Eponine/Cosette FIRST POOL/BEACH TRIP OF THE SUMMER. Give me fluffly lady kisses. I want fluffy lady kisses.
"You aren't coming in?" Cosette gives Éponine a sad look from beneath the floppy brim of her sunhat, like Éponine's disinclination to go wade into the water is the most tragic thing she's heard all day.
Éponine just grins as she shakes her head. "View's better from here," she says, and adjusts the angle of the beach umbrella so that her toes don't get burned.
And this is why Éponine loves Cosette, because she may think that Éponine staying beach-bound is absolute tragedy, but she relents with a shrug and a, "Suit yourself," and then ducks in under the umbrella to give her a quick kiss. She tastes like her lip balm, fruity and a little waxy, and she says, "Come join us if you change your mind," and then she's off running through the sand with the others, down the beach to the water, and Éponine is left with an excellent vantage to watch her do it.
Sand flies up behind her as she runs, and she doesn't even stop to test the water she just runs straight in. Courfeyrac grabs her about the middle and slings her over his shoulder as he carries her out into deeper water, her shrieks carrying over the beach. When he dumps her in, her feet go out from under her and she goes all the way under, comes up with her floppy sunhat turned even floppier, its broad brim hanging down in her face. She pushes it off and she's laughing, her face bright. Éponine grins fiercely when she throws the hat up onto the shore and gives as good as she gets, launching herself onto Courfeyrac's back and dragging him down with a quick, surprising move.
Somehow that just turns into piggyback rides, Cosette or Feuilly or Joly clinging to Bahorel's back as he goes storming through the surf, sending up great waves of water around them. Courfeyrac climbs up onto Combeferre's shoulders and urges him to join in, and Combeferre relents with a fond smile.
Soon they're all wet and spluttering, and Cosette extricates herself as the boys turn to roughhousing and comes up the beach to sit with Jehan, who's building an elaborate sand castle whose architecture looks like something Picasso might have dreamed up. She helps him dig a moat around it, then helps him bring water up to fill it, and when she ruffles Jehan's hair and presses a kiss to his brow and starts back down to the water, Éponine finds that she's had enough of the view.
She gets up off her towel and goes down the beach, to where the sand turns wet and firm. She catches Cosette ankle-deep in the surf, standing facing out to sea and slowly working on burying her feet deeper in the sand every time a wave washes in over them. Éponine comes around in front of her so she can smile down at her, and Cosette smiles back at her, as bright and warm as the sun.
"I knew you couldn't hold out forever," she says.
"I never can," Éponine says, and that's so true in so many ways.
She takes advantage of the fact that Cosette has rooted herself into the beach, leans in and bends down and skims a kiss across her lips, because Cosette is warm and bright and lovely and Éponine is never not overwhelmed by the fact that Cosette loves her.
Cosette leans into the kiss. She wraps an arm around Éponine's waist and presses a hand to her cheek to keep her in the kiss. Her palm is gritty with sand and her mouth tastes like salt and the sea. She wraps her arms around Éponine and Éponine holds her in turn, and kisses her until a wave comes in unexpectedly and crashes against the back of Éponine's legs, pushing her forward into Cosette. And then they're clinging to each other, holding each other upright and laughing together, and Cosette pulls her feet up out of the sand, threads their fingers together and says, "Come on," and then she's taking off across the beach, towards the others.
Éponine runs with her, follows after her, perfectly happy with the sea on her skin and the sun on her face and Cosette's warm hand clasped through hers like she'll never let her go.
