Based on several prompts from unicornesque (I'm sure she'll be able to find her textbook quotes shoved in here :D) and from an anon on tumblr… this was painful, just so ya'll know.
Éponine poises herself like a bird on the lip of the toilet seat. Smoke lingers on the plastic and hovers around the flickering fluorescents, creating a haze. Life feels like a dream, sometimes. Bathroom door opens. Enter Cosette.
The tip of Éponine's nose skims the top of the door. Cosette, a dainty, pretty thing under her ill-fitting clothing and messy hair, stops to look at herself in the mirror. For a moment, Éponine worries that those blue eyes will meet her own in the cracked surface.
But it isn't so. Cosette turns away from her reflection and ducks into the stall next to Éponine 's. As soon as the lock clicks into place, Éponine quietly lowers herself to the ground. Her backpack's jaws are wide open, the zipper lining like teeth. From the depths, Éponine's hand closes around a jar. Montparnasse promised that it was washable paint—the kind used by kindergarteners—but it feels too light in her hands to truly be what he says. Gulping down whatever guilt somehow seeps into her heart, Éponine stands back on the toilet lid.
There's a tinkling sound from the next stall, and, preserving Cosette's privacy (although is that really such an act of goodness when Éponine is waiting to do what she is waiting to do?), Éponine averts her eyes. She waits until the toilet flush. The zipping of so-last-decade jeans. And, finally, the lifting of a backpack off the ground.
Éponine inhales. She exhales. And she upturns the bucket over the standing form of Cosette.
She realizes too late, as those blue eyes finally meet hers and the first drop soaks into red hair, that this isn't paint after all. Fucking Montparnasse—she should've figured he'd pull something like this.
The blood crashes down Cosette's pale face, soaking her glasses and sliding into the contours of her face. The stench of iron fills the air. Éponine is frozen into place. As is Cosette, it seems, for the girl doesn't move even though there is blood (from what animal? Knowing Montparnasse, Éponine kind of doesn't want to know) pouring down her in rivulets, something terrifyingly reminiscent of a horror movie.
Éponine is still stuck in place when Cosette looks up at her and whispers through the blood that nearly falls into her mouth, "What did I ever do to you, Éponine?"
She can't answer. Her heart is thumping and her throat is dry and her eyes—her eyes are watering and oh how she wants to cry. But she can't even move and those words that she's sworn to never say dance ever so tauntingly on the tip of her tongue (I'm sorry).
Maybe she'll get the courage to say them this time.
"Cosette, I—"
But it's too late, and Cosette is pushing her way out of the stall. Stumbling and nearly dunking a leather boot into the toilet, Éponine grabs her open bag and follows closely behind. If she's snitched on—
The bathroom door opens right before Cosette's thin hand is on the doorknob. Enter a teacher. Zoom in on the "paint" bucket in Éponine's hand.
Well, fuck.
"What's your punishment, babe?" Montparnasse's voice is smoky and husky but she doesn't want to hear it. Not today, especially not today.
"Don't you 'babe' me," she snaps. She can't even bring herself to smoke. As she always does in moments of distress or anger, she gnaws the inside of her mouth. There's blood pooling on her tongue.
"Damn, they got you good this time," her best friend drawls. "Expulsion?"
"Nah."
"Thought so. They're too—"
"It's actually not that bad. Believe it or not, I'm a first time offender, 'Parnasse. And Cosette tried to go back on her story and say that it was an accident—since she's little miss perfect, they went with her newer version because 'Cosette Fauchelevant can never lie'." Éponine bites down again. More blood. "It's a universal truth."
"So what'd you get?"
"I just have to do some extracurricular through senior year or some bullshit. I think I'm going to go with that one club. The ABC one or something? As far as I can tell, all they're good for is eye candy. And who am I to refuse such a tantalizing offer?" Éponine smirks. She's still quaking—that moment is imprinted forever on her eyelids. Cosette, mouth open, blood pouring, a sob tearing Éponine's throat but refusing to escape.
"And I'm not eye candy?" Montparnasse feigns disappointment well, clutching his chest and falling against the bricks. Something about him usually cheers her up—Éponine's mouth twitches into something close to a smile. He nudges her. She can't hide such a thing from him for long.
"You're just a little murder-y for me, that's all. And I don't like a guy who dresses better than I do—that's just not allowed," Éponine chuckles. Montparnasse joins her before motioning to her outfit.
"Honestly, I'm pretty sure everyone dresses better than you. Unless you're going for that whole soft-grunge look."
"Even Cosette?" Éponine mocks surprise.
Montparnasse laughs loudly. It escapes into the autumn air (just barely tinged with orange and brown and spice but still reeking of sweet and summer) and falls into the wispy clouds and pale sky.
They're arguing when she comes in. Their voices are booming and polished and smooth, bouncing off the walls like bass notes in a symphony of noise and chaos. There's one who looks ever so familiar, and so it is him that she speaks to.
"Uh, hi?"
What an eloquent introduction.
"Hello, how can I help you?" he's handsome, with a friendly, open face. His hair looks soft as it lies on his head. His skin is warm. He seems to be nothing but welcoming in sloppy clothes and wearing such a big, toothy smile.
"I'm Éponine. I'm joining your club, I guess."
The boy frowns. "You don't seem too enthusiastic."
"I—"
"Enjolras will hate that," he sighs. Even then, it's over dramatic in a way that's familiar and somehow he gives her the feeling that she knows him well from something long, long ago. "I'm Courfeyrac by the way. Enjolras!"
"What do you want, Courfeyrac?" someone snaps from just behind Éponine. She whirls around to be faced with a chest clad in… red tweed? Her eyes trail up to a crooked collar—starch white. A prominent collar bone. Long, unkempt curls the color of summer.
"We've got ourselves a new member. Éponine," Courfeyrac says, motioning towards her. "Try to actually talk to her, okay? We don't need another member dropping out because you're rude as fuck."
"And I don't need to remove another member for smart talk, now do I?" this blond, poorly-dressed boy growls. "Watch your tongue."
He speaks with a condescending tone that she somehow figures is a staple in who he is. She keeps her groan to herself; why did she join again?
"Look, Thernardier—yes, I know who you are, don't act so surprised—we have a lot of rules here in Les Amis de l'ABC. But number one and most important." He peers down at her, which is one thing that pisses Éponine off more than anything else in the world. But then she makes the mistake of meeting his eyes. She's falling. Through the wind in her ears, she almost misses him say, "Don't fall in love with me."
She manages a snort. "I don't think that's a problem."
Enjolras actually doesn't talk much. From what Éponine can tell, he rules like a detached parent. He keeps to the corner of his room, furiously typing away at his laptop while the others participate in planning for the 'bettering of the school and of society'. Somehow, he orchestrates these conversations by saying nothing.
"Education is everything," someone says. She thinks his name is Combeferre.
"You're right, 'Ferre." Courfeyrac jumps into the conversation. He sits atop a desk, swinging his feet to hit the legs of the table. Thump. Thump. "We don't need little changes. We need gigantic, monumental changes."
"Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce—" one starts. His speaking strikes Éponine as pretentious, although his dark hair and pale skin and rough eyeliner suggest something a lot more along the lines of 'death' 'death' 'death'.
"Okay, calm down there, Jehan," Enjolras says from his corner.
"They should be making six figure salaries." This is followed by a smattering of hums. Agreement is soft and quiet and yet like an incendiary.
Combeferre speaks again, "Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense."
"This is so boring," Éponine murmurs to herself. To her surprise, a certain someone in a red tweed jacket hits the desk she sits at, jarring her.
"The drama club is always looking for recruits," he says through a sneer.
Their conversations are simple, straight to the point and rude. Short, stinging moments of truth before they part. She finds herself wondering when she starts to look forward to being insulted by this strange boy.
"You know, people may actually like you if you were less rude," he'll say through clenched teeth.
It's his favorite thing to say. And one of the most hurtful. She retaliates with a simple, "I could say the same for you."
He'll avoid her eyes and simply storm away, trying to not brush up too close to the lockers, folding into himself. A form that is angry and sad and powerful all at once, as if he holds the weight of history across his shoulders.
"He's such a dick," says Montparnasse one day. They sit under the bleachers, watching with a certain fixation as the smoke from their cigarettes curls along the gum-spotted metal. Azelma's hair is spread about the gravel. Rocks like stars against her black curls.
"Whatcha gonna do about it?" asks the younger girl. She opts to not smoke, having to save her voice for drama club. The one thing she actually admits to liking, being in that phase where she feels as if she's not allowed to like anything or else she'll be ridiculed.
"Don't do anything, please," Éponine says, much to the surprise of her friends. And herself. She puffs her cigarette. The end lights on fire.
"Why? I thought you didn't like him," Montparnasse hisses. She doesn't look at him, but she's sure that his disdainful expression has taken over—she hasn't seen it aimed at her in a long while, it feels like.
"He's not that bad—"
"He insults you on a daily basis, sis," Azelma sighs and shifts. The gravel rolls beneath her. "Do you have a boner for him or some shit?"
"I just… don't hate him."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"I'm sorry, I have to say something," Éponine calls through the chaos. The boys are bustling about the classroom, sorting paper work and legal forms and such, trying to ensure that they won't be arrested for their upcoming protest.
"Go ahead," Enjolras says. As always, he's nearly silent, a recluse with a laptop. He looks up, allowing the filtered sunlight to fall across his cheekbones. He appears in that moment like a photograph of someone unreachable. Like a star never meant to grace this world. However, his sneer disfigures him enough to render her earth-bound. "It's never stopped you before."
"I don't think this is going to accomplish anything," she says. A few of the boys stop in their motions. She knows that they've thought this as well. The pause button is pressed again. They move.
"Well," Combeferre hands her a map of the city square. He smiles, his eyes crinkling under the warped lenses of his glasses. "We have to try, don't we?"
"Is there any chance we could get hurt doing this?" she wonders. She's worrying for all of them—even in staying apart from them, it's difficult to not like them in their laughter and amity. Somehow, they're everything she dreams her friends could be and, by default, everything Montparnasse and Azelma are not.
"Probably not—" someone begins to answer, but Enjolras stands from his chair. The entire room fades to a soft buzz that spreads itself until there is no sound at all.
"You're not going to get hurt." He hands her a sheet of paper. "You're not going."
She doesn't look down. Something close to rage (red red red boiling red) mixes with the blue of hurt and neglection.
"And why, pray tell, am I not going?" The paper crumbles in her hand. A corner digs into her skin. Sting. The dimmest scent of iron (followed oh-so-closely by a flashback of blue eyes and trickles of red and an open mouth).
"You're failing biology. You can't participate in out-of-school club activities unless you're passing all your classes," Enjolras says. For whatever reason, there's a hint of apology in his voice. A soft edge on a steel blade.
"How are you failing biology?" Courfeyrac asks, incredulously. Éponine sticks out her tongue at him.
"Maybe I just don't give two shits about biology," she snaps. It appears to be the wrong thing to say though because Enjolras grabs her. The unmovable, untouchable marble has creaked and groaned to make contact through a hand on her arm. Shocked, she looks up to see him staring at her. He's frowning. As always.
"You should. If you fail something junior year, how can you expect to get into college?" he asks. Once again, that strange strange softness is there and she doesn't know how to handle herself around him if he isn't going to be his usual rude self. It's weird.
"I didn't expect to get in anyway," she says honestly. Even if she were to get in, how would she pay? Who would bother to put food on the table? Who would do their best to keep the boys from straying down the same path that has claimed Éponine and Azelma?
"Meet me in the Science building tomorrow at four. Bring your textbook," he says curtly. He leans in, his hair falling around them so that it's nearly a private moment. She can forget that all eyes are on them. A heartbeat. Another. Then he pulls away and looks around, saying, "Let's get back to it. Éponine, you can stay for now. But next week I won't let you through the door."
She's lost. Her throat is dry. She just barely manages, "Okay."
Despite everything ('everything' being Azelma's nasally laughter at Enjolras hoping that Éponine has a future and Montparnasse's biting, "You're not actually going to meet him, are you?"), four o clock the next afternoon finds her old high tops squealing along the floors of the Science Building. He never clarified what classroom, let alone what floor, so she stands at the foot of the staircase, waiting. She's never been at school past three-thirty except for the club meetings. It's almost as if she's the last one alive.
That is, until a voice calls down. A voice that's softer yet than she's ever heard it, "Éponine?"
She gulps down her hesitation. The door is so close. She could leave right now. Instead, she answers, "I'm down here!"
It's the start of something wonderful and beautiful—something that Éponine would have been both better and worse without.
"For me," he says to her on their fourth day of tutoring. She looks up so that he knows she's listening. The textbook pages gleam in the fluorescent lights. "I love biology—knowing how things work and why they work.. it gives me life."
She snorts. "You're weird."
"Most of all," he continues, "I love bringing gyttja back to the lab to reveal the microscopic material preserved within, dissolving and sieving away the silts, clays, and organic material to find the pollen, charcoal, and other paleoenvironmental proxies my lab uses to reconstruct the environments of the past."
"You lost me," Éponine says honestly. "Was that even biology? You know what—I don't think I want to know."
For the first time in the weeks since they met for the first time, he smiles at her. "I know."
They continue meeting up for too long—it doesn't take much of this for Éponine to feel like she's suffocating between the hard place that is made of first impressions and the rock that is someone's true self. She takes her breaths though and goes to meet him anyway—because something about him now warms her up from the inside out and who is she to eschew a bit of sunshine?
She finds out that he struggles with Geometry like she does with Biology. Soon there are calculators and Biology books strewn about 'their' table in the local library. They sneak candy in their book bags and exchange m&m's when the librarian isn't looking.
He likes pretzel. She likes peanut butter. That doesn't mean that they don't steal each others'.
She learns that he's invested in his causes for a selfish reason—"I want to make a difference in this world before I die," he tells her. "And along the way, I wouldn't mind getting a tattoo.. or learning to be in two places at once."
She can't blame him—she can't blame him for anything, least of all this stupid annoying feeling that's rooted itself inside of her.
It's a cruel cycle, and all too familiar to Éponine. In seventh grade she hated Marius Pontmercy. That didn't last for long. Freshman year she hated Montparnasse. Once again, that didn't continue. Now… now she's in that awful hanging place between hatred and love—it's made of hesitant friendship and all she wants to do is jump to the waiting side, but she worries he won't be there to catch her.
So she forces a smile at his whispered laugh about numbers. She bites. The library smells like milk chocolate.
"The shape or geometry of the universe includes both local geometry in the observable universe and global geometry, which we may or may not be able to measure. Shape can refer to curvature and topology. More formally, the subject in practice investigates which 3-manifold corresponds to the spatial section in comoving coordinates of the four-dimensional space-time of the universe—Are you listening? Enjolras?"
He jolts back to attention. His eyes are hazy until they focus on her. "Sorry, I'm not feeling too well."
She doesn't want to worry about this asshole that has suddenly become someone very different. But she does—that fucking concern forces its way into her heart like a worm into an apple. "Is everything okay?"
Their eyes meet. He takes too long to speak—and even then, he never gives her an answer.
"Are you coming to the rally tomorrow?" he asks. With his help, she's lifted her biology grade so that she's passing by two points. More than enough to help her regain entry into the Friends of the ABC.
She shrugs—Azelma and Montparnasse want her to come to the mall. Apparently there's a new boutique that hasn't put in security cameras yet. But for whatever reason, the idea of spending her Saturday protesting in the early-Autumn heat sounds a lot more tantalizing. So she just shrugs.
"Maybe."
She comes.
He's the center of attention, standing on top of a make-shift stage. He waits. The crowd simmers until there's no sound but the slight humming of hundreds of breaths and the distant rattle of brittle leaves crashing to the earth.
The sun lights him golden. That tweed jacket of his is wrapped around his waist, exposing his thin arms and the glimmer of sweat on his pale skin. Those red lips quiver—she can see them from where she stands—as he prepares to speak.
He takes a deep breath. Chest rises. Sun shines. Crowd holds its breath. The first note of his first word rings over the crowd.
She wonders when she became stupid enough to fall in love with him.
"don't fall in love with me." he'd said.
"I don't think that's a problem." she'd lied.
Congratulations was in order—they pat each other on the back and crowd behind the stage. The heat lingers on their skin and shines through their smiles. They are young, they are alive—but there is darkness descending and winter will always win over summer.
She pushes her way to them—and she's greeted with smiles as if she's been with them since freshman year. It feels oh so very good, but she's focused on someone who's set apart from the buzzing gaiety. He stands still, as if he's a statue glossed with autumn sunlight.
"Enjolras!" she calls. He moves ever so slightly before turning around. When he sees her coming towards him so quickly, he smiles. That smile doesn't falter even when she leaps to throw herself in his arms (he stumbles back and she thinks playfully that he must hit the gym if he can't hold all 100 pounds of her), but it vanishes completely when she begins to lower her face to his.
"Éponine—" he tries to say.
But she kisses him full on the lips. He doesn't respond.
And perhaps that's when winter hits the first time.
He's stopped speaking to her. He won't even look in her eyes when they pass each other in the hallways. Even though Enjolras had started to speak to the other club members during the meetings, he draws back into himself and returns to speaking to no one and simply typing away viciously on his laptop.
She wants to talk to him, but she knows that she's got her answer already.
Why would anyone so golden ever bother with someone like her?
"Éponine," Cosette asks one day. They've been walking on the same sidewalk at the same time since Éponine and Enjolras had their fallout. Mostly they've endured in comfortable silence, but now Cosette's breaking it.
"Yeah?" She kicks a rock out of her path. It stumbles into the street and falls beneath a tire. Crunch.
"Why me?"
"Huh?"
"Why did you pick me?" Cosette asks. She's stopped on the sidewalk. Her face is shadowed by an overhanging branch. The nakedness serves even more to prompt the truth from Éponine.
Even then, the reasons she gave Montparnasse and Azelma float on the tip of her tongue. You dress weird. You're too nice for your own good. You eat lunch by yourself.
She clears her throat. Enjolras would want her to tell the truth—somehow she knows this. So she forces a half-hearted smile. "In seventh grade, Marius Pontmercy asked you to the football game. I kinda had a huge crush on him. And Thernardiers, we hold grudges."
To her surprise, Cosette laughs. "That's all, really?"
The other girl has a pretty, sweet laugh. Éponine's smile becomes real. "Yeah. It's pretty stupid, huh?"
Cosette shrugs and keeps walking. The winter wind bites Éponine as she follows the redhead's footsteps. The guilt rises like a tidal wave and she jogs to catch up.
"Cosette?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry," Éponine says. Cosette smiles, exposing pretty, perfect teeth. She really is beautiful, Éponine notices, and I think half of it is from the inside.
"I know."
Even though Enjolras isn't speaking to her any longer and this hurts her worse than anything else, Éponine thinks that things might turn out okay after all.
She and Cosette make plans to walk together tomorrow.
Maybe salvation is in reach for Éponine after all.
The cafeteria is a dangerous place.
Those at the bottom of the food chain know it the best. Whether it be because you don't know what table to sit at because all of them will laugh at you (so it's a matter of picking those who will laugh the least) or because someone will trip you while you're walking to the lunch line, or because your tray will crash to the ground with your long-awaited meal… the cafeteria is terrifying.
So when Éponine enters and is surrounded by laughter, she just figures that some poor nerd has been thrown to the ground by one of the football players. However, those mean, beady eyes are fixed on a tall, usually proud form. As Éponine walks towards him, he turns to storm out.
They nearly crash into each other. At the last minute, she looks up and recognizes him. She grabs his elbows and forces him to look at her. Enjolras has tears in his eyes. It looks as if his breaths are shallow and he's equal parts angry and humiliated. His cheeks are as red as his tweed.
"What's happened?" she asks. It's then that she notices a paper clutched in his fist. Only one glance around the cafeteria tells her that there's a copy at every table.
It's a picture of one of the Sprouse twins—the infamous "almost nude" leaked to twitter. But the face isn't a celebrity's… it's Enjolras's.
She recognizes the shitty photoshopping skills and the flimsy paper from the Montparnasse family computer. And then the picture vanishes. It fades to red.
She pushes past Enjolras and into the group that is laughing the loudest. She's hardly surprised to see her sister and Montparnasse. The latter has the audacity to smile at her when she storms over to him.
"I see you saw the picture. Who knew that someone who was such a dick could hide his in one hand?"
That's all it takes before Éponine pulls her arm back and swings as hard as she can. Her fist slams into Montparnasse's cheekbone and it feels as if her fingers may break—but it's worth it.
"Yeah," she sneers at someone she once considered her friend. He appears to be shocked, laying on the tile floors and cradling his face. "He's the dick."
Éponine spins on her heels, ignoring Azelma's shout—"What the hell, 'Ponine? When did you get to be such a bitch?"—and wrapping an arm around Enjolras's waist. They're both in a daze as they leave the cafeteria arm-in-arm.
After the incident, it's as if something within Enjolras breaks. He's still cruel and cold in that awful way of his, but something prompts him to be earth-bound as well. That something finds them skipping seventh period together, her back pressed against the wall of the dressing room and his lips burning their way through her t-shirt.
They're entwined in heat. Her fingers wrap themselves in his soft hair. His thumbs dig bruises into her hipbones. There's biting and moaning and pleading.
They're kids. They're seventeen. And they're in love—even if they won't admit it to themselves.
"don't fall in love with me," he'd pleaded.
"I don't think that's a problem," she'd lied.
He doesn't want to tell her.
She was never part of his plan.
Damn her.
Damn him.
It's all his fault.
But when spring comes and her kisses taste like morning dew and her eyes are bright and her touches sweet, he can't bring himself to regret anything.
He's got to tell her.
But he can't.
It comes out the day that he manages to be in two places at once.
She's leaning against his dad's red truck and he's straddling the state line and laughing—god, neither of them ever thought they'd hear him laugh. She loves when he seems happy. He's going to make a difference, she knows it. He's gotten a tattoo—a small little thing on his shoulder that she's taken to stroking when she's quivering beneath him.
There's more to do. And, as she sees it, time enough to do them.
There's silence in the car. There usually is—after all, when you're dating someone like Enjolras you've got to get used to it. But today there's something different. A certain kind of electricity in the air, but not the pleasant kind. It's not that sizzling of unresolved lust. It's the burning of a moist sky before a storm. The threatening of destructive lightning. It scares her, but she's sure she's imagining it. She has to be. Right?
The car stops on his driveway. Doors open. Feet hit the pavement.
"You're good to walk home?" he asks. She knows about his curfew—there's only three minutes left and that isn't enough time to bring her all the way home.
She nods. "Yeah. I always am." She slides her hand into his. He clutches to her as if she's his lifeline. "So," she starts, "what are you thinking about for college? We've got to start looking this summer."
"I'm not going to college," he confesses. She looks up, confused.
"Are you going to travel for a year or something?"
"No, I—" He steps on his porch and when his face runs under the light, she gasps. There's a trickle of blood coming from his nose.
"Y-you're bleeding!"
He frowns. "What?" His hand dashes up to his face and, sure enough, the trickle of blood is starting to gush. He hurries to block it. His sleeve absorbs most of the blood in time. Red seeping into red.
"Are you going to be okay?" she asks.
He remembers when she asked that back in the fall. Back when he thought he could keep her far enough away. He'd lied to her then. He's not going to do it again.
He finally tells her. It changes everything—and now there's no going back.
There's tears and betrayal in her eyes. She can't say anything—instead she runs.
He thinks about yelling after her, but he's too tired.
Éponine crashes into her bedroom. Azelma lies on the top bunk, listening to music too loudly. Thinking her sister can't hear her, Éponine curses through her tears and her heavy breathing.
"Fuck that fucking bastard! How the fuck could he—"
"Éponine?" Azelma asks hesitantly. They've been in a weird place since she and Enjolras have gotten together, but now her little sister is peering down at her. "Is everything okay?"
The sobs are free now—she doesn't think she can withhold her feelings at all. Azelma hasn't seen her cry since they were children.
"Did-did Enjolras break up with you?"
"No—" Éponine gasps through her heavy cries. "No.. He didn't do anything."
"What—"
"He didn't do fucking anything!" she screams. Outside, rain pounds the windows. Thunder crashes. The world is tumbling around her. "Why him? Why him? Oh, God… why him?"
"Tell me—"
"WHY DIDN'T HE TELL ME?" Éponine wheezes. She doesn't think that she's making any sense—but nothing makes sense right now and everything is pain and confusion and the memory of his lips on hers and that desperation of knowing that she's going to lose it all but she doesn't want to.
Even though Azelma's now silent, Éponine whispers, "He has leukemia. He's not responding to treatments anymore. Azelma—he's going to die."
The morning light finds Éponine crossing his lawn. Maybe it's the knowledge that she's going to lose him that makes her cling all the more. She knocks on his door, and he opens it in the same clothes as last night.
"Éponine?" he asks. His voice is sleepy. Husky from sleep.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I'll—I'll be here for you. Till the last day."
His face twists. "You don't have to—"
"I will. I promise."
The summer is full of tension. Knowing very well that it's probably their last, they hold hands too tightly and they kiss too roughly and when they make love it's as if they're trying to keep the other from flying away. Éponine hates herself—she knows that he was ready to die before she came along. And now he wants to stay.
And she wants him to stay more than anything.
She takes to walking through graveyards. The thought of Enjolras—golden, cruel, passionate Enjolras—trapped underground shakes her to the core. She can't sleep or else the image of graying skin and dead blue eyes will haunt her.
They don't have much time left. Their heartbeats are in sync with a ticking clock.
It's the worst feeling there is.
Autumn brings the scent of dying leaves and the increase in doctor's appointments. They still help each other with homework (for the first time in her life, Éponine is an honor student, even though grades are the last things on her mind). Test days are fueled with coffee and chocolate and the days after consist of pretzel and peanut-butter m&m's.
She clings to his hand. He speaks for the downtrodden.
They want to make the time left count.
Winter is cold and brittle bones. Enjolras is fading before her eyes. She starts to feel as if she's kissing a corpse.
Spring is false hope. He begins to make progress, but he warns Éponine to not look too far into it. He'll go back to being hopeless within a few weeks.
As always, he's right.
Through his illness and his making a difference and his rollercoaster romance with the Thernardier girl, Enjolras still manages to make it into the top five of their class.
Graduation day finds him standing on a stage (reminding her of that day they first kissed, back when they could fool themselves into thinking everything would be okay) with his hands clutching a podium. His baritone voice rings over the sea of caps and gowns. Éponine's sweaty hands are bunched in her gown. Cosette sits on one side. An empty seat on the other. Courfeyrac on the other side of Enjolras's seat. Both of them are clueless.
Éponine just knows that the clock won't stop ticking even on a celebration day.
His hands shook when he helped her into her gown that morning. He'd assured her he was fine with a smile on his face. She could tell he was lying. And she knew that he knew that she could see right through him.
He finishes his speech to a smattering of applause and even a roar of cheers (from the Friends of the ABC, who love their leader even in his cold distance). But as he's dismissed, Éponine notices that he's walking stiffly off the stage. Her hand jumps to Cosette's knee, where she squeezes.
"Éponine?"
"Something's wrong."
"What do you mean?" Cosette asks. Éponine's eyes don't leave Enjolras's slowly moving form. He sways for a moment—she knows then that she shouldn't have been so naïve—before collapsing to the stage.
She doesn't want to cry out, but it escapes anyway, "NO!" she shouts.
Murmurs arise from the students as teachers go to help Enjolras's motionless form. Éponine jumps up from her seat, despite Cosette and Courfeyrac grabbing at her and begging her to please sit down, he's going to be okay.
"It's too soon," she murmurs. That's a blatant lie—he's lasted a year longer than the doctors thought he would. He told her himself.
She breaks away from the crowd and runs to the stage, feeling as though he moves meters away from her for every step she takes.
Éponine pretends that he can hear her when she prays, don't leave me.
Éponine and Azelma are the only two who know outside of Enjolras's immediate family. So when there are four people at the graduation ceremony freaking out, everyone else is very confused. Cosette grabs Éponine's shoulders and tries to get her to calm down, but all Éponine can see is Enjolras's motionless form. His parents are bent over him, shaking him, begging him.
"Éponine, calm down, it's just the heat—"
"No it's not, Cosette. It's more than that, it's more—"
"The ambulance is on its way," one of the teacher calls over the chaos. Éponine rips away from Cosette and runs to the Enjolras family, tripping over her graduation robes. Her panting must be heard from far away, for his mother looks up and sees Éponine's tear-streaked face. Without any words spoken, Mrs. Enjolras embraces Éponine.
Just like her son, Mrs. Enjolras has accepted his imminent death.
"Why is he leaving?" Éponine cries into the older woman's shoulder. She's just held closer in response. Through her blurry vision, she watches as Enjolras is loaded into the back of the ambulance. His father rides in the front seat.
"He'll be fine, wherever he goes…" Mrs. Enjolras assures her. Éponine knows it's true. She selfishly doesn't want him to be anywhere that's not with her.
"Enjolras?" Éponine says quietly as she steps into the hospital room. She'd heard Mr. Enjolras tell his wife that this room is going to be Enjolras's until… until he doesn't need a space to rest any longer.
He doesn't smile from the bed. He just looks up to acknowledge her. He seems tired—he's been fatigued for months now, but seeing him look so tired of everything…. It hurts.
"I'm not ready to go," Enjolras whispers. His once strong voice has faded—even though it had been amazing a few afternoons ago, now it is nothing more than a pathetic rasp. Éponine doesn't want to think it—no, no, no, no, not at all—but it sounds like a death rattle.
"I'm not ready for you to go either," she murmurs. Éponine climbs beside him in the bed. When he shifts to make room for her, his weight hardly moves the bed at all. His shoulder is bony and his breath in her hair is cold.
She rests a hand on his chest. His heartbeat is still there. Strong. Somehow, she takes comfort in knowing that it will beat for her until it beats no longer.
"Can you do something for me?" he asks her. She nods against his body. His hand is on her cheek. His palm is dry. It's the hand of a dead man.
"Anything," she breathes.
"Zeta Reticuli Greys come from Zeta Reticulan, the 4th planet out from Zeta2 Reticulum, near Barnard's Star, which is a neighboring star system to Orion. The constellation Reticulum is a fairly small collection of faint stars, of which zeta is barely visible to the naked eye."
She makes a sound that is a mix between a laugh and a sob. "What?"
She can feel him smile into her hair. "I want you to look at the stars. And know that I'm looking back."
I'd rather look at them with you, she thinks. We never got to do half the stupid things in rom coms. I want to make fun of them with you at my side.
"Okay."
He doesn't die that night. Not for another few days of fading until he's not even a ghost or a shadow—he's simply another boy struck with disease. Someone Éponine watches die from far away. When his heartbeat collapses into a straight line (and that haunting, prolonged beep), Éponine just thinks of the stars.
She goes to college after all. It's local; she can micro manage her siblings and juggle classes and work. But every day she faces those sympathetic stares—as long as she lives in this town, she will be the girl whose boyfriend died too young.
And somehow, she's fine with it.
Because, with her first paycheck at her first real job, she buys a telescope.
When she lies on the grass to look at the entire sky, she can pretend that there is a golden statue beside her. He's not smiling, because smiling is not something Enjolras does, but he's there and he's looking at her and he loves her.
He did the three things he wanted to do. He was in three places at once. He got a tattoo. And he made a difference—maybe not in the world, but in the life of one Éponine Thernardier.
"Don't fall in love with me," he'd pleaded, somehow knowing that it was for naught.
"I don't think that's a problem," she'd lied, knowing that she had already fallen.
This is *very* loosely based on the movie A Walk to Remember. I did my best with the AU, considering that i've never read the book or seen the movie. Also, there's a not-so-subtle Carrie reference in there somewhere.
Review? Please? This tore my heart out to write. I'd appreciate some feedback! :)