Title: Vaudevillains
Fandom: Les Misérables (1920s AU)
Pairing: Montparnasse x Éponine
Genre: Fluff/romance
Rating: T
Warnings: mentions of violence/murder, the usual
Notes: this is probably the happiest thing I've ever written tbh it gives me warm fuzzies
They are always an odd couple, he in his well-cut suit and scarf and bowtie, and she in a threadbare tea dress that has seen a younger decade, hacked off at the knee so that she blends in with the fashion for baring one's pins. Her hair is chopped unevenly just past her chin. She could doll herself up to impress the doorman at the Folies Bergère and go to watch the chorus girls, but refuses - she lets her beau zero in on his target, while she leeches the crowd outside.
Later, near the backstage exit, she can hear a tinkling of worn-out piano keys and the mass drone of the audience, but it doesn't drown out the shuffling, desperate struggle behind her. Éponine peers round the corner of the wall and there he is, in his element, subduing a young woman with ineffable grace. She's a cool-skinned blonde in a salmon-pink dress bordered with gold and her hands are clawing to loosen the leather belt that chokes her. He is well versed in the dance, and a flick of his wrist is all it takes for the girl to go limp in his arms.
A celebrity in the city's underworld, and the stylized hitman of Patron-Minette: he's a go-to for savvy members of the populace who want someone taken care of. Tonight's unfortunate victim had recently come into a large inheritance, and married a man with bad intentions. Upon her husband's failure to meet her in the line for the cabaret, she was ill-fated to accept the escort of a handsome stranger. Montparnasse anticipates a fine retainer for dealing with this one so cleanly. His lover and lookout - well, she might see a few francs if she's in the mood to accept them.
There's really no time to pause and admire his handiwork, but Éponine stands, wide-eyed and vacant, observing the special stillness of the lukewarm lady as she's lain to rest on the ground. Any hint of conscience is murky as she lurches forward to snap off the freshwater pearls that are strung around the corpse's neck. Three, four, five tumble away, and she scrambles to catch: he grouses and grasps her hand and hauls her to the street. Around them, the postwar public revel in their superficial loss of inhibition, clad in sequins and silk - but it is two criminals calmly leaving a murder scene, beginning to laugh along the Rue Richer, that find themselves truly liberated.