Ok, so this week (or maybe just the rest of forever?) is being declared a Fic War on tumblr (you can find me there at eponnjolras). Basically, the idea is to kill each other with feels.

I am participating, and someone (cough samthenardier) who makes graphics passed this lovely prompt on to me: baseball AU, soccer AU. So I combined them into one fic because duh that makes sense.

But beware, I'm completely serious about this "death by feels" business. It's real. It happens. They're beginning to catalogue it as a physical cause of death. If anyone doesn't believe me, go read "My Best Friend's Wedding" by ThinksInWords (textsfromumbridge on tumblr). She'll tell you (hi Inge! Hope you like this!).

Speaking of Inge, I'm dedicating this to her because we decided to have a feels-off. Consider the game started, my friend. Your move. I'm waiting.

Ok. Enjoy, and thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting, following, or whatever else this site let's you do?

I hope this is a good follow up to Tides! ;)

Disclaimer: This shit is still Hugo's.

He's not quite sure when he first noticed her.

Perhaps it was the weekend Courfeyrac hit the ball out of their diamond, and, as he played in the outfield, she reached him first to return it. He hardly paid her any mind, only nodding in thanks. She was clearly just as busy as he, covered in dirt and soaked with sweat, her shin guards smeared with grass stains.

Perhaps it was the weekend that it rained. Bahorel and Grantaire, playing on his team that weekend, were highly distracted when the women with whom she was playing declared their match to be shirts versus skins. She seemed to be the chief in insisting that it be the girls who played as skins, against the shirted boys.

The boys on his baseball team couldn't help but stare as the girls stripped, their shorts rolled low on their hips and clinging to their thighs in the rain, their tops bare, save for their soaked-through sports bras.

He noticed that she and her friends were frequently shooting glances in the direction of the baseball diamond, delighting and giggling when his teammates and opponents fawned over them.

Perhaps he noticed her the weekend that it was so hot they almost had to cancel – she, again, was shirtless, but this time her sports bra was soaked with sweat. They watched as she poured cold water over her face and head and shoulders – his teammates with hunger and desire, he with disinterest.

Perhaps it was the weekend he saw her running to their diamond, soccer ball under her arm and her hand entwined with another girl's, one with mocha skin and dark hair. They sat in the bleachers, watching and cheering and laughing. It was quite distracting. Afterwards, he watched as she made a beeline to Marius, just as Joly and Bossuet appeared to be racing to talk to her friend first.

He paid her little to no mind, though he did notice when she wasn't there sometimes, especially because his baseball team (and often their visiting competition) and the eternal pick-up soccer game that she participated in often went out for drinks together after their respective games were over. It seemed oddly quiet when she wasn't there, rare though that was, but it also irritated him when she was there, because she spent the whole damn time mooning over Marius and trying to get that freckled fool to pay attention to her.

He never bothered to interact with her; in fact, he didn't even know her name. Nor did he try to learn it. Whenever she came into his peripherals, he merely acknowledged her mentally as "Marius' Shadow."

However, everything changed when he was leaving the park one day, and came across her corned up against a tree, an older man who must have been her father screaming in her face as she cowed. When the man hit her across the face, he lost it.

He dropped his things, and suddenly he was next to her, then in between her and the man, then shoving the man away and shouting things that he didn't remember later. They tousled briefly, resulting in a bloody nose on his face and a black eye on the old man. The man stormed away, screaming and cursing at them.

When he turned, he didn't even have time to react before she slapped him sharply across the face. It left him momentarily dumb; he wasn't sure whether to pinch his nose to stop the bleeding or hold his smarting cheek. Then she was shouting at him.

"I don't want your help! I'm not some sort of damsel in distress that needs rescuing from some bourgeois knight in shining armor!" She shoved him, though it was hardly strong.

Her lip was bleeding and was starting to swell from where the man hit her.

Ten minutes later, he was in the dugout, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Hey," a voice said behind him, startling him. He turned, and there she was – fat lip, messy dark hair, long, thin legs and a torso hidden by an oversized jersey. She held a plastic bag in her hand.

He just sniffed blood, trying to keep it from running down his face more, and stared at her. He was hardly forgiving; if she resented his interference, he wouldn't interfere. He had a bloody nose and probably a black eye (try explaining that one at work tomorrow), all because he was trying to help her. So as far as he was concerned, they had no reason, especially now, to interact at all. He wanted nothing from her.

"Sit down," she ordered. Her tone surprised him; it reminded him of how his mother or his teachers would talk to him as a child. He wondered where she picked it up. Then he sat.

She put the bag on the bench beside him, digging around inside. From it, she pulled gauze, an ice pack, hydrogen peroxide, and band-aids. Without a word, she began mopping up the blood on his face.

"I'm sorry I slapped you," she murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on the blood that was still gushing from his nose.

He shrugged.

"It was my dad. It wasn't the first time," she told him quietly. He wondered why she was telling him this; from the look on her face, she was wondering the same thing. Then, "I'm Eponine. Eponine Jondrette."

He regarded her for a moment, and she finally met his eyes. They were a beautiful, bright brown, flecked with gold, but were dark and angry from the memories that were undoubtedly cycling through her mind. He looked at her lips; dried blood had trickled onto her chin, though she hadn't seemed to notice.

"Enjolras," he said. "Gabriel Enjolras."

Eponine's lips twitched into a small smile, then she got back to work on cleaning him up.

When she was finished, she threw the first aid supplies into her backpack. "I'll buy you a beer," she offered, "as a thanks – and an apology."

He's not quite sure why he kissed her.

It was several months after the day he fought her father.

They were heading off to the park together. His league's season was over, but he and his friends still met each weekend for pickup games. She had wormed her way into his friend group, and they had invited her along, eager to teach her how to play baseball. In return, she was going to teach them a little bit about soccer.

She met him on the corner near his apartment – it was more convenient for her to cut through his neighborhood to reach the park, as she lived a few blocks away.

"We need to run to my place," she said when he found her, not bothering to greet him. "I would've gone alone, but my phone was dead and I didn't want you to think I was ditching you.

Though they lived relatively close together, there was a marked difference between his neighborhood and hers. His was more affluent – he was a lawyer, the only son in a wealthy family, and therefore, his apartment was large and well decorated and safe.

Eponine's apartment, however, was one room of a giant, sketchy-looking complex. She joked that this was where the meth-heads came to die.

He worried for her safety.

Inside, however, she had done her best to make the place comfortable. It was colorful, but tasteful – very bohemian, but it worked because it was so Eponine.

She had hung curtains to separate her small bed from the rest of the room, and disappeared behind them for a few moments.

When she reemerged, she beckoned him over. "Enj, these are my soccer trophies from high school. I was being scouted for college, being offered scholarships and even full rides, but then I blew out my knee."

He hadn't known. He knew she was good, but not that she could have started in college. Nor did he know that her knee had ruined her opportunity to get out of – well, out of this life. It broke his heart; she could have truly been something quite incredible. She was smart, she was driven and talented, but lacking the resources to rise out of the life she so despised. To have come so close, only to have an ill-timed physical issue rip her chances away – he couldn't even imagine.

"That sucks, Ep, I'm so sorry," he told her sincerely.

She smiled warmly, though he could see a touch of bitterness in her eyes. "Whatever," she shrugged, "I have all these crazy trophies for my trouble!"

And she did. There must have been more than 30 of all colors and sizes, from participation awards to tournament placements to MVP's.

"My collection would totally kick your collection's ass," he teased, nudging her with his elbow. "I was given a partial scholarship to play in college. I wanted to go pro. I didn't have time for anything else, not even girls. My entire life revolved around baseball and school."

She looked at him. "What happened?"

He stared straight ahead at a trophy she had won her sophomore year of high school for most valuable player. "My priorities changed," was all he said. He could hear the hardness in his own voice; out of the corner of his eye, he saw her searching for something on his face before she turned back towards the trophies. He cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said, reaching out and touching a medal, "all my trophies are at my parents' house."

"I like having mine home with me," was Eponine's soft reply.

He looked at her. There was a faraway look on her face, an absent smile on her lips. "They help me remember a time when I was happy." She seemed to be talking to herself now, and he wondered if she remembered he was there.

He couldn't take his eyes off her, all of a sudden, and he felt something building inside of him that was foreign and, if he had to admit it, a little frightening.

When she turned to him, a questioning look on her face and an inquiry forming on her lips, he kissed her, swallowing whatever it was she was about to say. She responded immediately against him, and he pulled her body flush against his instinctually when her lips parted against his.

He's not quite sure why he slept with her.

He had never been with a woman before.

And she was vulnerable; he couldn't shake the feeling that he had taken advantage of her.

Marius and his girlfriend, the perfect, blonde Cosette, had gotten engaged.

Eponine had showed up at his door, in tears and completely inconsolable. So he ordered pizza, and ran to the liquor store around the corner for a bottle of Jack.

Three hours later, she was straddling him on his couch and kissing him wildly, half the bottle abandoned on the table behind her.

The whole experience, as intoxicating and wonderful as it was, was like being with a hurricane. It was wet and strong and dangerous, but he loved every second of it.

When he woke the next morning, she was in his kitchen, dressed in one of his t-shirts, making breakfast.

She kissed him good morning.

He's not quite sure when he fell in love with her.

They were out all night.

It was a warm night, in the middle of spring, a summery breeze sweeping through her hair and toying with the hem of her dress as she skipped around him.

Eponine didn't want to go home, and had talked him into staying out with her all night and going down to the docks to watch the sunrise.

"I've never seen the city when it sleeps," she had said.

They weren't together, per se, but Marius was married and Eponine was putting him behind her and now whenever she saw Enjolras she kissed him. He didn't hate it.

They had sat on the docks, swinging their bare feet inches above the water.

She grabbed his hand, humming a song into the wind. She was being strange; it was that mix of happiness and sadness that he'd learned to associate with her. Like she's almost ready to be happy, almost ready to let go of her problems, but she just can't.

She took his hand as the pre-dawn sky turns purple.

She kissed his cheek and then his lips when it turns pink.

When it turned orange, its bright glow lights up her face.

When the sun broke free of the water, she laughed. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

And that was when he knew: he'd fallen for her.

He's not quite sure why she wouldn't let him save her.

Eponine was stubborn, and always refused his help. He frequently reminded her that it was his job to help people, that it was his calling, but she would just snap at him that "a calling is a thing for entitled bourgeois boys," and that those he was "called" to help did not always want it.

When her little brother died, hit by a car in the middle of the night, he was not sure she'd ever come back to him.

She pushed him away. Stopped seeing him, stopped meeting him for baseball or soccer, stopped coming to his games and stopped showing up to her own. She wouldn't even answer her calls. Nor would she talk to any of her other friends.

Musichetta, her soccer friend, and Joly were dating, and even Musichetta had not heard from her in weeks.

When he finally saw her again, her face was gaunt. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and hadn't eaten in weeks. Her already thin frame clung to her bones, her cheeks were sunken in, her hair was dirty and unkempt, and her hollow eyes had dark circles.

He didn't know how to save her, but for god's sake he tried.

He's not quite sure why she left him.

It isn't fair – that's the only thought that's cycling through his mind right now.

He's been sitting in this chair for, well, he doesn't even know how long. His friends keep coming to check on him, but he barely hears them. They can't say anything helpful anyway. They don't know.

All he can think of is her, of those precious moments by her side, as he stares straight ahead.

Directly in front of him is her casket. And he can't take his eyes off it, off her lifeless body laying there for those attending the wake to gawk and cry over.

He can't cry, he can't eat, he can't feel. He briefly wonders if this was how it was for her when little Gavroche was killed, and if that was the straw that broke the camel's back in her life.

He wonders, much more extensively, why he couldn't save her. He was always reminding her that saving people was all he wanted to do. He just wanted to help.

Why hadn't he been able to help her?

It was a sunny afternoon. They were sitting on the stairs of her fire escape. She was under his arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Not everyone wants to be saved, Enj," she told him. "Not everyone will let you."

"As long as you let me save you, that's fine," he replied.

She said nothing for a long while. "It might be too late for that," she whispered, avoiding his gaze.

And it was. It was far too late.

She was gone.

The only woman he had ever loved, ever cared for, ever had time for, was dead.

This was a woman who had opened up an entire new world for him, and he would never see her again.

He's not sure what comes next; now that he's lived in this world of hers, he isn't sure if he can live without her.

When he's angry at her, angrier than he's ever been before, he curses her name, screaming at her ghost for leaving him behind, for ruining his life.

He hates her; she destroyed everything about him, everything he was, and left this empty shell behind. He was fine before - he didn't know what he was missing, and ignorance truly was bliss. He was settled in his life. But then she appeared in it, and turned it upside-down.

He tries to breathe.

Azlema, her younger sister, walks up to him.

She wraps herself around him, and he lets her, squeezing her tightly. She, of course, knew Eponine too (in a way that his friends didn't), and just as he lost the love of his life, she lost her older sister - and her baby brother. So she understands.

"She loved you, Enjolras," Azelma murmurs, her voice shaking with emotion and thick with the tears that spill from her eyes. "I know she never told you, but she told me. She loved you, and she would've wanted you to know."

He cries.

He's not quite sure how he picks up the pieces.

It's been forever, but it's also been no time at all.

His nights are cold and lonely, and his days are torture.

Grantaire has moved in with him, though perhaps that wasn't the best decision on the part of his friends, as the other man is so full of anger and sadness himself that all they do is spend their time drinking.

Combeferre seems to catch on, because then he comes to stay, too.

Suddenly, he's forced to eat the food Combeferre has cooked. He's forced to look at Grantaire's artwork and give his opinions, he's forced to go to work and do a good job again.

He's forced to look at her photographs every day (but that one he does to himself), too. In them, she seems happy. She's bright and beautiful and alive. God, she used to be so alive, even when she was miserable, even when she was depressed. She could be in the worst mood, but being around her was like being in the middle of a beautiful storm.

He misses that.

Eventually, Courfeyrac convinces him to come play a pickup game.

It feels good, being back on the diamond. The power of the ball as it flies from his hand, the feel of the wind in his face as he runs from plate to plate. He especially likes being at bat, because smacking that fucking ball into oblivion is suddenly the most therapeutic thing.

And then the game is over and his friends leave and he's slamming his stupid bat into the ground, raging in the middle of the field, screaming at her at the top of his lungs and undoubtedly causing quite the scene.

He collapses, and then someone is there – Jehan, perhaps? – speaking to him, trying to calm him.

But what does it is Eponine.

No, she's not there, of course, but he sees her team playing soccer on the next field. Or maybe it's a different team, he isn't sure if her friends play here anymore.

He looks up into the overcast sky, closing his eyes to the clouds, and can almost hear her laughter carried to him on the wind.

He goes home, pulls out the trophies he took from her apartment and those he took from his parents' house. He places them in pairs around the apartment, wherever they fit - his next to hers and hers next to his wherever he can find the room for them.

"They help me remember a time when I was happy," she had said that first time he kissed her.

And she was right.

There they were, once again – playing baseball, playing soccer together, just like when they had become friends. This time, however, their endless games were in his apartment. But looking at their trophies together was, for some stupid reason, extremely comforting. It made him feel like she was there, in these dumb objects she had been so proud of.

He sees her in them. They make him think of her. And he misses her, he does, but she would want him to be okay.

She would want him to keep on playing, because she wasn't able to.

And that's exactly what he's going to do.

Fin.

Until next time, lovelies!