Chapter Text
Looking back, Éponine can only assume she’d applied to the apartment out of sheer desperation.
She’s been in Paris for three weeks, and her fifth apartment interview has just fallen through.
“You’d think,” she complains bitterly to Grantaire from her spot on the couch, where she’s currently smoking a sympathy joint he’d rolled for her, and also where she’s been living for the past three weeks, “that in a city with a population of two million people, there would be somewhere I could live.”
“Nah,” Grantaire says hazily. He’s twirling his own joint between his fingers, and seems more distracted by whatever is on his phone than listening to Éponine’s complaining. “Not when half the apartments in the city are Airbnbs now. There’s no room for you; just the tourists.”
“I am one tiny person!” she laments. Grantaire rolls his eyes and pours a shot of tequila, passing it to her.
“You will find somewhere,” Grantaire tells her calmly as she downs it. “You’ve only been here for three weeks, and you know you can stay here as long as you want in the meantime. I managed to find an apartment, and,” He motions to himself with one hand. “Look at me, I’m a fucking wreck.”
Éponine wipes a hand across her face, swallowing hard to get rid of both the taste of tequila and the lump in her throat. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her, but ever since she left Marseille she’s found her emotions closer to the surface than ever before. It’s embarrassing, and massively inconvenient.
To distract from the wetness in her eyes, she leans across the coffee table and drags the bottle of tequila closer, opening it and filling both their cups to the brim, pushing Grantaire’s towards him. It’s so familiar, similar to when they were two teenagers alone in Grantaire’s parent’s house on a Friday night, both of his parents so disinterested they might as well not be home, whilst Éponine’s parents were god knows where, doing god knows what, with god knows who.
“Shut up,” she says roughly, because that’s how they’ve always spoken to each other. She takes the shot, recoiling at the taste but basking in the warmth it leaves in her throat. “I’ll put my head through a wall if I have to talk about it any more. Let’s just get drunk.”
***
Éponine wakes up in her spot on Grantaire’s couch the next morning with a piece of rolling paper stuck to her face, a small puddle of drool underneath her, and her phone blearing incessantly from its spot on the coffee table.
She leans over the side of the couch, craning her arm to reach the phone. She can feel her hangover pounding incessantly at her temples, and is slightly worried about the consequences of sitting up. Éponine rubs a hand across her face to try to wake herself up, and answers the call with a garbled, “What’s wrong?”
She’s hoping for Azelma or Gavroche, whom she’s barely spoken to since they got taken into the group home and she went to Paris. She’s expecting Montparnasse, who still hasn’t fully picked up on Éponine’s not very subtle hint that she wants left the fuck alone. She’s dreading her parents.
It’s not any of them.
“Nina Jondrette?” a voice says, young and hesitant and feminine.
Nina Jondrette is the name Éponine has been using since she got to Paris, the one she’s been applying to apartments with. Out of some misguided principle that this will keep her safe, if her parents were to come to the city to look for her.
She sits bolt upright on the couch, trying desperately to ignore the rolling of her stomach. “Yes, speaking,” she says, trying to sound competent and put together and not like the absolute mess she currently is.
“Are you, like. On your way?” the voice asks.
On her way to fucking where? Shit.
“Uhhh,” Éponine draws it out as she searches desperately around Grantaire’s living room for some clue as to where exactly she’s supposed to be right now.
“It’s Euphrasie Fauchelevent,” the voice says, obviously trying to help. “We were messaging on LeBonCoin last night. I have a spare room, you said you were free to meet for a coffee today so we could chat about it?”
“Yes, I am definitely on my way,” Éponine says, like a liar. Already she’s on her feet, hangover forgotten, scrambling desperately for her jacket and purse, thrown carelessly over the back of the chair Grantaire had been sitting in last night. Luckily, she appears to have fallen asleep in her clothes. “Can you just…Remind me where we’re meeting?”
There’s a small pause, and then Euphrasie Fauchelevent says “Cafe Musain. Near the Pantheon-Sorbonne campus.”
“Of course!” Éponine says, trying desperately to sound cheerful instead of panicked, whilst simultaneously putting the location of the cafe into the maps on her phone. She’s lucky- It’s not far. If she takes Grantaire’s bike, she’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she tells Euphrasie Fauchelevent, who says okay and ends the call. Éponine desperately wishes she could remember what the apartment she apparently applied for looks like, or any details about her conversation with Euphrasie. But she doesn’t have time for that.
Instead, she walks into the hallway and smacks Grantaire’s bedroom door with her fist while forcing her feet into her boots, hopping ridiculously on one foot as she struggles with the zip.
“Grantaire!” she yells when he doesn’t respond, thumping the door again.
A low groaning sound comes from the other side, which is enough to confirm that he is still alive, anyway.
“Grantaire, I’m stealing your bike,” Éponine tells the closed bedroom door. “Grunt once if you’re okay with that.”
There’s a pause, and then another low, hungover-sounding groan. Éponine hears Grantaire’s voice saying, “Ep, what-”, but she’s out the door before he finishes his sentence.
***
Éponine runs into the Cafe Musain exactly thirteen minutes after the end of her phone call with Euphrasie Fauchelevent. She’s panting and sweaty, and an Uber driver definitely has a personal vendetta against her now after she cut him off in traffic, but she’s there, Grantaire’s bike chained up outside.
She stands straight and runs a hand through her hair, actively feeling how dishevelled it feels and grimacing. Her hangover has returned in full force, and she tries her best to ignore it, looking around the cafe for someone who looks like they could be Euphrasie Fauchelevent. The cafe is obviously a popular spot with the Sorbonne students. Most tables are taken by people Éponine’s age drinking coffee and making conversation and laughing, some of them with textbooks and laptops open in front of them.
There’s one person sitting by themselves, in the booth in the corner. A girl, dressed in all black with her eyes lined heavily in kohl, wearing a deep wine purple lipstick. Her hair is dark and curls down to her waist, and her eyes- brown- are focused on Éponine. Her lips are lightly parted, her eyes wide. For a moment, she looks almost…panicked, and then her expression clears, and she raises a hand and gives an awkward looking half-wave.
She looks…familiar. Familiar in a way that feels both nostalgic and vaguely uncomfortable. Éponine swallows, unable to explain the wave of anxiety that has crawled its way into her throat, and waves back just as awkwardly, stepping to the girls table.
“Hi,” the girl says when Éponine is close enough. “Nina?”
“Yeah,” Éponine sinks into the seat opposite her. “I’m so sorry I’m late.” Late, scruffy and smelling of alcohol- In hindsight, showing up to this interview, meeting, whatever it is, has been a mistake. No one in their right mind would take Éponine as her roommate right now. She’s clearly a mess. She wishes she had cancelled and stayed on Grantaire’s couch and nursed her hangover in peace.
“It’s okay,” Euphrasie says. Her voice is soft and familiar familiar familiar. Why can’t Éponine place her? “I don’t mind if you want to order something.” Euphrasie has a coffee cup with purple lipstick marks on it sitting in front of her, and a half eaten muffin, the scent wafting gently to Éponine . Banana nut.
Éponine shakes her head. “I’m good.” She doesn’t have the money to spend on overpriced coffee, and the thought of eating is turning her stomach slightly.
Euphrasie blinks, and then nods. She looks down at her phone, sitting on the table beside her coffee, and scrolls. Éponine realises that she’s scrolling through a message chain.
“So, you’re ready to move in whenever?” Euphrasie asks, and Éponine realises it must be their message chain from the previous night. God, she wishes she could remember what she said.
She nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ve been staying with a friend, and he only has a one bed apartment. So I haven’t unpacked much, in the interest of trying to take up as little room as possible.”
Euphrasie grimaces in sympathy. “That must have been pretty cramped,” she says, and Éponine nods for lack of anything else to say.
“So my father owns the apartment,” Euphraise continues. “And I think he’s more concerned with making sure I have company and safety, than about the rent. He said he would charge you-” She then names a price so absurdly low that Éponine has to ask her to repeat it.
“Oh my god,” she blurts out before she can think, awestruck. Somehow, Éponine, while drunk, has stumbled across the best rental deal in Paris. A two bedroom apartment for that?
Euphrasie grimaces. “Too high?”
She shakes her head quickly, because she absolutely does not want to appear ungrateful, not when she has the deal of a lifetime sitting across from her. “No! The opposite, in fact.”
Euphrasie laughs slightly, rolling her eyes in a way that looks indescribably fond. “Yeah. Like I said, my father owns the place. He lives in Avignon, and to say he’s panicking about me moving to Paris by myself is an understatement. Like I said, I think he just wants me to have someone else in the apartment for company.”
Éponine nods, but she’s distracted, still staring at Euphrasie. God, this girl is familiar. Where has Éponine seen her before? Has she been served coffee by her in an airport waiting area? Hooked up with her in a seedy gay bar? Played tennis against her, back when she used to play?
“How long have you been living in the city for?” Éponine asks casually, trying to act like she’s just curious, as opposed to prying.
“Just a couple of weeks,” Euphrasie says. “I’m starting a literature postgrad in Paris 1.” That explains why they’re meeting near campus, anyway.
“So you’re not from here,” Éponine says casually.
Euphrasie shakes her head. “I’m from the south originally. My father adopted me when I was eight, and we moved to Avignon. Before that, I lived in Marseille.” Here, she widens her eyes, giving Éponine a purposeful look.
That must be where Éponine recognises her from. Maybe she was a friend of a friend of a friend. Maybe she went to a different school. Maybe Éponine has seen her in the mall. She still can’t quite place her though.
Outwardly, she huffs a laugh. “That’s where I’m from as well.” She tries not to think about Marseille too much; she misses it so much it’s like a physical ache sometimes. But she can’t bear to think about it, and the people she left behind in it, for too long.
For some reason, Euphrasie seems almost…deflated, by Éponine’s reaction. She blinks, and then shrugs and rips off a small piece of muffin, her dark eyes focused on Éponine.
The two of them fall silent then, surrounded by the chattering of the cafe. Éponine swallows, and says, “Are you interviewing any more people for the apartment?”
“I have a few more people to meet today,” Euphrasie says lightly. “I’m not sure who I’m going to choose yet.” She meets Éponine’s eyes, and then they drop to the table between them, mouth twisting in what she imagines is awkwardness and a misplaced sense of guilt. “I think there’s someone due to arrive in about five minutes actually.”
That’s Éponine’s fault, of course, for being so late, and she inwardly cringes at herself. But she knows she needs to maintain a good impression- who knows what can happen down the line.
So she smiles at Euphrasie as best she can in her hungover state as she gets to her feet.
“I’ll let you have a few minutes to yourself, then,” she says. “I- You have my number. If you want to let me know about the apartment.” Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
Euphrasie smiles brightly, dimples appearing in her cheeks, and Éponine, before she can stop herself, thinks cute. “Perfect. I’ll let you know by tomorrow at the latest. I want you to be able to make other arrangements as soon as possible, if needed.”
Éponine nods. “Yeah,” she says redundantly, and then, for lack of anything better to do, she thrusts her hand out in a handshake. “Thank you, Euphrasie. It was really nice to meet you.”
“Oh,” Euphrasie laughs slightly, and at first Éponine thinks in response to her weird handshake, but-
“I should have said earlier,” Euphrasie says lightly. “Euphrasie is my legal name; I figured it would probably be the best thing to use for the apartment listing. More official, you know. But I hardly ever use it.” She reaches up and grasps Éponine’s hand, shaking it slightly. “Please, call me Cosette.”
Cosette.
Éponine goes cold.
Cosette.
Cosette.
Cosette. Cosette. Cosette.
She remembers Cosette, but not as she is now, healthy and well-dressed and beautiful in front of Éponine. She remembers her as a child, wearing dirty rags with impossible knots in her curly hair. Remembers Cosette being sent outside to sleep in the shed in the bitter cold of winter, when she hadn’t cleaned the inn to an acceptable standard. Remembers one notable occasion when her mother had thrown a frying pan at her. Remembers many, many other occasions where her mother had yelled at her until she’d cried, and then yelled at her more for crying.
“Nina?” Cosette says softly, still holding onto Éponine’s hand. “Are you okay?”
Without a word, Éponine rips her hand away, turns, and runs out of the cafe.
***
“I thought you were never coming back,” Grantaire shouts from the living room five hours later, when Éponine stomps into the apartment and slams the door behind her. “I was about to report my bike stolen.”
Éponine doesn’t say anything. She stands still in Grantaire’s tiny hallway, staring at the smooth wood of the front door under her palms. Five hours later, she still doesn’t feel quite real.
But she doesn’t want to talk about it, so she takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly, before walking into the living room to where Grantaire is sitting on the couch where she sleeps. What Éponine wouldn’t give for her own space right now, where she could fall apart and put herself back together in peace.
“How was the interview?” Grantaire asks as she leans over and pulls her boots off, letting her hair fall forward into her face. He’d messaged her an hour after she’d ran away from Cosette, asking where she was and why she’d left in such a hurry that morning; she’d said an interview for an apartment and made up a lie about running errands, just to get him to leave her alone.
She snorts in answer to his question. “It bit.” A gross understatement.
“Damn, that sucks.” When she looks up from peeling her boots off, Grantaire is giving her a sympathetic grimace and handing her a joint, already rolled. “Wanna talk about it?”
Éponine thinks about saying Oh yeah. The girl who owns the apartment with the rent that is too good to be true also happens to be the little girl who was my family’s live-in slave for six years. My parents abused her and I watched it all and never tried to stop it, and I’d been so determined to block it out that I’d literally forgotten she existed. But she was there and she’s doing better than I ever will, and it’s what she deserves, it’s what we both deserve-
“No,” Éponine snaps, and she pushes away the hand offering her the joint, standing suddenly. “I’m going to shower.” She walks away and slams the door to the bathroom before Grantaire can respond.
Éponine waits until she’s under the warm stream of water, turned up loud enough that she shouldn’t be heard, before she leans against the cool tiles, puts her head in her hands, and sobs, loud, long and messy, for ten minutes.
She’d cycled in a blind panic today after running out of the cafe and leaving Cosette sitting there alone, unable to feel at one with her body. She’d felt almost like a ghost, following this mad, hungover girl cycle through the streets. At the same time, she had felt everything, and the pain had been almost too much to bear.
When she had come back to herself, it was to the discovery that she’d cycled all the way to Versailles, over an hour away. Drained of all her energy, Éponine had just about been able to drag herself into the nearest corner store. She’d bought a ten pack of cigarettes and a carton of orange juice and dragged herself and Grantaire’s bike to the square across from the palace. She had sat there for hours, looking at the groups of tourists entering and leaving, chain smoking one cigarette after the other and trying to get herself under control. Trying to stop her thoughts from spiralling further, and repeating a steady mantra of Cosette, Cosette, Cosette.
She finally manages to grasp control of herself in the shower, and by the time she emerges from the bathroom, dry and clean and her hair out of her face, she feels almost completely back to normal, if strangely numb.
Grantaire is watching her with concern, and from the hazy look in his slightly red eyes, Éponine has reason to believe he’d smoked the joint without her. She sighs, and flops onto the sofa beside him, leaning her head back to rest against the back.
“You okay?” he says quietly.
Éponine nods. “I’m fine,” she says. “Sorry for being weird.”
“You’re always weird,” he assures her, and then asks, “So. What happened at the interview?”
Éponine snorts. She sits up and grabs the pack of cigarettes she’d thrown on the coffee table, empty now except for two. She thinks, for a fleeting moment, about telling Grantaire the truth of what had happened in the cafe, of who Cosette was. But it makes her heart pound erratically against her chest; she doesn’t think she could deal with her only friend in the world thinking she’s a bad person. Even if she is.
“Nothing happened, ” she lies around the cigarette in her mouth as she lights up. “I showed up fifteen minutes late. I clearly hadn’t showered. I stank of tequila.” She taps the ash of the cigarette into an abandoned coffee cup on the table, exhaling slowly. “I was very clearly a fucking mess. She’d have to be insane to choose me.”
Grantaire clicks his tongue in sympathy and holds out his arm. She hesitates for a moment, and then curls her legs up on the couch and scoots closer to him, resting her head on his broad shoulder. The human contact, the gentle warmth of Grantaire’s body next to hers, makes her feel whole for the first time since the cafe.
“Who knows,” Grantaire says, his voice creating a rumbling effect in the ear she has pressed against him. “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and she is insane.”
Éponine snorts disbelievingly, because she’s never been lucky about anything in her life.
***
Two days later, Éponine is in Parc Monceau, sitting on a bench with a coffee she’d brought from home and an old Steinbeck novel she’d stolen from Grantaire’s overcrowded bookshelf. She’s struggling to concentrate on it, instead vaguely watching a yoga class happening on the grass expanse opposite the band stand, and smoking once again. She really needs to cut back, if only because she’d had yet another unsuccessful morning at the unemployment office.
She’s very aware of the bag of cash she has shoved deep in the back of Grantaire’s closet, taken from her parent’s house in those immediate, hectic hours when she found out they’d been arrested, and that the police would soon be in the house, tearing it apart looking for evidence. She’d found it in odd nooks and crannies; the toilet cistern, the underside of Azelma’s sock drawer, under her own mattress.
As far as Éponine was concerned, the money belonged to her and her siblings. She’d taken it all.
However, the vast majority of landlords do not accept a bag of cash stolen from one’s estranged parent’s house as a security deposit. They want someone with a regular income, with a job. Éponine has been in Paris for three weeks, looking for work for two, but she’s had little luck.
Her back is starting to hurt from the nights on Grantaire’s sofa. Éponine sighs and drops her head into her hands, rubbing her temples. Sometimes, it feels like everything hurts, deep in her bones.
Her phone, sitting beside her on the bench on top of the abandoned copy of Cannery Row, starts ringing, and Éponine glances at the screen warily.
It’s an unknown number, so probably not her parents, unless they’re calling from prison. Montparnasse’s number she currently has blocked, but it could be him on a payphone.
It could be Gavroche or Azelma.
She answers with an unenthusiastic, “Hello?”
“Nina, hi,” the voice on the other end says. “It’s Cosette. From the cafe.”
Automatically, the hand not holding the phone grips hard to the edge of the bench, curling around the cool metal, trying to ground her. Éponine swallows. She has absolutely no idea why Cosette would be calling her; maybe she’s being decent, and letting her know she hasn’t been successful as a tenant, or maybe she’s simply saying Fuck you. It would be no more than Éponine deserves.
“Nina, are you there?” Cosette says. From the sound of it, she’s asked a few times.
Éponine shakes her head, trying to bring herself back to earth. “Sorry, yes, I’m here,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “Can I help you with something?”
“No, just…Like I said, it’s yours, if you want it,” Cosette says.
Éponine blinks. “What’s mine?”
There’s a small pause. “The apartment. The spare room.”
For a moment, Éponine can’t speak. Sweat has broken out on the back of her neck and her palms. She stares straight ahead, watching the yoga class, and wonders if she’s misheard.
“...There’s no pressure, of course,” Cosette says into the silence. “If you’ve found somewhere else-”
“You really want me to have it?” Éponine interrupts.
“I-” Cosette sounds confused, and Éponine can’t really blame her, considering the half sentences she’s speaking in. “Yes. If you want it.”
“Why? ” she blurts out before she can stop herself. But it’s a perfectly valid question. Éponine had been an absolute wreck when she’d shown up at the cafe, and that was before their shared histories had come to light. What reason would Cosette, who had been abused and belittled at the hands of Éponine and her family, have to show any kindness to her?
“Why?” Cosette repeats, sounding genuinely confused. “Because…Because you seemed nice, and I thought we would work well together. And I know your situation now isn’t ideal. I just-” There’s a small pause. “I thought it would work.”
She doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember, or she doesn’t recognise me. It’s the only plausible explanation for Cosette allowing Éponine to be within five feet of her ever again. It’s been well over ten years since the last time they saw each other, and Éponine’s fake name has hidden her well enough that Cosette apparently has no reason to suspect her.
“Nina, if you don’t want to take it, there’s absolutely no pressure,” Cosette says, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that she should be the one to reassure Éponine in this scenario. “I understand that there’s so many listings in Paris. I’m sure you had lots of offers.”
Éponine, before she can stop herself, laughs slightly hysterically. Cosette is either an incredibly charitable person, or incredibly naive. Either way, Éponine envies her.
“I don’t know…I just-” She’s fumbling, completely unsure what to do. On the one hand, she’s finally, finally been offered somewhere to live, and not only that, it’s possibly the best rental deal in the city. On the other…
It’s Cosette.
“Can I let you know?” she finally manages to blurt out, pressing the fingertips of her free hand to her temple, rubbing slow circles.
Cosette just sounds relieved that Éponine has finally said something coherent. “Of course you can,” she says patiently, and she’s so nice that Éponine feels like she’s not even worthy of talking to her on the phone, let alone live in the same apartment as her.
“Okay,” Éponine says. “I’ll call you back in twenty-four hours.” She imagines Cosette will want to get sorted with a replacement tenant as soon as possible, so a quick response is the least she could do if she decides not to take it.
The call ends, and Éponine presses both hands over her face, allowing herself one long, drawn out groan into them. She wishes she had someone to speak to about all of this; someone who knew it all already. The thought of telling Grantaire crosses her mind again, but she still can’t bear the thought of voicing any of it out loud. Montparnasse would listen, maybe, but his goals would lie elsewhere, and his intentions would definitely not be pure. Azelma was too young to remember anything properly; Gavroche wasn’t even born yet.
Éponine laughs into her hands. Ironically, the best person to talk to about this would be Cosette herself.
There’s a chill in the air, and as Éponine pulls her head out of her hands, a single raindrop lands on the tip of her nose, another one on the cover of Cannery Row.
She sighs and then sits up straight on the bench, squaring her shoulders like she’s preparing for a fight.
“Get your shit together, Thenardier,” she tells herself sternly, and then she stands up, gathers her belongings, and heads in the direction of the metro.
***
“You lucky bitch,” Grantaire says to her later that night.
The two of them are lying together on Grantaire’s bed, passing a joint back and forth. Éponine has her old, barely functioning laptop open between them, the webpage showing the LeBonCoin listing for Cosette’s apartment.
The apartment is in the fifth arrondissement, near the Pantheon. A gorgeous, open plan space with exposed brick, a kitchen island. A walk in shower. One of the bedrooms has a view of Notre Dame. Éponine was truly, royally drunk when she’d applied for this place, and it shows. Under normal circumstances, there was no chance in hell of her affording it, and if she’d been sober, she wouldn’t have wasted her time.
Éponine shrugs. “Her dad is super protective,” she says distractedly. “And he owns the place outright. Apparently he doesn’t care what’s being paid on it as long as she has…Company, I guess? Maybe security?”
“For that shower, I will literally be your live-in bodyguard,” Grantaire says. “Can I move in too? I am also one tiny person.” He grins. “We’re going to have amazing parties.”
“With all the friends we have?” Éponine asks drily, and Grantaire makes a shushing noise and waves his middle finger at her. They only have each other; it’s always been that way.
“Calm down,” she tells him sternly. “I might not be taking it.”
“What?” Grantaire jerks round to look at her so fast he nearly rolls off the bed; the perils of a twin. He rights himself, and says “What do you mean you might not be taking it?!”
Éponine sighs and lies back on the bed. She sets the joint on the ashtray on Grantaire’s bedside table and presses her arm over her eyes. “It’s complicated.” She hasn’t told him about Cosette, can’t face the thought of it.
“No, Ep, what’s complicated is finding an apartment with rent for less than €2000 a month in this goddamn city,” Grantaire says. He has a point. “It’s perfect. Why wouldn’t you take it?”
Éponine just shakes her head in answer, turning away so he can’t see her face.
There’s a pause, and then Grantaire says “Hey,” and brushes her shoulder lightly with the back of his hand. When she looks at him, his eyes are filled with concern, and his voice is a lot more serious when he asks, “Why wouldn’t you take it? What’s wrong?”
Éponine sighs, twisting her mouth, trying to find a way to voice her worries out loud without actually telling him anything. The weed is making her thoughts fuzzy and slow.
“If you did something bad,” she eventually says. “Something truly horrible. And you had the opportunity to make your own life better, but only if you could wake up every day and face that thing, would you take it?”
Grantaire frowns at her. He looks confused, which is good, because it means Éponine has kept her conundrum vague enough.
“What’s going on?” he asks. “Are you in- Do I need to be worried about you?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s a thing from…from home, you know. But you don’t need to be worried about it. It’s just- If I don’t take the apartment, it’s because I don’t deserve it, and because I couldn’t deal with the guilt of it all.”
Grantaire reaches over to steal the joint from her side of the bed, and finishes it in one long drag. He stubs out the remnants in the ashtray, and says, “It’s kind of hard to give you advice when you’re being as vague as physically possible. But, believe it or not, Ep, you’ve been through a lot. You deserve to have your own space. You deserve to feel like you can come home at the end of the day. You deserve somewhere better than my shitty sofa.” He pauses, and then reiterates, “You have to take it.”
There’s a swell of emotion in Éponine’s chest, and she reaches up and pets the side of Grantaire’s face clumsily, feeling dark stubble and familiar acne scars under her fingertips.
“You have the best shitty sofa in Paris,” she tells him sincerely, and he huffs a laugh.
“It’s not a long term plan, I know,” she continues. She sighs softly, and says, “Maybe you’re right.”
Grantaire makes a soft humming sound of agreement, and the two of them fall into silence, broken only by the sound of traffic in the street below, and the whirring of Éponine’s overworked laptop fan.
“Would you be able to fix it?” Grantaire asks.
Éponine looks at him. “What do you mean?”
“You say you’d have to face this thing you did every day,” Grantaire says. He’s looking up at the ceiling, blinking slowly, probably halfway on his way to sleep. “If you’re facing it, does that mean you can fix it? Make it better? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about the guilt. About the anything of it.”
Éponine sighs, and turns on her side to face away from him. She hasn’t asked, but she doesn’t think she can face sleeping on the cold couch tonight, and she’s thin enough that she generally doesn’t take up much room; she hopes Grantaire won’t mind.
“I don’t know,” she says.
***
Éponine wakes up somewhere around four in the morning to the sound of Grantaire snoring beside her. She elbows him in the ribs to try to get him to stop, and when he doesn’t, she groans and rolls out of the bed, padding to the kitchen in her bare feet.
Once there, she pours herself a glass of water and leans against the counter, thinking about what she deserves, what Cosette deserves, and the void in the middle where the two could intersect.