Stars and Dolls (Eposette Fic)
For @lesmisladiesweek ! Prompt: Stars, Canon Era
There’s never been a time they both were happy, and that is enough to ruin almost any happiness Cosette feels.
Because the feeling of Eponine’s hand in hers, and the wet grass against her back, the cool breeze of fresh spring air, those things were enough to make her happy.
Until she remembers that when she goes home, it will be to a dry cotton nightgown, freshly pressed and scented with a little lavender. When she falls asleep, it will be between soft sheets and a light blanket, quilted by her own hand. Her dreams will be blissful, perhaps, but so will her mornings, a long, pleasant breakfast spent reading with Papa, and then a walk in the gardens.
None of those things are in Eponine’s future.
“Come home with me,” Cosette whispers. “We have more than enough.”
“I know,” Eponine replies, and the words are an insult.
Because it is impossible to hide wealth like Cosette’s. As impossible as it had been for Eponine to hide her own spoiled childhood, the fine dresses and expensive doll. But even those memories, those are wrong. Because the doll had never been expensive, not really. And the fine dresses had only sometimes covered the bruises on Eponine’s own skin. No. Cosette’s wealth is more than the difference between a broken doll and a brand new one, glittering and perfect and pristine.
Because a store might sell the glue that puts a doll back together, but it can sell nothing that will repair a broken girl.
Cosette remembers more than she’s ever told Papa.
Or even Eponine. She does not tell the other girl everything, and some nights she barely tells her anything at all. But tonight, she finds all the words she’s longed to say.
“I want to share things with you.” Cosette tries again. “Come back with me.”
“We’re sharing the stars, right?” Eponine looks up, and up, at the night sky. The moon reflects on her bruised skin, making her brown eyes glow a bit like a cat’s. “That whole sky up there. That’s all mine. And yours.”
“It is.” The night sky spreads wide here, above the Luxembourg Gardens, where she sneaks back to at night. She steals kisses here, and she steals back her wildness that always has whispered to her. In the still silent holiness of church, Cosette longs for the wild crack of thunder. In the serene peace of a warm bed, she wishes for a lover next to her that bites with her kisses and leaves claw marks on her back.
“What do you say we spilt it?” Eponine laughs. Pushes herself up on her side to face Cosette. “I’ll take the moon, and you can have all of the stars.”
Cosette shakes her head. “No.”
“What? Ain’t that a fair deal?” Her hand slides down Cosette’s side, resting on the curve of her hip, such a softer curve than Eponine’s own. All of her is sharp, like a knife.
Or the little iron sword Cosette used to pretend was a doll. That sharp cold blade, wrapped in a scrap of fabric, made into something lovely with the stubborn pretending of one who barely remembers what love feels like.
Is that what she’s done with Eponine? Wrapped her in cast-off clothes, pretended she was something lovelier, more domesticated, less dangerous than she really was? Eponine was no doll. No matter how long her lashes were, how perfect her bow-shaped lips were. She was a weapon and knew it. Her voice could cut deeper than a wound, with words so calculated they would never be able to be pried out of one’s heart. Her hands, strong like claws, but not a tiger’s. No, a dragon’s. For what she marked as hers, she would never surrender.
But Cosette was no prim doll in a starched silk dress either. Though she’d been raised to keep her eyes low, her voice soft, there was something of the wild in her. No doll would delight so thoroughly in running barefoot through rain-soaked grass, nor laugh so gaily when fireflies landed upon her arms. A doll, even one made of the finest china, still had substance, still had one shape, one existence. Cosette changed like the moon. From devout student to studious daughter, to stubborn lady of the house, to wild fey of the night. She was all the things a young woman might be, and none of them. She was ether and charm and laughter, and she could never be contained. Eponine might cut a lover, if one got too close, but Cosette might simply fade away, like the morning dew disappearing with the sun.
“I’ll trade my stars,” Cosette whispers. “Trade them for one kiss each from you.” She leans closer, closer. Lips meet. Softly at first. Gentle like the rain, like star like, like ether. And then, deeply. Deep, like the dangerous sea and strong wine. The two beauties, the two’s bodies, mingling, embracing, uniting, there underneath the night sky already marked with dawn’s sudden light. The darkness of the night and the brightness of the sun, the dragon and the fey, the shadow and the fire, together, there, in the wet spring grass.
