A/N: A few improvements to my english thanks to the lovely judybear236 :-).
Chapter 1: On the observational powers of a Thenadier
"The true secrets, the important things. Fourteen words to make someone fall in love with you forever. Seven words to make them go without pain, or to say goodbye to a friend who is dying. How to be poor, how to be rich, how to rediscover a dream the world has stolen from you."
Summer had come early this year.
It was the a day in May, and already the air carried a promise of the hot days still to come, the air cruelly unmoving through the narrow alleys and bustling streets of Paris.
With the heat came all those things that were present all over the year, but multiplied during the warm days of summer, the stench of decay, of water rotting, of the remnants of too many humans in too little space. The air was stifling and unpleasant in the central quarters of Paris.
Eponine could not have cared less. She was used to all facets of the city, both the ugly and the dreadful, and she had long learned to live with it. A life like hers left no time for complaints. At least not for those about the weather.
She moved through the city unseen like a ghost. That was one of the first things she had learned when they had started to fall on hard times. Those who were invisible were untouchable, and that was as much protection as you got, when you were poor, desperate and without friends as Eponine was. She fooled herself that she was watching out for him, as he walked through the kingdom that was rightfully hers, the back alleys and dark places of St. Michel, tolerable at day, deathly at night, fooled herself that she only tried to protect a source of income as one would watch a valuable good.
A trade of sorts. He offered as much protection to her in another world.
And a profound and utter lie.
As she trailed behind the young student, that was not hers, she could not help realizing the queer mood around the streets, the city holding its breath at the days to come.
They were torn between poles at the best of times, between fear and fright, the everlasting devastation of a world unjust was prominent wherever one turned, and yet things were stirring beneath the heat and the oppression, whispers travelling through the city, wandering from mouth to ear.
Sometimes, Eponine could not shake the feeling of walking over unsteady ground, as if the earth itself under her feet were prone to shifts and variations, like a huge animal shaking in uneasy sleep. She kept a close eye on these motions. A lack of knowledge and attention got you killed in this predator of a city.
Now however, the whispers had died down and been replaced with the sort of tension that the air carries right before the eruption of a thunderstorm. Not the silence of death, but rather of a tiger just before the jump.
And that was, among other things, why she was following Marius Pontmercy, who was sweetly oblivious to all these signs and portents, hidden in his own world of hopes and dreams from which she would forever be excluded.
She was no fool. Slim as any hope might have been that she had harbored, it had died the moment that Marius laid eyes on the perfection that was Cosette, the girl-turned-woman that now, after years passed, was everything that Eponine was not.
Wealthy.
Beautiful.
Talented.
And, chief among them – loved by Marius.
Secretly they were trading whispers between the iron fences of the Rue Plument estate, and Eponine watched from the shadows, sicker with every minute of it.
There was a time when she thought she might be able to stand a chance with him. A time, where she would see him in the morning, leaving the estate, exchanging a friendly word or two with her, and where her nights would end with him, when he came back from the group of friends he spent his time with, tired, but apparently happy, and again, there would be words, and sometimes even a smile. Now, all his smiles were for her.
And yet, she could not turn away. There was something, that still drew her to him, no matter what the circumstances, now matter how little attention he paid her.
Pathetic. As she had always been. Following him around like a dog, begging for his attention as sometimes she begged for coins or bread. Would, that she could steal his affections as she stole the purses of the rich, but that was not to be.
And this it was, that made love precious above everything else.
Silently, she pressed herself into a niche in the garden wall of a house opposite number 55 rue Plumet and waited, while the joy of the two lovers tore her apart at the seams.
Yet, hidden, invisible, cloaked in darkness as she was, she was in the perfect position to see the man.
The first time he passed the house in Rue Plumet, she paid him little heed, watchful only of the oblivious pair on the other side of the street, annoyed, if anything, by the fact, that his brown coat obstructed her view of Marius and Cosette for a few moments. The second time however, when she saw him passing by, five minutes later, no more, he caught her attention all the more.
She was used to paying attention to the little details, the oddities, the inaccuracies, and there were some in the scenery that made her pause.
The man passed by on the street, his gaze resting on the two figures for just a moment too long. His back was turned to Eponine so that she could not read his face, but his posture belied an alertness that he unsuccessfully tried to hide by a minuscule shrug when he turned away again. A sheltered young woman might have been fooled by the gesture, however, the streetwise gamine was not.
It was very obvious that she was not the only one that was trailing Marius Pontmercy.
Frowning, Eponine committed the strange figure to memory.
Slender, tall, an air of careful elegance about him. In addition, a face that was cut in strong, deep lines, a man just past thirty, yet with signs of a hard life deeply engraved into his features. A prominent nose, but not so much as to be overly remarkable, keen, dark eyes, black hair cut close to his head.
All in all a man in thousands, of the lower bourgeoisie, well dressed and unremarkable.
Those were the most dangerous ones.
The air in the café was hot and stifling, the smell and feel of too many people and too much excitement filling the air with a fragrance thick enough to cut. The air coming in through the windows that had been thrown wide open long ago was not helping, because it was in more than one sense the eve of a storm, and the promise of rain, thunder and lightning filled the city with lead.
It was the hour of dusk, the light fleeing the dirty streets of Paris without any of the glory that sunsets bring at times, for the sky was clouded with the grey of the looming thunderstorm.
For a brief moment, Sebastien Enjolras hesitated before stepping down from the table, holding the tension of his final words for just a few instants longer, before he slightly relaxed his posture and releasd the crowd from their attention.
It came naturally to him, the gift of speech and charisma, and belief, pure utter belief behind it colored all of his words even sweeter.
He considered stepping out for a moment, allowing himself a fresh breath of air, but he could sense that this was not chief among the good ideas. As with all storms, it would do well to ride them out in protected environment. And a storm was brewing both on the outside and the inside of the café.
The crowd was humming with excitement, both good and bad, as Enjolras had just confirmed what the city had been whispering for a few days now.
General Lamarque, voice of the people in the king's parliament, one of the few minds of reason to appeal to in these perilous times, was lying abed with the illness that had the whole city in its strangling grip.
Who knew, if he would last.
And – to repeat the words that Enjolras had just spoken – who knew, what would be possible if he did not.
He passed through the crowds, feeling hands on his shoulder, now here, now there, enthusiasm boiling over as he calmly surveyed those who had come.
He exchanged a brief nod with Combeferre, who was standing a trifle aside the brawl, giving him an appreciative nod and the slightest of smiles, felt friendly shoves from Joly and Courfeyrac, who had led the crowd into a bout of cheering calls, "vive la France, vive la république" that could be heard from all ends of the café and this brought forth a small smile to his lips. Their enthusiasm was invigorating and highly contagious, a more addictive substance than absinthe could ever be, but he kept his head clear, noting their cheers as just the next step on a long way, nothing more.
There would be time to go out on the streets again, to spread the word among those, that were not part of this inner circle in the back room of the café Musain, to rally the people behind the dream of what should have been two years ago, but what had been stolen from them for the second time in not even fifty years.
Egalité. Liberté. Fraternité.
The words had lost none of their promise and magic.
He looked around as the bottles of wine were circulating, the evening going from serious to cheerful, and he could not help smiling. Let them celebrate for now, let them feel what they were longing for.
Enjolras noticed that Pontmercy was conspicuously absent – again he might add, and that Grantaire was sitting at a table amidst the brawl, almost unruffled as the emotions were boiling high around him.
Things were, as they had been so often before.
And yet he felt, inexplicably, that everything was coming into focus. The city was like a kettle close to boiling. Something would give, and it might well be that the impending death of the valiant general would prove to be the spark to this particular powder keg.
Enjolras certainly did not wish the man ill – he was one of the few members of the congregational assembly with a minimum of dignity and honor – but he understood the sacrifices that were needed to set things in motion, and this motion he prayed for with every fiber of his being. But a plant only grew from a seed, and a seed must be sown into the fertile ground of the trembling city.
Time was running short.
The day would come when they would set the city aflame.
"Oi mate, take a watch where y'are going!"
Not really paying attention, Gavroche had hurried into the Café Musain and almost tripped over one of the visitors there, who, in a calm, yet decisive movement, set for leaving the café.
The man shoved the gamin aside, not unfriendly, but with the same determined agitation, his movements fast, controlled and fluent.
Gavroche quickly skimmed him, placed him as well off, but not rich, unremarkable, a small merchant maybe, with enough money to make a pickpocketing attempt worthwhile (but he did not do that, not here, amidst Les Amis, who probably would take offense at something like that in the end…), yet a fellow he had not seen here before, but then, the café Musain had recently acquired a sort of colorful reputation, to say the least, and this attracted all sorts of folk.
"I'd say tha same to you."
The remark was offhand, and brought forth in a quiet voice with a slightly sardonic ring to it, but that was not what caught Gavroche's attention. It was rather a way of pronouncing, the lilt in the voice, a slurring, that was altogether familiar to the boy as the back of his hand.
A hint of argot color in the voice of a man that was distinctively not originating from the gutter.
Gavroche hesitated – for a minuscule moment only, because thinking too long on unimportant stuff brought you naught but trouble – and for the fraction of a second, he saw something glitter in the eyes of the man, flittering between a frown and something that was almost disgust – and that was indeed a strange thing in the open, bustling atmosphere that was the Musain.
Yet, the moment was over too quickly, and Gavroche murmured an apology, more for the sake of appearances than anything else, and hurried off, watching from the corner of his eye, that the man shook himself and silently left the café without any further glance back.
"Weird", the boy murmured and quickly scanned the faces around. Michelle, the patron's wife was standing behind the counter, giving him a curt nod that told him, that the back room was populated despite the early hour, and he turned to see who was there, and what was brewing these days, to trade rumors and stories and plans.
Greeting Joly and Combeferre, who apparently had been in early from their lessons, deeply in discussion on the spreading of cholera that held the city in a firm death grip, Gavroche put the incident during his entering of the café out of his mind.
It had, in the end, not been as unusual as that.