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“Éponine – ”
“Trying to drive – ”
“ – yeah, no, in my day, this is what we used to call ‘Trying to Get Feuilly Killed On His Birth – TIRE RULE, TIRE RULE, IF YOU CAN’T SEE THEIR TIRES, YOU ARE TOO DAMN CLOSE – ”
Éponine is laughing, full-on, head-thrown-back laughing, and through his terror, Feuilly grins with her though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t have a white-knuckled grip on the door handle and his foot rammed against an imaginary brake pedal. She’s not a bad driver, not at all; she’s as in control here as she is at rallies or preventing robberies and he loves that about her, she’s great and fantastic and he still can’t quite wrap his mind around how he managed to end up with her, but that doesn’t mean that every time he gets in a car with her it doesn’t end with his life flashing before his eyes and a brief spurt of residual Catholicism. There are no atheists in foxholes…or in Éponine Thénardier’s car.
“Stop being such a baby. I’m only going ninety.”
“Only going – ” Feuilly sinks lower into his seat, shaking his head. “Well, there are worse ways to go.”
She laughs again, loud and clear like a big brass band, and maybe his heart squeezes, just a little bit.
It’s probably because of the way she swerves over into the next lane with zero fucks to give regarding the semi and its driver, who is now flat-out leaning on his horn.
Probably.
He really has no idea where she’s taking him. The others have a not-so-surprise party waiting for him at the Musain about which Jehan had accidentally let slip earlier in the week, but it’s given him something to look forward to, and that’s the best present he could ask for, to be honest. It’s been a rough week. He’s been applying and applying for a third job, but no one seems to want him, and it’s starting to get frustrating. Moreover his boss at the music store is breathing down his neck – it’s a wonder he managed to get any time off for today at all. He suspects Éponine had something to do with that, actually. He wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t put anything past her.
She sings absentmindedly along with the radio, something he doesn’t recognize; it’s not music he would listen to by himself, but she has a way of making a song her own without even trying, without even realizing she’s doing it that makes him grateful she’s comfortable enough with him now to let her guard down like this. For the first time in months, something at the base of his spine eases. He can’t really say he’s relaxed – Éponine has yet to learn the joys of the blinker – but he’s happy. It’s enough.
At last, they pull off the highway, and much to Éponine’s amusement, Feuilly actually groans with relief. They banter lightly back and forth as she takes a series of turns that lead them farther and farther away from where Feuilly is familiar; quirky little shops fade to nice neighborhoods fade to not so nice neighborhoods until they find themselves on a back road with trees on either side like sentinels. Éponine rolls down the windows; the wind whips around the car, dragging through his too long hair and teasing the hem of his shirt. It flips against his stomach, and if he catches Éponine’s eyes flicking to the exposed skin, he doesn’t mention it (but his lips twitch, and hers do, too, and he can’t help the flush that licks its way up his neck in what he hopes is a sign of what’s to come).
“You aren’t taking me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me, are you?” he asks as the sun looms higher and higher above them – they’ve been driving for at least forty-five minutes. Éponine shoots him a low-lidded look out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t need to go to the middle of nowhere to kill you,” she replies, and he supposes she has a point. They trade Godfather quotes back and forth in terrible Italian accents until Éponine turns off onto a gravel road.
“No, but really, does this end in murder?”
“You sleep with-a the fishes tonight, Fan Boy.”
The car shudders and bounces up the hill, a slow trek upwards that has Feuilly worried that Éponine’s ancient Buick won’t survive the trip, but they reach the crest of the hill without too many scraping noises, and when she turns the car off, the silence is so pure and so still that Feuilly holds his breath. It isn’t a particularly large hill, but sitting atop it, he can see for what seems like miles; the land dips down further on this side, spreading out so that they can see the tops of trees undulating like a sea. He surveys it for a moment, a little awed, before glancing at Éponine.
“I used to come here all the time,” she says without looking at him. He knows her well enough by now to know that she’s not nervous – she’s never really nervous, it’s just not in her nature – but she is cautious. “It was like my hiding place.”
This isn’t singing in front of him or sex or leaving him alone with Gavroche, Feuilly realizes. It’s something different. Not more or less important. But new.
“I’d take a book or something and sit here for hours.” She smiles at him then, crooked. “Usually, I’d end up chucking rocks off the ledge, though. Just to see how far they’d go.”
Éponine unbuckles herself and gets out of the car, Feuilly following suit. Out in the open, the quiet is even more striking – it’s the sort of hush that Feuilly, growing up smack dab in the middle of the city, has never experienced before.
“I – uh. It’s not a lot,” Éponine mutters as she wraps her arms around him from behind, chin tucked over his shoulder. “But I have something for you. Since it’s your birthday and all.”
“You didn’t have to – ”
“Please shut up.”
She goes back to the car, rummages around. When she turns back to him, she has a jar filled with what appear to be tiny, folded stars.
“There are five hundred and twenty of ‘em,” she explains, cupping the jar carefully. “The number’s important.” She passes him the jar with both hands, and he accepts with both hands (and if he lets his fingers linger on hers, neither of them mind too terribly much).
“The number’s important?” he prompts when she simply waits. She tilts her head and smiles, ever an enigma.
“Well, it means I love you,” she says. “Or so I’m told.”
Somewhere, a bird whistles to another bird, who returns the call with a cry of its own. The wind shushes the leaves above them. And then it’s very, very still.
“Five hundred and twenty,” he manages at last. “That must have taken a while.” She shrugs.
“Yeah, well.” A very Thénardier nose scrunch. “You’re worth it.”
He leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead, the jar nestled between them. “This is more than a lot,” he murmurs. “I love you, too.”
“I know.”
“Oh, do you?”
“I do.” And she’s got him there he supposes as she grins against his mouth.
They’re late to his not-surprise party.
Neither are even the least bit apologetic.