Éponine has perhaps never been so strangely nervous in all her life.
"Come on then, captain, hurry up," she calls lightly. "Try not to look like you're impatient to be somewhere, it makes you look like an easy target."
"And how exactly would that make me look like a target?" Despite the intended destination being his own apartment – temporary, of course, and a better hide-out than any she has ever had – Éponine has taken the lead.
Or at least – Éponine has never been in such a situation where she should not be nervous – it's only words after all. What's the harm? – and yet is. It's a different sort of nervousness than she is used to. She cared for her father's opinion only so far as she could be sure he would not lash out; she cared for Marius' opinion when she feared she could not change it from the first impression of a skinny little thing rooting through his books; but she has kept the truest parts of herself hidden for so long that it never mattered what anyone thought of it.
She turns abruptly enough that he must stop short to avoid bumping into her, and she only speaks once he has paused. "Nobody's happy to go anywhere, here. No place to go that's worth going." This said, she whirls on her heel and continues on.
She doesn't have to look back to know that he is following again. The footsteps that match her pace are enough. "But you were saying–?"
Éponine knows exactly what she was saying; the rest of her explanation has yet to be muddled out.
She swings around a streetlamp before she replies, her boots squeaking against the metal as the light above flickers.
"It was a selfish plan," she says when she lands. "Selfish and, actually, not well-thought out. You didn't factor into it until later. All I wanted was to get her back to Marius. As if it'd win me some sort of favor with him."
"And this is because you love him."
She pulls a face she knows he can't see. From his mouth, the words seem silly and childish, and, wrong though she may have been in assuming herself in love (she is still sorting this one out), it was nothing so simple as he makes it seem.
And she cannot tell what he thinks of this. She does not want him to believe her to be silly and childish.
"Love him, yeah. Or loved, or…"
He motions to the side, indicting they are near, and here he takes the lead.
"…something. Doesn't matter. She's happy and he's happy and I'm… well enough."
"And have you always cared so for the well-being of the aristocracy?" he asks dryly. He is turned away from her in order to unlock the door of an apartment bordered closely by other doors, living spaces cramped together on a narrow street, and so it is difficult to discern fully what he thinks of this. Still, she can detect a faint trace of curiosity in his tone.
"Oh, no," she remarks as she passes through the door, "it was unexpected, believe you me, monsieur. On both counts."
She folds her hands behind her back as she steps in, looking around.
It's small and sparsely-furnished, and what little furniture she can see in the first room of this (she assumes) two-room apartment is old and run-down, but still, she cannot help but think that it is better than the old Gorbeau house.
Maybe that's because her parents were there. Sleeping under bridges was still better than the old Gorbeau house as long as she was alone.
It could also be because he managed to fit a few books on the rotting shelf, and though she cannot imagine how that would be at all practical to a man who may have to flee with only moments of notice, she cannot completely begrudge him the choice. Books have been a far-away thing for her, this past decade; kept far enough from her that she began to forget their language.
Anything with a door that is more than rotting planks is better, too, and there is less confusion about the address. The '38' hung there looks more sturdy than the litany of conflicting '50's and '52's.
The windows are not quite so grand, though, she can say that much.
Enjolras locks the door behind him as she steps in, slipping the key back into a pocket, and this shakes her from her thoughts.
From some, the gesture would be menacing. Were it Claquesous, Gueulemer, Brujon, were it her father, or even Babet, who has sworn never to hit a lady (and in some moment of kindness, assured her he still thought of her as a lady, even if she did sometimes scheme with them), who had done it, she would not be so at ease, but she supposes it is an unconscious gesture from an unknowing bourgeois boy.
"You want to help because they're happy?"
"Mmh?" For a moment, she had forgotten that she left off in the middle of a thought. "Oh, no, it's… you – the Amis – are fighting for what no one else has. For people who would not fight with you."
He runs a hand through his curls and makes for the adjoining room, though he waves a hand to show he is still listening. After a moment, the glow of a candle sputters forth, and she can dimly make out the outline of a bed and an upright closet.
She is struck by the situation. It's clear he does not need to be here. No doubt he could live comfortable somewhere beyond this
Her words come easier after this. "And maybe you should not stand alone."
He reemerges sans the violet coat, looking tired.
"It's late," she states abruptly. How ineloquent she must seem next to him.
"You have some place to stay, then?" he asks.
She shrugs. "Yeah."
She doesn't, actually, but he doesn't know that – oh, but wasn't she trying for honesty?
So, reluctantly, she backtracks. "Well… no. I do not, actually. Never said when I'd be back, so it'd be rude to just drop in on dear Baron Pontmercy at such a late hour, wouldn't it?" Cosette would guess what she was up to, anyway, and explain it to Marius. If she is successful. If not… well, she'll have to explain it herself, won't she?
She really, really hopes he believes her.
Éponine continues when it seems as though he is about to speak, displeased with her answer, and she adds hastily, "I'm not planning on sleeping, though. I thought I'd make some deliveries for you, if you were still in need of that."
He shifts slightly, and from the lack of response, she understands that he only guesses at her meaning."
"'Redistributing the wealth,'' she quotes, " 'to where it is most needed.'"
She flutters her fingers against each other, thinks, and decides to abandon tact entirely.
"Word of advice," she says, with a nod to a doctor's bag pushed carefully into a corner, "never leave anything like that in such an obvious hiding spot."
She has to suppress a smile at the sharp frown that overtakes his face. "It's just right for carrying money when you don't want it found, so naturally, everyone finds it there. If you wanted to make it more believable," she adds idly, "doctors 'round here generally take a corner house. It's easier to get people in and out there."
Her gaze snaps back to his, and she searches his face.
"You want to know why you should trust me not to take the money and run," she states.
To his credit, he doesn't bluster and deny it, just quirks an eyebrow and waits for her follow-up statement. She grins. "I just delivered a baron's fiancée from the clutches of notorious pirates with not a scratch on her. I'm pretty sure that'd earn me a small fortune, if I wanted it."
He leans back against a wall with arms crossed, and she wonders how he can be so commanding even when he should, by all rights, look ridiculous among peeling wallpaper and dying daisies. "Assuming he would trust your word."
"Assuming, yes," she concedes. "But there's my word and there's Cosette's; on the one hand, the friend of several years, and on the other, the woman he will soon marry."
She walks around the room, tracing the walls with her fingertips.
She's somewhat tempted to rescind her earlier statement, say she does need a place to stay, just to see if he would offer, to see if his desire to combat injustice – and what could be more unjust than leaving a young, frail girl to fend for herself in a place like this? – would override his sense of social propriety.
She really does want to help, though. Her father would be baffled.
"Did you know," she says suddenly, stopping at the shelf, "that I once saw a man stabbed in an alleyway?" He gives her a strange look, and then – seems to sense that she is going somewhere with this, perhaps by the way her fingers tap quickly over book spines.
(She is strangely pleased.)
"It was over nothing – pocket change – no more than a few decimes, and still someone thought it was enough to…" she squinches her mouth to the side and mimed a dagger across her throat. "Anyway," she continues, resuming her pacing, "you've got to be careful with these things. Someone knows someone else has what they don't, and you've got trouble."
She inclines her head towards it once more. "Now, I'd imagine there's a fair bit more than some centimes in there, though you wouldn't keep it all in one place, either." No, after several successful raids, that would be more than folly.
By the look in her eyes, he knows exactly where she is going with this, but she vocalizes it anyway. "Think of how much trouble that could stir up if it doesn't go to the right people. Even a bit of it – wouldn't need more than a bit, anyway. Could get the message across."
Still, she feels as though she has not said enough, and so she breathes in deeply.
"I swear upon my honor as a Thénardier–" She stops herself. "Well, no," she amends, images of her mother's fluttering hands and her father's falsely charming smile flashing through her mind. "'pon my honor as an Éponine, then," she says. If she had not been thinking so intently on how to phrase this, she would have seen the ghost of a smile pass across Enjolras' face.
As it is, she so rarely heard true promises made that she did not think hers was strange at all. In fact, she is nodding to herself. "I keep those promises, I do."
And maybe this is what makes him agree.
She finds him sitting on the railings just outside the door, and she is not surprised that he followed her.
He giver her a nod and a touch of his cap. "Evening, 'Ponine," he greets. She smiles in response.
Sometimes she wonders whether he feels as protective of her, and of Azelma, as he does of the urchins trailing behind him.
But Gavroche has always been something – more. He sees more, understands more, than most of the unfortunates who live their whole lives on these streets, and so this thought does not bother her as much as it might.
Whether it comes from less of their parents' influence to taint him, or the familiarity with the theater, where disguises are assumed and shed as easily as a second skin, he knows her, and it is not pity coming from him.
She hoists up the bag, now rag covered and looking all the world to be a mere bundle of ruined clothes, and descends the few short steps.
"C'mon, 'vroche. We've got work to do."
A/N: There is tentative trust. Tentative, but existent. (And, um, when it comes to the one line – it's one of those doors where you have to use a key to lock or unlock it regardless of which side you stand on.)
(Also you all are lovely and this is not up for debate.)