Okay, I know that I promised Combeferre/Enjolras. But I just can't seem to write it, y'know? I'm working on it. Also, Feuilly/Azelma is coming up. I promise. So, my lovely friend WeAllHaveAnEscape requested some Marius/Eponine without her dying. Well, I don't ship it, but I'm gonna do this. I WILL TRY. My mental Eponine for this Fic is cillabub's "Eponine" on DA. The link (take out the spaces): art/ Eponine-96655701. Just take out the spaces. Please don't kill me if this makes you want to eat your own eyeballs.

Yours,

-Georgie

XXX

She was an interesting girl, that Eponine. Dirty and ugly and scrawny to the point of grotesqueness, but there was something about her that drew him in. It surely wasn't her gravelly voice, her torn clothing, or her bruised eyes. It couldn't have been her downturned mouth, sallow cheeks, or the sharp angles of her elbows. It couldn't have been her temperament, either. She was disagreeable at the best of times, stubborn and bitter. Of the rare times when she was kind, it could be mistaken for simpering.

All in all, she was just an unattractive, ill-tempered waif. Just another gamin.

But…she wasn't. She was also an intellectual, a guide, and a friend. She never left Marius's side, and often got him out of scrapes. She guided him around Paris, showing him things he had never seen before. The way the sun sparkled on the Seine in the summertime, the way the happy little gamin children romped about in the starlight, the way a mother cat stood down three large feral dogs to protect her kittens. None of these were things he could have ever noticed on his own.

Since becoming friends with Eponine, he had experienced things he could have never imagined. If he hadn't liberated himself from the dull socialites, Marius would have never experienced these things. He often thought back to his childhood of standing shyly behind his imperious grandfather, listening to the adults with their dry, tired humor and trying to shrink behind the damask curtains when the stuffy environment got to be too much for him. Eponine's childhood had not been like this. She had lived in a little inn – The Sergeant of Waterloo, perhaps? – with her family. Later on, the inn had failed and she'd been turned out on the streets. Those streets had made her the pitiful creature she was today.

"M'sieur Marius!" a ragged voice called.

Speak of the devil, Marius thought fondly. He turned his head. Running down the street, her skinny arms wrapped tight around herself, was Eponine. Her sunken eyes had swollen purple bags underneath them, her knobby knees were scraped and raw, and her sallow cheek had a large red mark that resembled a handprint on it.

Marius frowned. "Eponine, you look as if you haven't slept in ages, and – now hold on a minute…did someone slap you, 'Ponine?"

Eponine shrugged her bony shoulders. "Papa got angry with me. I ain't very helpful, even when I try to be. I took a fall when I was runnin' from him." She gestured to her bleeding knees. "I've had worse, M'sieur. No need to worry 'bout old 'Ponine." She gave a gap-toothed grin.

Marius put an arm around the gamin. "I'll never understand it, Eponine. How can a father hurt his children?" He shook his head as the two walked along the cobbled streets. "When I have children of my own, they will be treated with the utmost care. I won't let anything happen to them." He looked to his friend. "What about you, 'Ponine? What will happen when you have children?" Eponine looked perturbed, and Marius immediately felt guilty at the question. Why had he asked that? How would Eponine have children? If she did, they would be subject to the horrible life she lived. They would probably be beaten more harshly than she. And who would the father be? The thought of someone fathering Eponine's children distinctly bothered him.

"I ain't thought 'bout it much," Eponine said curtly. She looked slightly offended.

"I'm sorry," Marius apologized. "It was quite rude of me to ask that." He looked at her with her skirt – a hole over the knees – that was how he could see their scrapes, a dirty chemise, and a men's hat. "Eponine, are you cold? It's getting on into Autumn, mon ami."

Eponine tensed and jerked out from under Marius's arm. "I ain't cold!" she snapped. "And there ain't nothin' to apologize for! I don't need your pity, Monsieur."

Maris flushed. I do pity, you 'Ponine, he thought. How can you not be pitied? You are a wretched, starving, miserable creature. But you are so strong. You are ugly and ill-tempered, but you are a friend to me. You have shown me things I could never have imagined, and I can't repay you for that. You won't let me repay you. Oh, 'Ponine. Don't you know I love you? You're so dear to me. I've tried to ward the feelings away; Grandfather would have my hide if he knew I wanted to court a gamin. And yet – I just…

"Gone silent, have you?" Eponine challenged, interrupting his train of thought.

"Oh, 'Ponine," Marius said, voicing his thoughts. "There is so much to your character." He could see that wasn't the response that Eponine had expected. "I…I can't help it. I want to help you, Eponine. You can be prickly at the best of times, cherie, but I know that there's much more to you than that. I'm not trying to make you feel like a pitiable…ah…" He wasn't quite sure how to end his sentence. A pitiable what? A pitiable…child? No, she would be extremely offended if he called her a child. A pitiable…creature? Somehow, he felt as if she wouldn't take kindly to the idea of him calling her a creature. "A pitiable…girl," he finally decided. "Can you understand that, 'Ponine? I know you don't want my help, but I want to help you. Not because I want to make you feel like an invalid, or because I want to feel good about myself, but because you are my friend. And I respect you. I want to help you because of that."

Eponine looked up at him with big eyes. "You…respect me?"

"Of course I do."

"You…can't. No'n respects me. I ain't someone to be respected. I'm dumb as a post, ugly as a hag, and I've got the temperament to match! Why'd you respect me?" Eponine wondered. Marius could see that she wasn't fishing for compliments as many girls did; she honestly thought this.

Marius took a deep breath. He couldn't hold his feelings back anymore. He just couldn't. With that, he grabbed Eponine by the arms and crashed his lips down over hers. It was not a passionate kiss, or even a tender one. It was confused and angry and sad. Both of their eyes stayed open.

Eventually, Marius had to draw back when an old man shouted at them. "Boy! You and your whore had better get off the streets this instant!" The old man's face was screwed up with disgust, and he shook his head.

Eponine wilted under the old man's glare, and Marius drew her close. He steered her toward the old man, striding determinedly and glaring right back. "Monsieur, don't you dare refer to my dear friend Eponine in that way," he said. "She is not a prostitute as you seem to think. She is a respectable, strong young woman. And I love her. It would do you well to never insult her again."

The old man's mouth gaped. "You love this…this…laide vieille chose?" He shook his head. "But why, boy? You're a handsome young lad. You could have your pick of the girls, and you choose this sallow creature?"

And that was how Marius's fist ended up in a feeble (but judgmental) old man's eye, Eponine ended up in his arms, and the two ended up hiding in an alley way as a group of policemen ran by. Eponine was still clutched to his chest. Marius was very acutely aware that coupled with the fact that he had just punched an old man, Eponine was clutched to his chest and he had just kissed her in the middle of the street, he was probably going to have a nervous breakdown.

Finally, Eponine looked up at him. "Why did you do that, M'sieur Marius?"

"Which thing?" Marius gasped, trying to regain some control over his breathing. "I've just done many things."

"Everything!" Eponine cried. "You…you just kissed me! And you ain't ashamed of it! You defended me against that ol' man, and – and…said you loved me!"

"I meant everything," Marius explained.

Eponine looked at him. Just looked at him. Her dark, shadowed eyes full of wonder. It was as if something clicked in her brain them. "You…love me."

"Yes."

"And…you want to…be with me."

"Yes."

"Monsieur Marius, I love you too."

Marius never thought that hearing those words – especially coming from a voice that sounded as if its owner had gargled stones – would affect him so. So he told a very small lie. "Eponine, my grandfather would very much like for me to be married. But, the action that I just took is – at least to him – completely inappropriate of an unmarried couple. I don't want to dishonor my grandfather, and…"

"Yes," Eponine breathed. "Monsieur, the answer is yes."

And if you ever questioned the fact that Marius had just proposed to an ugly gamin in a dirty alley after punching an old man, well, he would just smile and shrug, saying, "I loved her."

You know what? That was actually kind of fun to write. This is supposed to be set before he meets Cosette, by the by. Here's your question for the day: does anyone here ship Marius/Cosette/Eponine? Like, as an OT3? Answers in the reviews, please!