a soundtrack for detention - an enjolras x éponine high school au
he tastes like smoke and fire and everything she wants and nothing that she needs.
a companion piece to a soundtrack for your first summer fling

i.

'cause all you people are vampires and all your stories are stale
and though you pretend to stand by us, i know you're certain we'll fail

They meet in after-school detention.

Silence coats the room so thick she can feel it in her throat. She makes her way through the rows of desks. Rows of burnouts and delinquents, band shirts, heavy eyeliner, and ripped jeans. The faces should be unfamiliar to the new girl in school, but she recognizes them all the same. Her lips curl at the triteness of it all.

Disinterest radiates from every student who has the misfortune to spend the next hour staring at the empty desk in front of them. No books, no homework, no talking. Just a tired teacher and blank faced students. Everyone looks dead-eyed. Lids heavy. Mouths hanging open. Bored or stupid.

Except him. In a room sapped of all energy and life, he was technicolor. Electric blue eyes, rumpled red button-down shirt, and a mess of golden curls. He sits ramrod straight in his seat, fist clenched at his jaw and eyes burning. A bruise blossoms on his cheekbone, fresh purple against alabaster.

Her heart drums staccato in her ears when they lock eyes.

She would have paid every cent to her name to know what he was thinking.

ii.

don't be told what you want
don't be told what you need

Their hall pass privileges are revoked when the football coach finds them kissing next to the band room during first period.

The brass section stumbles through some sanitized version of a rock song as she threads a finger through his belt loop. She pulls him toward her and he falls forward with a jerk, but she is there, gracefully catching his lips with her own.

He seems confused for the barest of seconds, then he puts every inch of his soul into it and really, did she expect anything less? The dimpled surface of the brick bites into her skin and grabs at the thin fabric of her shirt as he presses her against the wall and tips her head back with his fingertips. It tastes like smoke and fire and everything she wants and nothing that she needs.

She might have heard the coach's heavy footsteps if she wasn't too busy listening to the rhythm of Enjolras' heart against her own.

iii.

they're gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books
to make a citizen out of you

They rack up another round of after-school for getting caught smoking next to the agriculture building.

She is confused by his smoking habit, figuring he would have considered it a vice that was force fed to the public by way of the media. That while the cool guys in the movies smoke, Hollywood has this funny little trick were it ends the story before hero gets cancer and dies in a hospital bed. Not that she minds, of course, just that she wonders, you know?

"Why do you smoke?" She blurts out. "You don't smoke pot, you don't even drink. Why smoke? It's the only one that can actually kill you."

"It'll kill me?" He takes an impossibly long drag and chuckles. Another contradiction, his commanding voice and his soft, musical laugh. Smoke falls from his lips and he shrugs: "I wasn't put on this Earth to live forever anyway."

She's pretty sure that is the moment where she falls in love with him. It would have been easier if she hadn't, but she did. So there's that.

iv.

and i don't give a damn about my bad reputation
the world's in trouble, there's no communication

They get banned from the winter formal for staging a coup during the pep rally.

When the principal announces that same sex couples will not, under any circumstances, be allowed at the dance, Enjolras immediately rises to his feet and begins chanting: "Black, white, gay, straight, love does not discriminate." His friends quickly follow, a pocket of chaos amidst hundreds of confused onlookers.

Two sections back, where she sits with the junior class, Éponine stands in her seat as well, stomping her feet on the bleachers and throwing her fist into the air. She locks eyes with anyone she can, forcing them to pay attention. Forcing them into action.

Then it doesn't take long for the other students to join them and she thinks that maybe, just maybe she sees a few teachers lending their voices from the back of the room. The clamor strikes like lightening across the gymnasium and any attempt to quell the insurgence is completely useless.

One emergency convening of the school board and a PTA meeting later, the principal's decision is overturned, but Enjolras and Éponine are still prohibited from the dance.

Well, neither of them wanted to go anyway.

v.

and who would've thought what they said was true?
it was and you are, light in darkness come through

She gets a month long suspension for jacking a guy in the face who joked about taking advantage of a female classmate.

Well, Enjolras is really the one who decked him, but he is in danger of not receiving his diploma, so she, being the underclassman in the situation, decides to take the fall. Which Enjolras is furious about, but she dosen't answer to him so whatever. And the asshole got a pretty nasty concussion, so he really can't tell who did what anyway.

Enjolras skips school and sneaks her out of her parent's house, because Zero Tolerance is bullshit, or something like that. Either way, they find themselves parked outside the abandoned movie theater, squeezed into the his car's back seat, half naked, while cicadas hum the song of quickly approaching summer.

And for the first time, they give themselves to each other completely. And it is gentle and deliberate, completely unlike anything else they've ever done together. Unlike anyone else she's ever been with before.

She cries and that pisses her off so much that she cries even more. He just chuckles that airy chuckle before pulling her into his chest and whispering how perfect she is in every single way.

vi.

don't speak, i know what you're thinking
i don't need your reasons, don't tell me 'cause it hurts

The school board allows him to get his diploma, but his valedictorian status is stripped and he is no longer allowed to walk at graduation after he gets arrested at an anti-war protest.

All she wants to do is keep him company as he watches his class graduate, but his voice is thundering down the auditorium in response to the principal's comment about how he expects everyone to be enrolled in college for the fall. So here Enjolras is, louder than the sound of God, pointing his finger at the stage and yelling about the millions of college graduates crumbling under student debt. Yelling about how America punishes it's students for seeking out higher education.

She wants to be angry when she sees the security guards pushing towards them but she just can't muster up the emotion.

When they get into his car she is almost out of breath from screaming about how fucking stupid he is.

"If you don't just shut your fucking privileged mouth once, just once… Goddamnit. Pick your battles, Enjolras," her voice makes the windows rattle. "Stop getting into trouble or your pretty little full-ride scholarship is gonna get pulled and you'll be stuck in this dumb small town in the middle of nowhere for the rest of your life and it'll be such a waste. Such a fucking waste, can't you see? You are meant for so much more than this town. Can't you see, you dumb son of a bitch?"

He stretches out in the driver's seat laughing, lit cigarette dangling between his fingers. That melodious, lilting laugh. Now it sounds like a war drum.

"I plan on changing the world no matter where I am and if that happens to be in the same place that you are, then it's all for the better."

She slaps him before she realizes that she even wanted to in the first place. Because it's not. It's not all for the better.

"I don't need to be anyone's crutch, Enjolras."

They stare at each other red-eyed and silent. Eventually he jams his cigarette between his lips and drives her home.

She breaks every mirror in the house, but she can't hear a thing.

vii.

don't you forget about me
as you walk on by, will you call my name?

A few years later, she's at the gas station picking up a card for Cosette's grad party because she's a terrible friend and she completely forgot that they were celebrating her only friend's new associates degree today.

She's got four different crappy cards in her hands when she finally realizes someone calling her name. She turns to see her old high-school crush Marius Pontmercy, who immediately starts chattering about the cards in her hands and asking if she's going to Cosette's barbecue.

He smiles when she confirms that, yes, she will be there and before she knows it she's smiling too because Marius smile has always been nothing less than infectious.

"That's good," he exclaims. "It's better than good, Éponine, it's great! Wonderful! I'm going to call Enjolras, you know that he's in town, too… right? We were just talking about you the other day, you have to hear about the the shit he's pulling up at the university…"

She knows that Marius is still talking, but she can't hear him over the ghost of Enjolras' heart beating upon her own.

And she realizes that she needs it.

i. perhaps vampires is a bit strong but…, arctic monkeys

ii. god save the queen, the sex pistols
iii. teenagers, my chemical romance
iv. bad reputation, joan jett & the blackhearts
v. who would've thought, rancid
vi. don't speak, no doubt
vii. don't you (forget about me), simple minds