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A storm is coming.
Éponine can feel it in the air, stories and songs and spirits pushing her, making her stumble through Paris. She can hear the earth rumbling, taste iron on the breeze, see shadows crawling through the streets and blood dripping from candles like wax. She smells rosemary and rue in her sister’s perfume.
The storm will break soon.
Who will break with it?
***
Éponine’s city is falling apart.
Paris is ripping at the seams like one of those poorly-made pair of breeches that Montparnasse gripes about. She can see it in the faces of the two opposing clans, her found family sneering at the other family on the streets and glints of metal and oozing wounds in alleys. She can hear it in the whispers behind her back, smell the bloodlust as each of the two groups plans to take over Paris, taste the bitterness lodged in everyone’s hearts and minds like a poison apple seed. But most of all, she can feel the tension, the tightness in the air when she locks eyes with someone not of her own clan.
Éponine’s weathered storms before, but this one?
She’s not sure she’ll survive this storm intact.
***
Éponine’s taking Grantaire out with her to the market, hoping to shop for Azelma’s approaching birthday. Grantaire’s lived with them for years and is practically their brother, and so he has a specific idea of what he wants to make for Azelma. First, he needs the proper materials. He’s standing at the painter’s stall and inspecting brushes and Éponine’s toying with the idea of slipping a gold locket in her dress when a head of golden hair and dark skin flashes in the corner of her eye. She turns around to grab Grantaire’s arm but finds him gone, and sets off to find him with exasperation and without her locket in hand.
She finally tracks him down in the main courtyard, facing off with a golden boy and his dark-skinned friend in front of a fountain, and she quickly steps up next to him to even the odds.
“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” Grantaire is cackling, leaning on one leg, and Éponine would swear he was drunk if she hadn’t seen him sober for the last two days.
“I do bite my thumb, sir,” golden boy spits, lunging forward before his comrade pulls him back.
“Do you bite your thumb at us, Apollo?” Éponine whips her head over to Grantaire at the nickname, eyes narrowing. He’s not flushed enough for it to show on his dark skin, but sweat is glistening on his neck and he’s tilting forward, drawn like a moth to a light.
The boy leans back and turns his head, muttering in his companion’s ear, and Éponine sees the other shake his head no.
“No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir –”
Éponine huffs out a sigh of relief.
“– but I do bite my thumb.”
Never mind.
“Do you quarrel, sir?” she calls, stepping forward and ignoring Grantaire’s glare on the back of her head.
Paris is humid, air thick with the blood of her slain cousins, and she can feel them staring down at her from empty, dusty balconies and windows. She shivers as a phantom wind cuts across her neck.
He may be a pain in the ass, but Éponine loves Grantaire as fiercely as she loves Gavroche and Azelma and she won’t let him get killed for the sake of his sun god.
“Quarrel, ma’am? No, ma’am,” the boy laughs, and summer lightning splits the horizon in two and Éponine blinks and the cobblestone under her boots flashes crimson.
Grantaire pads up next to her, hand drifting to the sword at his right hip, and Éponine’s fingers flash out to stay his hand in chorus with a drum beat of thunder. “Good, sir. Nor do we,” she says, tilting her chin up and remembering her cousins six feet under as her eyes glint.
“Good.”
Éponine turns to leave, flicking Grantaire’s chin around and away from his ‘Apollo’, and tugs him along as she stalks through the rising shadows, blood lightning crackling.
The storm is closing in.
***
Éponine pads through the streets, wandering in her own head while watching the sky swirl and spin. The muggy day has slipped into an even hotter evening, and her hands slide with sweat against the silk of her dress as crows caw and nightingales chirp from their nests.
Grantaire seemed particularly... distracted today, and she’s worried about him. Gavroche idolizes him and Azelma admires him, and she can’t have them getting themselves into trouble at his example. She doesn’t know what to do; the storm approaching is inevitable. All she can do is seal her loved ones away and stand guard at the door, and hope that the flash in her eyes rivals the lightning.
She’s almost home when a harsh clatter sounds from a nearby alley and she jumps, daggers flicking into her hands. The clouds cover the moon tonight, and there are many people in Paris who would take advantage of Éponine in her ruby-red gown without knowing about the silver sharpness in her sleeves and words.
Venturing forward slowly, she creeps into the darkness with a pinprick-hole of light at the end. The noise was just a kitten; a fluffy gray one that doesn’t look like it’s been on the streets long.
Éponine wants to take it.
It’s Azelma’s birthday soon, so why not?
She’ll name it Montague.
As she bends down to scoop up the kitten, refusing to think of how much danger she’ll be in with her hands full of a ball of fur, said ball of fur trots further down the alley. Huffing, she chases it begrudgingly. If it wants to play hard to get, she can respect that.
She finally catches up to the kitten at the end of the alley, daggers tucked safely back in her dress sleeves and sword sheath rubbing on her bare leg under the folds of her slitted dress, and swoops down just as a candle flickers to life. She freezes, and hopes against hope it’s not golden-boy or another of his family.
Sadly, it is.
And she’s lovely.
The lady is on a balcony in the garden of a house across the street. She pushes herself up onto the balcony edge, swinging her legs and clouds of satin over the rail, and tilts her head to the sky. Éponine squeezes the creature in her arms a bit too tight and it meows, nibbling lightly on her arm with kitten-sharp teeth as the lady’s head whips down to the garden below her perch. Seeing nothing, she relaxes and studies the stars. The moonlight and candlelight flicker off her hair, and Éponine lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding as she slips through the garden gates and deposits the kitten in an empty flowerpot for temporary safekeeping. Éponine finds it amusing that the lady is so enraptured by the stars, since to Éponine the lady holds two of them in her face, framed by her dark eyelashes.
Éponine slinks over to hide below the balcony and takes a deep breath. “Lady?” she calls.
“Who speaks?” the lady hisses, and Éponine hears her slide off the railing. She peeks up to see the lady near her door, her window-curtains drifting in the hot breeze and twining around her body.
“An admirer,” Éponine hums.
“What be your name?”
“Manners, lady,” Éponine chides. “I believe one must introduce themselves before asking the other for their name. Or perhaps I have not attended enough balls to know proper etiquette, but ‘tis the way I was taught.”
“If you are another suitor come to call,” the lady returns, “I must beg your leave.”
“I am no man,” Éponine laughs. “I would consider myself... infinitely more skilled than a male.” she says lowly, darting to sink into the shadows of a tree where she can see the lady’s silhouette.
“I shall have to take your word for it.”
“Your name?”
The lady hesitates. “Cosette,” she concedes.
“Cosette,” Éponine murmurs, mouth caressing the syllables, and she could swear she sees Cosette shiver.
“And yours?”
Éponine doesn’t answer. She’s watching Cosette.
“A lady must always keep her promises.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Éponine says. She steps forward into a shaft of moonlight, hips swaying, and shakes her hair back from where it falls over her chest with a toss of her head. She juts her chin out and looks up to see Cosette stepping to the railing. Cosette’s watching Éponine unnervingly closely, and Éponine’s neck burns as she feels Cosette’s gaze sweep over her body, scorching as Cosette pauses at Éponine’s low neckline and flash of thigh through her slitted dress. Éponine can’t tell from this far away, but she wants to believe she sees Cosette’s eyes darken.
“You’re deflecting, milady,” Cosette smirks.
“Hmm?”
“I find myself still without a name to match to the face...and figure.”
“Éponine.”
“Dangerous. It suits you.”
“Why, thank you, Cosette.”
“Dear Éponine, I would be delighted to speak face to face, but I find myself with a barricade between us,” Cosette laughs.
Éponine turns away, hearing Cosette make a tiny noise of protest, and grins as she whips back around and sprints toward the balcony, launching off the ground and flying up to alight perched on the rail mere inches away from Cosette. “Easily surmounted, milady,” she whispers, a smirk curling her red-painted lips as she sweeps her dress underneath her, sits primly on the rail, and swings her legs a few inches off the balcony floor.
“So I see.”
Cosette slinks toward her on bare feet, head tilted down and shadows playing across her face. Her lips are bitten pink and chapped, and strands of her hair escape from where it’s tucked behind her ears. As Cosette draws closer, Éponine licks her lips slowly, and Cosette’s fingers twitch. Cosette’s finally standing in front of her, and Éponine can’t move.
Cosette smiles, and her fingers flit up and delicately stroke Éponine’s face, the pads of her fingers caressing the shell of her ear.
Éponine wants her.
“Teach me how I should forget to think,” Éponine breathes, leaning towards Cosette with her lips wet and parted. Cosette’s gaze sweeps over Éponine, tracing her jaw and throat and resting fire-hot on her mouth. Cosette tilts her head forward, her auburn hair falling around her face and brushing Éponine’s cheeks like flower petals, and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the corner of Éponine’s lips.
Éponine sucks in a sharp breath, fingers clenching around the marble rail, and her gut drops to her feet as the sensation of turning to stone creeps through her muscles, tingling and shocking like a lightning strike.
Cosette takes a step toward Éponine and tilts her head as her fingers grip Éponine’s hips, tightening to a bruising-strength. She draws even closer, breath ghosting along Éponine’s collarbone, and suddenly lunges forward, bites a tender spot on the underside of her jaw, and latches on, sucking on it. A whimper pushes out of Éponine’s lips when Cosette pulls away, and Cosette brushes the fingers of her left hand against Éponine’s mouth in a shush gesture. She comes back, sliding slick lips along Éponine’s throat, and Éponine moans this time, muffling it in Cosette's hair. Cosette giggles quietly, and the vibration on the wet and already sensitive skin of her throat sends heat rippling through Éponine’s stomach.
Éponine tugs her closer, wrapping her legs around Cosette’s hips, and locks her arms around Cosette’s neck. She slips her fingers under the back of Cosette’s dress, scraping her long fingernails up Cosette’s soft skin, and is delighted when Cosette shudders and lets out a choked gasp. Cosette lurches toward her, desperately stretching to kiss her, and just before their lips touch Éponine slides a finger between their mouths. “Shush,” she whispers, skimming Cosette’s chapped lips with her finger.
Something flares in Cosette’s eyes, and she parts her lips slowly and nips Éponine’s finger before nudging it out of the way with her nose and crushing her mouth to Éponine’s. Cosette tastes tart, like apricots, and Éponine’s whole body arches up into her mouth. Éponine’s hands dart up and sink into Cosette’s hair, and she tugs sharply at the roots, clutching the hair around her fists. Cosette moans, her blunt teeth grazing Éponine’s bottom lip, and Éponine feels Cosette's fingers scratch her skin through the cut-outs in her dress as Éponine sighs into Cosette’s mouth. She can see Cosette’s eyelashes fluttering closed, smell the sweat glistening on her own chest from the hot summer air. She can taste apricots, hear their heavy, entangled breaths, and she can feel with a sharp pain in her chest when Cosette pulls away.
“Éponine,” Cosette pants. “Éponine.”
Éponine can only watch Cosette. She looks absolutely undone; hair tangled, much-too-exposed chest rising and falling alarmingly fast, lips shiny, cheeks rose-red, and Éponine can’t even what she herself looks like.
“Éponine.”
“Cosette,” Éponine pulls herself together enough to return.
“You are... the most exquisite creature I have ever seen,” Cosette says solemnly. “I confess, I find myself quite unable to believe you are here, Lady Éponine.”
“The disbelief is mutual, Lady Cosette.”
Cosette blinks.
Éponine smiles. “You have an unfortunate sign of our meeting on you, lady.” Cosette has Éponine’s crimson lip-paint smeared across the curve of her lips, and Éponine takes pride at the sight of it. She swipes her fingers across Cosette’s lips, teasing and scratching slightly with her nails as she feels Cosette’s mouth open.
An invitation.
“I wouldn’t have thought you so needy, Cosette.”
“Only for you.”
Éponine can’t breathe.
“Will I see you again?” Cosette asks softly.
“Undoubtedly.” Éponine presses a kiss to the back of Cosette’s hand, purposely leaving the remnants of her lip-paint on Cosette’s skin. “You enchant me.”
Cosette surges forward again, and Éponine lets her get an inch away from her face before laying a hand on her chest, fingers toying with the lace edging the dip in her neckline. “Patience, milady,” she chides, taking Cosette’s bottom lip between her teeth and biting down as Cosette gasps. “Save some of that enthusiasm for our next meeting,” she hums into Cosette’s mouth, savoring Cosette’s small whimper and subsequent pout briefly before swinging around and plummeting from the balcony.
“Éponine?” Cosette calls when Éponine’s almost out of the gate, Montague cradled in her arms.
“Yes?”
“I am infinitely grateful I took your word regarding your...skills.”
“As am I.”
***
Éponine pads into the front room of the manor after releasing Montague with her fingers held against her bruised lips, and is unsurprised when a match hisses and a candle flickers into life. “Grantaire,” she greets.
“Éponine,” he nods. “Out late, aren’t we? A secret rendezvous with a man who caught your eye?”
“There is no one.”
“If love be rough with you, be rough with love,” Grantaire drawls, reeling back against the wall. “Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.”
“You’re drunk,” Éponine says flatly.
“And so are you.”
“How so?”
“Drunk on love.”
Éponine’s breath hitches, and her left wrist flicks on instinct and she feels her dagger in her hand.
“A woman, then,” he rests his chin on his fist. “I find myself unsurprised. Does this irk you?”
“You knew?” Éponine breathes.
“As you knew as well,” he returns grimly.
“Do you even know his name?”
“Enjolras,” Grantaire hums.
“You are the Patroclus to his Achilles,” Éponine muses.
“It is so.”
“You could leave.”
“I will never leave him,” Grantaire hisses. “Would you abandon your lark?”
Éponine doesn’t answer.
“A good night to you, cousin.” He bows and is gone.
Éponine stares into the flickering candle and takes a deep breath.
The room goes dark.
***
Éponine’s convinced herself Cosette was a dream. She’s never met or even dreamed of a lady so... tantalizing before and so she’s resolved to consider Cosette a figment of her imagination.
She didn’t know figments of her imagination appeared in real life.
“Quick, quick!” she hears Cosette’s voice pant as she sprints toward Éponine a few days later while she’s walking to the market. Cosette’s skirts are flying and her bodice is partially unlaced, chest heaving and cheeks flushed, and snatches Éponine by the hand and yanks her down the street.
“Where are we going?” Éponine inquires, figuring if it’s a dream she may as well try and get dream-Cosette to kiss her at some point.
“Somewhere, anywhere,” Cosette struggles out, eyes frantically scanning the deserted street as clanking sounds round the corner behind them.
“I know just the place.”
Éponine abruptly jerks Cosette to the right, throwing her into a narrow, barely-there alley and squeezing herself in just in time for a group of people to rush by their hiding place. “There,” she gasps, peering around the corner. She’s surprised when Cosette bursts into wild laughter, doubling over, and Éponine rushes over to tug on a strand of her hair. “Quiet!” she hisses.
“Oh, they won’t hear,” Cosette giggles. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Who were you running from?”
“Monsieur Marius,” Cosette sighs. “He’s determined to marry me.”
Oh.
“And... you love him?” Her heart may fall out of her boots.
“What? No!” Cosette rushes out. “No, I've tried to explain that I'm not quite... interested in him, but he insists and won’t listen. He was trying to find me to propose to me again.”
“What happened the first time?”
“I said maybe he should think better about it and he sat against a tree and cried for two hours.”
“Definitely doesn’t sound like he’ll fit you.” Éponine remarks, heart pounding.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Won’t his guards hear us talking and find us?”
“Certainly not. Their noisy swords won’t let them hear anything,” Cosette laughs.
Éponine rolls her eyes fondly and turns back to the exit to watch for a good time for them to slip out (not that she particularly wants to leave this small alley with Cosette in it). She’s sunk deep into her thoughts when she feels soft fingers on her chin, and she lets Cosette gently turn her head toward her. Cosette rocks forward on her tiptoes and presses a sweet, tender kiss to Éponine’s lips, stroking the side of her face as she hums quietly. Cosette moves up to kiss the tip of her nose and then pulls away entirely, looking up at Éponine.
“What was that for?” Éponine asks breathlessly.
“A better thank-you, and a see-you-soon,” Cosette replies, flashing her a tiny grin as she slides past Éponine, body pushing tightly against hers, and disappears in a swirl of lace.
Éponine didn’t know figments of her imagination could kiss so well.
***
When Gavroche comes home after fetching bread from the market and excitedly tells Éponine, Grantaire, Azelma, Montparnasse, and Courfeyrac that he almost got mugged, Éponine knows it’s gone too far.
If the other clan is stooping so low as to attack her baby brother, Éponine can’t defend them to herself anymore. Then again, it could’ve been someone else, someone unrelated to the other group, but either way the crime in Paris is getting worse and worse by the day. Prince Marius is supposed to take care of protecting his citizens, but Éponine suspects he may be a bit too preoccupied with a certain satin-and-lace-dressed brunette to pay much attention.
Éponine will have to take matters into her own hands.
The only problem? She has no fathomable idea how.
***
Courfeyrac pulls her aside that night with an uncharacteristically grim look after Grantaire and Montparnasse have gone to read Azelma and Gavroche bedtime stories. It’s such a foreign sight that it doesn’t sit right on his face, like when Grantaire tried to comb his hair or when Montparnasse wore wrinkled breeches.
“We need to do something,” he says.
“Yes.”
“So?”
“What?”
“Any ideas?”
“None,” Éponine heaves a sigh.
“I’m sensing you’ve been a bit busy,” Courfeyrac hums, tilting his head and examining her face in the dim candlelight. “A lady?”
“How does everyone know?” Éponine huffs.
“Grantaire’s known you your whole life, and I’ve fallen in love so many times I know the look painfully well.” Courfeyrac says. “What are you going to do?”
“Am I bad if I say kiss her as much as she lets me?”
“Not bad, necessarily. A bit narrow-minded to your possibilities, but not bad.” he contemplates.
“You think I could have a relationship with her?” Éponine asks incredulously.
“I can’t truly say without seeing her, but honestly, Ép? Anyone would be foolish not to snatch you up,” he grins impishly.
“Let’s hope you’re right about that.”
“On to more serious matters.”
“Yes?”
“Is there anything we can do to stop this?” he pleads, a lock of dark hair swinging in front of his green eyes, and Éponine is suddenly struck by how young he is.
“Of course,” she lies through her teeth and tastes copper. “I’ll work on it and let you know.”
She’ll figure something out.
She has to.
***
Éponine is sitting at a window watching the storm roll in, her hair messily twisted into a bun and her feet cold and bare. The grim clouds crackle with energy, marching across the sky like soldiers, and she can feel the gunfire thunder deep in her chest. The glass in the window is trembling slightly, and Éponine reaches out and trails her fingers along it, tracing patterns as she thinks.
Cold hands are touching her bare back where her wrinkled dress has a cut-out and her corset is unlaced, and then Éponine’s shivering and laughing quietly and turning around in the window seat to come face to face with Cosette’s dancing eyes. Cosette straddles Éponine, sitting heavily and squirming in her lap and smirking when Éponine lets out a squeak, but stays quiet while she inspects Éponine’s face. Feeling self-concious, Éponine flicks her eyes down to the floor as she inhales Cosette’s early-morning scent, and starts when Cosette flicks her chin up. “I want to see your eyes,” she murmurs, and so Éponine juts her chin forward and raises an eyebrow to look directly into Cosette’s gaze.
“I need to go,” Éponine says eventually, stretching. “Sun’s coming up behind all those clouds.”
“You mean that light?”
Éponine nods.
“That’s not the sun,” Cosette says.
“Well then what is it?” Éponine pushes.
“It’s... a meteor,” Cosette insists.
“We both know how much I love meteors,” Éponine says seriously, a grin pulling at her lips. “Well, the lark’s singing outside, and we all know that means it’s morning,” she laughs.
“No, it’s not,” Cosette argues.
“What do you mean?”
“The bird? That was obviously a nightingale.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No!” Cosette exclaims. “It was a nightingale, and that means it’s still night, and that means you have to stay a bit longer,” she pleads petulantly.
“Even though you’re wrong –” Cosette pouts – “we’ll agree to disagree, and we’ll just have to be each other’s songbirds now, hmm?” Éponine offers.
“Meaning?”
“I’ll be your nightingale and come see you at night, and you’ll be my little lark greeting me in the morning.”
Cosette smiles. “Can you still stay?” she begs.
Éponine suddenly remembers Gavroche almost getting mugged and Azelma’s terrified-but-brave face and Grantaire’s love-struck face, Montparnasse’s eyebrows pulled tight and Courfeyrac’s lone curl, and a bolt of guilt shoots through her.
“Cosette, I can’t,” Éponine says softly. “I’d love to, but I have to go.”
“Why?”
“I... can’t tell you.”
“What?” Cosette says incredulously, and Éponine’s got a bad feeling about this day.
“I just can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t, Cosette!” Éponine bursts, shoving Cosette off of her and bolting to her feet. She whips around and struggles with the window lock, biting her lips as scared tears swim to her eyes. She can’t lose this. She can’t lose Cosette.
“Well then go, if it’s so urgent!” Cosette chokes angrily. Éponine hears the pain in her voice and turns around, stepping toward Cosette with her eyes pleading and hands outstretched.
“Cosette –”
“Go!”
Éponine goes, leaping out of the window, and is fully aware that she’s left one of her daggers with her engraved clan crest next to Cosette’s rumpled bed, tossed there carelessly the previous night.
Cosette was going to find out soon enough.
Cosette was going to hate her soon enough too.
***
The storm has finally come.
Éponine dashes to her family’s manor, winding around people in the street who crane their necks and marvel at the ominous purple-gray-black clouds and the flashes of lightning not far away from the city. She arrives at her house and bursts through the door to find it deserted, a half-eaten loaf of Azelma’s favorite sweet bread on the table and candles still lit. Her stomach drops, and she whips back around to bolt out of the house and search the streets. She’s never been religious, but she finds herself subconsciously pleading with someone, anyone, that her family is safe (and that Cosette is safe, though she feels guilty for thinking it when for all she knows, Cosette could be out with the rest of her clan and threatening Éponine’s family at this very second).
She finds Montparnasse dueling with someone she thinks is named Combeferre, the two members of the opposite families blocking and parrying and stabbing in a desperate bid for their lives. Already panicked, Éponine throws herself forward and brings her sword down between them, the ring of two swords clashing down on hers crashing into her ears. She senses blood trickling from her right ear and she feels wild and frenzied, and it unnerves her how little she cares for her own safety over her family’s.
“Montparnasse, cease your idiocy and come help me find the rest of our family,” Éponine says breathlessly, nodding to Combeferre. “You may live, for now,” she promises darkly, “but quarrel with me or any of my clan again and you will not live to see the next dawn.” He tips his head and gives a slight bow as she tugs Montparnasse away.
***
People are dueling everywhere she looks, and she hurries through the streets with Montparnasse shadowing her. He suddenly seems to spot someone and doubles back, and she’s about to follow him when she catches a glimpse of dark, kinky curls scraped into a bun and a head of silken gold hair, and her hands start shaking. She pushes through a throng of people yelling at each other and bursts into a small, secluded courtyard where she finds Grantaire and Enjolras fighting ferociously, blades twirling and flashing, and they’re dancing around each other and predicting each other’s moves so well it’s almost hypnotic. Éponine unsheathes her sword with a scraping sound and darts forward, striking at the other boy with an unnerving glint in her eyes.
Grantaire takes a hand off his sword hilt and throws it into Éponine’s chest, sending her stumbling away. “I’ve got him, Éponine,” he grits out, and she argues and he glances back at her for a second, just a second –
And Enjolras’s sword is striking down like a snake and clanging as it hits Grantaire’s and Grantaire stumbles, his sword falling out of his hand, and Éponine sucks a breath in –
She tosses Grantaire his sword and he’s catching it and striking out and they start fighting again and Éponine can’t breathe.
A man appears at the other end of the courtyard with a mop of reddish-brown hair and a lanky figure. Éponine only notices him absently at first, until she realizes that he’s got a gun. The man starts shooting at the dueling couple and Éponine drops down to shield herself and realizes that the man is shooting at Grantaire.
She’s holding her breath, her air pushing against her chest, and she sees in slow motion a stray bullet speeding for Enjolras’s chest as he disarms Grantaire again and she can tell Grantaire sees it too because haven’t the two of them always seen storms coming before they break?
And then Grantaire is pushing Enjolras and diving in front of him and making an awful noise and thudding to the ground and blood is rushing out of his chest.
No.
No, no, no.
“Grantaire!” she screams, flying forward and crumpling in a puddle next to his body. She slaps his cheeks lightly, refusing to look at the wound, and gasps when he opens his eyes. “Grantaire, by god, what were you thinking?” she demands.
“Apollo needed me,” he rasps. “You can’t ignore the sun.”
“Grantaire. Don’t you dare,” she sobs furiously.
“Tell Azelma happy birthday for me,” he pleads, and she nods.
“And Éponine?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t chase your lark away,” he smirks, and she forces a smile. He’s always said she needs to smile more.
And then he’s gone.
Éponine runs her fingers along Grantaire’s jaw and takes a heaving breath, looking up slowly to see Enjolras standing on the other side of the courtyard with his lip quivering.
Éponine can imagine Grantaire’s blood oozing from Enjolras’s hands.
She’s never been so angry.
“He fucking loved you!” Éponine screeches, ripping her sword from Grantaire’s slack grip and sprinting across the scarlet-stained courtyard. Her hair tumbles out of its tie and swings in front of her eyes as she runs, wrapping around her neck like a noose. Her hands are shaking so violently she thinks she may stab herself instead of Enjolras, and Grantaire’s lifeblood is dripping from her fingers. She’s quivering, taut with rage like a violin string pulled too tight, and thunders to a halt in front of Enjolras as lightning throws her into a sharp silhouette and screams and mourning songs float up from Paris’s streets. She heaves her sword above her head, breath ripping out of her as Grantaire’s smirk swims across her vision.
She plunges it straight into cobblestone when Enjolras plummets his knees like a marionette with its strings severed.
“I – I don’t – I can’t – I –” he gasps, fingers bleeding as they grind into the cracks in the stone. Tears are streaming down his face and ugly sobs are clawing out of his throat, and he collapses fully to the ground onto his back. “Do it,” he pleads, feebly trying to pull her sword out of the ground, “just do it.”
Éponine can only stare at him.
“Do it!” he howls, spit flying from his too-red lips.
She shakes her head and turns away, but –
“I loved him.” Enjolras whispers.
Éponine nods, back turned, and walks out of the courtyard. She looks back once.
Enjolras is sprawled on top of Grantaire’s body with his green-stained-crimson waistcoat clutched in his fist, and presses a kiss to his forehead.
She looks away.
***
Éponine trips through Paris, stumbling pain-drunk and falling into a shadowed doorway to drop to her knees, broken glass sticking to her skin.
Grantaire is dead, she thinks.
Grantaire is gone.
Grantaire is dead.
She would have thought she’d be crying and raging, thought she’d be beating her fists on the ground and screeching for her Grantaire back, her family back, but she can’t move.
She’s been having trouble moving, lately.
He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, echoes in her mind, and she doesn’t know how she’ll ever get up again.
Until a familiar voice rips through the streets and her heart, and she bolts up and runs faster than she ever knew she could.
“Gavroche!” Courfeyrac’s voice yells, and she can’t feel her legs. She sprints around the corner and sees a massive barricade of all the furniture from her and her family’s house, and Azelma and Courfeyrac and Montparnasse crouched behind the barricade and her brother standing on top.
“NO!” Éponine roars, and Gavroche looks back and gives her a carbon copy of Grantaire’s smirk before he disappears over the barricade. Éponine barrels past her family, climbing the barricade frantically, and emerges over the top just in time to hear the sickening sound of a stranger’s sword sliding into flesh and taste gut-wrenching horror and see her brother go limp and collapse to the ground.
Éponine slips and slides down the other side, tumbling head-over-heels and getting bashed by furniture all the way to the bottom until she crashes into cold stone. She manages to lift her head and sees her little brother a few feet away, and she desperately drags herself toward him. She can hear choked sobs behind her, and she glances back to see Courfeyrac ripping himself free of Montparnasse’s slack grip as Azelma drops to the ground. Courfeyrac scrambles over the barricade and down the street, mouth open and hands shaking and a scream building in his throat. He tumbles to the stone next to Éponine and clenches her arm so tight it starts bleeding, other hand hovering and shaking violently over Gavroche’s body. Gavroche’s eyes are still full of determination and defiance, and his hands are curled in loose fists. Éponine lays her head on her little brother’s tiny, still-warm chest and curls up next to his body, convulsing with sobs.
She glances over to Courfeyrac and watches him shake and cry, and wonders with an eerie detachment why she can’t feel anything.
Why can’t she feel anything?
Éponine’s sure she’ll never get up this time. She’ll sit here, and mourn Grantaire and Gavroche, and then she’ll wither away in this very spot until she stops feeling this horrible ache of guilt and sorrow ripping her chest apart that’s worse, so much worse, than any wound she’s ever gotten.
(It’ll never stop.)
***
Eventually, Éponine has to get up.
She scrapes herself off the blood-stained cobblestones, spine cracking as she drags herself upright, and gives Courfeyrac’s hair a weak tousle. He tries to stand but can’t, his legs buckling from kneeling so long, and so she pulls him up with the last of her strength. She can’t bring herself to look at Gavroche’s body, and resolves to come back later and give him a proper funeral once her remaining family is safe.
She and Courfeyrac mount the barricade, and she gathers Azelma into a bone-crushing hug once she reaches her. She can feel Azelma’s tears soaking through her ripped, scorched, bloody dress. She can see her shaking and hear her sobs, and taste the remnants of her own tears on her lips.
She’s cried so much today.
A breeze lifts Azelma’s matted hair and blows that sickening hint of rosemary in her perfume into Éponine’s nose, and Éponine’s reminded that she needs to gather mourning rosemary for Grantaire and Gavroche.
And that she needs to be strong for her only sibling that’s left.
So she bundles Azelma up and cradles her in her arms like she used to when Azelma was smaller, and clutches her close to her as they walk back to the manor. Courfeyrac won’t or can’t talk, and Montparnasse’s gone off to look for someone he wants to check on, a poet, he said.
Azelma falls asleep in Éponine’s arms, and when they reach the house Éponine carries her up to her bed and tucks her in. Éponine goes back downstairs and looks around, feeling tears come to her eyes at the sight of so many familiar things, and knows that she needs to get out of this house.
She needs to get Grantaire.
***
Éponine walks up the path through Enjolras’s family’s garden, and wonders if Cosette is on her balcony.
She knows Cosette wouldn’t want to see her.
She knocks on the door of the family’s house, and when it creaks open she slides through the crack and into their front room.
Cosette and who Éponine assumes is Marius are standing right in front of her.
“You,” Éponine hisses, fingers itching for her sword as she recognizes Marius.
“Éponine,” Cosette breathes, eyes widening as she takes an involuntary step toward Éponine.
“You know her?” Marius asks incredulously. “She’s the one who tried to kill my cousin,” Marius says, watching Éponine’s face.
“The one where you killed her family after she stopped fighting?” Cosette cries, looking Éponine over and seeing all the blood splashed across her already-red dress. She looks like she wants to wrap her arms around Éponine and never let go.
Éponine didn’t realize how much she missed Cosette.
“He’s the one,” Éponine says bitterly, determined not to cry. Cosette looks so relieved at the sight of her, and Éponine wants to hold her so bad. “And now it’s time for me to even the score,” she spits.
She yanks her blood-encrusted sword out and springs forward, shoving Cosette to safety with her body as she slices at Marius. He whips his own sword through the air, blocking and parrying each of her swings.
She’s fighting so hard, sweat dripping down her face and into her eyes, and she grunts as Marius’s sword collides with her own, jarring her whole arm. She pulls away and strikes back, almost disarming Marius but not quite as he grips his sword and stabs forward –
And easily slides his sword in and out of Éponine’s chest.
Fitting, she thinks.
She staggers back, her head swimming, and faintly hears Cosette make a terrible screaming sound.
She sounds broken, Éponine notices absentmindedly.
“Get out!” Cosette yells, and she hears Marius’s sword clang on the ground as he runs away. Cosette flies over just in time to catch Éponine as she plunges to the marble floor, Cosette’s hands cradling Éponine’s head and lowering it into her lap. Cosette smooths Éponine’s dark hair away from her face, tears streaming out of her eyes, and Éponine finds Cosette’s hand and clutches it.
“Thus with a kiss, I die.” Éponine gives a broken laugh, clenching Cosette’s fingers, and Cosette leans down to press a kiss to her lips.
Éponine tastes of blood.
“Don’t you fret, little lark,” Éponine sighs. “I don’t feel any pain.”
Cosette caresses her cheek, wiping away the blood smudged on her lips and skin.
“I see them,” Éponine says. “I see Grantaire, and there’s Gavroche!”
“Good,” Cosette murmurs, tears running down her cheeks and dripping onto Éponine’s.
“Lady Cosette?”
“Yes?”
“Promise me – promise me –” she chokes, blood bubbling up in her wound. “Promise to kiss me on the forehead when I am dead. I shall feel it,” she breathes.
“I promise,” Cosette hiccups. She tilts her head and kisses Éponine, pours her laughter and her regret and her love into Éponine’s last breath, and can’t bring herself to let go.
“Cosette?” Éponine whispers, breath faltering.
“Yes, love?”
“I do believe I am a little bit in love with you.”
Cosette twines their fingers together and heaves a gut-wrenching sob, pressing a kiss to Éponine’s nose. “As am I.”
Éponine smiles sweetly, and then her cold hands drop from Cosette’s. Cosette wraps her fingers around them and rubs, blowing warm air and kisses on Éponine’s scabbed, bruised, bloody fingers.
Cosette stays hunched over Éponine long after she’s gone, her tears trickling into Éponine’s hairline as she kisses her forehead gently, and wonders.
She wonders how the lark can live without her nightingale.