You Little Pest-A Les Miserables Fan Fiction

Chapter Twelve

“You ring the doorbell once, Taire.” Eponine growled and opened the door. Taire always had a thing for ringing the doorbell to the beat of his favorite song-or doing the ‘Sheldon knock’ from the Big Bang Theory, replacing ‘Penny’ with whoever he was visiting.

“But what’s the fun in that?” he snickered, inviting Enjolras and Catherine in. Courfeyrac was setting out wine glasses and gestured his head for Taire to choose the type they were going to drink. They always let Taire check-he was the best.

“So where’d you hang the painting?” Taire looked around the living room. He had secretly been sketching Courf and Jehan together, and gave them the finished painting of them for their one year anniversary. Not that it wasn’t beautiful-because it was. But what was painted was not something you hang in the living room, displayed for everyone to see. 

“It’s in the master bathroom.” Jehan said uneasily, leading Taire to the wine cellar. “Why is it in there?” “Well, a painting that gorgeous deserves to be seen by only mine and Courf’s eyes only.” Jehan smiled, making it as convincing as possible. 

The door to the wine cellar opened, and a curious Combeferre was found inside. He held a glass jar in his hand and cupped it over something on the floor quickly. Trapping it in, he lifted up to the low light. Frowning, he said, “It’s too dark in here.” 

“Why don’t you go upstairs, dear? There’s more light up there-just don’t let that thing out inside my house.” Jehan was the mother figure in the group-there was no denying that. He cared for each and every one of them, though being one of the youngest, everyone looked up to him.

Combeferre never took his eyes off the bug, walking up the staircase, opening up the pamphlet of his notes he kept inside his jacket. He stumbled over a few steps, only to make sure his bug in the jar was okay.

“Alright, Prouvaire. What kind of wine do we want for tonight?” Taire rubbed his hands together, licking his lips like a lion choosing his prey. The wine was organized by amount of alcohol in it, and then by age. 

“Something that doesn’t make us that drunk.” 

Taire picked out a bottle, raised his eyebrows, and nodded in consent. 

“Azelma and Gavroche are coming too-Eponine has to go pick them up. So make sure that everyone is sober after at least after one glass of this, got it? No shots, no beer pong.” Jehan made sure that everyone was not dead drunk, especially in front of the younger ones. He didn’t want anyone drowning in the pool, breaking things, or needing CPR. 

“Got it, chief.” Taire saluted and made his way back up to the first floor. Cosette had arrived, she was making small talk with Joly, who was reading out of his medical textbooks again.

“No, no, no drinks for me tonight. Exams coming soon, can’t risk low grades.” Joly never took his eyes off his book. Nothing could take his eyes off his books, except for maybe Musichetta, who was making her way over from the cafe.

“Joly, you have to give yourself a break. One night away from studying isn’t going to rot your brain.” Cosette pulled her hair into a bun, taking Joly’s pen bookmark and sticking it into her bun-like a chopstick. 

“Hey, give that back!” Joly yelled, swatting at Cosette. She dodged every move, pretending to take punches, and if she really wanted to, she could do serious damage. Her father made sure she was well defended, she took self defense classes during her free time.

“Where’s Marius? Doesn’t he usually come with Cosette?” Courf asked.

“He went with ‘Ponine to pick up Gavroche and Azelma. She doesn’t like driving in the dark, remember? ” Enjolras replied. Courf nodded in remembrance, smiling at the first time Eponine drove during then night. 

“Eponine-Eponine speak clearly.” Combeferre was on his phone, covering the receiver, holding the phone close to his ear. He looked panicked, but calm and reserved. Suddenly, Eponine’s crying voice filled the room. Everyone went silent, listening to her on the phone, now on speaker.

“He has them!” her voice was jumbled, stuttering over her tears, gasps, and own words. “Marius! Gavroche! Azelma! He has them all!”

“Who has them, ‘Ponine?” Combeferre’s eyes were huge, you could almost hear his heart pounding. You could nearly hear everyone’s heart pounding, like a dozen drums beating to the sound of a girl in despair. 

“A man! I don’t know,” she paused every few seconds, “he’s armed! Marius said he could go inside and get them, but then a man with a gun popped out from behind the post and held it to his head! He made him open the door for him-and now they’re in my apartment with the kids!” now she could barely breathe, her screams and cries were even louder. 

“Where are you, Eponine?!” Cosette was crying so loudly, she must’ve thought Eponine couldn’t hear her, for she grabbed the receiver and cried into it.

“I’m in the car! Elphie!” Eponine called Cosette by a nickname-Elphie. Short for her real name, Euphrasia.

“You have to stay quiet, Eponine. He’s going to hear you and take you hostage too-just stay put, call the cops and all of us are on our way!” Cosette was gasping just as loud as Eponine, everyone else was in shock. 

“Save them, Elphie, save-” a gunshot interrupted Eponine, and her scream of agony caused her to go biserk. The car door opened, the phone dropped.

“Eponine! Eponine! Eponine! Don’t go in! Eponine, come back!” Cosette was on her knees, Enjolras wrapped his arms around her, Catherine came out from the hall with Taire’s car keys and shouted, “Everyone get in the car!”

Joly was already on the phone with the cops, explaining the whole situation to them. Cosette was half way out the door with one thing on her mind, the people she love could potentially be dead in less than five minutes.