow her to bleed out amongst the chaotic crowd.
Despair overtook him and he fell to his knees, holding her as though she was his ticket to life. In a way, she was, because without her there was no life for him to live. He didn't notice that he was crying until her weak and bloodstained hand caressed his cheek. He trapped her slick hand there and met her eyes.
"I told you to stay away," Was all he could say, because it was eating at him that he killed both Thernardiers, in a way.
"You tried," She said, gently. Life slipped out of her at that moment, and her dark eyes were fixed on the blue sky. Courfeyrac howled in grief.
Yes, he tried.
But he didn't try hard enough.
I hope that was suitably depressing! The song, in case you don't know, is 'Save Me San Francisco' by Train. Please leave any prompts for me or ConcreteAngelRoxHerHalo at madameaarontveit dot tumbr dot com. My individual blog is everysongthatwillstayunsung dot tumblr dot com.
I hate to shamelessly promote my other works, but please check out my story 'The Muses'! My update rule is two reviews per chapter and I have only one for chapter eight, so please just drop by and say hi (that rhymed!)!