Hello, everyone! I've finally done with the second chapter. I'm sorry for making you wait for too long.. To make it up to you, I'll try finish the third chapter as soon as possible. Have a nice day! (^_^)
Combeferre froze in his spot even as she stepped closer towards him. "Are you leaving because of me, monsieur?" she had a smirk on her face, her arms crossed in front of her. There was no one in sight except for the two of them in the alleyway. The thought of being alone with her once again sent a shiver down his spine, as he recalled what happened between them that night. "You can't stop looking at me the entire time, can you?" Eponine twirled some of her long locks with her finger, a mischievous smile tugged on her lips.
"We need to talk," he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, trying to not be intimidated by the girl in front of him. It was true; he did intend to speak to her about what happened, but not in that circumstance with her trying to make a move on him.
"Monsieur Marius talked a lot about you. How smart and intelligent you are. And how he thinks he's lucky to have a great gentleman such as you as a friend," she ignored his words as she steadily advanced towards him, while Combeferre found himself backing away with each step that she took. Eponine seemed to notice this too, and became even bolder. She roughly pushed him against the wall behind him, and pressed herself against him, pinning him between her body and the wall.
Combeferre on the other hand was not prepared at all for her sudden action, and couldn't help but blushed furiously at their close proximity. "We both knew even the greatest of gentlemen have his own wild, secret side," her breath felt warm against his face, and he caught a whiff of liquor. Her hand was fingering his cravat while her other hand found its way in between his hair.
"Eponine, we need to seriously talk," he quickly grabbed both of her hands to stop her actions, and gently pushed her away slightly. "About what we did that night," he breathed out, his eyes trying to look into hers amidst the darkness of the night.
He heard her chuckled lowly but could not really see her face clearly as it was too dark. "About what we did that night?" she echoed his words in a mocking tone as she snatched her right arm out of his grip. Combeferre immediately let go of both her wrists, confident now that he finally got her attention away from advancing on him further on.
"You simply left in the morning and I haven't seen you around until tonight so we never got the chance to talk about it," he fixed his cravat which she had loosened a bit as a way to control his nervousness. He never really had any experience dealing with matters such as inter-gender relationship before; it was always Courfeyrac's forte.
"We slept together, yeah. What is there to talk about?" she said bluntly, her tone rose a bit. He felt his cheeks grew warm once again at her brazen words, momentarily at loss of words. "You did this 'we need to talk' shit too with other girls you bedded?" Eponine pressed further on, oblivious to the fact that he grew even redder with her question.
Combeferre stammered, trying to say something in defence but she caught him by surprise by pushing him against the wall once again, pressing her lips against his. Shock overpowered his senses, and he felt too numb to move even when she slipped one hand around his neck and her other hand grabbed a handful of his hair. He wanted to push her off him and to make her stop but she was proven to be a determined woman, only deepened the kiss and pulled him even closer to her as he tried to resist.
As she paused to take a breath, their eyes finally met underneath the moonlight. His heart skipped a beat as his eyes met her deep brown orbs, and he felt that strange tightening knot in his stomach once again. He watched as her eyelids fluttered and her eyes went lower to his lips, and before she leaned again, Combeferre dove and caught her lips with his. Eponine's eyes widened in surprise at his response, but she was quick to regain her composure and kissed him back.
The sound of footsteps however caused them to break apart from each other, and he immediately pushed her away from him. His hands quickly tried to fix his hair and straighten his cravat that she had attempted to loosen earlier, his eyes darting left to right in search of the person who had nearly walked on the two of them. The fear that someone would discover what he just did with the girl in front of him somehow made his heart beat twice as time faster than usual. Eponine however rolled her eyes, a bit annoyed at the interruption by the footsteps she knew really well.
"I'm afraid I have another appointment to attend to," she said a bit curtly. Combeferre only nodded wordlessly and watched as she fixed her slightly dishevelled hair with little success. Not that he knew what the appropriate things to say in such situation anyway.
"Tell me if you want to talk again," Eponine gave him one final wink and ran one hand along one side of his face. "Be careful," he blurted as she started to walk away from him, which earned a raised eyebrow from her. Combeferre realized that it was not really necessary; she practically lived in the streets anyway. But it was always his nature to look out for everyone around him, and he couldn't help but worry about the girl after he had seen the extent of her injuries that night a week ago.
As expected, she merely chuckled at his words in amusement, before she sped off into the darkness and left him standing alone without even looking back. Once he no longer heard her light footsteps echoed through the alley, Combeferre turned around and made his way home for the night, still quite flushed with what just happened.
"Am I interrupting something?" the icy cold voice teased her once she turned into the corner, to which Eponine had to roll her eyes in annoyance once again. Judging from his amused tone, Eponine was willing to bet that Montparnasse had witnessed her entire exchange with monsieur Marius' student friend right from the beginning. He had been there the entire time and interrupted just for the sake of messing around. "Stop messing with my business," she snapped and glared daggers at his direction.
Montparnasse snorted and crossed his arms across his body. "But he's kind of prudish, isn't he? Quite the contrary of your usual callers, 'Ponine," he tried to touch her face but she just swatted his hand away. "I finally got someone who is decent-looking and not bloody ancient, but you ruined it," she huffed in anger, but the level of her voice was still controlled. "I put up with your nonsense and helped you out with your silly hunts. Is it too much for you to respect what I do?" Montparnasse smirked at the irony of the words she used.
"Respect what you do?" he echoed her words in a mocking tone, rejoiced at another opportunity to make fun of her.
"You're not exactly respectable yourself," she tried to punch him in his shoulder, but he was quick to catch her wrist.
"We aren't much different from one another. Perhaps that's why we got along better than you and that petty student you followed around," he released her wrist and resumed crossing his arms in front of him.
"Don't talk about Monsieur Marius that way. He's ten times better than you," Eponine turned away from him and opened her palm to see what she had managed to pick from Combeferre's pocket just now. It was quite dark, but she guessed that the two coins are francs judging from its size.
Montparnasse too noticed this and patted her on the head. "But if you kept getting this amount of money from the students, maybe hanging around them wasn't that bad at all," he remarked but Eponine roughly pushed his hand away and scowled at his direction. Instead of being deterred by her irritation, Montparnasse noticed her slightly swollen lips and without hesitation broke out into laughter.
"Look, he almost bit your lips off!" he pointed out, and quickly ducked when she swung her fist directly at his face. "Lay off him already!" she growled which caused him to back away a few steps even though he did not quit laughing. However, Eponine suddenly felt her cheeks grew warm when she unconsciously touched her lips and remembered the gentleness of the man's kiss. To hide the blush she had, Eponine turned away from Montparnasse and started walking, refused to give him further opportunity to make fun of her.
Montparnasse followed her with traces of laughter remained. "Don't tell me you fancy him?" they were now walking side-by-side and he slowed down to match her stride. Eponine chose to ignore the remark, just fixed her stare right ahead. The dandy smirked at her non-verbal surrender, understood that it was a sign she refused to engage in any further conversation in regard of the matter.
"You've gone soft, 'Ponine. But I have the perfect remedy," he said, this time in a serious tone. Eponine perked up at this, before she glanced at him from the corner of her eyes.
"Fine. But no killing anyone. No reason putting the police on our trail more than necessary," she warned him, to which he only shrugged. Montparnasse took her by the wrist and picked up his pace and Eponine followed him without a word.
Combeferre lay in his bed, desperately tried to get some sleep. It was the beginning of spring, yet he felt unusually warm that night; he tossed and turned in his bed to find the most comfortable position to close his eyes and rest. As he looked at the darkness of the night outside his window, his thoughts unconsciously drifted to the girl he had just met in the alleyway.
The first time he brought her to his house and seen her asleep, Combeferre could not help but drawn by how delicate she seemed. The way she eyed him cautiously the entire time and the injuries she had was more than enough for him to know that the girl had been living far from an adequate living standard. He wanted to hold her and show her the gentleness that she deserved, instead of the cold harsh world that she lived in everyday.
He admitted that kissing her while she was asleep was not the best way to do it and had crossed the line, so Combeferre was deeply ashamed of what he did. He had apologised and was willing to be punished for taking advantage of her in that situation.
To his surprise however, the girl pulled him towards her and kissed him, gently at first. The innocent, sweet kisses turned passionate, and later they found themselves entangled between the sheets on his bed, their clothes thrown on the floor. She was gone by the time he woke up the next morning, but the warmth on the bed next to him was enough to convince him that it did happen.
The second time he saw her at the Café with Marius, she was quiet and timid; sticking to the latter's side the entire time as if she was his shadow. She laughed at his every joke, and glanced at him every few seconds with a faint blush over her features. It was not that hard to figure out that she was infatuated with him. The brief scuffle with Gavroche showed her fierceness momentarily, but she was back to smiling shyly the immediate moment Marius had helped her up.
At a glance, she seemed to be a lovesick teenage girl who refused to outgrow the fairy tales of princes and faraway castles, but it was hard to miss the sliver of hope she had in her eyes every time she laid her sight on Marius. Given the condition of the live she had, her ability to still have hope in something appealed to Combeferre. He wondered if she would have the same hope too for the revolution he and his friends had in hand if he explained it to her.
However, when she cornered him in the alleyway just now, Eponine was bold and confident. Combeferre had wanted to talk with her about the situation they found themselves in, but it caught him completely off guard to see that side of her. The way she hid in the shadows and sneaked up to him without him even noticing, there was not even a trace of fear she had the first time he saw her. Her fearlessness shone when she laughed off his concern and disappeared into the darkness alone to do God knows what, and he just wished that she did not turn up with the kind of injuries she had last time.
It intrigued him that he had seen several different sides of the girl in such a short amount of time. Her name, Eponine sounded straight off from sappy, romantic novels that seemed to fit her affection for Marius, yet her reluctance to provide any last name when Joly had enquired shown a hidden, secret side of her person. From all of her faces that he had seen and had yet to see, Combeferre wondered which of them was her true self. Before he drifted to sleep for the night, he made a mental note to see Marius to learn more about the girl that had sparked his interest.
That's it for now, hope you guys enjoyed it. Thank you so much for your time and please do stay tuned for the next chapter! See you soon!