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It was chilly for a June night, almost brisk, but Éponine was grateful for it as she leaned against the cool brick wall. Anyone walking past would have seen a skinny youth resting after a long and hot day. A peek under his hat, tugged down low, would have revealed a flinty mouth and a flintier gaze. Closer inspection might have revealed him to be very much a her - but the flow of passerby had slowed to a barely-there trickle, and Éponine allowed herself a moment to breathe.
“Any more messages tonight, monsieur?” came Cosette’s quiet query. Éponine shifted, patting at her hat.
“Not tonight, no,” she replied gruffly, only just remembering to add a, “Mlle. Fauchelevent.” She shifted. She’d taken to hanging around Saint-Germain, partly to scope it out further, partly because she was curious to puzzle out just what Marius found so fascinating about this girl. She knew it made the old man nervous; once or twice he’d come out into the garden while she hung about, but he never said anything outright, just sighed awhiles before returning inside. Not many things could spook Éponine, but he’d come damn near to it last time. Sighing and sighing, always sighing, but never quite so near to Éponine’s usual perch as he had last night.
A pause.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes.” Little high for a boy. She cleared her throat. “I am.” Better.
“Oh.”
Cosette was silent, long enough to where Éponine half-wondered if she’d gone back inside. It was probably best if she had; there was stupid, and then there was stupid, and Éponine was hovering dangerously near the latter. It was one thing to scope out the house, maybe sneak a few peeks at Monsieur Marius’ lady-love. It was another thing entirely to let herself be swayed into giving her messages from Monsieur Marius when he couldn’t waltz down to the Rue de l'Homme-Armé and deliver them himself. Soppy messages. Flowery messages. People in love didn’t make sense, Éponine thought grumpily, and pulled her cap a little lower to keep her completely sensible disguise intact.
She could see why Marius thought Cosette interesting, at least. The other girl was pretty, doll-like, all sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, and Éponine could definitely understand how a person could fall in love with Cosette given how much time she’d spent studying her. Her voice, too, was lovely. As was her laugh. And her singing. As was most everything about her really, not that Éponine was all that interested. Outside of satisfying her curiosity, that was.
She risked a guilty peek around the gate and found herself face to face with the other girl, who pulled back a little, grinning an apology. Éponine felt her cheeks burn, palmed at her hat again.
“You know, we might just...sit and talk,” Cosette suggested, playing with a bit of her hair.
“We might,” Éponine replied after a moment, reluctant. “‘Course your father - ”
“Papa’s entertaining his inspector, they always like to snip at each other after dinner,” Cosette said dismissively. The tips of her ears went ever so slightly pink. “I just thought...well, you sit out here so much, and I. Hmm.” She smiled, a bit shyly, from behind the bars of the gate. “Well, I wonder about you.” Éponine’s eyebrows shot into the messy fringe of hair just underneath her cap.
“‘Bout me?”
Cosette made a face. It did funny things to Éponine’s stomach.
“You and I spend quite a lot of time together, you know,” she informed Éponine. “Even if most of it is spent in silence. But I like to read out here and enjoy the garden, and you like to sit out here and presumably enjoy the view from the street, and I rather think we could have a great deal in common.”
More than you know, Éponine thought, and cleared her throat.
“Well - ”
“What’s your favorite color?” Cosette asked eagerly.
Éponine blinked.
“Blue,” she answered, somewhat belatedly. Cosette beamed.
“Excellent! Mine is blue, too. Are you, ah, do you like music?”
“Sometimes,” was what Éponine meant to say. Instead she found herself saying, “What was that song earlier?”
Cosette went pink.
“I beg your pardon?”
Éponine shrugged, shrinking back a little so that she was more in shadow.
“You was - singing something. Earlier. It was pretty. I, er.” She shrugged, clearing her throat to remind herself to keep her voice low. "I liked that."
Cosette let out a sort of nervous giggle and covered her face with her hands.
“Oh, dear - that was - ” She laughed, and Éponine couldn’t help but grin back. “A Christmas hymn. I used to hear it all the time in the convent, and I - goodness, here we are in the middle of July, and - ”
“A convent?” Éponine heard herself blurt. Cosette nodded.
“Oh, yes. The Petit-Picpus. Very strict. But nice.” She let her fingers trail over the bars of the gate, eyeing Éponine curiously. “I lived there for a very long time. I don’t really remember anything before it.”
Éponine shrugged again, unsure of how to reply. She’d always wondered what had happened to the little wraith her mother and father had sold away. She’d imagined Cosette had become a pirate, perhaps, or a princess, sometimes both. If Éponine had left when Cosette had, she would’ve done something interesting, something adventurous.
“It sounds a dreadful bore, I know,” Cosette said with a rueful twitch of her lips as if reading Éponine’s mind. “But the garden was wonderful, I remember that. Papa, you know,” she added with a touch of pride. “He’s very good with gardens.”
“Yes,” Éponine said, because she didn’t know what else to do. “You could...” She swallowed, going for nonchalance. “You could tell me about it, I s’pose. The convent, I mean.”
Cosette blinked, then broke into a smile as wide and bright as the sun. She chattered animatedly for what felt like hours perhaps, maybe days, Éponine wasn’t sure. Cosette had a way of making a person feel as though they were the only person in the world. Her presence was a hand on the cheek, soft instead of not, and her eyes were - nice, Éponine thought with no small degree of alarm. Her eyes were nice was all, and, and -
“‘M sorry, I’ve got to - things,” she blurted, and Cosette looked disappointed.
“Of course,” she said hastily. “I am not - I didn’t mean to prattle, oh, dear - ”
“No!” Éponine cried, and they both took a moment to be caught off guard at her vehemence. “No,” she repeated in a more composed manner, mentally praying for the ground to swallow her up, “no, ‘s just - ”
“Things?” Cosette supplied helpfully.
“Things,” Éponine agreed and fled.
“You’ve acquired a suitor,” muttered her Papa when Cosette wandered into his study. Toussaint, clearing away the tea things, hid a smile. “Another one, that is.” He twisted around in his chair to raise his eyebrows at her, fond and amused and a touch mournful. “I shall have to beat them off with a stick.” Cosette gave him a reproving look but tempered it with a kiss to his forehead.
“You’ve got a suitor, too,” she informed him and wandered back out again, adding over her shoulder innocently, “When is the inspector dropping by again?”
Valjean sat back in his chair, setting his book aside. Cheeks a little warm, he rubbed at his face, feeling very much the father of an adolescent girl. Ignoring her question, he called, “When do I get to meet these regrettably persistent youths?” Cosette gave an answering laugh.
“You only need worry about one,” she replied. He groaned and shot a helpless look at Toussaint, who only shook her head.
“When do I get to meet him, then?”
Halfway up the stairs, Cosette paused.
“Soon, perhaps,” she called back, and allowed herself a little grin. “We’ll see.”
Maybe when she decides to take off that ridiculous cap, she thought, and hummed gleefully all the way to her room.