Work Text:
There are three, sharp, perfectly spaced knocks on Eponine’s door. It’s 11am, a respectable time to be visiting for a normal person but it might as well be 3am in EpWorld, yet Eponine still drags herself out of bed and crawls down the hall in the hopes that by the time she reaches the door whoever is there will have given up so she can get back to bed. She’s not as young as she used to be; late night drives to Courfeyrac’s house to watch Harry Potter movies recorded on his DVR with his son (who is adorable and the spitting image of Courf and a sad reminder that Courf is both a husband and a father and Eponine is still living 15 years in the past) take the energy out of her in a way they never used to.
Unfortunately for her, there is another round of knocks just as she enters the foyer, and with a mighty growlgroancurse she heaves open the door and leans against it heavily, peering out from under her bangs.
It’s Combeferre.
He hasn’t changed much over time; he dresses pretty much the same (though somehow it doesn’t look like he’s dressing like an old man anymore, since young Ep would say he is an old man now, and she is an old woman, and they’re both depressingly alone), and he has the same glasses and the same stupid haircut and that same semi-awkward smile he uses when he’s about to approach a bad topic.
“Hggh?” Eponine asks eloquently. Combeferre shuffles nervously from one foot to the other, hands shoved in his coat pockets because oh yes, it’s February, and it’s cold. A sudden burst of winds howls in through the doorway and Eponine shivers, tucking her hands into her armpits.
“I, uh—I can come back some other time, sorry for waking you.” He looks about to step away, so Eponine reaches out to grab his arm and drags him inside.
“I’m awake now, so whatever.” She lets him go by the kitchen table, trusting him to seat himself, and sets about making herself some coffee so she can be at least semi-conscious for whatever it is Combeferre doesn’t want to say. “Wassup?”
“Do you remember, back in college, we said that if were still single when we were thirty-five, we should just marry each other?”
Eponine still has her back to him, but the rise in his voice tells her he’s done that flinch thing like he expects someone to hit him for what he’s said. Fighting the haze of sleep, Eponine searches her memory back. She can vaguely remember something about that; it started with a text, and they had casually mentioned it a few times in the following years as ‘the backup plan’. For the most part she thought it was a joke; but it was nice to think that maybe she wouldn’t end up alone after all.
“I remember,” she hums, pouring her coffee. “Why?”
“... You want to do that?”
Eponine takes a long, slow sip of her coffee, and turns to lean against the counter, facing Combeferre nonchalantly. He looks back over the top of his glasses, head ducked anxiously.
“Yeah, okay.” Combeferre breathes a visible sigh of relief. “I want a ring though.”
Combeferre gives her his grandmother’s ring, a dainty, antique gold little thing with a tiny diamond laid in, and Eponine loves it. They end up going out to buy Combeferre a ring, just as antique if not as personal to Eponine. They put them on and promise not to take them off, despite the teasing they get from Courfeyrac and Bahorel and just about all the other Les Amis. Marius congratulates them profusely, happy that she had ‘found the same love he had found in Cosette’. Everyone rolls their eyes and scoffs, but affectionately. They’re all more than used to the density of Marius’ skull by now, and it’s simply not worth explaining to him the truth of it.
Not even Eponine is sure she understands the truth of it; Combeferre and her are friends, not even best friends (that’s Courfeyrac, thank you very much), and yet they’re getting married.
In the end, she decides it’s best just to go with it; there’s no reason her and Combeferre should treat each other any different. They’re friends now, and they’ll be friends tomorrow and the day after that. And then, eventually, they’ll be friends that are married.
It feels less like a real wedding and more like playing pretend; she used to imagine ballrooms and flowing skirts and all manner of things, a wedding fit for a princess, but was always sure her real wedding would be much more of a quieter, private affair. And yet Combeferre encourages all of her dreams, and Courfeyrac prompts her to take it far beyond the realm of ridiculous; Eponine does wear a simply massive wedding gown, and they get married in an extravagant room at a heritage listed mansion, and she even managed to get Combeferre into a white suit with tails, for god’s sake.
She twirls constantly as she stands at the altar, just to watch her dress spin about her legs. All the Amis are present, plus Cosette and Musichetta and Gavroche, and by Eponine’s instructions they are all wearing the most flamboyant, extravagant formal wear they could bear to be seen in. Courfeyrac’s suit has red sequins sewn to the lapel. The entire affair is a giggly, childish mess, which as far as Eponine is concerned is everything a marriage to one of her closest friends should be.
They are instructed to kiss. Combeferre blushes, and Eponine smirks, and then she decides that maybe being married to Combeferre was a really good idea, because kissing is nice and should be a thing among all friends.
Eponine lets the lease run out on her apartment, and Combeferre sells his, and they move into a nice little house of their own. It’s an eclectic mix of Combeferre’s more classic style, with fireplaces and armchairs and spanning bookshelves, and Eponine’s insistence on filling it with bits and bobs given and made by her friends and her brother. Eponine expects them to draw a line, like a college dorm – this half for me and this half for you – but instead it all ends up atop one another. A lamp Jehan gave her sits on the table beside Combeferre’s favourite reading chair. The hall features an imitation Van Gogh painting and a framed Beatles poster.
It’s like everything in their lives now. It should do, but they make it work.
There’s a few bedrooms, and one is declared to be Gavroche’s even before they know if Gavroche is still in the country – he’s a flighty young man, never in one place for too long – the other two belonging to Eponine and Combeferre, respectively.
“Alright, let’s be real here,” Eponine says, dragging Combeferre out of his room (more of a study, really) and into her own. Dragging Combeferre around has become a bit of a habit these days. “I don’t really want to sleep with you. Nothing against you, but, no. But that doesn’t mean you can get out of snuggle time, mister.” By the time she’s finished talking she’s already in bed, covers pulled up to her chin and glaring rather ineffectively.
“Just get in bed and give me a god damn cuddle.”
Combeferre blushes, and Eponine smirks, and then he crawls into bed and wraps his arms around her and somehow they fall asleep in ten seconds flat. It’s all rather sweet.
They weren’t particularly over affectionate as friends, and they’re not particularly over affectionate now. Not so much that it’s noticeably right away, by any means.
They’ve made a habit of sitting together even when doing completely different things. Combeferre would sit on the couch and read, one arm thrown across the back of the couch and consequently Eponine’s shoulders; she would lean her head back and across to rest against him, arms tucked at her sides, usually watching some reality TV dribble. Combeferre spent more nights in her bed than his own; though they both knew it was only because having someone to cuddle up to was preferable to not having someone to cuddle up to. In the end they just sell his bed and Combeferre’s Room becomes Combeferre’s Study.
They didn’t kiss much, either, despite Courfeyrac’s insistence they should at any given time (he seems to be more invested in their ‘blooming romance’ than they are, which isn’t a difficult thing to achieve because they honestly just don’t care). Combeferre would press kisses to her forehead as he passed her in the kitchen, or absentmindedly press his mouth to her knuckles in lieu of a greeting. In moments of excitement or adrenaline - such as when his lawyer’s salary was used to buy relatively cheap but incredibly heartfelt gifts, as Combeferre is want to do with all his friends - she often found herself giving him a quick, chaste kiss. This, of course, caused many of the Amis much confusion.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she would say. “It’s just nice to kiss.” And it was true.
The entire situation shouldn’t be possible. Being ‘married’ and being ‘just friends’ were, to most minds, mutually exclusive; you can’t be both. And yet they were. They didn’t exactly have anything better going for them. (Well, yeah, there was that time Feuilly’s long-term girlfriend left him and Eponine may have fooled around with him a few times, but that was about as serious as her marriage. Plus his new girlfriend is a badass and she doesn’t even want to compete with that.)
There is no question that they’ve settled for each other. It should be depressing, but it’s not. They’re happy. Somehow.