A/N: ...And, as promised, chapter fourteen. This one took a while to get out, sorry! I realized halfway through writing this chapter that I needed to add the now-13 in for background purposes. Hope this did not disappoint, and is much longer than the last to make up for its brevity! :-)
(I posted two chapters today, so if you didn't happen to read thirteen, read it first!)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN | CONSUMED
It had been five days since the last time he saw her. When Enjolras would come home to the empty apartment, when he would make coffee in the morning, when he looked out onto the balcony – he could see her there. On the couch, at the counter, in the shower's hazy steam, she was always there.
Éponine had become something more than a memory.
He had not been back to Clamart since the night he picked her up from the grimy phone booth, and although that part of the city was caked beneath dirt and grease and poverty, a part of him longed to go back. Perhaps it was all of those things that drew him there in the first place. It was real, unlike so many things in his life.
I wish I could help you, he thought as he looked out the window from his office cubicle, which was as empty and undecorated as his flat was. Sunset was becoming, and the world was set under hazy tones of gray.
Behind him, someone cleared their throat.
Enjolras spun around quickly, his gray eyes shooting upward to meet the hazel ones of a man, balding and in his mid-fifties.
"Enjolras, my boy," Henri Dupont bellowed, pulling up a deserted chair from another cubicle as he tugged at the straps of his suspenders. "How's the story coming?"
"Just fine, Monsieur," he said, although it wasn't at all what he wanted to be writing about – a French rugby team's tour to South Africa, something of which he held no interest in but perhaps the paper's many readers would.
The man grinned and clapped his back, none the wiser. "Good to hear. We've all noticed your hard work lately and I just wanted to let you know, we really appreciate your dedication." He paused. "Your writing reflects it."
Enjolras didn't quite know what to say, in part because the paper had not been the only thing on his mind lately, despite the long hours he had stayed awake at night preparing for interviews and writing and editing his own work. No, lately his mind had been elsewhere, and even though Dupont's compliments were to be duly noted, he didn't honestly feel that he deserved it.
"Merci," he said nonetheless, and started to turn back to the typewriter at his desk.
"Wait just a minute," Dupont started, standing from the chair. Enjolras immediately turned back toward him and looked upward expectantly. "What I really came over to ask – and I know you're trying to work hard and such – was what in God's name you're still doing here?"
Confusion turned cold in his chest. "Monsieur?"
The man nearly laughed, bringing a hand up to the back of his balding head in disbelief. "It's New Year's Eve. Surely you have noticed that you're the only one still left here...?"
That's when it seemed to click; as he surveyed the office, and as he listened a little closer, the only sounds being made were coming from the Xerox machine in the corner as it copied page after printed page. The floor was deserted. Perhaps he had been too focused on his piece, too enthralled in turning what he had on his tape recorder into written words, that he had failed to notice that everyone else had gone. Or, perhaps his mind had been on other things.
"Go," the man said, pushing the chair back to to its proper cubicle and looking back at him once. "Go find a beautiful girl, get some champagne, and spend New Year's at the Champs-Elysées like a normal man your age, alright?"
Enjolras nodded once and the man left. He turned back to his desk, heaved a sigh, and began the process of packing up all of his things. But as his fingertips lingered above the tape recorder, he stopped – remembering – and settled back in.
Unzipping his bag, his hand dove into the inside pocket and pulled out a mess of tapes. Each were labeled neatly, all except for one.
He wasn't thinking this through.
Taking the unmarked tape, Enjolras slid it into the recorder as he popped the other casette out, then clicked the play button. Again, sounds of the steel mill hit his ears – loud clangs, people talking, shouting – and he fast forwarded a tick before releasing it and waiting.
And there it was: her voice. It sounded clearer than before, though; this time, her voice seemed easier to hthanks contrast to the first time he had played it back in his home.
His breathing slowed and he leaned over the table, staring down at the small black recording device. Slowly, his eyes traveled upward, and he found himself entranced in the gray cloth of the cubicle wall; this did not mean, however, that he was not seeing anything, for in his mind, he was back in the steel mill. She was there at the table with her hair pulled back haphazardly into a low bun, and she had dirt on her cheeks. Her eyes were daggers when they found his.
He was driving her home, down the backstreets of Clamart, and then he was picking her up at the telephone booth. Her face when she came out of the bath, her melody high in the air... There she was, her life a melody sung to the tune of coffee brewing in the morning.
And then they were at his apartment, sipping wine, talking about the annoying residents and their deafening parties, watching It's A Wonderful Life and trying not to think about what would happen in the morning.
Then back to the mill. She drove circles through his mind as the words came grainy through the tiny speaker.
As long as love will flood my mornings / As long as my body will quiver beneath your hands / The problems matter so little to me / My love, because you love me.
"That's very pretty," Dupont's voice came, and Enjolras, startled, jumped in his seat. He quickly fumbled with the tape recorder and silenced it, earning a hearty laugh from the old man before he left once again, this time for good; the door clicked shut behind him and the office was silent once again.
With a slightly crimson complexion, Enjolras shoved the device in his bag and made for the door.
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He really wasn't thinking this through.
Enjolras clicked the keys in the ignition and started off down the road, first making for the back streets that were only a bit less crowded than they were in the city, but there were still people of all walks of life cutting across the streets. He honked his horn loudly at them but they didn't seem to care.
But when he was halfway home, he realized he didn't want to be there by himself. It wasn't as though he were afraid to spend a holiday alone, because that really wasn't the case. He had become accustomed to spending much of his life in solitude, so going home alone tonight was the only natural thought. However, when Enjolras caught himself white-knuckling the steering wheel, found his breathing tense, and noted the frown caused by such a clenched jaw, he decided that it was time to take action – to do what his gut told him was right.
Something he had not done for himself in such a long time.
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Éponine was starting to pull on her coat when she was stopped by Pourlevaire, the man who worked across from her. He had already grabbed his own, a long trench that was made of worn leather and hit him just below his knees. Just as he had buttoned the top button, he leaned one hand against the table.
"Girl," he said gruffly, pausing to look her over once. "Your eye."
"I know," she mumbled. "You've been staring all day."
The man laughed half-heartedly. "Didn't think you'd noticed. Guess you're a bit more observant than I give you credit for." And as he turned to leave, he called over his shoulder: "Bonne année.*"
She looked up over her bag and met the gazes of a few men standing across the room. Maybe they saw the bruise crawling down her neck, or maybe they were taking in the simple fact that she looked guzzier than usual – but it was probably the redness in her left eye that had them so transfixed.
Sometime between the previous night and that morning, a blood vessel had popped in the white of her eyeball, a fit of red consuming nearly half of it. It didn't feel any different, but she was sore all over and she wondered if it had been caused by recent stress.
Wiping at her mouth, she felt the urge to spit. It had been five days and she still could taste him.
Watchful eyes followed her out of the building that day. Éponine looked upward at the guards who stood along the ramps above, one in particular meeting her gaze directly. She'd seen him before. He seemed to smile and it made her feel nauseous.
A few francs jingled in her pocket, and at this, the girl's spirits were lifted a little. Money had never felt this good in her possession before, perhaps because she had started taking the peace it bought her for granted.
The city lights were violent and cold as she left the building, a breeze ushering her out into the street before sending her on her way, down the road and toward home. The sound of so many cars revving their engines and awakening in the night met her ears like some sort of mechanical symphony. Inside the factory, the low rumble of the machinery being switched off shook her lightly.
Eyelids fluttered shut and, suddenly, she was there with him; his arms were around her, holding her close to shield her from the chill of winter, even as she began to shudder.
A breath whistled between her lips as she pursed them and blew gently. How she wished she could see Marius.
You will see him, she thought, blinking her eyes open with a hopeful smile tugging itself upon her lips. That girl can't stop you. And with a burst of exhilaration filling her chest, she wondered if perhaps she shouldn't just walk over there right now... If, perhaps, he was missing her too. After all, it wasn't as though his feelings toward her could have changed overnight, as hers certainly hadn't – even if it was only friendship.
But it's New Year's Eve, she thought sadly. He probably has other plans.
Éponine made it a half a block down the road before a sharp horn being honked startled her, jerking her from thoughts plagued with loneliness and guilt and opening her eyes to reality. She spun on her heel, her gaze turning to take in a pair of bright headlights that looked familiar; they might have belonged to one of her father's friends – maybe Montparnasse. An awful feeling stabbed at her gut. Her pace quickened, but the car wasn't slowing and seemed to match her rhythm effortlessly.
"HEY!" the person in the car shouted.
She faltered; it was the voice a man, but not the man she was expecting.
With wide eyes, she looked to her right, her eyes meeting the driver's in a single, frozen moment.
Éponine let out a shaky breath. "Christ."
Immediately, the girl took off down a side street, but the car was quick to follow her and it did so without hesitation. Unfortunately, there were no alleyways nearby to cut down and no matter how fast she tried to run, she just couldn't seem to run fast enough.
The car honked again, and with its final blaring sound, she knew there was no getting away from him.
Her pace slowed and she sighed, eyes turning upward to meet the starry sky. Her shoulders sagged and she laughed once, cynically. "You're not going to get an apology from me, Monsieur," she said softly, eyes still glued to the darkness above, her heart-shaped face illuminated by the moon.
Enjolras pressed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and leaned out the window. What are you doing? his mind seemed to shout at him. What the hell are you doing? Nighttime air rushed in through the window and he would have shuddered had it not been for the crimson tweed jacket keeping his shoulders warm.
He looked at the girl whose shoulders shook openly, covered by a dingy, moth-eaten number with long tears in the front near its buttons. He took note of her eye and the redness swollen within it.
Five days without seeing her and she looked as though she'd been through hell. His stomach sank, but instead of saying anything about the awful mess she looked tonight, he cleared his throat and said the four words he'd been replaying in his mind ever since deciding to come find her.
"Get in the car."
This order, simple as it was, startled Éponine. She looked at the man sitting in the car and saw the rigidness of his expression, the way his gaze seemed focused yet misplaced, like he was looking at her but didn't understand what he was seeing. She could read it in his gaze because she knew her own was identical.
Maybe I want to know you, she thought absentmindedly, but inwardly kicked herself as soon as she thought the words. No you don't. There isn't a man on this earth you'd ever want to know.
"What'll you do if I don't?" she said finally, folding her arms across her chest.
He didn't say anything – his unfaltering gaze did the talking for him.
Éponine averted her eyes. "If you're doing this out of pity-"
"I'm not," he said, his words holding an edge, "and I don't want you to think of it as an apology, either." He paused, noting the way she slipped a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it. She took a few steps back, her shoulders meeting the cold metal wall of the mill.
A gray puff of air left her lips; Enjolras watched it this time. It was most certainly smoke.
"Your company doesn't hold any implications," he finished, which caused something inside her to click. Her wide eyes met his and, suddenly, he found it easier to speak. "You don't owe me."
"And you don't owe me," she said. Smoke sputtered through the darkness. She looked away. "Stop being so nice."
"I'm not being nice." His frustration was hard to mask, so instead of focusing it on her, he looked away, too. "You're very difficult."
Éponine laughed, little humor apparent in her tone. "Kind of makes you rethink your whole offer, doesn't it?"
When their eyes met again, there was something different in them – a shift. Enjolras seemed to be searching for her, for the girl who was hidden beneath the mask she wore each day, a mask she only took off when she was too tired to keep it on. That night she made the snowflakes, when she took his hand, as they watched fireworks from the dark window...
That girl seemed different now, though, and he couldn't understand why that was.
"Get in the car," he repeated. "I'm not going to ask you again."
She flicked the butt toward his car, embers still aglow against its white paper, and snorted; when she spoke, her words words dripped with a painful conviction. "You never asked me to begin with! You guys are all the same – tell a girl to do something, think she's going to obey your every command – but guess what? I'm not like the bourgeois girls you know, and I'm not going to get in that car because you told me to!"
Enjolras stopped. It wasn't that he couldn't believe her words, because a part of him had figured this girl, who could be so hostile and, at times, cruel, would act in the way she was. It was her defensive instinct, something he didn't think would ever change so it was better to simply accept it than try and change it.
Although, there was something else there, too – something more than just hostility and defensiveness, something that was alive, something that was eating her up. The way she stepped toward him, the way her usually arched shoulders had fallen, how she pointed a finger at him while it really seemed that she was pointing at herself.
Years ago, he might not have known when to give up, but so much had changed since then and he did not feel like the same man anymore. Now, he knew when to stop fighting. No more reasoning, no more words; Enjolras' hand found the shift and put the car into drive, giving the girl one last look before taking off down the street.
...But it only took a few moments until he saw the girl waving her arms above her head in his rearview window. She was in the street, running toward the car, other vehicles swerving and honking their horns loudly at her as she did so.
He stopped, pulled off to the side of the road, and unlocked the car. She was out of breath in the passenger's seat before he could turn back around to face her.
"Women," Enjolras muttered to himself – now consumed in disbelief. "I will never understand them."
"You should have listened better," Éponine said between heavy breaths as she kicked a foot up on the dash. "I didn't say I wasn't coming – I just said I wasn't getting in your car because you told me to. And I'm not – at least, not because you commanded me to, or anything." She paused to catch her breath, as her words seemed to leave her lips faster than she could think. Her chest heaved. "So, where are we going?"
Down the street, the sound of cheering and laughter erupted, and looking once out the back window, Enjolras saw a silhouetted group of men and women, bottles of liquor gripped tightly in their hands, shouting premature wishes of a happy new year to no one but the night.
He swallowed, but didn't speak. Instead, he simply put the car into drive, peeled off down the road, and pushed the exhausting guilt to the back of his mind – if only for a night.
Translation: Bonne année - Happy New Year