Four

Tensions Rise

Marius and Bahorel led them down a flight of stairs to a massive gym. There were punching bags lining the walls, dummies stood upright in the centre of a large blue mat, and what Cosette suspected to be a boxing ring at the far end of the room. At the opposite end were a selection of weights and various different exercise machines, such as treadmills, exercise bikes and a rowing machine.

Everyone that Cosette had met since arriving here was there, but there was something different about all of them. They were all wearing vests or T-shirts with shorts or jogging pants; Bahorel decided to forgo wearing a T-shirt at all, shucking it over his head and throwing it to the side of the room.

Éponine was there, too. Cosette had barely seen the other woman since they had arrived. For whatever reason, she didn't eat with the group in the evenings, pretty much like Combeferre. Combeferre's decision not to eat with them made sense to Cosette, considering he was a vampire (for lack of a better term), but she had never been provided with a reason for why Éponine didn't.

Today, Éponine had her dark hair pulled into a ponytail, and she was wearing a white vest top and short black leggings. She was rolling her eyes at something Courfeyrac was saying, but when she caught sight of them she suddenly smiled brightly.

"Marius!" she said, breaking away from the rest of them and hurrying towards him.

"Hey, 'Ponine," he said.

Éponine threw a punch towards Marius' shoulder. "Want to spar?" she said, sinking into what Cosette presumed was a fighting stance.

"Maybe later," he said, and gestured towards Grantaire and Cosette, who hovered somewhere near the door.

Éponine's eyes slid from Marius to them and her grin faltered a little. "Ah, right," she said.

Bahorel, meanwhile, had Feuilly in a headlock and was hauling him over to the boxing ring, whilst Joly and the bald man (whom Cosette hadn't spoken to much, but she knew he was called Bossuet) were heading over to the treadmills.

Éponine cleared her throat. "Hey, Enjolras," she said. "The humans are here."

Enjolras looked away from his conversation with Combeferre to look over at them.

"Hello," he said. Jehan stepped forwards, a pile of clothes tucked under his arm.

"Feuilly made you some more clothes," he said, walking over to them. Cosette accepted his pile. "The changing rooms are over there."

There was only one changing room, and no cubicles inside. She didn't mind changing in front of Grantaire, as the two of them had seen each other in their underwear countless times, but she had him guard the door whilst she changed in case any of the other demons chanced coming inside.

She also had leggings, like Éponine, but hers were longer, to her ankle, and were grey. The vest top was white. Both items, like all of the other clothes Feuilly had made for her, fit perfectly.

Grantaire had been given plain black jogging pants and a white vest. He donned both quickly and plucked the vest away from his body with distaste.

"This whole idea is shit," he said to her as they left the changing rooms.

"Not really," Courfeyrac piped up, having been hovering near the door. "If she gets caught alone, she needs to be able to defend herself."

"Yeah, I get that," Grantaire said, rolling his eyes, "But I don't see why she needs all of this." He gestured at the demons remaining that had opted not to go and begin training themselves. "Fuck, I'd rather do it myself. At least then I know she's being taught properly."

Courfeyrac opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by Enjolras.

"I'll train you," he said, nodding at Grantaire. "And Marius has volunteered to teach Cosette the basics."

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. "You're teaching me the basics," he said, flatly. "Of what, in particular?"

"Well, we were going to stand with unarmed combat first," Combeferre said. "We fight using a combination of different styles, combining training we have all undertaken separately."

The twist to Grantaire's mouth was almost amused, and Cosette fought back a groan as she realised where this could end up going.

Grantaire gave a lazy, almost casual shrug, and stepped away from the rest of the demons, walking backwards with his eyes fixed on Enjolras.

"Cosette?" Marius was at her shoulder, looking down at her with an uncertain half-smile on his face. "Do you want to...?"

He gestured towards one of the punching bags, but it didn't matter to anyone because Enjolras had approached Grantaire and Grantaire had punched him in the face.

Cosette winced, because she knew that was days of frustration on Grantaire's part all focused into one swing of his arm. Enjolras was, unsurprisingly, floored by the fist to his cheekbone, and he went down like a sack of bricks.

There was movement and stillness all at once; some of the demons lurched forwards as if going to help Enjolras, whilst others actually stopped to watch. Bahorel and Feuilly draped themselves over the ropes around the boxing ring, the former's face amused.

Combeferre was suddenly in between Enjolras and Grantaire, both hands held up with his palms facing outwards. "Leave them to it," he ordered. "Get on with training."

Éponine scowled. Behind Combeferre, Grantaire was bouncing on the balls of his feet, arms and fists raised in front of his face, whilst Enjolras slowly got to his feet.

The taller man stopped and rubbed his jaw, a dark expression on his face. "I'm supposed to be training you," he spat.

In response, Grantaire threw another punch. This one was dodged fairly neatly by Enjolras who brought his hand up to catch Grantaire's fist.

"I don't need training," Grantaire said.

"Just because you can throw a punch –" Enjolras began, but in the blink of an eye Grantaire had done some sort of twist and flipped Enjolras over his shoulder and was pinning him to the ground.

Cosette took a step backwards, bumping into Marius. His hands reached out to steady her, but he didn't move his hands away from her elbows.

"I can do a lot more than just throw a punch," Grantaire snapped, having flipped Enjolras onto his front and pinning his arms behind his back. "When I said I was ex-military, I meant it."

"Right, can you please get off me?" Enjolras ground out, his face pressing into the ground.

Grantaire slid backwards, releasing Enjolras so he could get to his feet. He stood there, breathing heavily, as Enjolras turned around.

Within seconds, Enjolras had punched Grantaire in the stomach, causing him to double over.

Cosette gasped and stepped forward, but Marius' grip on her elbows suddenly tightened.

"Listen to Combeferre," he advised, in a calm voice. "Leave them to it. Enjolras won't seriously try to hurt Grantaire."

"It's not that I'm worried about," Cosette said. "I don't want Grantaire to lose his temper."

She was too busy now staring up at Marius' face to notice the fight that was going on behind them. Marius looked down at his hands and where they were still cupping Cosette's elbows and he suddenly leaped away like he'd been burned.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he said, a touch of worry in his voice.

"Of course you didn't," Cosette reassured him, momentarily distracted as Grantaire wrestled Enjolras into a headlock.

"Right. Well." Marius cleared his throat and stepped in front of her, blocking her view of Enjolras and Grantaire completely. He gave her a very pointed look. "Shall we get started on your training?"

She looked around him as Enjolras suddenly staggered into view, knocked by a kick or a punch or something from Grantaire. She bit her lip and nodded. "All right."

OOO

Later on, Grantaire and Cosette sat on the bed in their shared bedroom, exhausted and both feeling a little battered.

Grantaire's scrap with Enjolras hadn't ended particularly well for either of them – by the end of it, both were sporting numerous bruises and some scrapes on their joints, and Grantaire's eye was rapidly swelling whilst Enjolras had blood trickling from one nostril. That in itself was enough to freak out Cosette – not because it was blood, she knew how to deal with blood – but because Enjolras' blood was dark purple and that just looked strange.

Cosette had fallen a lot, and her body ached, and she wasn't sure that learning how to throw a punch was her thing at all, despite Grantaire's earlier claim that her punches hurt.

Still, Marius had been patient and kind and had laughed off her many mistakes in an attempt to make her feel more comfortable – but that didn't mean she was in any hurry to resume training tomorrow.

Sighing, she tipped her head sideways and rested it on Grantaire's shoulder.

"Do you have to carry on training?" she said, her voice quiet and thick through a yawn she was trying to stifle.

"No," Grantaire said. "Apparently, my skills were deemed 'sufficient'."

He snorted. Cosette turned her head to rest her chin on his shoulder, staring up at the side of his face, seeing the bruise that was beginning to bloom around his eye.

"I think they're more than sufficient," Cosette said. "You both caused serious damage to each other –"

"Yeah, and we were both holding back," Grantaire said. "Now that's a scary thought, isn't it?"

Cosette didn't respond, because in truth, it was pretty scary to think of what sort of damage they would have caused to one another had they both let go completely.

"What about you?" he said, giving her a nudge with his elbow. "Are you all right with Marius? Or do you want me to suggest...?"

"I'm fine with Marius. He's nice." She pursed her lips. "I don't think this whole fighting thing is for me, though."

"Of course it isn't," Grantaire said. "You're Cosette Fauchelevent. You'd rather love people into submission."

"Well, that sounds creepier than I think you meant it to sound," Cosette retorted.

"Marius was careful with you," Grantaire added, and he twisted his head so that they were nose to nose. He waggled his eyebrows.

"Oh, shut up," she grumbled, pulling back and slipping off the bed. "I'm going to go and shower."

She fished a towel from the chest of drawers in the corner along with a simple plain shift dress that she liked to wear in the evenings.

"Whilst you do that, I'm going to take advantage of the fact there's a bed I can sleep in," Grantaire said, flopping down dramatically.

"Yeah, have fun with that," she said. "See you later."

She flicked off the light switch on her way out.

OOO

Éponine had never realised before today how easy it was to take an angry shower.

This was an angry shower, the one she was having, slamming her bottle of shampoo down onto the little shelf so hard that it sounded like the shelf might have cracked. Angry, bitter little words poured out of her mouth in a low mutter as she scrubbed the sweat off her skin with a sponge, obsessing over everything that seemed to be going wrong.

It was all because of that stupid Cosette girl, with her blonde hair and big eyes and long legs and the way Marius' eyes followed her whenever they were in the same room together. Éponine had been here for years and Marius had never once looked at her like that. Did she have to prance about in little dresses to get attention? And more to that matter, why did Feuilly make Cosette girly flowery shit to wear and then give her plain leggings and fucking T-shirts? Why didn't he make her look pretty, too?

(She conveniently ignored the fact that Feuilly never missed the way Éponine's eyes trailed longingly over fancy dresses when they made trips to the human world, and the Opifex demon did make her dresses and things because of that and she always scathingly returned them with a reminder dresses aren't practical in a fight, cutting her nose off to spite her face.)

In frustration, she smacked a hand against the wall of the shower so hard her palm stung, and she felt the familiar itch beneath her skin as her other self leaped forward to protect her from the pain.

She had to breathe, breathe hard and deep – it would do to change in the middle of a shower cubicle – but filed away the itching of her skin as a reminder she needed to get out and change soon. Closing her eyes, she reached out to switch off the shower and stood for a few minutes, just letting the water drip off her body.

She reached out for the towel hanging on the back of the cubicle door, just out of the way of the shower's spray, and wrapped it around herself. Now that the shower was off, she could hear the sound of someone brushing their teeth and water running from one of the taps in the sinks.

Tucking the towel together beneath her armpit, she scraped back the lock and stepped out into the main bathroom, steeling herself to deal with whoever it was that was out there.

It was Cosette, and that felt like a blow to the stomach all by itself. The itching returned, this time beneath the flesh of her legs too. She amended her earlier mental note to include a visit to Bossuet to see if he wanted to get out soon.

Cosette caught sight of her in the mirror above the sinks. "Hello," Cosette said, her voice shy through a mouthful of toothpaste. She gave an apologetic grimace and spat into the sink, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth.

Éponine grunted, ducking back into the steamy shower cubicle to retrieve her toiletry bag and snatching the shampoo off the shelf to put away.

"How are you?" Cosette asked, tone conversational, rinsing the toothbrush under the tap.

Éponine looked up from where she was trying to stuff the shampoo bottle into the already overflowing bag. She swore as her hand slipped
on the zip and the bag flung out of her hands, slamming into the tiled floor and sending its contents spinning into every conceivable direction.

"Oh, no," Cosette said. She was on her knees collecting things before Éponine could even move. "Did the bag split?"

"No," Éponine said, shortly, not wanting to crouch down considering she was only wearing a towel. "You don't have to –"

"I don't mind," Cosette said.

"No, I mean it," Éponine snapped. "Stop it."

Cosette sat back on her haunches, a small bottle of mouthwash, Éponine's toothpaste, her conditioner and a box of dental floss collected in her hands. She got to her feet slowly, considering that she had no hands free to push herself up off the floor.

"I was just trying to help," Cosette said. Her voice was calm and soothing and Éponine's other half responded to it better than Éponine would have liked. She forced it down.

"Yeah, well, I don't need your help," she muttered.

Cosette's face was stricken, particularly at the inflection on the 'your', which Éponine was well aware she'd made to sound like a dirty word. Angry at herself now and imagining Combeferre's face arranged into an expression of disappointment, she crossed the short space between them and snatched the bottles out of her hands, tucking them into her elbow and ducking down to pick up her bag and the bottle of shampoo that Cosette hadn't managed to rescue. The plastic surface of the bottle was still damp from the shower.

"Just – just stay out of my way," Éponine ground out, now using Combeferre's face as a way to remind herself she couldn't lose her temper.

She pushed past the other girl and stomped out of the bathroom, desperately hoping that Cosette kept quiet about what had just happened. The last thing she needed was a lecture off one of the guys about being nice to perfect little Cosette – especially not Combeferre. Worse, she supposed, would be if that guard dog of Cosette's got wind of it; there weren't many people who could kick the crap out of Enjolras and she was surprised that Grantaire had managed to cause so much damage.

The itch was getting worse, and when she glanced down at her bare legs she could have sworn she could see fur rippling beneath her tanned skin.

Letting out a breath she didn't realise she was holding, she decided she'd go and speak to Bossuet as soon as she had got dressed.

OOO

Cosette returned to her room after her shower still shaking from her interaction with Éponine. She'd never really spoken to the girl before and had no idea where the hostility was coming from – she decided to put it down to embarrassment due to the fact she'd dropped everything rather than think about the possibility Éponine might just not like her.

She struggled with the idea of not being liked. She'd been bullied all the way through school and had only really come into her own during college, but sometimes it was hard to shake the feeling she was still that scared little girl being told she was ugly because her eyes were too big for her face or mercilessly teasing her for the fact she was adopted.

Grantaire took one look at her and opened his arms for a hug. "What's wrong?" he murmured into her hair as she wrapped her arms around his torso. She still had her towel and training clothes balled in her hands but she didn't care, just like she didn't care about the fact he stank of sweat.

"Nothing," she said. "I just feel...overwhelmed, I guess."

He tightened his arms around her briefly then held her at arm's length. "Come on," he said. "We're going to the kitchen."

"Why?" she said, letting him wrap his hand around hers and pull her off the bed.

"Cooking always makes you feel better, right?" he said, over his shoulder. "You can help Bahorel do shit whilst I take a shower."

Bahorel turned down the offer to let her help him make tonight's meal, but agreed to keep out of her way whilst she baked a cake.

She began to search for ingredients whilst Bahorel got out his baking equipment for her. "Do you have any stem ginger?" she threw over her shoulder.

Grantaire whistled. "Sweetheart, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, as Bahorel told her the jar was in the next cupboard along on the second shelf.

"Cosette bakes when she's bothered about something," Grantaire explained to Bahorel. "Ginger cake is kept for the worst of situations."

"Oh, shoo," Cosette said, retrieving the jar from behind a box of muscovado sugar. "Or you won't get any."

Grantaire looked at her with an unimpressed gaze. "Wouldn't want any," he said, haughtily. "I've had rather enough of your ginger cake over the years."

He hurried out before she could lob a tea towel in his direction, leaving her alone with Bahorel.

Bahorel was busy chopping onions and trying to look like he wasn't crying, so Cosette chattered away to him without really caring whether he was listening. She told him about the recipe, how ginger cake was her father's favourite but Grantaire's most hated.

Bahorel scraped the onions off the chopping board into the frying pan on the stove with the flat of his knife. "What's the deal with Grantaire?" he asked, blinking rapidly. "He's a good fighter. I'd like to take him on myself."

Cosette looked up from where she was whisking eggs with sugar. "He – he used to be in the army," she said, carefully. She didn't want to give away too much because it wasn't her story to tell.

"Yeah, I know," Bahorel said, prodding at the onions with a wooden spoon. "But he's not now?"

"No," Cosette said. "It – it wasn't for him, in the end. But he still – you know, he still practises his fighting and he kept up with a lot of different martial arts..." She leaves out the part where exercise became Grantaire's distraction from all his problems.

"He's good," Bahorel said, now chopping mushrooms. "You, on the other hand, need to brush up on your skills."

"I'm not much of a fighter," Cosette said.

"Oh, we'll make a soldier out of you yet," Bahorel said, baring his teeth at her in a grin. "We made one out of Jehan and Joly and Marius and hell, Enjolras can hold his own in a fight these days –"

"Why wouldn't they be good fighters anyway?" Cosette asked curiously, measuring out flour.

"Their races," Bahorel said. "They're not...natural when it comes to fighting with the body. They're better with their respective powers. And Enjolras is just Enjolras. His race isn't designed for war at all."

"What do you mean?" Cosette asked, cocking her head to one side.

"He's –" Bahorel began, but the kitchen doors burst open and Courfeyrac, Marius, Combeferre and Éponine came in.

"Cosette is cooking!" Courfeyrac boomed.

Éponine was now paused in the doorway, scowling. She kept on scratching her arms, leaving behind red welts. She realised she was staring and looked away, not wanting to incur Éponine's wrath again.

Courfeyrac was hovering over her shoulder. "What cake is it?" he asked, staring at the array of ingredients with suspicious eyes.

"Ginger," Cosette said.

"Ginger," Marius echoed, sounding like he'd never heard the word before.

"I'm sure it will be nice," Combeferre said, fairly. "Not that I would know, of course."

"You could still eat some," Courfeyrac said, as Cosette smacked his hand to stop his fingers from dipping into the mixture of eggs and sugar.

"And spend the rest of the evening hacking it up again?" Combeferre pushed his glasses up his nose. "No, thank you." He glanced over his shoulder at Éponine; the dark-haired girl seemed to realise she was still stood in the doorway and suddenly moved forwards, dumping herself down onto one of the stools and staring down at the tabletop.

"Bahorel, how does it feel to have Cosette baking in your kitchen?" Courfeyrac sang, skipping away from Cosette and wrapping his arms around Bahorel's waist from behind.

"Strange," Bahorel said, "And get off me. I have a knife."

Courfeyrac skittered away to ruffle Marius' hair. Cosette watched from underneath her eyelashes as Courfeyrac leaned down to whisper something into Marius' ear. Marius' cheeks flushed and he shoved at the curly-haired man, who spun away laughing at the top of his voice.

Éponine huffed under her breath. Combeferre sat beside her and patted her on the back of the hand.

Cosette ignored them for the most part as she prepared the batter. It was mainly Courfeyrac regaling them with some long-winded story about some person he had once known, years ago, and she only heard the odd phrases ("so I said, don't hurt the turtle, because who would do that?" and "so then it bit my little toe" and "his face looked a little bit like a cow's udder" being her personal highlights). She poured all her concentration into the cake.

She reached out for the jar of stem ginger and unscrewed the lid. She fished out five chunks and arranged them on a chopping board so she could cut them into smaller pieces.

"Do you have a knife I can borrow? It only needs to be little," she said.

Bahorel turned away from the pan on the stove and rooted in a drawer. He produced a small knife with a white handle and handed it to her.

Holding the slippery piece of ginger between her fingers, she began to slice it. It was something she had done hundreds of times, but somehow, her fingers managed to slip and the knife sliced through the skin on her thumb instead of the ginger.

She hissed in pain and dropped the knife. Specks of blood dropped onto the chopping board and, on instinct, she stuck her thumb in her mouth and then realised that the kitchen had gone very quiet.

Every pair of eyes apart from Marius' were on Combeferre. Combeferre and Marius were staring at her. Marius' face was etched with concern whilst Combeferre's was oddly expressionless, even if his eyes were very intense.

She realised why they were staring at him and took an involuntary step backwards. Combeferre swallowed and got to his feet. He cleared his throat. "I'll be going now," he said in a very quiet voice, and slipped out of the room.

The room breathed as he left. Marius slid off his stool and approached her. "Let me see," he said, snagging one of the tea towels off the island as he walked.

Cosette took her thumb out of her mouth, guilt at making Combeferre feel uncomfortable welling up inside her. The guilt dissipated as Marius' bare hand touched hers, his fingers curling around her wrist and pulling her towards him. He held her still-bleeding thumb up to his eyes and then wrapped the tea towel around it. "It's not so bad," he said. "It's just a little nick, but sometimes those bleed the most, don't they?"

He was obviously trying to keep his tone light so ease the tension in the room, and she was grateful for it. "Sorry about the tea towel," Cosette said, looking at Bahorel.

He waved the wooden spoon in his hand at her, flinging some cooked onion onto the floor by accident. "It's not a problem," he said, dismissively.

"Sit down," Marius said, gently guiding her to sit on one of the stools. She held the cloth against her hand as she watched him begin to clean up the mess she had left behind.

"I think my cake will have to do without the stem ginger," she said, pressing down a little harder on the cut. It stung, a lot, but then she peeled away the towel to see if it had stopped bleeding.

It hadn't quite, and the skin around the little slice was now stained orange. She stared at the cut and wondered why she was starting to feel lightheaded. Blood had never bothered her before...

Suddenly, Marius' hand was there, pressing the towel back down over the cut. "Try not to look at it," he suggested, and kept his hand over hers.

Across the island, Éponine made a scathing little noise at the back of her throat and jumped off her stool with such force that the stool fell over with a clatter. Cosette snapped her head away from staring up at Marius to look at the girl, who was stomping out of the kitchen, leaving Cosette wondering what on earth her problem was.

A/N: I referred to Feuilly as a 'maker demon' in the previous chapter because I thought that's what the other demons would refer to him as to Cosette and Grantaire to simplify what he is – Éponine, who has grown up in the demon realm, calls him by the title 'Opifex' which (according to a translator so I'm sorry if it's wrong!) means 'worker'.