AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Thank you for reading! As a reminder, this contains explicit sexual situations.

WARNINGS: dubious sexual consent/non-consent, explicit sexual situations, kink, D/s (dominant men), violence, & profanity. In other words, there will be a lot of explicit, vulgar acts of sex. If any of this bothers you, please do not read this story.

RATING: MA / NC-17

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Les Miserables. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is being made from this.


THE WAKER'S LIGHT


Chapter 2

When does love become obsession?

Eponine wondered if she could even tell the two apart anymore. She watched Marius on the platform passing out pamphlets to the people below, barking about a "new day" and something about "conspiracy of equals." She may not have understood what Marius was saying, but she earnestly studied every facial move, every fluid turn of his body as if her future depended on it.

She could almost predict his every move: she knew that when he would squint his eyes, he would soon use his left sleeve to wipe the sweat off his brow discreetly; he would step forward with his right foot first, then swing his left hand in the air for emphasis on important words; he had a tendency to lose enunciation at the tail end of words during the last quarter of the rally…

She could watch this man all day. And she usually did. So when did her love for him become obsession? When did her love sour into a desperate compulsion, an anxious need to follow him on his daily errands? She couldn't say. All she knew was that she had a tormented need to be in his presence.

"—the state of France currently functions under gradations of social rank!" Enjolras's voice boomed alongside Marius's.

She snapped out of her reverie.

While the two men raged on about the people's inherent rights, Eponine weaved her way through the crowd in the direction of Le Café Musain. She knew the rally was almost over and that the young revolutionaries would reconvene at the café for any updates and future plans. Arriving there before Marius would arrive had made her feel only slightly less obsessed; she could at least try to convince herself that they just happened to be at the same place at the same time.

She waited in the corner of the café, holding a large book in front of her face as if she could read it. Despite no one protesting the presence of a woman in the café's front room, she often tried to hide her face out of habit, at least until the students arrived.

The men's chatter could be heard in the distance.

One by one they poured in. She recognized Joly's deep laughter first when the door opened, and the friends made their way to the back. Unnoticed by bystanders, she glided into the rush of bodies heading towards the backroom.

Les Amis de l'ABC were already accustomed to her presence and made no outcry about having her there. She never caused problems, simply sat in the corner with a random book balanced on her lap and stared at Marius. Enjolras originally thought she might prove to be a distraction for Marius until Combeferre suggested the idea that the discussions she overheard among the men might be passed from her lips to her friends on the streets. Did Combeferre honestly believe that? No, but he felt sorry for her. "Fine, but when there is any talk of rebellion plans, she goes," Enjolras would relent.

Enjolras maneuvered to their usual table, placing down his maps of the Paris districts. His eyes briefly flashed to her while Combeferre handed him some new artillery they gathered.

"Marius…" She said as he entered.

"Eponine." Marius smiled, and she could feel her pulse speed up. "Did you make it to the rally?"

"Yes, of course!" She followed him to the table where Enjolras was examining the cylinder of a revolver and where Marius set down a few letters. "Well, I caught what I could. I've just been…sitting here…" She trailed off when she felt Marius's fingers touch her face.

"Eponine, what happened?" He asked.

The welt on the right corner of her forehead was hardly hidden despite her attempt to cover it with her hair. She let out a wince when he gently brushed the bruised area. She caught Enjolras pause only momentarily.

"I fell. In the alley across the street. It looks worse than it is."

"Still, you should have Joly take a look at you."

From across the room, Courfeyrac called to Marius who pulled himself away to answer, and she was half-tempted to grab his hand in an eager attempt to convince him to stay.

She was still lost in the glorious moment of reliving Marius's hand on her forehead until the thud of the revolver dropping on the table reminded her of Enjolras's presence. They rarely spoke outside of his bedroom. She remembered how uncomfortable they both were on the day after their first night together: his awkward, contrived conversation about the weather, her forced questions about Maximilien de Robespierre, and the side glances and hidden guilt. It wasn't until she confronted him on his walk home a few days later by saying, "Let's not keep staring at each other from across the way, waiting for the other to bring it up. Yes, we had sex. But do we really need to talk at all?" She remembered how relieved he looked and the curt nod he gave as a response. Since then, they have just continued through the motions of life and learned to express some semblance of normalcy around each other, which was characterized by purposeful disregard.

"You have to be more careful." She broke their silence.

Enjolras didn't respond immediately. He looked down the barrel of a gun before putting it aside with the revolver.

"Really? I would think you like the attention." He casually handed the artillery to a passing Combeferre with a nod of approval.

Eponine couldn't help but roll her eyes. She stepped closer to him, but he still feigned disinterest. She sat at the edge of the table and watched the busy young students collect their pamphlets, make new notices, and pass around wine as their usual celebratory drink after a successful rally.

"He might not love me, but he's still my friend. He's just concerned. He thinks Montparnasse is beating me." She gave a sardonic huff. Strange that a murderous scoundrel is being accused of committing acts done by the fearless leader of the people's rights. "He even offered me advice on how to distance myself from my parents. He really is sweet…"

"Yes, and I think he is also passing that advice along to Cosette."

"Stop it." Eponine hissed, sending him a sharp look.

He stopped handling his maps and finally looked at her with his cool gray eyes that appeared almost blue in the light. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. That was the most of an apology she would get.

Enjolras may have a need for dominance in their sex life, but being raised as a gentleman instilled in him a small sense of shame when publicly stepping out of line in a woman's presence. She had seen the way he uncomfortably shifted when Grantaire or Prouvaire would even point out that a lady was bashfully making eyes at him. She truly had no idea that the statuesque, stern Enjolras the Chief was actually quite the cad in the bedroom. He had no reservations about releasing his pent-up anger and hatred in bed, which she didn't even realize until their fourth night together.

Up until their fourth night, Eponine and Enjolras simply had quick sessions of sex that ended with Enjolras making claims that it could never happen again, to which she would chuckle, "Every man wants to pretend it's the last time." The sex was just a momentary release of stress and tension on both of their ends. But that fourth night, it became something more, something different.

That fourth night together, Eponine had cried out Marius's name. Enjolras's immediate reaction was a strike across her face. To her surprise, she quite enjoyed it. It was then their nights became a ritual of violence to which they could escape and take comfort. It was an unusual, indefinable game that neither cared to put into words…

Enjolras turned his attention back to his maps, but Eponine could see the clench in his jaw indicating he was bothered. By Marius? Most likely. Enjolras doesn't like to share things that he felt belonged strictly to him.

"I'll be more careful," she heard him say.

Good. Eponine hated having to explain to Marius about how she accidentally fell down the stairs or hit her head on the edge of a desk. She was partly glad that Marius didn't believe a word of it or else he would think she was the clumsiest, most daft girl in France. But lying was better than admitting, "I'm letting your friend and fearless chief hurt me while we violently fuck, and even though I hate myself for it and I don't understand it, I can't stop."

Eponine jumped off the edge of the table and started to leave in search of Marius.

"Tonight?" Enjolras muttered.

Tonight? Two nights in a row would be a first for them.

"I don't know. I don't think my body can take another round so soon."

He grazed her body with a pensive stare, and she suddenly felt self-conscious as if she were naked in the middle of the café. She wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking about last night? Perhaps about breaking his reserved focus and taking her right now, bent over on the table full of artillery?

Her face flushed with the memory of Enjolras's hand around her throat, and she subconsciously lifted her own hand to her neck where there was the small bruise of his thumbprint. Breaking out of her recollection, she found Enjolras suppressing a lazy smirk.

"So you say," he remarked. "Now if you excuse me, mademoiselle, I have a revolution to plan."

He emphasized "mademoiselle" with a sarcastic, teasing bite that irked her for the rest of the day.


The backroom of the café was dark and smelled like tobacco and rum. At nearly 1:00 in the morning, the only light was two candles and the waning moon peering through the window. Hardening wax pooled just barely over the edge of the brass candle holder, and Enjolras had about two inches of candlelight remaining.

Stress is a natural reaction when faced with challenges, and he felt it in every inch of his body. The knots in his back from the insomniac night spent hunched over the table had stiffened in pain. His calves and knees felt the dull ache of sitting motionless from the uneven chair for the past six hours. He could put down the writing utensil, and his fingers would still form into an unnatural claw-like curl.

He had finally completed drafting a second speech about the unequal distribution of power among estates; he had struggled for hours deciding how to transition his argument about inaccessible social mobility for the people. When Combeferre left the café four hours prior, leaving Enjolras the last member there, he thought the speech would only take another two hours at most. But once he started writing, he realized his original speech was twofold and could be divided into separate rhetoric.

Soft footsteps could be heard creeping down the hall in his direction.

"Citizen Hucheloup, is that you?" Enjolras called out. When there was no reply, he carefully reached for his pistol.

The door opened and Eponine's head peered through. With a grunt, Enjolras squinted his eyes when he inadvertently stared directly into her lantern; his vision blurred like lowlight muting beyond range after hours of reading and writing in the dimmed light.

She entered and shut the heavy door behind her, putting her lantern out. "I thought I'd find you here. Do you normally expect to duel?" She gestured towards the gun.

He sighed. "You shouldn't creep up on people in the middle of the night. Someone may mistake you for a thief."

"Well, tonight, I am no thief."

"No, just a whore?"

She scoffed. "I don't recall being paid."

He pushed away from the table and slowly met her in the middle of the room. "I thought you declined tonight. Instead you come looking for me? Should I assume every 'no' is a 'yes'?"

She still wasn't over his insult. "I guess a 'whore' like me needs money," she chided.

He chuckled. "And how much for your services?"

"12 sous."

He slid his index finger through a loop on the front tie of her dress and gave a sharp tug, jerking her dangerously close to him. "I'm just a poor revolutionary boy. I'm sure you can give me a better price."

Enjolras dipped his head to her height and pressed a kiss on her lips.

Sometimes, Eponine didn't understand him. It was as if nighttime transformed Enjolras into a completely different person, one that didn't mind the naughty teasing of foreplay and the savage lust for flesh. But once they would complete their deed, he would be back to silently ignoring her until she encountered him again on another night. Or, she thought, maybe he was just better at hiding this side of him around his friends.

"I'm not a whore." She quietly insisted as he straightened to his height. Just the thought of being his whore made her uneasy, especially when she recalled the few dark moments in her life when she did sell her body to keep from starving.

His eyes dilated in the darkness of the café, away from the small candles burning at the nearby table. He slowly began to untie the front of her dress with one hand, while the other hand pressed into the hollow of her back and pushed her hips against him. She released a slow breath when his lips lightly nipped at her collarbone, and she started to ask herself why she came here tonight. Did she hate herself that much? When her head still ached and her body was still sore, why in all that is right with the world did she come for another round?

Maybe the answer was in the kiss planted on the tender spot just below her ear. Or maybe it was in her pleasured gasp. Her open mouth was enough invitation for him to tilt his head and angle his mouth against hers, crashing hard into her. She would have fallen back if he hadn't been tightly pressing her body to him.

With every excruciating button she undid on his charcoal waist jacket, she could feel the beat of his heart thump faster. He lifted her by the waist, and her legs desperately wrapped around his hips as he carried her to a table, never breaking their kiss. She was dropped onto the table with her legs parted and clasped around him. His right hand tangled in her hair as they collided. She felt suffocated by his muscular frame weighing her down into the hard, cool surface.

He roughly jerked her head back until she released another surprised yelp. He stared into her open mouth with savage lust and brought his lips smashing back into hers, teeth clashing and tongues searching deep into the other mouth.

"I'm not a whore," she panted again between their kiss.

"You're my whore," he growled, tearing her dress from her shoulders and sliding it off from her legs. His touch skimmed the blue bruises on her hip from the night before.

She made a soft sound as he found her hand and made her touch his hard arousal through his pants. She suddenly felt very aware of her vulnerable nakedness compared to him being fully clothed, and she knew how deliberate that was. He wanted to break her with her shame, with the fact that she originally resisted on meeting tonight only to come crawling through the dark to find him.

Not relenting, he looked her intently in the eyes as she breathlessly tucked her hand into his pants and slowly stroked the length of his manhood.

"Why else would you come here? At the café in the middle of the night unless you wanted me to fuck you like a whore?" he continued.

She didn't answer. She couldn't explain into words why she came, but she couldn't bring herself to say she was a whore.

But her silence was enough for him. "If you want to be a whore, I'll treat you like a whore."

He twisted his grip in her hair once more and dragged her off the table.

"Get on your knees."

Trembling with uncertainty, she knelt down in front of him. His pants slid to his feet and he released his throbbing erection. She knew what he wanted her to do, but she had never done this before. She had seen women on the streets doing it for a few sous. But the men she had been with before Enjolras were always just quick rounds of sex as they humped her against a wall while she imagined she was elsewhere. And with Enjolras, they had sex dozens of times, but she never was so intimate as to have his manhood so close to her face.

Her hand suddenly felt very small as she wrapped her fingers around him.

"Put it in your mouth," he ordered.

"I don't know…" she started to say, reddening in embarrassment.

"I have a shy whore?" He mocked. "Put it in your mouth and watch your teeth."

He stared at her small, wet tongue softly lick the head of his erection and he released a slow, quivered breath. He knew he was being especially cruel by just staring at her, not directing and encouraging the poor girl who obviously was nervous and had no idea what she was doing. He felt intoxicated with the image of her on her knees, engulfing his length into her hot mouth. He could come just looking at her.

He would be lying if he said that the position of power didn't play a role in his arousal. After all, his mind was always on the idea— strategizing ways to win power for the people, overthrowing the current leaders in power, using his power to persuade the people to revolt with him. His entire being was constructed on thoughts of power. Should it really surprise him or anyone else that throwing a girl to her knees gave him sick satisfaction?

Eponine's mouth felt like warm, wet velvet. He placed his hand through her smooth, brown hair and slowly rocked her head in a steady rhythm. She took him just barely halfway, and he pressed on a little deeper, just needing to feel more of himself inside of her. Saliva dripped down the sides of her lips and her eyes watered to the brim. She slightly resisted when he pushed her head to take him further.

Feeling his length hit the back of her throat, he gave a guttural groan and she swiftly pulled out, coughing and gagging.

"You can take it." He guided her back.

He held his cock and rubbed it around the edges of her mouth, smearing saliva around her lips. Ferociously, he clasped her jaw to part her lips once again.

The erotic feeling of having him probe her mouth made her wet with anticipation. The thought of having this part of Enjolras that had fucked her into oblivion get shoved in her mouth made her whimper in need. She noticed the vibrations of her whimper caused him to release another deep moan as he gripped her head tightly. Always the quick learner, she released her own slow moan, allowing the vibrations to send shivers of sensation to his engorged member.

He cursed, throwing his head back.

He couldn't suppress himself. He grabbed the sides of her head and savagely assailed her mouth, feeling himself sliding in her throat. He fiercely bucked against her, briefly forgetting her struggle to breathe. Or was it her visible struggle that made him bite his lip in sadistic gratification?

Eponine's throat enclosed in shivers around him when her body tried to fight against his intrusion, tried to push him out. Her gag reflex kicking in and saliva pouring out of her mouth—it all felt unreal, and he didn't know why they hadn't done this earlier.

Finally, he released her. She dropped in heaves on the floor, swallowing her excess saliva. He noticed her fingers penetrating deeply into her slit, making small circular motions. He took a moment to process the precious fact that she had been pleasuring herself while her mouth was full of him.

Lifting her again by the hair, he flung her facedown on a table. Against the table's cold surface, she could feel his fingers rubbing her swollen clit, wet with her own juices.

"What are you?" He spat out, leaning forward on top of her with his lips pressed against her ear. When she didn't answer, he slapped her buttocks hard, making her cry out. The soft roundness of her bottom gently shook against the force of his hand. "What are you?"

"I'm…a whore." She faintly answered.

WHACK. He slapped her a second time, harder. "Try again."

"I'm your whore!"

"And that's why you came here, right? You waltz in here when I'm doing work, when I'm trying to protect the lives of people like you! But all you care about is getting a good screw!" He seethed.

He shoved himself into her dripping wet hole and rocked against her hard. A strangled yell was all she could muster. Her nails gripped into the table, and she grated herself backward, grinding into him, needing to feel him as deep inside her as he could reach. She wanted him to tear her apart, to destroy her and split her in half. She screamed with every ridged stab into her.

"I'm your whore." She said again, delirious with pleasure.

"You came here wishing for someone to walk in on us, didn't you? You need an audience to feel good about yourself? You're nothing!"

The table roughly shook beneath them, and with every thrust, the table moved forward under his power.

"Maybe you hoped your darling Marius would see us. Imagine what he would say if he saw you bent over this table like the worthless whore you are. What would he think? Tell me, what would he think?"

He pressed his weight forward and tugged her head back. He wanted her to say it to his face.

"He would be disgusted with me." She softly exclaimed.

Enjolras narrowed his eyes on her. "But you would take it because you take anything from him. Any little feeling he threw your way, you would take it. You are pathetic and you are a nobody."

She couldn't hold back her tears at what he just said. His words cut her deep. But at the same time, his deep penetration threw her into a powerful, surging orgasm. Eponine violently shook beneath him and screamed. Her face expressed both pleasure and pain as she wept into the table.

Ready for his own release, he pulled out of her. He hurled her back onto the floor in front of him. She fell to her knees and felt his fingers lift her chin.

He quickly stroked himself in one hand, aiming its head at her face as she was still recovering from the throes of her orgasm. Nothing was more beautiful than to witness Eponine before him, looking him in the eyes with swollen pink lips, ready for him.

With a throaty groan, his thick stream of ejaculate shot onto her face, some landing on her soft tongue, the rest hitting her chin and cheeks and dripping down in globs onto her full breasts. He tasted salty and slightly sweet in her mouth.

His vision spotty, the mental image of Eponine, dazed and teary, licking her lips while covered in him would be forever imprinted in his memory.

From the ground, Eponine stared up at his face that was tilted down in her direction. His brows knitted together and shadowed his eyes. The gleam of sweat could be seen on his chest that was exposed under his half-buttoned shirt. His tufts of golden hair were weighted in sweat, and he looked as passionate as he does while on the stage riling the people for protest.

Turning away, she tried to use her palms to wipe his residue from her body and face. Enjolras swiftly retrieved a handkerchief from his coat pocket. While she used his red piece of cloth to clean her face, he soundlessly gathered her clothing and his pants from the floor.

The café suddenly seemed to grow colder and dirtier. He just began to notice the grime on the café floors and the ash his friends carelessly dumped onto the ground when refilling their smoking pipes. Her pale legs were now smeared in the soot.

It was also now that familiar, uncomfortable moment when the adrenaline thrill subsided and the realization of what they had just done settled in. It was no longer an escape, a fantasy, or any other idealized phrasing; what they had done was now part of their dysfunctional reality. All the things he said to her and all the things she said about herself could not be erased from their minds. Every sordid and debased act they committed against one another for these past couple of months could not just disappear. They knew things about each other that they couldn't even admit to themselves.

After gathering his papers, he turned to find her fully dressed. He threw his coat over his arm, lit their lanterns, and blew out the candles on the table. He led them out the back stairway to the Rue des Grés.


ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTES: Don't worry, they'll do more than just perform vulgar acts of sex as the story continues (although, there will be lots more). Thank you for reading! Reviews are appreciated.