She doesn't love him.
The process itself, to her, is much too emotionally expensive—and Eponine finds herself poor in just about every aspect imaginable. No, she needs to breathe—to truly breathe freely.
She does so in the only way how—she runs. Step by step, her lungs learned to withstand the miles. Soon, a weak mile became five, and five became a half marathon, and then a full. She controlled her heart—she learned how to breathe through the pressure, so that the aching in her chest disappeared into a calm rhythm.
The sweat rolls down her bare shoulder blades, the sun beating through her back. The mid-autumn breeze no longer bites into her skin, and she ascends up the final hill to make it back to the campus. She bites her lip at the burning of her leg muscles, but she continues to breathe—one foot in front of the other; an exhale, and an inhale. At her final step to the front gates of the university, she lets out one final huff before reducing into a panting mess, her hands linked above her head.
She breathes, and breathes deeply, and for a moment of exhalation, she feels like everything is under control so long as she controls the air that passes in and out of her lips. Her hand presses against a light post beside her, taking a moment to abandon her strength to simply breathe.
She forgets where she is; if she paid attention, she would see the sparsely filled and dimly lit Café Musain. If she went into the finer details, she might even meet the steadily brewing storm of his eyes.
She is framed by the fixtures of the streets, painted into the morning scenery like a dash of Matisse on the canvas of Botticelli. Disruptive, he admits, but much too intriguing to be overlooked or underestimated. She turns her back to the glass window, and he thinks about the mark of conflict running across her back. He does not need to see it to know where it is, and he does not know whether to be frightened of knowing.
Auguste Enjolras does not forget details, and Eponine Thenardier is a conglomerate of erratic etchings in every direction. He could not forget even if it were in his deepest wishes.
"Enjolras," Combeferre repeats loudly.
His eyes dart back to the direction of his conversational partner, who looks at him patiently for an answer; if only he had listened for the question.
"Yes?" he asks, hoping to the highest divine beings that Combeferre does not catch his focus faux pas.
"You're not paying attention," his friend states, matter-of-factly. "Is there somewhere you'd rather be, perhaps?" Accusation is absent from his tone—instead, intrigue takes its place.
"No," he shakes his head. "Of course not." From the side of his vision, he notices her absence, and he breathes out a sigh of relief. He needs her to be gone from his synapses, and the removal of her presence might aid his concentration.
Combeferre raises an eyebrow, sipping his water in skepticism. "It's okay if you don't want to deal with this today," he says, knowing full well of the likelihood of Enjolras ridiculing his statement. "These things can take a backseat today so you can deal with your personal matters. We'll regroup tonight."
"No," Enjolras repeats, his voice booming over Combeferre's, laced with a piercing sternness. "I don't have any personal matters."
It is Combeferre's turn to let out a sigh. "I think that's the problem here," he suggests. "Enjolras, you need something outside of work to fuel you. You can't save the world if you don't even live in it."
His patience wears thin—he has had enough criticism of his modus operandi for the week, but it is with great luck that it is Combeferre who he finally snaps in front of. "I do not need anyone to lecture me about drive and productivity," he argues.
"I'm not talking about your damn productivity," Combeferre replies, in a rare moment of aggression, before clearing his throat and taking a breath, keeping himself under control. It is a rare moment, to see Combeferre react upon pure sentience—yet the spark of the flame is put out when he realizes his place. "I just think that it would be healthy, Auguste, for your soul."
"My soul-," Enjolras begins, but the door flings open and the knob crashes into the interior wall, the rest of the café alarmed by the sudden noise.
Bahorel enters the café, the top buttons of his shirt undone and his tail untucked, in a mix of expensive clothing and clear neglect. "Oh god, I've been looking all over the goddamn campus for you two," he says. At first, they believed alcohol to be responsible for his appearance; but the way he strode in, the way his voice rang with unbridled urgency, quickly dismissed their usual assumptions. He took a seat in front of them, pulling out the laptop from his bag. "Have we been looking at our finances?"
Enjolras and Combeferre exchange looks. "No… when Feuilly graduated, nobody assumed the role," Combeferre realizes the mistake, feeling the terrible implication that a consequence has finally come to attention at the blunder.
"We're gaining a lot of money, guys," he rotates the screen to pull up the bank statements for the society's account. "The stocks we've always had are steady, but they're not that good—not million dollar gains good." Bahorel runs a hand through his hair in frustration, scrolling down the transactions. "This money's coming from somewhere, and I'm all about money as much as the next person but I have a pretty shit feeling about this."
"Who's been signing for the transactions?" Combeferre asks, and Bahorel types into the laptop in quick response.
He frowns, deciding not to look up to gauge their reactions. "Auguste Victoire Enjolras," he replies. Combeferre dares to sneak a glance at the leader, whose eyebrows are already knitted together in thought.
"It's a hiding place," Enjolras thinks out loud. In a rapid fire of deductive reasoning, he reviews the possible scenarios in which his father would offer the society with a hefty sum of money. "The society account doesn't show up on his records—it won't show up on any of ours. They made that deal with the bank when the whole thing started. If anyone ever found out about the society, our names would never be associated."
"Why is he hiding money?" Bahorel asks, his curiosity well-evoked.
Enjolras pauses to think, before looking up in frustration. "I don't know," he replies, the three words he detests uttering forced out of his throat. "I'll find out, though," he promises the two of them.
"Why were you looking at our finances anyway?" Combeferre asks, the question pushed out of the back of his mind.
Bahorel lets out a short laugh. "I wanted to know what our booze budget was."
"Victoire, don't do this," a female voice gravely commanded the silver haired man behind his mahogany desk. He does not spare a glance towards his wife's pleas, as her thin lips form an unamused grimace, her arms crossed and eyes narrowed at the unfazed gentleman.
"Don't tell me you actually want to see your son's name on a ridiculous ballot in the future," his voice travels across the room.
"We are an entire family of public officials, I don't see why you're doing everything you can to stop Apollinaire from becoming one," she replies coldly. "And if you must, this is not the way to do so. This will ruin all of the hard work he has put into it, have a heart."
He lets out a humorless laugh. "I'm doing what's best for him, Mercedes," he replies calmly, his stare still fixed on the digital screen in front of him.
She shakes her head. "No," she replies angrily. "I'll tell him. I'll tell him about all of it and he'll figure something out before you can wreak your havoc. I have no doubts that Apollinaire can outsmart anything you're responsible for."
"It would be a shame for the entire world to know about your private affairs, my dear wife," Victoire replies, a sinister smirk crawling its way across the sides of his face.
She does not reply, though the glare she sends at him conveys the message sufficiently. It's a shame he does not look up to even feel her scorn.
He picks up the phone. "Connect me to Gregoire," he orders his secretary, who responds curtly in the positive. He leans back on the oversized swivel chair, sighing in contentment. His mind flashes back to the vivid image of the girl at the peace gala; oh, how useful of a pawn she would be in his games. So, so incredibly disposable, yet such a perfect fit in his plans.
Victoire Enjolras has no problems using anyone.
Once more, they are gathered; the allure of Grantaire's fettuccine alfredo drive the boys into a crowded dining table, Joly and Bahorel arguing over elbow space while Prouvaire sneakily helps himself to the sauce bowl. Marius and Enjolras talk heatedly over economic policies, and the rest of the table glares at the two of them.
"Give it a rest and eat my damn food," Grantaire grumbles. He hears too much of Enjolras' stances on tax breaks for large corporations, and as much as it intrigues him to listen to someone like amiable Marius Pontmercy disagree with him for once, it only takes him two minutes to insist upon the retirement of the topic.
Enjolras shoots an irritated glance at his housemate for snuffing out the flame of a worthy conversation. He admits, Marius is much more intelligent than he lets on—he talks of summers spent in his worldly travels, and his perspective is surely widened by such experience. He is not the upper-class boarding school product that he appears to be; his charisma immediately causes all prejudices to vanish in conversation, and he does not only have the power to be right, but also to be trusted.
But Enjolras could not deny that the best attribute of engaging in contact with Marius was that he enjoyed beating him. He is not bothered with competition—he is a man of solitude, his goals completely intrinsic that he had never fed off of a need to be better than others. But he does not allow himself to think that Marius can truly paint the stars in the sky, though he even seems capable. He'd like to think Marius isn't "all that"—and he blames her for this childish notion of wanting to be better than the unassuming underclassman.
He hates that she admires Combeferre's passion towards the human mind, is repulsed by her affinity to Courfeyrac's charm, loathes her compatibility with Grantaire's cynical humor, and absolutely detests the state of enchantment she is in towards Marius'… everything.
And what was he to her? Nothing, apparently, but a cold and pompous ass.
He can't win with her, and the more he looks at Marius, the more he gets irritated—and he is absolutely infuriated at himself for even paying heed to such pointless details.
Gavroche is seated between Courfeyrac and Enjolras, squeezing himself in excitedly with eyes illuminated by the very prospect of food. Grantaire serves him a hot plate of chicken fingers, and it takes all of his willpower not to lunge forward into the golden breaded masterpieces and devour them with one single swoop.
"Enj'ras," the boy pipes up, elbowing the older man in the side.
"Ow, what, Gavroche?" he asks, frowning.
"You weren't listening?" Gavroche asks, incredulous to the rare occasion that Enjolras is not perfectly in tune with the conversations happening in front of him. "I said pass the silverware, yah dummy."
"Gavroche," Marius uses his usual warning tone.
The boy looks at Marius defiantly. "'Parnasse would let me say it," he argues.
"Do I look like Montparnasse?" Marius asks Gavroche, not amused by his attempts to answer back at him.
"No, you're a lot less muscular," Gavroche retorts, and the rest of the table erupts in laughter, much to Marius' dismay. Enjolras tries his best to suppress the grin threatening to appear across his face. The boy is surely Eponine's kin.
He retreats back to his own thoughts, before he hears his name once more. "Auguste," Bahorel repeats, waving his hand around.
"What?" Enjolras snaps.
"Good lord, Enjolras, what's going on with you today?" Joly asks, noticing the uncharacteristic delayed reactions of their leader. "Are you sick? Is it a migraine? Your brain appears to be crippled or something, maybe we should get you-,"
"I'm fine," he insists, his voice conquering Joly's worry.
"He's more than fine," Marius grins, chuckling. "He's like a man in love." The rest of the group encourages the notion in teasing whoops and whistles.
"This is ridiculous," Enjolras grumbles, his face reddening in both anger over the accusations and an underlying embarrassment over the situation. "Excuse me for my mind being exhausted by the important things I choose to surround myself with—love not being one of them."
"You're being ridiculous," Grantaire counters. "You're human like the rest of us, Hercules." The rest of the table nods and murmurs in agreement.
"I'm human, but not foolish," Enjolras mutters into his dinner.
"You're the biggest fool of them all," Grantaire exclaims merrily, earning cheers from the dining table.
He glares at them.
Each one of them is more likely to love her, but he is not a victim of foolishness.
He doesn't love her.
A/N: Yes, yes, I know, no interaction. Don't give up on me! Thank you so much for the reviews and follows and favorites and everything, they actually mean the world. Also, I wrote this after working for 10 hours today and this is actually the second complete rewrite of this chapter, so imagine how shitty the first draft was. –shudders-
Predictions? Thoughts? Go crazy. Fun fact: I definitely update faster with more feedback. (;
Oh, AND before I forget—THERE'S MORE! Thanks for reaching 110 reviews since my last update, guys. The deleted scenes are now available on my tumblr, enjolrastic! There are only two so far but that's because I wanted to pace myself. There will be more. If they're not at the top of my blog by the time you read this, just go to the "written" page of my blog, and click on the link in the description of I Do Not Love You.
Contrary to the title of this fic, I love you. All of you.
Rina