It was an uneventful walk back to the dorm. Enjolras carried the boy's suitcase up the one flight of stairs and Éponine unlocked the door before standing in front of it.
"Gavroche, are you ready to see your home for the semester?" She asked, trying to add suspense. He nodded, excitedly. She stepped back and opened the door for him to walk through. The look of wonder on the boy's face was priceless.
"Éponine, this place is beautiful! And it's so big!" He said. "How could you ever think of filling all of it up with things?" She smiled a sad smile as Enjolras walked in.
"You ready to see your room, buddy?" He asked.
"Wait, I get my own room? Like, a room to myself?" The young boy asked.
Enjolras nodded. "This way, Monsieur." He said, very formally. Gavroche chuckled, but followed Enjolras. Éponine closed the door and followed the boys. Enjolras pointed to the door that was Gavroche's, the one on the left in the left side hallway, telling him he could open it. Once again, the look on Gavroche's face was priceless. He was in awe with the size of his new room. Then, he snapped out of his state of wonder, dropped his backpack, got a running start, and jumped onto the bed.
"Ahhhh." The boy said in contentment. Enjolras put the suitcase and he and Éponine sat on either side of the bed.
"Do you like it?" Éponine asked.
"Absolutely! It's so wonderful! And big! And my own!" The boy responded.
After a few moments of letting him enjoy his new room, Éponine said, "Okay. How about you unpack your suitcase, hang your backpack up, and then we will go shopping."
"For what?" Gavroche asked, sitting up and looking at Éponine weirdly.
"Whatever you need, silly! And also food. We haven't stocked the kitchen yet." She said, ruffling his hair. "Enjolras will help you unpack, if you wish. I'm going to go start a grocery list. Come get me when you're done unpacking so we can add things you need to the list." She said, before standing up and walking to the kitchenette, pulling out her phone, and starting a shopping list.
Not too long later, the boys came and got her. They added somethings to the list, like more clothes and his own toothpaste and shampoo, since he didn't have any kids to share with here, before they set off down to Enjolras' car to go to Target.
At Target, they started with clothes for Gavroche. He mostly had too small, winter clothes. They got him some shorts, t-shirts, and new socks. When Enjolras said he should probably get some new boxers, Gavroche said he couldn't say that word in front of Éponine. She laughed, but pretended to look at some t-shirts they had already looked through while they found some. The trio then proceeded to the toiletries. Gavroche picked out Spiderman shampoo and a red toothbrush and toothpaste with the Avengers pictured on both. Upon seeing these choices, they took him back to the toy section.
As Gavroche looked around, Enjolras turned to Éponine. "I think I have an idea. Watch him for a little bit, and I'll meet you guys in the food section in ten minutes?"
"Yeah, I'll let him pick out two things from here before we head over." She responded. Enjolras walked away and Éponine went to find the boy. He was looking at the Legos. "See anything you like?" The woman asked.
"All of it! Éponine, I love this place!" He said, while reaching in an example box and pressing a button that made a dinosaur move inside. She chuckled at his response.
"Well, Enjolras and I decided you can pick two of your favorites. They each have to be $20 or less, though."
The boy's eyes widened as he looked up at her. "Really? You're not tricking me are you?" He asked in disbelief. When she shook her head, he jumped in the air, thrusting his fist up. "Woohoo!" He started checking prices before settling on a little car with the Joker and Iron Man themed Lego set.
"You like the super heroes, don't you?" She asked him when he brought the two toys to her. He nodded quickly. "Ready to go get food?" She asked. When he nodded again, she put the two toys in the cart as Gavroche climbed onto the back so that Éponine could push him.
As they approached the food section, Éponine spotted Enjolras walking towards them with something in his hand, which he quickly hid behind his back. She waved at him, causing Gavroche to turn around and look at him. They boy jumped off the cart and ran to the older man. "Come look what I picked out! Éponine said I could pick two!" He said excitedly. He showed Enjolras the two toys as Enjolras sneakily handed Éponine two video game cases. She turned around and looked at them quickly. One was LEGO: Marvel and the other was Minecraft, both for XBOX 360, which Enjolras already had back at the dorm. She turned back around and nodded at him, hiding the two games beneath some of the clothes they were going to purchase.
They went around getting food. Neither could really cook, but Éponine had already decided on a few recipes she wanted to try, and purchased the ingredients for them, as well as plenty of microwavables. By the time they reached the cash register, they had a very full cart. Gavroche helped Éponine unload the cart onto the conveyor belt, but she was sure to reach the games and hand them back to Enjolras before the boy could see. He took them to another counter and checked out before Éponine even paid. She used the school credit card. Gavroche rode on the cart on the way out to the car, again, and helped the older students unload the bags into the back of the car before they all climbed in to drive back home.
Once all of the bags were sitting in the kitchen, Éponine handed Gavroche the ones with his clothes in it and told him to go put them away in his dresser. As the boy ran off, she and Enjolras quickly searched for the games. When they found them, Éponine ran them into her room. She wrapped them to give them to Gavroche as a "house-warming" gift tonight after the party. When she came back out, she found Enjolras had put much of the food away. She grabbed a book she was working out of off the counter, and plopped down on the couch to continue her other homework.
After about five minutes, Gavroche came out with his Lego set. "Will you help me set it up?" He asked the two. Éponine looked up at him and then at Enjolras. He just smiled back at her.
"I guess we could do that. I've never used Legos before, to be honest." She responded.
Enjolras looked at her incredulously. "You've never played with Legos?" He asked.
"Nope."
"You have been deprived your whole life. Gavroche, rip that box open. We are going to show this girl what Legos are all about." The boy laughed as he did as instructed. They all sat down on the floor in between the furniture. The boys pushed the coffee table towards the TV so they would have more room. Gavroche was sat in between Éponine and Enjolras, who were facing each other. When they dumped the pieces out onto the floor, they were slightly disappointed.
"Is this it? This is all it came with?" Éponine asked, picking up a very strange looking piece. It was sort of triangular, but not all the way a pyramid.
"Yep. I think I have more at home. Maybe I can have my parents bring them up sometime." Enjolras responded, picking up the instructions. "Do you want to build what the instructions tell you to build, or make up your own design?" He asked the boy.
Gavroche thought about it for a moment, before responding, "I think we should follow the directions, and then we can tear it apart and build something else!" Enjolras nodded. The boys got to work, but Éponine felt kind of left out, so she climbed back onto the couch to continue her work.
As it reached six, Éponine jumped up. "Is everything okay?" Enjolras asked her.
"Yeah, but did we get anything to take to Cosette and Marius' tonight? We can't just come empty handed!" She said, walking over to the kitchen to rifle through the food they bought earlier in the day.
"Umm, I bet they wouldn't mind…" He said. When she turned to glare at him, he continued. "But I think we bought a package or two of cookies. We could take those?" He suggested, just wanting her to stop glaring at him. She did and quickly found the cookies on a higher shelf, so Gavroche couldn't get to them unless he was allowed to. One was regular chocolate chip, and the other was chocolate with white chocolate chips. She decided to take the regular ones.
"Are you boys almost ready? You've been playing with those Legos for almost two hours!" She asked, walking back towards the living room area. Enjolras' head flipped up to look at the clock.
"Yeah, we will just clean up quick. Gav, you want to take these to your room? We can get you a bin for them soon." They put all the Legos back in the box they came in, which was now ripped, and Gavroche hurried them into his room.
"Did you have fun this afternoon, Gabey?" Éponine asked Enjolras in a baby voice, teasing him for playing with toys all day.
"As a matter of fact, I did. I haven't played with Legos or relaxed like that in a long time. Did you get a lot of your homework done?" He responded.
"Yeah. I did. I bet you'll do a lot of relaxing this semester, especially if Gavroche has anything to say about it." She joked as the boy came back out of the hallway where the boys' rooms were.
"I'm ready!" Gavroche said. Éponine ruffled his hair before grabbing her keys off the hook by the door and opening it.
A/N: I hope you liked that installment! I just love this chapter. I think it's really cute and I like the dynamic between the three. I don't really have a lot to say this week. I'm just so exhausted. I apologize for not updating last week. I kept meaning to, but then when I got to my room, I would get busy with other things. I didn't get a whole lot of response to the last A/N, but I'll keep writing them. If nothing else, it's a time for me to vent and no one will even know. This week, the question is, what is your favorite musical? Besides Les Mis, of course. Read and review and do all that fun stuff! See ya babes next week!
Also, sorry to those who tried to read this right away. Somehow, it added all of this coding stuff that I don't understand. I hope this fixes it!