Disclaimer: All character and novel rights belong to Victor Hugo, whom I am not affiliated with in any way (neither am I affiliated to any brands I've mentioned in this story). I own nothing except for my own imagination.

In the End

The Café Musain is a tiny coffee shop at the very corner of the college campus, a little ways behind the larger café where the dance majors hang out.

It is there, sipping steaming black coffee and flipping through Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, that he sees her.

Normally, he doesn't look at - much less talk to - the other dwellers of the Musain. He just sits there with his coffee and if he's not studying, he's reading and rereading and rereading and then he gets up and leaves without a second glance back. But this time he looks up (God knows why, he just does) and someone else is looking back at him.

He sees enormous brown eyes the colour of dark honey, framed by long, sooty eyelashes. He feels a jolt that he labels as surprise. When had she walked in? She is sitting at the table right next to his, reading her own book. His eyes slide down to the cover and she's reading Wicked too, and she's just as far along as he is.

"It's a good book," she says, and his eyes shoot back up to hers. Her voice is husky and a little rough around the edges, but has a remarkably melodic sound to it. He must've been staring blankly because she waves the book around. "Wicked?"

"Yes. It is," he replies, feeling very lame.

"Have you seen the musical?" she asks.

There's a flash of irritation. Why is she still talking to him? Can't she see that he wants to go back to reading his book?

"Yes." he responds instead. He hadn't liked it because of the cuts it had made - where did all the revolutionary parts go? - but he's not going to tell her that, because he has been raised properly (too properly, he thinks), and is always polite.

"I haven't," she says, sounding disappointed. "But I've read the script and listened to all the songs. I really want to see it. Where did you see it?"

He eyes her a little curiously. "Broadway."

She brightens, sitting straighter, eyes suddenly sparkling and warm. She flicks tendrils of wavy dark hair out of her eyes and leans towards him. "Broadway?" she says, enthusiastic. "I've always wanted to see something on broadway. But- well, it's real expensive, isn't it? I can't afford that!"

He tries his hardest not to lean back to avoid the onslaught of excitement and succeeds. The triumph dies away quickly because suddenly his senses are overwhelmed by the sweet smell of citrus in her hair and the way the cheap indoor lights reflect off her tanned skin. And the fact that she's leaning her chest on her hands and her breasts are kind of on display really isn't helping things.

But he prides himself on self-discipline and his eyes remain firmly on hers, and he hasn't moved a muscle. "Pity," he says, and is secretly pleased by how steady his voice is. "Broadway is a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

"Oh, I know," she sighs. "But I'll have to stick to pirating scripts and music off the internet for now." There's another jolt in his body as he sees her crimson lips stretch into a sly grin and form dimples on her cheeks.

He can't help but break into tiny smile himself, which only makes her smile even wider.

She switches the conversation to the book they're both reading and he finds himself in a debate about antiheroes, pleasantly surprised to find that she's intellectual and witty in her words but sharp and impulsive in her arguments, as opposed to the cool calculations of his own. She offers a strong counterpoint to his theories and he learns things in ways that he's never experienced. He decides she would make an excellent teacher if she swore less and stopped being so cuttingly sarcastic.

When they go their separate ways an hour later (has it really been that long?) he realises that grudging feeling in him is disappointment that she went without leaving her name.

The next time he's at the Musain, he actually looks around the shop after sitting down with coffee in one hand and book in the other. He's not sure why until he finds her, gulping down her tea and reading a book at the same time. He hadn't known that was even possible.

She's seated farther away this time, and her back is to him. He watches her drink and read for another moment before opening his textbook and pulling out his trusty yellow highlighter.

He's deep in his work when there's a crash, and he glances up. A man has walked into the table she's sitting at, knocking over her tea, drenching the pages of her book. She freezes, and when she finally looks up at the man her eyes are narrowed in unmasked fury.

She stands up and faces him, saying something in a tone so low and dangerous that though he can't hear her words, he's inclined to shake in fear. The man's eyebrows raise before he directs his gaze to her chest and blatantly undresses her with his eyes.

He feels a rising anger within him on her behalf. He's about to stride over there and give the pervert a piece of his mind when she pulls her arm back and punches him in the nose and knees him in the groin. He howls in pain and staggers back before running out the door, tail between his legs.

"And you better pay for a new book, you son of a bitch!" she yells after him, before sitting down and frowning at the ruined book.

He doesn't even realise he's smiling until he tries to drink his coffee and it dribbles onto his collar instead. He swears and brushes off the droplets before they can do serious damage to his shirt and glances over at her again.

A split second decision has him packing his books and pens, and he grabs a fistful of napkins from the dispenser and makes his way over to her table.

She looks up and her eyes light up in recognition. "Oh, you!"

"Yes, me," he replies, and holds out the napkins, feeling a little stupid. "I thought your book might need these."

They both look down at the soaked copy of 1984 and, being the book lovers they are, cringe at the damage the tea has done. He's half impressed she's reading a book like that and half upset its words have blotted so much half the pages are an unintelligible mess of black ink.

"Thanks," she says, taking a napkin and dabbing at the book. "I think it's beyond saving, though."

He's a little incredulous at the fact that though everybody's staring, she's acting like she hadn't just punched a guy and kneed him in the balls and sent him running for his life.

"We can do what we can," he says, and puts his stuff down to help her, pressing a crisp white napkin into the pages.

"Shit," she groans as they start drying a new page. "This was my favourite part."

He looks down at the still-legible page number on the bottom right of the page and recognises it. "The torture scene?" he asks, surprised.

"It's where you learn how fragile humans are and how easily we break," she replies, her tone casual as she tosses another used napkin to the side and reaches for a new one.

Except he can tell she speaks from experience, too. There is something much deeper to her than just another book-loving girl who drinks tea and reads at the same café he does.

When she gets up to leave, he almost lets her go again.

"Wait!"

She stops and turns her head around, the hint of a smile on her lips. "Yeah?"

"What's your name?"

"Éponine," she replies. "Yours?"

"Enjolras," he breathes, feeling much lighter now that she has a name. It fits her unbelievably well. He recalls the legend of Epponina and Sabinus and imagines that she is every bit as loyal as the wife of the famous Roman officer.

He realises he wants to get to know her. It frightens him.

She's there every time he is. He could waste time pondering whether it was coincidence or whether she somehow knew his schedule (he certainly didn't know hers, seeing how erratic she is in everything other than being at the Musain), but he'd rather use that time talking to her.

That's something else that surprises him. He likes spending time with her. He's normally a very introverted person; even his friends don't talk to him that much. He's especially bad with women. They find him boring and prudish (he hasn't dated anyone in college) but he couldn't care less what the women thought.

This one seems to have changed his mind. He looks for her whenever he walks in, and now he even sits with her and orders the both of them drinks (herbal tea for her, black coffee for him). They drink their respective orders and talk.

At first they chat about whatever books they're reading. By the fourth time the conversation moves to other topics, from astrology to art to history to film. The eighth time, as she leaves, she casually mentions she has a dance class to go to.

It is then that he finds out she's a third-year dance major (he's already noticed clues of it before, anyway, from the drawstring bag she brings with her with the figure of a ballerina in an arabesque and the way she rotates her ankles and stretches out her calves). He tells her he's a political science major with a minor in history and she laughs (because she'd noticed clues, too).

The eleventh time they exchange numbers and she snaps a picture of herself sticking her tongue out on his phone and sets it as her profile picture so that whenever she calls him he grins at the silly (and frankly, adorable) image before answering it. After a good five minutes of pleading he lets her take a picture of him for her phone, given that she buys his coffee the next time.

He has the suspicion that they both know he would have let her take the picture whether or not she bought him a drink. He's a sucker for her big damn eyes, especially when she widens them and adds a trembling lower lip.

It turns out they have some mutual friends. She knows Marius, who he's known since the 6th grade, and is best friends with his girlfriend Cosette (the blonde chick with the singing voice of a bird). Her little brother is the kid Courfeyrac (Marius' roommate and the third-in-command of his club/circle of friends) is always giving a piggyback ride to. Her sister is the girl Jehan (the club's resident poet and flower expert) has his eye on, and they both agree that though they would be good together, until she's eighteen and going to college, he's too old for her.

He ropes her into joining the ABC Society, the club that he runs with his friends that fights for civil rights and equality throughout the country. She helps pin flyers to the bulletin boards and hand out pamphlets, and gives the men moral support during their rallies. She turns out to be astonishingly good with talking to people when she wants to be, and they gain many more supporters, something he's eternally grateful for.

She convinces him to drive her little brother Gavroche to and from school, and he instantly likes the energetic little boy who makes up so many of his own little songs he's willing to bet on him becoming a music major. He begins to take the seventh grader on regular trips to the ice cream place, where he tells him about the places he's traveled and the boy talks about kicking the asses of the bullies at school.

She invites him to her dance recital and he agrees readily, not just because he'd realised that this is the girl Cosette says is the best dancer on campus.

He goes to the dance recital with Cosette, Marius, and Combeferre (the latter is there to keep him sane; after all, he can only stand so much of Marius and Cosette's lovey dovey nonsense). Her feet fly around the stage and her arms twirl in the air as her black-clad body forms shapes and figures against the white background and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

He gives her a bouquet of tiger lilies (her favourite flowers) even though he knows Combeferre is going to tell everybody and he's going to be hearing it for months. The smile she gives him is so dazzling he knows it was worth it.

"You fancy her," Bahorel says one day, as the college boys are sitting around several boxes of pizza and at least two dozen beer bottles (a water bottle, in Enjolras' case) and playing Call of Duty on Courfeyrac's PS3.

"Who?" Enjolras asks, but he knows exactly who he's talking about.

"Éponine, dumbass," Grantaire says, rolling his eyes. "And here I thought you were the smart one."

"No, Combeferre's the smart one," Courfeyrac corrects him. "Enjolras is the chief, and I'm the sex god."

"Now that that's cleared up," Bahorel says loudly over the din as Grantaire starts an argument about who among them was the "true sex god", "Enjolras still needs to admit he has the hots for Éponine."

""The hots"?" Feuilly snorts. "When were you born? The fifties?"

"I do not, as Bahorel puts it, "have the hots for Éponine"," Enjolras says firmly.

"Are you two secretly dating?" Joly asks.

Enjolras almost laughs at the absurdity of the concept. Éponine, sarcastic and cunning and gorgeous and dancer extraordinaire, date someone like him? "Of course not, don't be ridiculous."

"Well, you certainly aren't "just friends"," Bahorel says.

"Actually, that's exactly what we are-"

"Right, "just friends" that text each other twice more the amount they do their other friends, have coffee dates, and give each other flowers," Grantaire snorts.

"I gave her flowers once, and that was because she had a dance recital. You're supposed to give people flowers after their dance recitals," Enjolras defends himself, but there's sinking sense of horror because he has the feeling they're a little bit right.

"Come on, just admit it! At least you agree she's hot, right?" Bahorel says.

"Smoking hot," Courfeyrac adds, pretending to swoon.

This, though he hasn't dated or had sex in five years, he does kind of know. Her dance-toned legs go on for miles and her waist is so small he can almost fit his hands around it. Her skin is silky smooth, at odds with the throaty timbre of her voice (that still gives him shivers, though he'd never admit it). Her lips are full and so are her breasts and her hips. He really can't blame the pervert from a few months ago for so obviously checking her out, however much he hated it.

"Enjolraaaaaasssss!" Grantaire draws out the name, on his hands and knees.

"Just say it!" Bossuet shouts.

They're all shouting at him now, even Marius, who has thus far been furiously typing away on his phone, no doubt talking to Cosette.

His pride (and sanity) can't take it and he's about to storm out of the room when Idina Menzel's voice blasts into the air, belting the last lines of Defying Gravity. It's the ringtone Éponine has set for herself on his phone.

Everybody freezes and watches as Enjolras slowly pulls his smartphone out of this pocket and stares down at the photo of Éponine sticking her tongue out at him. He can't help the dark red flush on his neck and ears as his so-called friends explode into catcalls and wolf whistles. He gives them his best glare and practically races out of the apartment before pressing "answer".

She wants to know whether he's going to the party next Saturday.

"It's in a club and clubs aren't exactly my thing," Enjolras says.

"Please? I don't want to go alone and I don't have a ride."

"Isn't Cosette going?"

"Yeah, but she's going with Marius and they're going to be slobbering over each other the entire time and I'm going to get a hemorrhoid and throw up on both of them." Éponine's voice is disgusted and he chuckles because it's very true.

"Too bad for you," he says, smirking as she gives an exaggerated gasp.

"You would leave me to die a horrible death?" He can hear her pout and grins.

"Well..."

"Enjolras, I'll fucking kill you if you don't take me to that party," her voice turns threatening and he bursts out laughing.

"I'll drive you!" he cries mock-fearfully and takes pleasure in the husky laugh on the other end. "I'll pick you up at six thirty, okay?"

"Cool. Thank you so much," she says.

"Anytime. Will I see you at the Musain-"

"Tomorrow? You bet."

"Great. My treat."

He smile grows at the sound of her laughter. "Okay."

"Bye."

"See you, Enjy!"

"Don't call me-" She hangs up before he can say anything else and he rolls his eyes before turning back to the apartment.

Combeferre is standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised. "So I guess the rest of us will be taking my car and Marius' car, then."

He's feels a little guilty because he hadn't given his friends a thought when he'd agreed to drive Éponine. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

His friend waves it off. "Don't worry about it." Combeferre pauses before gesturing to his phone. "You sure you don't like her?"

Enjolras narrows his eyes. "Ferre..."

"Fine, fine," the medicine major backs off, hands raised in a gesture of defeat. "Whatever floats your boat."

Except the "boat" sunk a long time ago, and Enjolras knows it.

She gets drunk at the party. Like, really drunk. She's currently stumbling across the room towards him, drink in hand, grinning sloppily.

"Hey, hey Enjy," she slurs, and if she weren't drunk he would have scolded her for calling him that.

"You're drunk," he tells her, plucking the drink from her hands and sniffing it. "Jesus, what is this?"

"Cocktail. Or vodka. Beer? Tastes like orange juice." She reaches for it but he pulls it away from her, looking into the transparent liquid that clearly does not taste remotely similar to orange juice.

"I think you've had plenty," he says.

"I think you've had plenty," she mimics, before flinging herself towards the cup again. He dodges away, looping an arm around her waist to catch her as she teeters dangerously on her toes.

"What're your parents going to do when you go back like that? Come on, I'll drive you home," he says, dragging her to his car. She'd mentioned on their tenth meeting at the Musain that she lived with her parents and sister.

"Please, my father doesn't give two shits," she sniggers, still moving unsteadily, so he keeps his arm around her and leads her outside to where he's parked.

"What about your mother, then?"

"As long as I get her money she'll be fine with whatever shit I get into," she says, leaning on the car, body twisted awkwardly.

Alarm bells start ringing in his head as he recalls their conversation about the George Orwell book. You learn how fragile humans are and how easily we break, she'd said. A father that didn't care about her and a mother that raised her through bribery didn't sound like a healthy family to live with.

"What're your parents like, exactly?" he asks cautiously, sitting her into the leather seat and getting in the other side.

She opens her mouth to answer but pauses, staring up at him with eyes narrowed. Maybe she's not that drunk. "Why do you wanna know?" she snaps.

"Don't you trust me?" he implores, reaching for her hand.

She withdraws it from his grasp but starts talking. "My father leads a gang, goes around stealing from rich people's houses and shit. Mum's fucking insane, punches and kicks you within an inch of your life if you don't bring in the daily income." She digs into her pocket and pulls out a couple of grimy ten-euro bills. "This is all I got on me today, so don't expect me at the café for a few days."

As she speaks, the fire builds within him. It's a mixture of rage and disbelief and guilt that he hadn't connected the dots earlier (he'd thought her bruises and twisted joints were a result of the intensive dance training she goes to). He's overcome with the urge to protect her, to hide her away and keep her safe from the monsters she calls her parents for the rest of their lives.

"Fuck," he says when she finishes.

"Fuck," she echoes, and laughs a little manically. "I've just told you everything, haven't I?" She lets out another few bursts of hysterical laughter before proceeding to repeatedly buckle and unbuckle her seatbelt.

"Éponine," he says forcefully, starting up the car and giving her a hard look.

"Yeah, Enjy my sweet?"

He grimaces at the endearment, but chooses to ignore it (she is still drunk, after all). "You're not going home tonight."

"What?"

"You're not going back there." He's not going to let her. He makes a right instead of the left he would take to drive her to her apartment.

"Of course I am. I live there, assraffle."

He briefly wonders how she came up with "assraffle" before gripping the steering wheel tighter. "Well, I'm not driving you back."

"Fuck you, man," she growls, and opens the car door. The vehicles behind them honk and voices start shouting.

"Fuck, are you crazy?" he yells, reaching out with his right arm and slams it shut, pulling her body back in. "You're going to kill yourself!"

"Then take me back! Are you fucking kidnapping me or something?"

"No! I'm bringing you to my place so you won't-" he cuts himself off because he can't say it. The image of her bloody and beaten at the feet of a faceless father is too much and he's already distracted enough trying to keep Éponine from throwing herself out of his car as well as obey traffic laws.

"Now is not the time to be chivalrous!" She's given up trying to escape and is now shouting curses at him in a drunken daze and flailing her arms.

"Why would you want me to take you back?" he finally exclaims as a hand connects with his ear with a resounding thwack, giving her an exasperated glance. "You know what's waiting for you there!"

"Because all my stuff is there, and so is my sister!"

"We'll call Azelma tomorrow morning, okay? And you can borrow my things for now." He makes it to his building in record time and pulls her out of the car.

She tries to run from him but trips and falls, avoiding face-planting into the concrete as he dives to catch her just in time.

"I can take the couch," she sighs, and he knows she's given up.

"I'll get you something to wear," he says, unable to mask the smile that's beginning to form on his face.

He throws her his smallest shirt and sweats, and isn't sure whether to feel mortification or hilarity as she clumsily strips right in front of him and changes into his clothes. She positively drowns in them and gives him a half-hearted glower at his amused expression before flopping onto the couch. She immediately falls asleep, aided by the alcohol in her system.

She ends up moving in.

There's kind of a covert operation where Azelma somehow transports all the belongings Éponine needs to his apartment. He moves most of the furniture out of the study and places an airbed in there, and it becomes her room. Soon the closets are filling up with her clothes and her hair products are taking up almost all the space on the sink counter and hairpins are littering the bathroom floor while leg warmers are scattered around the apartment.

They quickly establish a morning routine.

He always gets up first, because he likes to go for a jog before starting the day. He gets back around seven thirty in the morning and coaxes her out of bed with omelets or bagels with cream cheese, and she returns the favour by making coffee. She spends twenty minutes in the bathroom getting ready for her dance classes and eats while he takes his shower. He hands her a granola bar as she walks out the door and she rewards him with her blinding smile and gives him the apple he always brings with him. He drops her off at the fine arts side of campus and arrives just in time for his morning class.

They debate over the planning of ABC events, during which the other members of the Society lean back and enjoy the show as it gets so heated to the point that they're standing with their noses almost touching and that close to throwing their drinks at each other. But when the rallies get too violent it's always her that patches him up, and he quickly starts to crave the feeling of her soft hands on his skin, even where there are bruises and it hurts to touch them.

It startles him how domestic they become, from cooking for each other to battling over hot water. He likes it. He also likes that he knows every single one of her habits, just through staying in the same apartment. She chews relentlessly on her pens and sucks on her teeth when thinking over an especially difficult problem. She has several different laughs. One for sarcasm, one for bitterness, one for polite necessity, one for inside jokes, one for dirty jokes, and his favourite laugh: the one where she throws her head back and has to hold onto something to prevent herself from falling over, she's laughing so hard.

But there are down sides, he discovers, to living with her. She develops a habit of walking around in nothing but one of his shirts and underwear, long legs stretching out underneath. Occasionally he catches a glimpse of said underwear and has to hastily leave the room before he gives into the urge of launching himself at her because he is a college boy full of raging hormones.

He doesn't know exactly why but there's something incredibly sexy about seeing her in his clothes, smelling both like her citrus shampoo and the laundry detergent he's used since moving here. It's all he can do not to attack her whenever she walks by.

It's worse because he notices her staring, too, especially when he's just come out of the shower clad in jeans and a towel around his neck. The look in her dark honey eyes as her gaze travels from his eyes to his mouth and down his chest to his stomach should be illegal it turns him on so much.

The tension builds. Their meet-ups at the Musain are suddenly full of burning accidental touches and embarrassed glances. His and her friends give each other looks and not-so-discreetly try to arrange themselves so that he's forced to be next to her every second they're hanging out as one group. Their morning routines start involving lots of checking each other out and flirty looks as they hand each other the granola bar and apple.

He starts watching her from behind his laptop screen, letting his gaze fall to the dusky red lips and wishing he could trace them with his fingers and his lips and his teeth. His clenching chest fills with warmth when her eyes light up in laughter or when her teasing gaze flicks to his as she makes a joke among their friends. He purposely makes a habit of biting his lower lip in frustration or concentration so he can see her pupils focus on said lip and dilate.

It hits rock bottom when he makes some stupid joke about Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta and their weird polygamous relationship and she laughs like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard and all he can think is I love you.

He's in love with her and though he knows she's attracted to him, he's quite sure she doesn't love him back.

During finals week he retreats into his room and studies until three in the morning before collapsing and waking up at six thirty to go for his run.

The first day he barely manages to drive her to class without having an accident, and feels immensely guilty when she swears and shouts about killing the both of them in his state. The second day she surprises him by waking him up with coffee. Well, she slaps him awake and pours the scalding hot liquid down his throat, but it does the job and he finds himself wanting to kiss her and her rumpled morning appearance. Instead, he grins and thanks her and makes her favourite breakfast food: waffles.

A new routine is set in place for exams. He studies and works his ass off until he can't keep his eyes open, and the next day she wakes him up with coffee and breakfast. In return, he helps her study for her own exams, although he doesn't know all that much about dance history and stagecraft. She still insists it helps.

They study until the very last possible second and he drives them to class, and in their free time they meet up at the Musain and study some more. Cosette tells him that this is the most she's studied since, like, ever, and he feels oddly proud to have instilled at least some motivation in her, though she swears and rants and throws her books across the room every twenty minutes or so.

The last day Grantaire throws a party and everyone goes. She gets drunk again and he stations himself so he can keep an eye on her, and manages to pull her away from the body shots at least four times. Courfeyrac starts a game of spin the bottle, and everyone except Enjolras and Joly join in (Enjolras pretends it's below him and Joly practically throws a fit about the possible diseases they could transfer to each other). He bites back his jealousy when she kisses both Bahorel and Feuilly and determinedly ignores the knowing look Combeferre is throwing him.

Azelma somehow sneaks in halfway through, when everybody (except Enjolras) is good and drunk, and he and Éponine catch her making out with Jehan in the corner. He has to physically restrain her to keep her from jumping for her sister's throat, whispering reassuring words in her ear ("they probably won't remember in the morning and it'll be like it never happened").

Near the end of the party she falls asleep next to him Grantaire's living room floor, curled up into his side with her head resting on his lap. He walks the two blocks back to his apartment carrying her in his arms and places her on the couch. He sits next to her and reads Voltaire's Candide until he, too, falls deep asleep.

The next morning they awake at the same time and blink groggily at each other before realising they've just fallen asleep together and leap apart. He lands on the floor and she trips over the coffee table and bruises the back of her head as she falls.

By noon they're pretending it never happened, however much he wishes it could be a regular occurrence.

On graduation day she's there, standing just close enough for him to see the different expressions she makes. He, Combeferre, Grantaire, Bossuet, Joly, and Feuilly assemble into lines and begin the dreadfully long and boring procession.

He receives his degree and stands with the rest of the class. She catches his eye and mouths "good luck" as he walks to the podium; he's the student speaker. It's not really a surprise, with him being the leader of a very active and outspoken civil rights club all the while keeping a solid GPA of 4.0 for two degrees.

He's always been very at ease with giving speeches, and this one is no exception. He memorises it like usual and adds a flair of drama while slipping sly references into his words and the people that catch them laugh accordingly. It's not the best speech he's ever given, but it's up there. He finishes with a quote from Albus Dumbledore: "It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."

(J.K. Rowling, however much he says he isn't a fan of fantasy, will always be a queen.)

He shoots the audience his best grin before striding off amidst the applause. He thinks he hears her shout "Go Enjolras!" and, because he's an absolute idiot sometimes and he loves her, he sends her a wink which is totally out of character, and Joly and Bossuet nudge each other and snicker for the rest of the ceremony.

They have to sing some useless song at the end of it and he's hopelessly distracted as Grantaire screams the words instead of singing them while she makes faces at him the entire time. She ends up making very inappropriately sexual gestures and he can't stop laughing. His dean gives him an evil glare that shuts him up but he finds himself in stitches again when she points to said dean and thrusts her hips, accidentally bumping into Jehan, who gives her a scandalised look.

When it's finally over, he and the graduating members of the ABC Society run into the crowd, embracing each other. He lets Courfeyrac and Jehan give him hugs because it is his graduation and why the fuck not?

Everything else grinds to a halt as he comes face to face with her and she's beaming at him, dark hair blowing in the wind and the amber of her eyes lit up by the sunlight, all rosy cheeks and full red lips. His heart thuds in his chest as he reaches out to touch her dimples. She gives him a look and tilts her head to the side, a little challengingly.

Fuck it.

He grabs her by the shoulders, a little roughly, and slams his lips onto hers. The kiss is fervent, all tongue and teeth and pent-up impatience, and he forgets why he waited that long to do this because this is better than he ever imagined.

They finally pull apart for air and she's breathing heavily, smirking up at him through inky eyelashes. "How long have you wanted to do that?"

"A while," he says truthfully, smiling and resting his forehead against hers.

"Me, too," she confesses, and he kisses her again and again, until they're both so out of breath they have to stop in order to focus on staying on their feet.

He hears the rustle of wallets being taken out and opened. They look up and their friends are standing in a circle around him, grumbling and handing each other money.

"Fucking one day off," Bahorel growls, shoving a twenty euro bill into a smirking Combeferre's palm.

He's a journalist for politics in the highest-reputed newspaper in the country. Combeferre and Joly are working at the Corinth, an often-praised hospital. Grantaire is having the time of his life running around Europe with his many cameras and selling his photography. Feuilly opens a store selling fans, of all things, the paper and bamboo and animal hide ones with pretty patterns and decorations, as well as paintings and prints he's made over the years. Bossuet is, well, being Bossuet and with his luck he hasn't found a job yet.

Jehan, Bahorel, Marius, and Courfeyrac are still wreaking havoc in college, except Marius has Cosette to keep him distracted and Jehan has Azelma to keep him in shape (Éponine finally lets her date him, now that her younger sister is in her freshman year of college and a legal adult).

She's in her last year of college and busier than ever. He's up all day and night writing and writing, submitting three articles a day.

Still, he goes for his morning run and they make each other breakfast and he drives her to class before going to work. He tutors Gavroche from time to time and they're frequenting the ice-cream store more than ever now that it's right in between where he works and where Gavroche goes to school. He has teas and coffees with her at the Musain and they chat about their books and the new members of the ABC and that new restaurant up the road. She and Courfeyrac head the Society now, and they've changed a few things while garnering more and more followers. Enjolras almost thinks they're doing a better job than he was, but they're quick to dismiss the idea.

They don't hold hands and make gooey faces at each other. They don't coo and giggle. They don't stick their tongues in each other's mouths in public.

But they change the study back into a study and they fall asleep tangled in the other's limbs. She welcomes him home with a kiss that sometimes (okay, ninety-five percent of the time) has to be taken to the bedroom. He scares off guys that try to hit on her by curling an arm around her waist and putting his chin on her head, and she scares off girls that try to flirt with him by trailing her fingers up his arm and then surprising him with a searing kiss that makes his toes curl.

"I love you," she says to him over breakfast on a cold Februrary morning.

He almost doesn't catch it and when it hits him that she's finally said what he's been thinking for a whole fucking year, he chokes on his coffee.

She watches him with amused eyes. "I'm not that bad, am I?"

"No, of course not," he says once he finishes hacking up what feels like half his breakfast. "You're- well, you're amazing."

"I thought so," she grins, but he sees the flash of uncertainty in her eyes.

He registers he hasn't said it back. "I love you, too."

The smile she gives him makes the tips of his hair tingle all the way to his toes. "When did you realise?" she asks, genuinely curious.

His face flushes. "A year or so ago. I made a joke about Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta and you nearly had a stroke laughing. It wasn't even that funny."

She thinks, and remembers (he gets that warm feeling in his chest again at the fact that she actually knows what he's talking about). "Yeah, that was a real fucking horrible joke. I don't know why I laughed so hard."

"What about you?" he asks.

She grins sheepishly. "Women's rights rally."

"Jesus, are you saying we could have gotten together three months before we actually did?" He gapes, mouth wide open.

"Oh, no, much earlier. I wanted to fuck you the moment I saw you."

Enjolras chokes again and then is in between laughing and taking her on the breakfast table because that sounds really hot coming out of her mouth.

"Don't tell me didn't you feel the same. You were giving me bedroom eyes on day one," Éponine continues with a cocky smirk.

"A little," he admits, biting his lip and holding back a smirk when her eyes immediately drop to his mouth.

"Stop doing that, you know what that does to me."

He bursts out laughing as she crosses her arms and pouts before he's thrown back in his chair as she lunges for him and straddles him before snogging him senseless. They finally decide to stop when they're close to tearing each other's clothes off on the couch (he still has to go to work and she still needs to go to class), and he props himself up on his elbows to avoid squashing her underneath him.

"We should have been doing this much earlier," he murmurs, lips swollen and voice low and raspy.

"Doesn't matter," she says, arching up and pressing a soft kiss to the side of his mouth. "We got here in the end. That's what matters."

AN: So I feel like I blasted this out rather quickly. I apologise for any typos I've possibly overlooked. Is the ending awkward and abrupt? I feel like it is but I've no idea how to fix it.

Anyway, there's a oneshot-turned-multiple-shot that was supposed to be around 2000-3000 words long and ended up being about 7000 words in length.

Leave a review, tell me what you think, and I wish you all happy reading in the future!