A/N: Heh. It's been a while, huh?

Loveless

Part V

Summary: In Grantaire's honest and quite inebriated opinion, the best part about Enjolras falling for that scruffy gamine was that the poor girl in question seemed to have no idea. [Modern AU Enjolras/Éponine—Frustration is the name of this game]

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No matter how many times she slunk through the doors of Café Musain, Éponine couldn't help but wonder when whatever this thing was would finally end. When they'd all realize she was nothing more than a lovesick dropout and go back to ignoring her. They'd it so well before, too. In her mind, she couldn't rationalize their sudden niceness and it only made her more wary, more likely to analyze each tutor's actions carefully in order to find exactly what their aim was.

It was bad enough that she'd been away the last couple days looking for a new shelter to stay in (she'd noticed overly familiar figures in the corners of the room watching her—a sure sign that her father was beginning to catch up). She didn't know how she'd take it if she returned only to find that they'd all forgotten her. Sucking in a breath for courage, Éponine came forward and prepared herself for the absolute worst as she looked into the airy space of the café.

Her jaw still dropped.

Chattering away as he sat on the table, the boy barely even reached the height of some of the men, despite his advantage. Comferre smiled as he saw her standing still by the door and waved her over, unsuccessfully. As Éponine fought for the feeling to return back in her legs so she could run, he frowned and called attention to the raggedy figure hanging by the doorway.

As Gavroche turned his head to see, the smile on his face froze as his eyes widened. The memory of his grin slammed against her and Éponine found herself rushing forward, easily breaking through the group in order to wrap her arms around the small boy. "Oh god, how the hell are you here, why the hell are you—"

"Éponine!" he whined, struggling to free himself, but to no avail. Éponine hadn't seen her little brother for months and she'd be damned if she let go of him now. Her frantic words quickly turned to mush as she pressed several quick kisses against his reddening face, until he finally pried himself away with a grunted, "You're embarrassing me!"

She frowned at his comment and looked up; gulping quickly as she suddenly became aware of their audience. Congratulating herself in the back of her mind for getting Grantaire to sober up on shock value alone, she said dumbly, "My brother. He's—He's my little brother."

"…That actually makes sense," Jehan said aloud, rubbing the back of his neck. "Kid's been hanging around here since the beginning of the protests. Guess iron will runs in the family, huh Éponine?"

"Monsieur, the only thing iron is her grip. Lemme go!" Gavroche squirmed away from her arms, leaping off the table neatly and with just as swiftly as his life on the streets had drummed in. The only thing that ran in their family was a damn good survival instinct. Éponine satisfied herself with the thought that at least she could interrogate him now about his current foster home, as the last she'd tracked him down to had been forcing him to live in some dump of an animal bed.

Turning swiftly on her heel, she faced the others. Some flinched away on instinct, taking steps back as she took her own forward. In one move she grabbed the closest figure beside her and pulled him into a hug. Letting go, she moved onto the next person, wrapping her arms around the man as she muttered a low, "Thanks. For taking care of him."

Grantaire pushed her away with a snort. "Oh, now you decide to get grabby with me? You're going to get me killed."

Éponine dug her elbow into his stomach before she embraced a grinning Courferac, who repeated, "Yep, definitely liking this one."

"Of course you would." Chette appeared to have joined the gathering, raising an elegant brow at the man.

Rolling her eyes Éponine pushed past to the next figure, unaware of the room's simultaneous quick intake of breath, her mind buzzing with sheer gratitude at having found that her little brother hadn't fallen in the wrong crowd—

Wait.

Freezing at the last minute, the muttered curses coming from around her didn't process as Éponine remembered what else Joly had said. Arms falling to her side like dull weights, she asked coolly, "Protests? Gavroche was with you during the preparations?"

"Oh for the love of god can you two just fuck alread—"

"Ahem."

"Uh, yea, the kid spread fliers for it. Even helped build the barricade."

A dull white noise started to build in Éponine's head. Her fists clenched, seemingly of their own accord. "You let him do what?"

Jehan took a step back, eyeing the door like a man doomed. Grantaire took another shot. The smarter among them hid behind the larger. Bahorel looked desperate and resigned. Enjolras stuck out at the front like a sore thumb and so it was him that Éponine spun to in her anger, spitting, "You're telling me that you let Gavroche participate in that protest?"

Enjolras folded her arms, seemingly immune to her glare. "He knew what he was getting into. He—"

"Can't even reach the damn counter!" she finished, raising herself up to combat his stare. "You're telling me you let him run around like an idiot while you all ran around like idiots, all because he knew what he was getting into? He's not in college! He's not even in high school!"

"Look, I know you're concerned—"

Éponine slammed her foot down, pointing a finger that wasn't one of her currently throbbing ones as she stabbed forward onto his chest with every emphasized word. "No, I am not concerned. Because I am not the idiot who let an eleven year old participate in a violent protest!"

Her finger started to hurt by the end of it, likely due to the fact that the leader of the ABC was most likely not a stranger to the gym. Letting the pain feed her anger, Éponine ignored the man and turned the face the rest of the fleeing group, causing them to freeze in place. With a frightening twitch of her eye, she noticed that Gavroche had already disappeared since the first moment she'd raised her voice and several of the tutors appeared to be trying to follow, bodies already halfway out the door.

Her voice came out as a low hiss. "Sit. Down."

They did as ordered and Éponine marched to the front of the café, grabbing a piece of chalk and free board from a grinning Chetta's outstretched hand and preparing herself to give the lecture of a lifetime. She'd didn't almost major in education for nothing. She'd talked down a couple of street goons in her time, kids or whatnot, and she could handle this bunch of overgrown bourgeois morons. Gavroche was only lucky that he had escaped in the beginning, but oh, she'd get to him.

Enjolras was the only one left standing, appearing to be gritting his teeth in irritation, his arms still crossed in what was really a lackluster attempt to intimidate her, given that she had a piece of chalk and he didn't. Éponine brandished it like a sword, gesturing broadly as she let her grievances overflow.

"Look, you are going to listen and you are going to listen now. He is my little brother. I don't care how much you hate me, but you just going to have to—"

"Hate?"

Éponine scrunched her eyebrows up at his interjection, confused. "Yea, I don't much give a shit how much you don't like me, with all that brooding and argument starting, and well—"

Enjolras seemed to tense up further, if that was even possible, as the muffled sound of manic laughter started to ring from one corner.

In a voice that spoke the absolute opposite, he gritted out slowly, "I don't hate you."

"Oh, you're a real charmer, Enjolras! How ya gonna ask her out? 'I feel indifferently towards you'?!"

"Dear lord, would you shut up before he comes over!"

Éponine narrowed her eyes, looking for any sign that he was lying—finding plenty that said he was definitely not in his comfort zone and really, really wanted to get the hell out of here, but none that bespoke of him screwing with her. Lost for what to reply with—exactly how did you respond to an admittance of 'not hate' from someone who could send Narcissus weeping?—she instead found herself saying lamely, "Oh. That's nice. I guess."

As someone started singing a rather off-tune version of a wedding march, Enjolras appeared to break free of whatever trance he had gone under when she'd first prodded him with her alarmingly sharp fingers in order to send his signature glare directly into the pile of giggling fully grown men.

The tune cut off rather quickly after that.

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After giving a rather impassioned speech about not letting minors play revolution unless you wanted to wake up naked at the dump with all your worldly possessions missing—"Ooh, kinky."—and why if Gavroche came over here again they were just going to tutor him like regular freaking tutors—"But that's no fun—shit, I'm kidding, I'm kidding!"—Éponine found that she had gotten away from the argument was a minimum of injuries and broken spirits, alcohol or otherwise.

But as she traversed through the crowded streets around the university until she reached the almost abandoned alleys around the shelter, she realized that one more thing needed to be if she was to continue associating with the boys of ABC.

Sighing, as she had known it would eventually come to this, Éponine just hoped it didn't go too badly.