Three days to the wedding.

It had been a rough couple of days. Eponine had been camped out on the floor of Cosette's living room, refusing pillows or blankets, refusing food, only rising to fulfill her responsibilities as maid of honor.

Eponine had been close to death many times in her short life, but now she wondered if she had finally passed on to the Great Beyond and nobody had the heart to tell her. She walked around like a body missing its soul, a ghost in physical form. She no longer felt. She didn't smile, but at least she also didn't cry.

I don't want to see you ever again.

She hadn't told anybody what he'd said, so Cosette could only guess that the cause of her depression was that he was with Sophie now. She couldn't blame him for saying that. It's not as though she didn't know she was hurting him. She was hurting, too.

So much hurt. It certainly must be for the best, that they never see each other again.

"Eponine, we're going out, would you like to come with?"

Cosette was tapping on the door. Eponine looked around. She remembered crawling in here, into this closet, just to get away from all the noise for a moment. Cosette had been talking about the wedding, the guests, the bridal party, the best man… She had just wanted a moment of peace. That was rational. But how long had she been in there now? She lost track of time.

Her voice was hoarse when she answered, "Coming."

Two days to the wedding.

"Now remember, don't drink too much, Enjolras, we do have to be up rather early tomorrow."

Enjolras grimaced irritably. He had been with Sophie nearly every moment for the past week or so. She had been playing her part admirably, talking gently with him, steadying him on their walks home from the bar, reminding him that he is worthy of so much more than the terrible treatment he received from Eponine. Slowly trying to edge her way into his heart. For the most part, he was thankful to have someone, even though he couldn't help feeling fearful that the old Enjolras would never have needed someone to hold after a break up, that he was going soft.

But he was wise to the game she was playing. And even if it wasn't a game, he was still too far off from being ok enough to think about someone else in that way.

I don't want to see you ever again.

The words were supposed to taste like medicine in his mouth. Bitter, hard to swallow, but when he felt better it would have been worth it. But he didn't feel better. He didn't feel relieved. He didn't feel anything.

That, of course, could partially be due to all the self-medicating by way of booze he'd been doing.

You will not find a mended heart at the bottom of a bottle.

Enjolras didn't know that he was looking for a mended heart anymore. He was more interested in the temporary relief that he did find at the bottom of a bottle.

"Enjolras?"

"Yeah."

Sophie put her hand against his cheek and held it there, stroking his temple with her thumb.

"You know how much I care for you. How much I want to see you happy."

He moved his face away, thumbing the rim of the bottle in his hand.

"You look so much like her, you know."

He said it because he knew it would make her angry.

"I do not."

"You do. You guys could be…sisters or somethin'. Almost makes it hard to look at you."

"I don't look like her."

"Well I guess you do try a lot harder than her to look good. She's just naturally beautiful I guess."

She fiddled with her mug irritably for a moment, her jaw clenched.

"You know what, Enjolras? I'm trying to help you through a rough time, and it hasn't exactly been easy for me, and I know I volunteered for the job and that maybe you don't want me here, but that doesn't give you the right to be a petty asshole," she stood angrily, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair. "Say what you want about me, but I'm here! Where is she? Where's Eponine, Enjolras? Would she have done this for you? She tears your heart in two, I'm the one who tries to pick up the pieces and I'm the bad guy."

He only took a swig of liquor.

"Carry yourself home tonight."

He didn't turn to see her leave. He continued drinking.

One day to the wedding.

Enjolras didn't wake up in time to meet Marius and Cosette at the chapel to practice for the ceremony, and neither did Eponine. He awoke on the floor of his kitchen in a pile of shattered glass around noon, while she snoozed on well into the late afternoon, safely tucked away in the closet at Cosette's home, the door jammed shut with a broom. Their lack of attendance at the rehearsal was mentioned by none, not even Sophie, who remained uncharacteristically quiet.

The night before.

He didn't know that he would last the night sober, and Enjolras had an obligation to Marius to be alive and present the next morning, so once he was awake enough to shake the glass out of his hair and change pants, he headed out to the bar closest to his apartment.

He swore he felt a chill of warning up his back when the door opened and she appeared. He turned away quickly, and she seemed to have not noticed him, so he curled over his drink and hoped that it would continue to be so.

She was alone. She ordered a shot of something and slammed it back with a vengeance. She shouldn't be out the night before the wedding, but then again neither should he. Perhaps she, like him, found it unlikely that she'd be able to fall asleep without something other than blood running through her veins.

Three shots in, she asked the bartender for a bottle and dropped some coins on the counter. She turned, noticing him for the first time. He didn't move, only looked at her sideways as she stopped suddenly, caught and unable to move.

She blinked, seemed to regain the power of thought, and nodded unsurely to him, stumbling away from the bar. She found a table in the back that she sat at it for a long time, drinking and watching him. He watched her back, for a long time.

Hours later, the bartender called out "last call" and the patrons began packing up for the night. Enjolras paid for another bottle to take with him, and walked unevenly over to where Eponine sat, still staring at him.

When he offered her his hand, she took it, standing up and grabbing the neck of her bottle in her fist. They drank all the way down the street, not saying anything, both sleepwalking versions of themselves.

Enjolras turned the key in his front door and they went inside wordlessly. As he removed her blouse, her skirt, her undergarments with an expressionless face, he waited for the voices in his head to scream. To tell him to stop doing this, what a terrible idea this was, how much this was going to hurt him, how much this already was hurting him.

But those voices were drowned in liquor. Those voices had gone to sleep hours ago.