A/N: I wish people shipped these two more, they're adorable and I could actually see them work together perfectly. Plus, Killian Donnelly being a gorgeous perfect human being also helps!
-:-
Éponine Thénardier has always made it her business to know things, and the boy who sits alone at table number four every afternoon at the Café Musain is no exception.
For instance, she could tell you how he takes his coffee. (Regular black, no sugar.) She could tell you when he'll come in, and when he'll get up to leave. (Quarter to one and twenty past, just in time for his afternoon classes.) And she knows the tip he'll leave for her every time, though the jacket he wears is frayed at the seams and the thick books he carries with him look decidedly second-hand.
But best of all, she knows how to angle her head when she's serving him, to catch sight of Marius Pontmercy's face at the café across the street, as he pores over his notes by the window and lets his tea go cold.
She knows all of these things, but when the boy who sits alone at table number four clasps his hand around her wrist and looks up at her with his quiet grey eyes, she starts to wonder if she's ever really known anything at all.
"What are you doing?" he asks, his voice so low she can barely hear him even so close.
Éponine looks at her left hand, at the tips of her fingers still slipped into his wallet. (Hidden under the tray as she bent to place it before him, working nimbly, expertly, he wasn't supposed to see—)
His student ID peeks out from inside. Combeferre, the name reads.
Her head is screaming white noise, but she finds that she cannot speak or move or formulate a single coherent thought.
"Don't be scared," he says, ever so gentle. "I just want to know why you put your hand there."
Why doesn't he shout? Why doesn't he leap to his feet in anger, push her roughly aside, call for Madame Hucheloup?
Then she could be unceremoniously fired, and she'd toss her name tag in the bin before she left, and never have to look into the quiet grey eyes of the boy who sits alone at table number four again.
"It's all right," the boy—Combeferre—is saying. His hand is still clasped around her arm, and she doesn't want to notice how big and strong and warm it feels against her bony wrist. "I've seen you run from this job to the next, phoning home to make sure your—younger siblings, I believe, have returned from school. I'm sorry, I don't meant to come off as a stalker, but I live nearby and can't help noticing sometimes, when I come down for a smoke."
He's apologising. Why is he apologising? She is the one with her fingertips in his wallet, and he is the one apologising.
Éponine clenches down on her jaw to hold back the tears prickling the corners of her eyes.
"You're shaking," he's still saying, and why is he still talking, why won't he just stop? "You don't have to—"
It is Madame Hucheloup who saves her at this point, miraculously. Craning her thick neck around from her seat behind the cash register, she suspiciously asks, "What's going on over there?"
This is it, Éponine thinks. This is where he'll tell her. And Madame Hucheloup will waddle over, apologising profusely, before letting her walk out through that door. Leaving her apron and her name tag and strange boys with warm hands and unsettling eyes behind her for good.
Then Combeferre hitches a breath, tugging her wrist gently to catch her attention. But she still can't bring herself to look up at him.
"I'm sorry," he says to her, voice raised so that Madame Hucheloup can hear him. He lets go of her hand. When did the room grow so cold? "That was inappropriate. After your shift is over, then. I'll meet you outside the shop?"
Madame Hucheloup makes the disapproving cluck she usually reserves for Valentine's Day decorations and Cosette's endless supply of chick lit, and returns to her knitting.
"Éponine," he urges, voice quiet once more as curious eyes from around the room turn to watch the little scene play out. "Quick, say yes."
Her head is still quite blank, but there is something in those calm, grey eyes that makes her want to trust him completely. "Yes," she answers without really thinking, and he sighs softly in relief.
She feels numb as she walks away, and it's only when she's crouching in a corner of the pantry with the tears streaming unreservedly down her cheeks, that she realises what he'd done.
She wipes away her running mascara, and decides she really hates boys who hold your hand when you try to rob them, then ask you out in public to help you save your job.
-:-
"Look, I'm sorry about earlier," are the first words he says when she steps out onto the street. Her shift ended fifteen minutes back, and for the first time in her life she'd lingered and dawdled as much as she could on her way out. "It was a stupid idea, but it was the first thing I could think of at the time. Where do you stay? I'll just walk you home then, if that's okay."
She doesn't think to ask him how he knows she has no second job to go to tonight. It's Tuesday, the only free evening she has in the week. And really, this might possibly sort of maybe smack of stalker behaviour, but somehow, inexplicably, it doesn't make her feel uncomfortable.
What does is the way she feels she can trust him, this boy she barely knows. And she's only ever known to expect the worst in people, because that's what people are. She looks down at her feet, and doesn't say a word.
She's Éponine Thénardier, forever holding a snappy retort at the tip of her tongue. She's Éponine Thénardier, and she's been struck speechless by a boy.
It's this realisation, and utter indignation that anyone could dare to make her act so unlike herself, that makes her speak up at last.
"I don't need you to walk me home, thanks," she says tersely, and makes to leave.
"You can blindfold me along the way and leave me to fend for myself somewhere in the middle, if you like," says Combeferre wryly. "It's just that I see at least four of your co-workers making their best attempts to discreetly see which way we go, and it'd just be rude to deprive their customers of their undivided attention any longer."
Éponine looks around at that, and sure enough, Cosette sends her a thumbs-up from the window as three of the evening shift waitresses climb over each other to look through the next one.
An idea forms in her head at the speed of light, eclipsing everything else she'd been thinking just a moment ago. She giggles, and grabs Combeferre by the arm.
"Shh," she tells him. "Follow my lead!"
She sends a cheery wave back at their spectators, and starts off across the street, steering Combeferre along with her. He must be taken aback at this turn of events, but he doesn't say anything and she keeps her eyes trained on her destination.
It's the chemist's shop, conveniently located just opposite the Café Musain.
When they enter, she doubles over immediately with laughter. "Oh my god," she gasps with difficulty, and turns to the elderly shop owner blinking benignly at them from behind glasses at least an inch thick. "Hope you don't mind, old man, we'll only be a minute!"
"Ah," says Combeferre. "They'll think we came here to buy—right. Very clever. I'm impressed."
When she looks up at him, he's smiling at her. It's quite possibly the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, and for a moment time twists and shrinks till that smile on his face is all that remains. Silently judging herself for engaging in such a silly, naïve fancy, she quickly ducks her head away to hide the sudden blush blooming in her cheeks.
She turns to look at the door instead, but she wasn't planning on him coming up behind her. "I think we can leave now," he says, and he is certainly not close enough to ruffle the hairs at the back of her neck with his breath, but warmth and a shiver spread across it anyway.
She nods quickly, eager to walk off the unfamiliar sensation still prickling down her spine.
They step back onto the street, and Éponine can't resist looking around at the Musain where of course Cosette and her troopers are still gawking through the window. She blows them a kiss, grabs Combeferre by the arm again and stalks off in the direction of her home.
They turn a corner, and out of sight. "That should give them enough to talk about for the rest of their shift!" Éponine laughs, relaxing. "Never let it be said that Éponine Thénardier doesn't put in a good deed when she can."
Her eyes light on the arm she's still holding on to, and she quickly lets go. Her face feels like it's grown warm again, and she starts to think of Madame Hucheloup's generous moustache to take her mind off things.
"I wouldn't dream of it," answers Combeferre gravely.
"That's a good decision," Éponine nods. She feels like she's floating, aware of the prickly earth she can land on any moment now. But it's so much easier to stay just like this. "Much like that little ice cream van over there." She fingers the money in her pocket. "It's never open when my second job finishes, and it would just be a crime to leave that ginger sorbet to languish in a lonely, cold freezer like that."
She runs over, and points out the one she wants to the vendor. It still feels like a strange sort of dream she doesn't want to wake up from, because reality is harsh and unpleasant and so, so complicated. She has her ice unwrapped halfway down, when Combeferre arrives.
"Oh god," she groans, taking her first taste. "This is just—oh my god, mmh. Heavenly. You have to try it! Another one of this please, Monsieur—" she says, turning to the vendor.
"No, thank you," Combeferre smiles, and her heart skips a beat again. She sinks her teeth into the ice, and welcomes the numbing rush.
"But that is unacceptable!" cries Éponine, in outrage. "You can't leave without a taste, I won't allow it!"
She jabs the stick forward nearly into his mouth.
Combeferre pulls his head back a fraction, clearly taken aback. Then he relaxes, and sighs in resignation. The ice is practically in contact with his lips already, anyway. He leans back in, and takes a tentative taste.
His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and Éponine giggles. She takes a taste of her own, and blinks expectantly at him.
"That," concludes Combeferre, "was… um, pretty good? I wasn't—I wasn't quite expecting that, no. How much did you say it costs again?"
"Cheapest ice-cream in all of Paris!" trills Éponine, and offers him another bite.
They take turns with the ice, and there's no more talking for a while. Combeferre tries to look politely disinclined every time she brings it to his face, but it's half-hearted and eventually he stops trying altogether.
"Hey," he says some minutes later. They've nearly finished the ice between them, and evening has settled over the neighbourhood. "You've got some on your chin."
He places his thumb below her lip, and gently wipes it away.
It's the softest of touches, but it feels like someone trying to break into her dream and shake her violently awake. She jerks her face away from the touch, half-conscious now of the reality she'll be left with no option but to face when she opens her eyes, but she doesn't want to wake up, she doesn't. Quickly, she eats up the last bit of ice and tosses the stick in the bin.
She turns to the vendor, money in her hand. How many times has she nicked an extra ice or two for Gavroche and Azelma when he wasn't looking? She slams the money down, turns, and sets off into a half-run.
Combeferre catches up with her when she's halfway across the street. She hasn't even noticed she might be in the way of traffic, when he catches hold of her hand and pulls her to the pavement opposite.
It is the hand holding hers, warm and safe and strong, that pulls the dream apart at last. She tears her hand away as if she's been burned. And it is like being burned, this stark reminder of what she'd tried to do that very afternoon. What she'd very nearly done. He moves till she's forced to face him, but he doesn't speak.
"What are you doing?" she says softly, surprising even herself with how harsh and bitter her voice sounds. Once more, she cannot look him in the eye.
He freezes, and she presses on. "Have you alerted the police? Are they lurking in the shadows right now, am I leading them to my home so they can perform a cosy little… raid?"
Combeferre's eyes widen a fraction, but she doesn't let him speak. "No," she says, running her eyes deliberately over his threadbare jumper and shabby shoes, "I don't think that's it. I know your disease; I've seen it plenty. You just think you're a regular Samaritan, don't you?"
Her lips curl in a thin sneer and she keeps talking, heedless of what she's saying. "Let's show the poor, broken girl who lives off the street a few lessons in morality, shall we? That should make me feel better about myself. Well I'm sorry to disappoint, Monsieur, but you can't save me. I don't need your charity, and I definitely, definitely don't need you."
She whirls around, and sets off in the direction of her home.
"I don't want to save you." She stops dead in her tracks. The streetlamp overhead sends a circle of light around her ankles. She wants to move. She really does. She wants to run, run, run, but she can't.
"I don't want to save you," he says again. "I never intended to. I just wanted to get to know you, a little. You've been strong on your own for a long time, Éponine. It doesn't have to stay that way."
Éponine swallows the sob threatening to tear out from her lungs. She's known everything there is to be known, hasn't she? Fancied herself in love, even?
But she can't give a name to the things this boy has made her feel, all in the space of one day, and it terrifies her.
"There's nothing wrong with you, Éponine. We are the sum of all our parts, and when I see you I see the beautiful, witty girl who serves me at the Café Musain every afternoon, and works till ten in the night just so her siblings can stay in school."
She bites her lip hard enough to bleed, and runs.
-:-
When Éponine wakes up, it hasn't even struck four in the morning yet. But she sits bolt upright, and in spite of the dried tear tracks still staining her cheeks, feels more awake than she has in a long time.
Tiptoeing over to Azelma's corner of their room, she bends to rummage below her desk. When she straightens up, there is a sheet of paper and a pair of scissors in her hands.
She returns to her own corner, and sets to work.
-:-
There aren't a lot of things Éponine Thénardier has really put her mind into learning very well, but she does get plenty of practice in odd places. From braiding Azelma's hair for school in all of half a minute to casually nicking a few extra carrots at the market every now and then, she has always been clever with her hands.
The paper flowers crowding her bed by the time she has to leave for her shift are plain, but they carry a little bit of her heart in them and she hopes they look like thank you. She wishes she could give up her skewed up sense of pride enough to actually walk up to Combeferre and say the words, but as inadequate as this is, she hopes it can be a start. And one day, she'll be able to find the words too.
The first time she does it, she knows he'll be too surprised to act. So she sets down the tray with his order in front of him and allows herself a moment to watch his eyebrows furrow as he notices the little paper flower in pale violet sitting next to his bagel. Then as he begins to react, she scampers off to the safety of the counter, and from behind it tracks the movement of his eyeballs to the trays laid out in front of other customers and the distinct lack of little paper flowers on them.
"What are you doing?" asks Cosette curiously, lightly nudging her with her novel on the top of her head. (She's definitely not crouching behind the counter, watching his eyes stray to the flower from time to time as he eats.)
"Shh," she answers, punching her in the shin.
Cosette bends behind her, follows her gaze, and says, "Oh, my."
The next time, she is a lot more wary as she approaches his table. Springing on him unawares from behind, she barely lets the tray hit the table before she darts away to help in the kitchen. Which really is just a fancy way to say hide.
She knows he's dying to ask her about it, but she isn't ready yet. And still she leaves little paper flowers on his tray, and he keeps trying to get his reflexes quicker, till in time it turns into something of a game between them.
"You don't have the flu, do ya?" Gavroche demands of her one day. "You keep smilin' to yourself these days, and it gives me the creeps."
And it's true—she catches herself humming at random hours of the day, her cheeks growing warm while she hides in the kitchen till he leaves. And so it goes, and with every day that passes Éponine starts to feel a little bit more ready to speak to him again, and a little bit more aware that her whole life is changing.
(She doesn't look at the café across the street anymore, and her fingers have not itched to slip into places they shouldn't. Not since that evening across from the ice-cream vendor's, with the streetlight circling her ankles and a boy behind her telling her things she'd never imagined she'd hear.)
Then one day, she lingers a fraction of a moment longer, and he catches her by the arm.
She looks down into the quiet, grey eyes of the boy who sits at table number four of the Café Musain every afternoon, and says, "Hello."
"I hope this isn't inappropriate," he says, "But I'd really like to meet you tonight, after your shift ends."
Éponine can feel her heart soar as she answers, "Okay."
-:-
There is a boy who sits at table number four every afternoon at the Café Musain, and these are a few of the things that Éponine knows about him:
He takes his coffee black, and his cigarettes outside under the street lights, in breaks from his studies late into the night. He sleeps too little, and when he does he lies curled on his side and wakes up never more than three hours later. His tiny wardrobe is stuffed with books, the sum total of all the clothes he owns on the world squeezed into a corner as if as an afterthought.
And when he takes her hand in his big, warm one and kisses her like she's the most precious thing there ever was, she thinks maybe—even if he never intended to—he may have saved her a little bit anyway.
She's Éponine Thénardier, and she's the luckiest girl in the world.
-fin-
A/N: Might write a sequel to this eventually, if you guys think it's worth it. Please review to let me know what you thought!