Disclaimer: I can only dream of owning these characters

Resisting the urge to run, she entered the café and went straight upstairs to find Marius. Walking confidently into the room, she heard her name called from the table in the centre of the room where he and his friends always sat.

'Hey, Éponine! Come and join us!' Much to her disappointment, the voice did not belong to her love, but to Courfeyrac, who was waving his arm above his head, a big goofy grin stretching from ear to ear. More embarrassingly, Marius was nowhere to be seen, and instead she found herself faced with an additional seven unfamiliar faces, staring at her with thinly veiled curiosity. Suddenly very self-conscious, Éponine folded her arms and gave a small smile, walking towards them slowly – she could hardly pretend not to have noticed them after Courfeyrac's mad arm-waving display – inwardly cursing herself for not texting Marius beforehand to make sure he was there.

Courfeyrac pulled the chair next to him out from under the table and patted the seat, so she sat down next to him, acutely aware that seven pairs of eyes were still following her every movement. She looked around at the group of young men… yep. Still staring.

'What is it with you lot and staring at me!?' She blurted out, laughing. It was as though someone had shouted 'EVERYBODY ACT NATURAL': the men immediately tried to look like they hadn't even noticed her come in – the two opposite her started to look around the room at nothing in particular, with one of them falling off his chair in the process, another started to ferociously clean his glasses, two immediately started shouting over each other about what a beautiful day it was, one gazed at the table as though he had never seen it before in his life, and the man directly next to her on her left just to her took a long swig of his beer. Courfeyrac started to laugh with her, a great belly laugh more joyful than any she had heard in her life. He then hollered over the fake conversations 'Smooth guys. Really smooth. This is Éponine, she's friends with Marius and me'

'Marius and me?'she thought, confused. 'I only met you this morning! What's your game?'It didn't seem like there was any hidden agenda here, though… maybe they really were friends. The warm, happy feeling this thought gave her in her gut surprised her, and she couldn't contain the smile that came with it.

'Oh my God, those are the cutest dimples I have ever seen!' This outburst came from the man who had fallen off his chair before, who was still picking himself up off the floor.

Courfeyrac just grinned and continued: 'Éponine, these are Les Amis de l'ABC - that's Bossuet, unluckiest man alive (he grinned cheerfully and sat down), next to him is Joly, (he pointed at the man with the glasses, who smiled kindly at her) his best friend and our resident hypochondriac.' He continued in this manner, introducing her to all of his friends: there was Feuilly, who had been investigating the table ('he likes fans. And Poland.'), 'call me Jehan' Prouvaire – 'poet and hopeless romantic' – who had been shouting about weather with Bahorel ('the biggest man-whore north of Toulon' – this description was met with laughter and cries of outrage, from which Éponine could only make out 'EXCEPT YOU, COURF!'), Combferre ('I can't be mean to 'Ferre he's just too nice') and beer-swigging Grantaire ('he takes drunkenness to a level that no man has reached before').

The introductions and banter that was flying around the room left Éponine barely able to breathe for laughing, a situation not helped by the beer that Combeferre had insisted on buying her, or the endless compliments and ''Seriously, did you know you're really hot?''s or Courfeyrac's description of her encounter with Enjolras that morning – Grantaire was barely able to stay upright he was laughing so hard when he heard of his friend's staring fit. The entire group swapped jokes about it – despite Combeferre's valiant attempts to get them to just be nice! – and told her priceless stories of other times Enjolras had been uncomfortable with women: her favourite was the one Grantaire told her, where a very drunk German exchange student had come up to him in a bar and asked for a taste of his delicious frankfurter and he had almost choked to death on his lemonade, backing into a wall so quickly that a lamp had fallen on him. She hardly noticed the time passing, or that Marius wasn't there, she was enjoying the raucous conversation so much. In particular, she hit it off with Grantaire, who, while clearly absolutely mortal, was just hilarious, particularly on the subject of Enjolras. He also seemed to have a fondness for Pot Noodles, as he ordered three while they were sat there.

The arrival of Marius brought her back to her senses.
''Ponine? Why are you talking to my friends? You don't know them.' She couldn't help but notice the use of his nickname for her – oh God, she loved it when he called her 'Ponine – or the irritation and confusion on his lovely face: was he jealous? Today is the best!
She beamed at him, and replied breathlessly 'Marius! You're here! Sit down, I'll buy you a drink, what would you like?'
'How can you afford to buy me a drink, 'Ponine?' He asked.
An uncomfortable silence fell across the café.
She blushed. She supposed it was a fair question, he knew she was poor, but the bluntness in his tone still stung.
Determined to be cheerful, she walked backwards towards the bar, looking into his beautiful brown eyes all the while. 'Why does it matter? Is a beer ok? Bud's your favourite, right?'
'But Éponine, you can't afford that.'
'Jesus, Marius, let her buy you a sodding beer!' Courfeyrac couldn't stay silent any longer. Why was Marius embarrassing Éponine like this?
'Yes. Sorry 'Ponine. I'm just distracted.'
'It's fine, babe, here's your beer' she purred at him in what she hoped was a sexy voice, before taking her seat at the table again, never taking her eyes off Marius.He didn't mean to be rude; he's just being sweet and looking out for me. Honestly, he's so perfect. I wish he'd love me like I love him.

Her internal monologue was interrupted as Enjolras walked in.

He simply walked straight over and sat down opposite her, next to Combeferre, and immediately pulled out a huge book, oblivious to the silent laughter that was barely being contained around him. He also didn't notice Grantaire, who had tipped two of the Pot Noodles on his head and was staring at him with wide, crazy bug-eyes, and his jaw dropped so low it looked almost painful. Around a minute passed, and Enjolras clearly noticed something was amiss – Éponine's chest was tight with controlling her laughter by this point – and looked up and around at the group. His jaw tightened and he glared at the drunkard as he asked 'Grantaire, what the hell are you doing? Stop looking at me like that this instant.' He spoke in a low, serious voice that promised danger if the answer didn't please him.
There was no answer.
'Grantaire. Seriously, Grantaire. GRANTAIRE FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?'
This continued for another couple of minutes, with Enjolras getting angrier and angrier, until Grantaire finally deadpanned 'you're… you're just so beautiful.'

The room collapsed, the laughter that had been contained for almost five minutes finally released.

'Grantaire don't be ridiculous. What are you doing?'
'I can't take my eyes off you, Enjolras'
'Stop it'
'I can't. How can I look at anything else again? Nothing compares to your beauty!'
'Grantaire, I'm warning you'
'Never have I gazed upon such a glorious figure, my heart is on fire, you are the summer and the spring and the sunshine all at once'
'You sound like Jehan.'
'I feel a stirring deep in my loins that I have never felt before'
'Stop. Staring. At me. And that's revolting'
'Until today, I thought France was my only love, a free and equal country the only beauty I could gaze upon forever, but I was wrong –'
'Hang on, are you supposed to be me?'
The laughter was louder than ever.
'I, Enjolras, champion of the free world, cannot remove my eyes from you, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I would shake your hand, but I am afraid that I may just explode in an orgasmic passion –'
It was the mention of a refused handshake that did it. Enjolras finally caught on.
'It wasn't like that! Courfeyrac, tell him! This is preposterous! And my hair doesn't even remotely resemble noodles!'

The room was laughing too hard to notice that Éponine had crept out of the room and down the stairs.
Still chuckling quietly to herself, she found Gavroche at the bottom of the stairs.
'Alright?'
'Yeah, got to run, Gav, sorry baby, the inn'll be opening.' She thrust a 20 euro note into his hand with a 'look after yourself, ok?' before she left.
'Wow! Thanks, Ép! You too!'
'You know me, Gav. I know my way around!' she shouted over her shoulder, before running all the way back to the inn.

PHEWWWW that was long

This was difficult, but so much fun to write! Sorry it's kind of filler, but I had to introduce them all somehow

I hope you like it anyway, and please keep reviewing, either positively or negatively, it makes my day to read what you all have to say!

Thank you, again :)