Title: ça commence avec toi

Fandom: Les Miserables

Pairings: Enjolras/Éponine

Rating: T

Summary: Éponine sings, and Enjolras wonders.

He isn't sure what they've fallen into.

He knows it began the night that Jehan brought over an armful of old records he had found in a charity shop and forced everyone to listen through the whole stack. There was a recording of Carmen (Combeferre was unexpectedly moved, and they all laughed at him for tearing up)the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing (Courfeyrac tried to pole-dance with the lamp, knocked it over and scorched the carpet) Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (Marius and Cosette both disappeared until Enjolras found them in the kitchen, gently swaying together over the tile) and an entire album of polka music (Feuilly was delighted, but Grantaire finally screeched that his ears were bleeding and put a stop to the festivities).

Jehan insisted on one more record, though, and Courfeyrac backed him up, and so did Bossuet on the premise that it was "a matter of French nationalism," which meant Enjolras was honor-bound to agree, even though Grantaire glared and then announced, grouchily, that he was going home, and he made Bahorel leave with him. Feuilly and Combeferre took that as their excuse to skip out, too. Jehan only shrugged, laced his fingers with Courfeyrac's, and played the vinyl.

The record player rasped:

Il me dit des mots d'amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Et ça me fait quelque chose...

The lights in the living room were all out, and Enjolras, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, watched the way Cosette's arms twined around Marius' neck, and the way his hands slowly curled from her hips to the small of her back. Jehan was tucked under Courfeyrac's chin, back to front, as they swayed together, and it was strange to see Courf so still and content, nuzzling his nose into Jehan's hair, arms folded around his stomach. Bossuet was sprawled in the armchair with Musichetta nestled in his lap, and Joly leaned against their tangled legs on the floor, stroking his fingers up and down her leg while she combed her fingers through his hair.

Éponine sat in the windowsill with a bottle of whiskey and looked out over the city. One leg dangled outside, and her head rested against the frame, and as she took another drink from the bottle, Enjolras wondered if she was even listening to the music.

When the record scratched to a halt, everyone wearily untangled themselves and said goodnight, and told Enjolras thanks for hosting, and drifted out, hand in hand. Éponine rolled her gaze around to his and asked if she could sleep on the couch.

He helped her extricate herself from the window, didn't say anything when she stumbled against him except to murmur "you okay?" and then offered her his bed as a matter of course. She snorted at him, like he knew she would, so he went to grab an extra blanket and pillow from the bedroom. When he came back, she was sitting on the couch unlacing her black leather boots, and when he handed her the blanket she didn't even bother to shake it out properly, just left it mostly folded and curled up underneath it in a little ball.

It was funny that the whiskey bottle, abandoned by the window, was still more than half full, and Éponine could hold her alcohol. He didn't say anything, though, because he understood that even the solitary could be lonely.

He woke up to the sound of water and a human voice, and he stilled for a moment, rubbing the sleep from his eyes for a moment before he remembered Éponine. She apparently helped herself to a bath in his bathroom—well, the only bathroom—judging by the splashing sounds. It took him a moment to realize she was singing softly to herself, and it startled him, since (for no good reason) he never would have thought Éponine could sing. But she did, low and smooth and wistful. The vowels and consonants were muffled through the door, but he remembered the tune from the night before: a song of lost love.

"Peut-etre un jour tu reviendras, je sais que mon coeur t'attendras..."

He remembered the way her stricken gaze had watched Marius fold Cosette into his body, and then, rolling over, pressed his face into the pillow and tried to go back to sleep.

It became a pattern. Not too consistent, at first, but increasing in regularity. Whenever the gang came over to Enjolras' apartment (one a week, maybe twice) Éponine would clutch a bottle of liquor the whole evening and then ask to stay. The others started to ask questions. "I would let any of you stay if you needed to," he told them all honestly, if it came up, and he told them that she slept on the couch and he slept in his bed and that she didn't even stay to eat breakfast.

Soon, she stopped pretending she was too drunk to make it safely home, and he stopped asking if she wanted the bed, just brought out the pillow and blanket. Every time she stayed, he woke up to her singing the next morning. It was an unexpected loveliness from Éponine, Éponine with her ripped denim and heavy lace-up boots and leather jacket, but her voice thrummed and swelled comfortably, at ease in the songs she sang. (Des fois je reve que je suis dans tes bras...) Never when he was in the room—only while she was in the bathroom or folding up the blanket while she thought he was still asleep, or poking around in the kitchen cabinets for instant coffee.

She knew that he could hear her, certainly—through the bathroom door, or from down the hall or between the banging of cabinet doors—but he sensed the unspoken rule that he was not to mention it.

One night after everyone else had left (they were somewhere in the second season of Game of Thrones, which was generally speaking a bigger crowd-pleaser than Carmen and the polka), Enjolras left his room for a glass of water. He had already laid out the pillow and blanket for Éponine and expected her to be asleep already—he envied that, her ability to fall asleep within seconds—but when he stepped into the living room, she was tugging off her jacket and singing to herself.

"Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose."

Silently, he kept moving towards the kitchen. She turned to toss her jacket on the armchair and saw him. She paused for a moment, then reached for the blanket and kept singing. He grabbed a glass and filled it from the tap, as quietly as he could, then leaned against the wall, watching her shake out the blanket.

"Il me dit des mots d'amour, des mots de tous les jours, et ça me fait quelque chose..."

He set down the water glass and stepped toward her.

She was still clutching the blanket in her fists, but she met his gaze, eyes dark, and sang.

"Des nuits d'amour a plus finir, un grand Bonheur qui prend, sa place... "

He was right in front of her now, and he shivered as her eyes drifted down to his lips, then lower, to the low vee of the white t-shirt he slept in. Slowly, carefully, he lifted one hand to cup her cheek, stroking his thumb over her sharp cheekbone and she sang, in a whisper,

"...les ennuis, les chagrins s'effacent, heureux, heureux a en mourir."

He waited a long moment, both of them breathing loudly, unsteadily. Then she flung herself forward and kissed him, pressing her body into his, hands fisting in his shirt almost desperately. He let his fingers tangle in her hair and, though she wasn't singing anymore, as she tugged him down to the couch, he could almost have sworn he heard music.

He carried her back to his bed, a sweaty, sleepy tangle of legs and arms. She curled herself around him and fell asleep within minutes, and he stroked her back and listened to the sound of her breathing until he drifted off.

She didn't wake him up with her singing, because when he opened his eyes, she was still asleep, nestled into his side.

He supposes this is what they've fallen into—his bed—but besides that, he's not sure. She comes over more often, and she still stays over after the group gatherings, but though everyone surely suspects, neither of them talks about it, to anyone. It isn't as if they're actually living together. But he starts buying sugary cereal because it's the only way he can get her to her stay for breakfast, and her sweaters end up draped over chairs and her shoes end up kicked under the bed. One night she nonchalantly pulls a toothbrush out of her purse, still in the package, and he tries not to grin too widely.

She still sings, sings more than she used too, less skittish now (which only makes sense, considering the variety of things they've done together). She sings while she's stabbing at a skillet of scrambled eggs, and while she's shaving her legs with his razor, and she sings while she's hanging up her laundry to dry (she's finally left enough clothes lying around to make up a load, but she pointedly avoids mentioning it, so he leaves it be).

"Mes yeux te cherchent sans arret, ecoute bien mon coeur t'appelle

Nouse pourrons si bien nous aimer, tu verras la vie sera belle..."

It's almost enough to make him forget what she's singing.

When the others are around, Éponine retreats to her windowsill with the whiskey or gin or whatever it is, one leg out the window, looking out over the pinprick city lights. One night Jehan brings his records again, and she ignores Musichetta dancing with Joly or Bossuet, or the two of them dancing with each other, and she ignores Jehan and Courfeyrac no matter how absurdly entertaining Courfeyrac's tango becomes, and she never looks at Marius wrapping his hands around Cosette's waist. She just sits, and Enjolras leans against the wall, and hears her husky lilt in his head:

"Des fois je reve que je suis dans tes bras..."

As he watches, she glances at Marius and Cosette, then at him, and then looks away, taking another swallow from the bottle.

She sings so sweetly that it's easy for him to forget, or want to forget, that she sings of loss and longing. Her smiles are brighter these days, and there are moments in the early morning when she almost seems to glow. He tells her this one morning, while he's still sleepy enough to say such things, and she laughs, rolling on top of him.

"It's the sex," she whispers in his ear, biting at the sensitive place just behind his jaw.

"Or the fact that you're actually eating breakfast these days," he grins, but she moves her hips in a way that makes him break off in a gasp.

"Nope, I think it's definitely the sex," she returns, a little breathless now, too, and then sets out to convince him to capitulate the point, which he, magnanimously, does.

Afterwards, she rolls out of bed to take a shower, and almost too softly for him to hear over the water, she sings.

"Il est entre dans mon coeur, une part de bonheur don't je connais la cause..."

He showers after she leaves, but even the roaring of the shower at full-blast can't drum out the words.

It occurs to him, as he's buying more instant coffee because Éponine practically consumes it by the spoonful, that he has fallen in love with her.

He is in love.

With a woman who sings, to herself, sad love songs about someone else.

He can't eat anything the rest of the day, and when she comes back late that night, carrying a duffel bag stuffed with clothes half-falling out, he wants to throw up. He's sitting on the couch, and she lets herself in with her key.

"Hey," she says, and he can't find the voice to answer her. "Hey," she says again, in a different tone, dropping the bag with a soft thunk and coming to stand in front of him. She lets her fingers twist into his curls, scratching his head playfully. "What's wrong?"

He catches her hands in his and stands up. "I know you're still in love with Marius." His voice feels thick.

She doesn't sputter, or push at him, or try to protest. "Okay," she says, face curiously blank. "How do you know that?"

"I'm not completely oblivious, Éponine," he says bleakly, dropping her hands and balling his fists so he won't grab her again.

"So tell me then. What makes you think that?"

"I hear you singing about him," he bursts out. "I know you haven't moved on, okay? And I—you can't bewith me while you're still in love with him."

"Enjolras," she breathes, reaching up to touch his face, turning his chin to meet her gaze. He clenches his jaw, and she grins. "You idiot. I haven't sung about Marius for weeks now."

His heart stops for a moment. "What?"

"Not anymore." She laughs. "Je te vois partout dans le ciel," she sings lightly, grabbing his hand in hers and, as it loosens in her grasp, kissing the palm. "Je te vois partout sur la terrre," she whisper-sings, and reaches up to kiss the side of his neck, once, twice. He finds his hands sliding down her back, pulling her closer, and she laughs breathlessly, touching his face again. "Tu es me joie et mon soleil," she says softly, thumb stroking his cheek.

"Éponine—" he begins in a choked voice, but she kisses him, hard.

"Ma nuit, mes jours, mes aubes claires," she whispers, and he feels her smile grow against his lips.

A/N: This fic is already posted over at my tumblr, which is youwerejustakid. The songs referenced in this fic, as you may have figured out, are all by the great French singer Edith Piaf: the title comes from Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, and the rest of the lyrics are from La Vie En Rose and Tu Es Partout. All the translations are in order below (and may lend some insight into parts of the fic).

(An apology: I don't speak French, so these are just translations I found and smoothed out a bit.)

Title: ça commence avec toi – It all begins with you (from "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien")

Il me dit des mots d'amour, des mots de tous les jours, et ça me fait quelque chose - He whispers words to tell me his love, everyday words, and that does something to me (from "La Vie En Rose)

Peut-etre un jour tu reviendras, je sais que mon coeur t'attendras: Maybe one day you will return / I know that my heart will wait for you (from "Tu Es Partout")

Des fois je reve que je suis dans tes bras – Sometimes I dream I'm in your arms (From "Tu Es Partout")

Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose – When he takes me in his arms, and speaks to me softly, I see life rose-colored (from "La Vie En Rose")

Il me dit des mots d'amour, des mots de tous les jours, et ça me fait quelque chose – He whispers words to tell me his love, everyday words, and that does something to me (From "La Vie En Rose")

Des nuits d'amour a plus finir, un grand Bonheur qui prend, sa place - May the nights on which we make love never end, a great joy takes its place (from "La Vie En Rose)

Les ennuis, les chagrins s'effacent, heureux, heureux a en mourir – The trouble, the grief are gone, and we're content, content to die of it (from "La Vie En Rose")

Mes yeux te cherchent sans arret, ecoute bien mon coeur t'appelle / Nouse pourrons si bien nous aimer, tu verras la vie sera belle – My eyes never stop searching for you; listen well, my heart calls to you / We can love each other again, and you'll see life would be beautiful (from "Tu Es Partout")

Des fois je reve que je suis dans tes bras – Sometimes I dream I'm in your arms (from "Tu Es Partout")

Il est entre dans mon coeur, une part de bonheur don't je connais la cause – He has entered into my heart, a piece of happiness, the cause of which I know full well (from "La Vie En Rose")

Je te vois partout dans le ciel, je te vois partout sur la terrre, tu es me joie et mon soleil, ma nuit, mes jours, mes aubes claires – I see you everywhere in the sky, I see you everywhere on the earth...you are my joy and my sun—my nights, my days, my clear dawns (from "Tu Es Partout")