PART I: ENJOLRAS
Chapter One - The Rue Plumet
Disclaimer: All character and novel rights belong to Victor Hugo. Song lyrics belong to the creators of Les Misérables, the musical. I own nothing except for my own imagination.
Enjolras waited for Grantaire to finish telling his story about the time he got so drunk he went into the wrong flat and slept in someone else's bed entirely. The blonde leader of the Amis did this with a deadpan expression on his face, unamusedly watching his fellow revolutionaries laugh their asses off at Grantaire's antics.
The second they finished howling with hilarity he got down to business. "The time is near," he began, loudly. "So near, it's stirring the blood in our veins. But yet beware, don't let the wine get to your brains." This he said very severely, with a particularly venomous look at Grantaire, who gave him an all-too-innocent look. "We need a sign to rally the people." Enjolras looked around for suggestions and possible ideas.
"Well, I heard that-" Combeferre was cut off as Joly suddenly began talking.
"Marius, what's wrong with you today? You look as though you've seen a ghost." Joly, ever the hypochondriac, was getting up and moving to the other side the room, in case Marius was coming down with something.
"Some wine and say what's going on," Grantaire offered, handing him a cup of wine and smirking at Enjolras. In return he was sent a furious glower, sending the already-drunk man off in a fit of giggles.
Marius hardly reacted and simply sighed again. Enjolras stared at him with a curious expression - was he drunk, or something?
"A ghost you say? Maybe; she was just like a ghost to me. One minute there, then she was gone!" The man sighed again as he sat down with the other Amis.
This was far worse. Enjolras could not have him falling in love. It would distract him from the revolution! (In the corner of his mind, he wondered if it was with the girl that he had saved a month ago. And even farther back in the recesses of his mind he desperately wished it wasn't)
Grantaire, meanwhile, was taking advantage of the lovesick Marius and mocking him, dancing around like a moron. "I am agog! I am aghast! Is Marius in love at last? I've never seen him 'ooh' and 'aah'!" The other men laughed with him. Feeling confident, the drunk nudged Enjolras in the shoulder playfully, and was shoved roughly away (which he promptly ignored). "You talk of battles to be won, and here he comes like Don Juan. It is better than an opera!"
Enjolras silenced him with another deadly glare and locked eyes with Marius before addressing everyone as a whole, his voice taking on a commanding tone. "It is time for us all to decide who we are. Do we fight for the right to a night at the opera now? Have you asked yourselves what's the price you might pay?" Here he turned to Marius, who, to his credit, was looking a little ashamed. "Or is this simply a game for a rich young boy to play?"
He seemed to have sparked something in Marius because his head jolted up and he looked beseechingly at Enjolras. "Had you been there tonight, you might know how it feels to be struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight."
Enjolras rolled his eyes. "Don't be dramatic, Marius."
Marius grasped his shoulder and forced him to look at him. "Had you been there tonight, you might also have known how the world may be changed in just one burst of light!"
Bahorel was practically rolling around with laughter. "I never pinned you as the poetic type, Marius!"
"That's Jehan's job," Grantaire smirked, and Jehan laughed good-naturedly.
Enjolras was beginning to get seriously frustrated. He shook Marius' hand off his arm. "Marius, you're no longer a child! I do not doubt you mean it well, but now there is a higher call!"
Looking half-guilty, half-exasperated, Marius sighed. "I know, but-"
"Who cares about your lonely soul? We strive towards a larger goal; our little lives don't count at all."
Marius deflated as he saw the others nodding at Enjolras' words (with the exception of Grantaire, who took care not to believe in anything). "Alright, alright, I get it," he said, after a long pause, and Enjolras gave him another stern look before settling back down.
"Listen everybody!" Gavroche called, and, and the entire room turned their heads as one to the 12-year-old. "General Lamarque is dead!"
The chatter turned into a stunned quiet. Even Enjolras, the one they called the "marble man", had to swallow a few times to hide his unhappiness. They all knew he would die sometime soon, but they'd also hoped their favourite general would hold on for a bit longer. Pushing his feelings away, Enjolras forced himself to speak with his brain, like he always did.
"Lamarque... his death is the hour of fate. His death is the sign we await!" Enjolras, feeling empowered by this realisation, stood up and began pacing. "On his funeral day they will honor his name. It'll be a rallying cry that will reach every ear. In the death of Lamarque we will kindle the flame. They will see that the day of salvation is near! Let us welcome it gladly with courage and cheer!"
Bossuet grinned, swept up in the fact that the rebellion was finally starting. "Let us take to the streets with no doubt in our hearts!"
"Give a jubilant shout!" Courfeyrac hollered, raising his cup and clanking it violently with Grantaire's, wine spilling about.
"They will come one and all!" Joly proclaimed, beaming like he always did.
"They will come when we call!" Enjolras shouted, laughing.
When Éponine came up the stairs into the part of the Café Musain reserved for Les Amis de Café l'ABC, the boys were celebrating loudly over something. Their revolution, she thought bitterly. Do they fight for the suffering people? Or the idea of them? She watched them drink and shout and heard a sound hardly heard by the general public: laughter, coming from the lips of a particular leader of the revolution. His head was thrown back, blue eyes alight with the flame of passion and excitement- for the battles to come, undoubtedly. Did he really know what he was getting himself into? Did he know that it was a hopeless cause? Did he, Enjolras, a well-off bourgeois boy, know that if he went to fight, he and his friends would not stand a chance?
These contemplations were lost when the gamine saw Marius accept a drink from Jehan, and Éponine was suddenly all too aware of the scrap of paper she held in her hand. A familiar pain shot through her chest. If she gave this to him, any chance for them would be ruined. He would officially meet Cosette and they would fall in love at once. This she was certain of, because even she had to admit they were perfect for each other: the beautiful, kind, selfless, rich young lady was an incomparable match for the romantic, eager, good-hearted young man of the revolution.
Perhaps she could back out of it. It would be all too easy for Éponine to simply toss the address into a nearby gutter and let it rot. It would take a quick, well-delivered lie for Marius to believe she'd tried, but had not been able to get hold of Cosette's address. It would- he was heading her way. There was no way to escape it now.
"'Ponine! Do you have it?" he rushed to her and gave a glance into the crowd of Amis. Éponine looked, too, and blue eyes found hers.
She was momentarily lost, because even though they were hard as flint and obviously not pleased, those azure irises held her gaze for a little too long, and Éponine was left wondering why such a fiery man would eyes so much like the oceans blue that she thought she was drowning in them.
Enjolras' eyes moved to Marius' and he gave him an unimpressed look before turning back to the festivities. Éponine was snapped back to reality and she grabbed Marius by the hand - relishing in the feeling of it - before taking him out of the Musain. "Here," she whispered, slipping the paper with the address into his hand and seeing his face blossom with joy.
"Éponine," he breathed with such marvel in his voice that the gamine almost stopped breathing. At the look he gave her her heart almost stopped beating. "Thank you... thank you so much. You are the friend that has brought me to the gods; heaven is near!" He said this into her hair because he was hugging her, and Éponine closed her eyes and breathed in his scent. She committed it to memory because she knew that when he let go he would never come back to her. Once she stepped away from his embrace Marius would go to Cosette and he wouldn't even glance at her again.
"Go, Marius," she whispered to him.
"No! No, you have to come with me! I don't want to accidentally go to the wrong place," Marius said, earnestly, pulling away from her.
If he were anyone else Éponine would have made a cutting remark about how she hardly needed to take the time to write down the message if she was going to take him there anyway. But, he was Marius, and when had she ever declined him anything?
"Okay," she said quietly, gazing up into grey eyes. Every word that he says is a dagger in me.
Éponine stopped watching Marius and Cosette coo at each other when it became too much for her. She turned away, and stared down at her dirty hands. How could he have loved me, even without Cosette? I am worthless compared to him. She jerked her head away from the mud in her nails and glared at the ground. He was never mine to lose- why regret what could never be?
She was so lost in her own self-pity that she didn't hear them coming. "What have we here?" drawled an all-too-familiar voice, grating in her ears. It was Brujon, one of her father's gang.
"Who is this hussy?" Éponine felt a surge of anger at her father's words. He didn't even recognise his own daughter!
"It's your brat Éponine! Don't you know your own kid?" Babet rolled his eyes. Would you look at that, we actually agree on something, the girl thought dryly before stepping away from the wall and blocking Rue Plumet from the Thenardier gang. She could not let them ruin Marius' happiness, or his most likely only chance to see Cosette before the revolution began.
"Don't!" she managed to exclaim, and Thenardier gave her an irritated look.
"What?"
"I know this house," Éponine babbled desperately. "There's nothing here, just an old man and a girl that live ordinary lives." Which was very far from the truth, because she knew they lead extremely eventful lives.
"Don't interfere," her father said sternly as he tried to push past her. She held her ground. "You've got some gall! Take care, young miss," he hissed warningly.
"She's going soft, it happens to all," Claquesous told Thenardier in a voice that he must've thought sounded wise.
"You're in the way, 'Ponine," Montparnasse said, in a gentler tone than her father. "Go home."
"Don't call me that," Éponine snapped. That right was reserved for her family only - and by family, she meant her sister and brother. "I'm going to scream. I'm gonna warn them here," she threatened, her stance shifting, coiled and ready to dodge a blow.
"One little scream," her father snarled, "and you'll regret it for a year." His words sparked both fear and fury in her.
"I told you I'd do it," Éponine said, in a moment of thoughtless panic, and she screamed as loud as she could.
As her father clamped one hand over her mouth and grabbed her throat with the other she heard Marius run from the scene. Flee, Marius! she cried silently, willing him to escape without a scratch.
"You wait my girl, you'll rue this night," Thenardier growled in her ear, and the hand around her throat tightened. "Leave her to me. Make for the sewers!" he commanded the gang, and they scattered, leaving Éponine with the former innkeeper.
"I told you I'd do it," Éponine choked out. It seemed to be the only thing she was capable of saying.
"I'll make you scream all right," Thenardier said contemptuously. She smelt his stinking breath and saw every gap in his teeth.
He hit her, hard, across the face, and she fell to the ground. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain. He kicked her in the stomach and her mouth formed an 'O' in a soundless scream. By the time he'd pulled her back up she was sobbing and gasping for air, already in too much agony to care.
"I'm not done with you yet," he said, and Éponine closed her eyes and braced herself for the impact.
She felt herself fall once more when he knocked her down with another crack to the side of her head. She felt hot blood mix with the tears on her cheeks. The things I do for you, Marius, she thought despairingly to herself.
Éponine thought she heard footsteps pitter-pattering closer and closer to them, and hoped it wasn't another one of the gang members to help beat her up. When the she heard a shout of pain that was distinctly male and not her own she cracked open an eye.
Thenardier had been pinned to the wall, and blood was pouring from his nose. A tall man in a red coat was standing over the slightly crumpled figure of her father. He was begging for mercy. The blood dripped into Éponine's eyes and she could no longer see.
"Get out of here," her saviour bit out, and her father bolted. She was gathered in someone's arms as she registered the voice as extremely familiar.
"Wh... Who..." she managed to make out before she was shushed.
"Don't strain yourself. Just try to stay awake. You're going to be fine," the voice was soothing, and Éponine nodded, before promptly falling asleep.
