A Midnight Sun Is Rising

“No chemical weapons were used during the riot. The anger of the people clearly shows that the drugs the Society is pumping into our water are no longer effective. The reaction of the Society was weak. The Society is crumbling, and there is nothing to stop us. My friends, we are going to win this.”

The Amis clap exuberantly as Enjolras steps off the café table, faces flushed with excitement and a shitload of alcohol. Bahorel and Jehan are dancing some sort of jig, Jehan reciting poetry about Bahorel’s underpants as they go. Grantaire joins in occasionally, whenever a rhyme is needed, and even Enjolras can’t help but laugh. Eponine plops down on his lap as more Amis rise to partake in the festivities, Courfeyrac throwing herself on top of Combeferre’s shoulders and singing jauntily. At the sight of Eponine perched on Enjolras’s lap, they all cheer and whistle.

“Having fun, pretty boy?” Eponine whispers into his ear.

“Believe it or not, I do have a slight grasp of the concept.” He grins, eyes turning to his friends. “Yes, Eponine. I am having fun.”

“Raise a glass!” She screams to the group. “Golden boy is having fun for the first time in his entire life!”

“To our great Apollo!” Grantaire proposes.

“To us! To the world!” Feuilly echoes.

“To liberty, equality, and fraternity!” Courfeyrac screeches, and they lift their drinks as one to that.

Cosette bursts in to the room at that moment, leather jacket hanging tightly to her full frame. “I have news.” She gasps, eyes searching the room as the Amis fall silent.

“What’s going on? Cosette?” Enjolras stands so quickly that Eponine almost slides off his lap. She rights herself and helps Cosette onto the nearest table to be heard.

“The Resistance is requesting to join you in your endeavors.” Cosette proclaims, voice still breathless but filled with the joy of the news it carries.

“The Resistance?” Combeferre repeats. “But I thought- after my mother’s death, we thought they had been wiped off the grid-“

“My father is kind of the leader.” Cosette shrugs. “It’s still very much a thing. We’ve been waiting, hiding underground until the circumstances allowed our return. We’re here. We want to help.” She smirks as she finishes. “And we have a hell of a lot of firepower.”

“Just what we wanted to hear.” Courfeyrac jumps up and kisses Cosette, smacking her lips into Marius’s when he tries to protest, and the room is once again filled with revelry.

“We’ll work out the details tomorrow.” Enjolras promises Cosette with a small smile. She nods and returns to her Marius.

“Well?” Eponine asks, lips curling up at the childlike wonder in his eyes. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” He whispers. “Everything my mother told me- everything Combeferre’s mother taught us- it’s all true.” Enjolras laughs then, kissing her softly. “They’re real. It’s all true.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________

They stumble home that night, crossing through the streets still stinking of gunpowder and sweat from the riots earlier. There were no casualties, a fact they have declared is a miracle, and everyone is high off of the victory. Eponine and Enjolras break from the group as they near the apartment, fingers entwined in the darkness. That night, they don’t even glance at the couch, both heading for the bedroom.

Enjolras spins her around as they enter, grinning like a fool as she giggles against his chest. “Eponine,” he whispers, and he recites it like a prayer. “Eponine, Eponine. Eponine.”

“Yes?”

He stares at her as the night swirls around them, and she’s starting to feel like the ground might never be still again. Everything is moving, so quickly that it’s hard to catch her breath, and she can’t help but feel like it’s a good thing. She’s tired of being stationary, of sitting in the same old apartment listening to the same old arguments raging between the same drunken parents, watching her siblings fall into the same pattern of hiding and thieving and lying. Gavroche has been coming to the meetings lately, as enamored with the Amis as Eponine is, and she knows that it’s time. It is time for them all to live. It is time for them all to fight. It is time for them all to burn.

Enjolras breaks her out of her thoughts with a quiet confession. “I think I love you.”

“You think?” She shoves him onto the bed, trapping his lips with her own as the moonlight turns to fire on their skin. As they break for air, she mumbles against his neck, “I always knew you were a fucking idiot.”