DISCLAIMER: I don't own Les Miserables.

A/N: This story is kind of kicking my butt at the moment and I've barely even started! I've made a rule that I can only upload one chapter once the one that follows it is finished – bit of a strange idea, I know, but it works.

I'm never going to be one of those people who says '10 reviews and I'll update', and I'm never going to be one of those people who gets thousands of reviews, but holy shit, you guys have been so lovely. Hopefully you're enjoying it so far – let me know!


Eponine knocked loudly on the door one, two, three times.

Almost immediately she heard the sound of footsteps and then the door was being opened. Grantaire stood in front of her, bottle in one hand and corkscrew between his bared teeth.

She grinned, and walked in, lightly pushing him to the side, and walked down his hall into his lounge room. He came in just as she was flopping onto the couch with a sigh, and put the bottle and corkscrew on the table before disappearing into the kitchen.

Eponine made quick work of the cork in the bottle and sniffed at the opening. Wine wasn't usually her drink but she was going to need to inhale a good amount before she could get the guts to tell Grantaire that...

Oh, fuck. She had forgotten that was what she was there for.

Biting her lip, she slumped back on the couch, clutching the bottle, as Grantaire thumped around in the kitchen. When he returned, she was still cradling the wine, and he gave her a strange look before shrugging, and placing two wine glasses and a large pint of ice cream on the coffee table. He then produced two spoons from behind each ear, took off the ice cream lid and stuck the spoons into the chocolate-y goodness.

As he was pouring the wine, he talked about the awful day he'd had.

"Accounting might pay well, but fucking hell, it's the dullest thing I could ever imagine. Every day I'm there is another day I regret ever dropping out of uni. But then I come home to this place and I'm not so unhappy." Then Grantaire smiled. "Especially when my best mate wants to get drunk on good wine, and high on sugar."

"I never actually mentioned wine." Eponine pointed out, scooping out a large portion of ice cream. "I just said 'alcohol', which could've meant... I don't know, vodka? Absinthe? I could even go for some of the cider Courf goes on about."

"I forgot you have that weird thing about wine. Why don't you like it, again?"

Eponine slowly ate her spoonful of ice cream to avoid the question, but he was waiting. "I don't have your kind of lifestyle, R. I don't drink fancy wine and watch mind-numbing crap on my flat screen TV. I only ever had shitty, cheap, tasteless wine and it kind of put me off."
Grantaire frowned, and was quiet for a minute as he ate his own spoonful of ice cream.

"We worry about you, Ep. Nobody knows where you and Gav live, or who your parents are. You try to hide it but you're tired almost all of the time. What's going on?"

Eponine considered saying something.

She thought about his reaction if she told him about her home life. He would probably swear a fuck-load, pace around, and eventually call Combeferre – because 'Ferre was always much better at keeping his head in these kind of situations.

Combeferre would immediately locate the inn (if anyone asked how he found it, he'd say 'research' when it was really just Google maps), and after realizing they'd all been there at one time or another and knew the layout pretty well, he'd call Jehan (who would quite possibly just cry), Joly (who would freak the fuck out and text Eponine continuously asking about any disease-ridden animals, people or objects she may have come in contact with at the inn) and Courfeyrac (who would be outraged that Eponine hadn't told him) to tell them the news. Marius would find out eventually, and be extremely worried, but he'd never do anything about it.

For a moment, Eponine found herself replaying the image of Enjolras having one of his rare but intense violent rages – silently getting in his car after hearing the news, driving to the inn, storming in and punching her father, and quite possible Montparnasse.

She had only seen him get like that once. Some douchebag at the café had pushed past Gavroche so roughly it was almost inhumane, and the poor boy fell and hit his head so hard that Eponine was in tears when she burst into the back room where the boys were planning an equal marriage rights rally, carrying her brother in her arms and hysterically begging Joly to just do something. Enjolras and Courfeyrac actually had to hold her back when Joly took Gavroche out of her arms, and when she explained between gasps what had happened, a look came over Enjolras' face and he asked for a description of the man and left immediately when she gave him the best she could remember.

Later Grantaire had ranted on about what an idiot he was, telling the story of how Enjolras had picked a fight with the guy – the man actually ended up walking up to Eponine with a limp and a black eye, apologizing, giving her some flowers for Gavroche and leaving with his tail between his legs – and when Eponine had confronted him he'd sternly told her that he would've done it for any one of his friends.

She could only imagine what he would do for Combeferre or Marius, because he'd never been that angry over someone hurting them. Maybe it was some sexist part of him saying he should defend a helpless woman and her young brother.

"Dickhead." Eponine thought.

"Huh?" Grantaire's voice brought her out of her haze, and she turned to see him looking at her. "Who's a dickhead?"

Oh. So she had said it out loud. "Uh..."
"Marius?" Her best friend supplied with a small smile.

"Yeah," Eponine said quickly, happily going with the explanation he'd supplied. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. You were kind of intense on the phone."

Eponine nodded, gulped down the rest of her wine, and clasped her hands together tightly before she began speaking.

"Do you remember that day we were all speculating on Enjolras' sexuality, and we came up with the conclusion that he was either gay, or asexual?"

Grantaire blushed, and then smirked. "Our group is a bit strange sometimes."

"You started that conversation." Eponine laughed. "Anyway, I was talking with him this morning, and I... I think we got it a bit wrong."

"What do you mean?" Grantaire asked casually, draining the last drops of his own wine just as she had.

"He's straight." The girl blurted out. "I mean... we just kind of accidentally got onto the subject. He mentioned he'd had girlfriends in the past. Like in high school, before he met you guys."

Grantaire took a gulp of wine directly from the bottle. "Oh. Well. Good for him."

"Are you okay?" Eponine asked slowly. Her best friend laughed bitterly.

"Why would Enjolras being straight affect me? I never had a chance anyway, this just proves it. You're acting like I'm going to be heartbroken over this."

"Look, I never had the slightest chance with Marius, but I was able to pretend that one day he might look at me in a different way. Then he met Cosette, and I spent so long being angry with her that it almost consumed me. It was only a few weeks ago that I realized it was my fault, not anyone else's. I fell in love with Marius, I entertained the fantasy that he might love me back, and I never told him about how I felt. It was unfair of me to hate Cosette, because she acted on her feelings for Marius, whereas I was never brave enough. Marius is oblivious, and sometimes he's really a dickhead, but I started to ignore those parts of him. That's obsession, though, not love. I'm sick of feeling this way, and I'm sure you are too. Finding out that the slight chance you had with Enjolras is completely gone? That has to hurt."

"It doesn't!" Grantaire spat. "Not as badly as it used to. I already knew he was straight; I just didn't want to say anything because I fucking knew this would happen! I knew everyone would start treating me the way they treat you."

Eponine stood up, rage coursing through her veins like blood. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that everybody pities you!" Her best friend shouted.

"You don't think I know that? I see the looks that you all give me, Grantaire-"

"Obviously you don't!" Grantaire cut her off, standing up to face her. "If you could see the way Enjolras looks at you sometimes, you would've known that he was straight long before today."

Eponine didn't quite know what to say to that. They stood in silence for a while, before she finally mustered up the courage to reply.

"Enjolras does not have feelings for me."

Grantaire scoffed. "I never said he had actual feelings for you. You're not enough to crack the man of stone, believe me, but apparently if you're wearing the right clothes, you're enough to give him a hard on!"

The girl gasped. Grantaire seemed to realize how far he'd gone, and after staring at his feet for a moment, he sat back down and poured himself another glass of wine.

Eponine lowered herself down to the couch slowly, trying to wrap her head around all this new information. The man sitting next to her refilled her glass, and she eagerly took it.

"I'm sorry, Ep. It's just... hard." Grantaire sighed, leaning back on the couch. Eponine nodded and sculled her wine.

"Are we going to keep talking about Enjy's penis?" She quipped. The remark was met with a roaring laugh.

"Okay, I didn't expect that one."

"Neither did I."

"Can we get drunk now?"

Eponine laughed and nodded.


Three hours later, they were sufficiently drunk.

"Hey, you know what we should do?" Grantaire slurred.

Eponine grunted as she lay face down on the couch, only raising her head to drink some more wine.

"We should call our guys – y'know, I call Engine and you call Mayor Pinocchio."

"You mean Enjolras and Marius?"

"Yeah, those dicks. We should call them and tell them what we think, and be like 'you might have a really fucking awesome face but you're an idiot and you should just stop' because that statement applies to both of them."

"Why are you using such big words?" Eponine groaned.

"Come on, just do it!" Grantaire cried out happily, getting out his phone and throwing it at Eponine.

"Fine. But you have to call Enjolras afterwards."

Grantaire was already snoring from his place on the floor.


12:37 AM:

"Hey Marrrrrrrr... ius. Hah! Your name is so weird. You're weird. I don't like you sometimes. Except when I do. I don't like you when you're with stupid Cosette because she's perfect and blonde and I'll never look like her because if I bleach my hair I'll look like someone from N-SYNC and that's just totally not good. What was I talking about again?"

12:51 AM:

"I remembered what I was meant to say before! You're a penis. Or a dick. Aren't they the same thing? I'm pretty sure they're the same thing. Well, you should know. You have one. Don't you? Maybe you don't, I don't know, I've never seen you naked. Oh my god, I've never seen you naked! Friends need to see each other naked, Marius, it's like, really important to the friendship!"

1:37 AM:

"You're so... oblivious! And unintelligent! And other big words! You never notice anything except your own selfish bullshit! I hate you and your stupid face and your freckles and your eyes and your motherfucking ears. Like really, you have stupid ass ears. They stick out a lot. You must have donkey genes or something. I don't know why that walking Barbie likes you. You're not likeable at all."

1:39 AM:

"You're really likeable Marius. I didn't mean what I said before."

1:43 AM:

"I did mean what I said before! You say you care about people and that you love them, but in the end you never do anything for them! I helped you buy Valentine's day presents and Christmas presents and Birthday presents – all for Cosette – and you just pat me on the head like a fucking dog and say 'thanks, but leave me alone so I can make out with my ultra perfect girlfriend'! Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe I don't want to hear all about your personal life sometimes? Have you thought about how the rest of our friends feel about you constantly blabbing on about your girlfriend? No! I bet you haven't thought about that, because that would involve actually thinking about the wellbeing of your friends, which you never do!"

1:47 AM:

"God, Marius. You've hurt me so much. Everywhere I go there's this stabbing pain in my chest and I can't get rid of it, and it's your fucking fault. I can't go out without seeing your face everywhere and hearing your voice, and it's your fucking fault."

1:59 AM:

"Why Cosette? Why her?"

2:04 AM:

"I know why you fell in love with Cosette so fast. It's because she's beautiful, and kind, and smart, and she always thinks of others. If it didn't hurt so much, I would want to be her friend, not just because she's your girlfriend, but also because she's such an amazing woman, and I'm just... not."

2:07 AM:

"I'm not in love with your girlfriend, by the way. She's just a really good person."

2:24 AM:

"I hate myself so much sometimes. And you, I hate you. Actually, no, I don't hate you... I lo- GRANTAIRE, FUCK OFF! I'M NOT PUTTING THE PHONE DOWN, YOU CAN'T MAKE ME-"


Eponine sat up straight from where she was lying on the floor, memories of the previous night coming back to haunt her.

"Fuck."


A/N: Wow, that voicemail stuff was so fun to write, I can't even tell you, but I kind of made myself depressed while writing the sadder parts.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and that it was a bit more interesting than the last one.

OH! One last thing; shout-out to urorhel, who has reviewed every chapter so far (well, yeah, I only have 3 chapters up but seriously, I really appreciate it) and always says such kind things that inspire me to keep writing! Thank you, urorhel!