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Éponine gets back to their shared apartment at two in the morning, which Cosette has long since come to expect by now. She’s tried her best to stay awake for her friend— because that’s what best friends do, right?— but by the time the front door finally unlocks with a click, Cosette is only barely conscious.
Still, the familiar rustling of Éponine taking off her coat and shoes is enough to stir Cosette, at least a little. She props herself up with half-asleep arms, looking over at Éponine with bleary eyes.
“Hey,” she says. “Long night?”
Éponine heaves a long sigh. “Yeah,” she says, brushing snow off her coat and onto their welcome mat. “Fucking cold, too.”
Cosette knows Éponine has a closing shift job at a coffee shop not far from here, but she also knows that said job ended several hours ago. She’s never been certain of what Éponine does in between that and coming home, but Éponine seemingly never wants her to ask, so she doesn’t. She’s probably better off not knowing.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No,” Éponine says. “It really wasn’t that bad, I promise. I’m going to take a shower.” She tosses her bag over to the sofa, where it lands with a heavy thump. “You didn’t need to wait up for me, you realise? You knew I was going to be fine.”
Cosette shrugs. “I thought it would be nice if you didn’t come back to a freezing apartment,” she says. “Which reminds me— do you want me to make something warm to drink?”
“Please,” Éponine says. She cracks a smile at Cosette, and then disappears into the hallway.
Cosette manages to shove herself off the sofa once she hears the water start running. She makes sure to brush the remaining snow— Éponine wasn’t quite thorough enough, and Cosette would hate for her friend’s clothes to be damp come next morning— off Éponine’s coat and boots before wandering over to the kitchen, blinking the sleep out of her eyes all the while.
She scrounges around in their kitchen for a while, rifling through mostly-empty cabinets, and comes up with nothing but a few packets of hot chocolate from who-knows-when that she certainly didn’t buy. Maybe Éponine’s been hiding a sweet tooth from her.
Either way, Cosette has a conspicuous lack of tea and has also forgotten to put the kettle on, so she supposes Éponine will have to settle for hot chocolate whether she likes it or not.
She pours what’s left of their milk into two mugs and puts them both into the microwave. In that time, she manages to find some leftover marshmallows that she knows Éponine pretends not to like and leaves them on the counter.
She’s just began mixing the hot chocolate powder into the warm milk when Éponine emerges from the shower, her hair dripping and dark bags still under her eyes.
“I made hot chocolate,” Cosette says, pushing a mug across the counter. “I know you like it, don’t lie to me.”
“I never claimed otherwise,” Éponine says dryly. She picks at the marshmallows, tearing them apart before she drops them into her hot chocolate. “Only implied it.”
“I’d argue that’s the same thing,” Cosette says.
She sips at her own hot chocolate and immediately wrinkles her nose at how sweet it is. This is exactly why she prefers tea. She thinks her teeth would rot in her mouth if she drank this as often as she thinks Éponine does, and she says as much.
Éponine rolls her eyes. “It tastes fine.”
“Agree to disagree,” Cosette says.
They sit there at the kitchen counter in companiable silence, quietly sipping away at their drinks— if Éponine doesn’t want to talk about it, Cosette isn’t going to press, and she knows Éponine would do the same if their places were reversed.
“Pontmercy dropped by,” Éponine says at last, staring deep into the chocolate depths of her mugmug.
“Marius?”
“No, his grandfather,” she deadpans. “Yes, Marius. He said he had something for you.”
Cosette raises her eyebrows. As far as she knows, Éponine had come home basically empty-handed.
Éponine smiles wryly. “He knows where we live,” she says. “Told him to come deliver it himself or not bother at all. Figured you’d want to see him. He said he’ll be here tomorrow, but I wouldn’t bet on that.”
Cosette does not blush. “What did he have?”
“You get to find out for yourself,” Éponine says. She downs the rest of her hot chocolate in one go. “What’d you do when I was gone? Not Pontmercy, I hope.”
Cosette nearly chokes on her drink. “No,” she says. “Marius didn’t come by, thank you very much.”
Éponine shrugs.
“I watched a movie,” Cosette says. “I think I fell asleep halfway, though. Not that it wasn’t good, I’m just tired. We should watch it together sometime.”
Éponine is looking over at her with a faint smile. “I did tell you that you didn’t have to wait up.”
“It’s what friends do,” Cosette says. “If you were coming home this late every night, I’d reconsider. But you’re not, so…” She waves her hand vaguely in the air, then pauses. “You’re not, right?”
“Thank fuck, no,” Éponine says.
In the following silence, Cosette takes a sip of her hot chocolate, and judging by Éponine’s expression, fails to hide her mild disgust. Éponine coughs back a laugh at her, gesturing at Cosette’s half-full mug. “Do you really want to drink the rest of that, or…?”
Cosette shoves it at her before the words are even out of her mouth. “Oh my god thank you,” she says as she watches Éponine drink. “I think I need to wash my mouth out. I don’t know how you stand it.”
Éponine shrugs. “Consider it an exchange of favours,” she says with a grin. “You stay up to wait for me, I take sickeningly sweet drinks off your hands.”
“An exchange of favours,” Cosette agrees, stifling a yawn.
“You should sleep,” Éponine says quietly. “You have to get up early tomorrow, don’t you?”
Huh. Cosette doesn’t know, actually, now that she thinks about it. Éponine would know, though; Éponine knows her schedule better than she does. “I suppose so.”
A soft smile crosses Éponine’s lips. “Go to bed, Cosette. Don’t worry about me. I’ll make sure to clean up.”
Cosette hesitates, but gives in at last. She really is quite tired. “If you’re sure,” she says, pushing herself away from the table. “Goodnight, ‘Ponine.”
“Goodnight,” Éponine echoes. “Sweet dreams.”
—
Éponine repays the favour a few weeks later.
Cosette jerks awake in the middle of the night, jolted out of a hazy dream— or was it a nightmare? It’s all a blur now, but her skin is still sticky with sweat and her heart is pounding in her chest and her blanket is more suffocating than warm. Instead of even trying to go back to sleep, she finds herself tossing it off and clambering out of bed, reaching for her charging phone.
It’s a little past three in the morning.
Cosette stumbles out into the hallway. Their apartment is dark and silent; Éponine must be asleep. Cosette won’t make too much of a nuisance of herself, then. She’ll sit around for a bit, probably, then try to go back to bed.
But when she emerges into the kitchen, she finds Éponine sitting at the counter, her face lit up by her phone.
“Shit, sorry,” Éponine says. “Did I wake you up?”
“You’re fine,” Cosette says. “It was only a bad dream.”
Éponine’s mouth falls open into a silent O. “Do you need anything?” she asks. “I could make tea.”
“Tea sounds good,” Cosette says, cracking a smile. “And some company too, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. Some tea, coming right up.”
Éponine flicks the lights on in the kitchen, bathing them both in a dim but warm light. Cosette watches her as she moves about. Slowly but surely, her racing heart beats a little more steadily, and her breaths come a little easier.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Éponine says.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Cosette says, maybe a little sharper than she meant to. “I’m fine. Like I said, it was only a bad dream.”
Éponine casts a gaze over her shoulder at her, but she doesn’t pry, and for that, Cosette is grateful.
They’re good at this, she thinks, this comforting quiet during late nights— or rather, early mornings. Cosette is perfectly happy dragging Éponine around to socialise during the day, but she does appreciate an easy silence.
She’s startled out of her thoughts by the clink of a mug being set in front of her. “Tea,” Éponine says, and then with a smirk, adds, “With minimal sugar.”
Cosette takes a sip.
It’s not exactly how she makes it, but it’s similar enough that she suspects Éponine must have been paying attention, and that idea warms her more than tea ever could. “Thank you,” she says. “It’s nice.”
“Good to know,” Éponine says, pouring a liberal amount of sugar into her own cup. She smiles up at Cosette. “An exchange of favours, right?”
Cosette hums. “Right.”
She sips her tea in silence. Éponine makes a face when she drinks hers, and Cosette can’t help but crack a smile.
“Your dream,” Éponine says suddenly. “Was I in it?”
“What?”
Éponine grins mischievously. “Did you dream of me?”
Maybe she had, Cosette thinks. Éponine is a recurring element in what she can remember of her dreams— but not this Éponine. Not her friend.
“No,” Cosette says. “Don’t think that highly of yourself.”
Éponine only shrugs.
Sometime over the next half-hour, they migrate to the living room. Cosette curls up on the sofa with her phone, her cup balancing precariously on the arm rest. Éponine sets her cup on the coffee table like she’s glad to be rid of it.
Once again, quiet settles over them, broken only by the audio of whatever Cosette’s watching and Éponine’s intermittent yawns.
“You can go to bed, you know,” she says after the fifth one. “I’m probably going to be here all night. I can handle myself.”
“You like company.” Éponine shrugs, though her face is somewhere between determined and falling asleep. “Especially after a nightmare. Right?”
“Sometimes,” Cosette admits. “But not if you haven’t slept.”
Éponine is silent.
“You’d just end up falling asleep here instead of in your room—”
“Would not.”
“Yes, you would— and either you wake up tomorrow all sore or I have to carry you back myself, and what good would that do?” Cosette crosses her arms. “I’m fine, ‘Ponine.”
“I wouldn’t fall asleep.”
Cosette looks pointedly at the bags under her eyes.
“…promise you’re not lying?” You’re really okay?”
“I am,” Cosette says. “You made tea, after all.”
Éponine grimaces at the reminder. “So I did,” she says.
“You’re stalling.”
“Fine, fine,” Éponine sighs. “You win. I’ll go to bed. Night, C'sette.”
“Goodnight,” Cosette calls after her. “And don’t you dare wake up before nine!”