Yeah, so I kind of ship this, along with É/E and E/R. It's like...I can't make up my mind, ya know? Anyway, this is Psycho's OTP, so I wrote this for her. I'm warning you-major character death and angst. I wrote this yesterday while I was crying about Éppy Liz, and I don't know...I just felt super depressed and this happened. Enjoy...?
If Only
One year prior, June 3, 1832
She knew that Monsieur Marius could never love her. Not now, not while he had his Cosette. Moving on seemed impossible. She sat in the corner of the café, trying vainly to drink away her pain.
He frowned at the girl in his corner. Who was she to interrupt his lonely cynical thinking? He sat down and ordered a bottle of liquor. We like the same thing, he thought, noticing her own bottle.
She noticed him staring dully at the blond leader. Sighing, he muttered, "if only they realized they were doomed..."
She looked up. "I don't care if they're doomed or not. I just want to go crawl in a hole and die."
He looked up. "Me, too."
Without precedent, she suddenly started sobbing. She pretended it was the alcohol affecting her judgment, but she had barely had more than a sip or two.
He didn't know what to do. Awkwardly, he hugged the girl.
June 4
She knew he was the only other who could relate.
He knew she was the only other who could relate.
No one else knew what they were going through.
June 5
"You shouldn't be here."
"Why not?"
"Because..."
"Let me come up with a reason for me to be here instead." She pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. She wrote a note, pressing it into his hand.
He read it and looked up, but she had already slipped away.
Hastily, he wrote a note of his own. It was so fast, so incredibly fast, but he knew it. It was more than a fancy, or a glance. He loved her? He loved her.
He gave her the note that night, tucking it into her hand while she was asleep, knowing that when she woke she would find it.
June 6
He believed her dead.
She believed him dead.
And they never learned any different.
June 6, 1833
He knew that all the others were dead. He knew it. He didn't even remember how he had survived. All he knew was that he couldn't go on. One year, he had made it that far without her. But he had only been going through the motions, he knew that, too. That night, he drank, more than ever before. He drank and drank, until the pain eased away and he sank into a welcome oblivion.
He never woke up. When they found him, he was clutching a note. It read,
I love you. That's my reason.
Éponine
That same night, they found a woman, in the same neighborhood. She had killed herself, a bullet through her right temple, and in her left hand she, too, held a note. It was written in a heavy, sloppy hand. It said,
I love you too.
R
If only they had known, they might have survived long, gotten married, had children, eased each other's pain. But they never got beyond that day, one year ago, when both believed the other to have died. They were buried next to each other, in the graveyard once known as the Corinthe wine shop.
If only they had known.