Anonymous asked: Prompt: les amis princess protection program au
*Aaron Burr voice* Sure! So it took me a long-ass time to write this because I saw PPP like once, like ten years ago, and I just now had the time to google it and brush up. As payment for the delay, it’s SEVEN PAGES. Also I wrote this at two in the morning and I haven’t looked over it since, so… I wandered off from the movie plot. Sorry.
- Prince Gabriel Alexandrè Enjolras Apollinaire—he usually opts out of the lengthy full name for just ‘Enjolras’, to the ongoing dismay of his entire staff—is literally getting crowned as king of the small country Rive Lune when Inquisiteur Javert, the right-hand man of the neighboring Rive Astre, comes crashing through the door. Turns out being extremely determined to transform a hundred-year monarchy into a democracy makes the local dictators edgy. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Enjolras is (quite literally) hauled away by Monsieur Valjean, a member of the Prince Protection Program. His mother and the queen of Rive Lune, Her Royal Majesty Juliette Ameliè Lamarque Apollinaire, is not so lucky.
- Enjolras puts up a very legitimate fight against being ‘packed off like so much spare luggage,’ as he puts it in his lengthy tirade. The PPP has never had to handle such an…opinionated prince—normally, they’re so shocky from an attempt on their life that they don’t question much. Enjolras is something else. He spins such a compelling speech about personal responsibility and care of the people and my country that, honestly? They almost go for it. And then Valjean clears his throat and politely reminds everyone of the situation, and Enjolras is packed off to America without further ado (and over his continuting protests) because Valjean has that effect on people.
- He stays with Valjean because Enjolras still has an undeniably French accent even though he speaks perfectly good English, and Valjean is an immigrant from Paris under slightly dubious circumstances, along with his kid. Cosette and Enjolras click immediately—they even look a little alike, fair-haired and youthful, although Cosette is curvaceous where Enjolras is so angular he might cut someone, and it’s easy to claim that they’re related.
- Cosette spends two days crash-coursing Enjolras—now her long-absent cousin from Europe, Alexander Apollon, and being called ‘Alex’ makes Enjolras’ teeth grind a little so they let him keep his name and claim it’s a middle name—in how to be an American teenager. He sucks at it, and he knows it, and she knows it, and then she gets a crafty look in her dark eyes and Enjolras feels a sense of immense foreboding.
- “It’s all right, Enj,” Cosette giggles, dancing away out of reach. “I’ve got just the thing. Sit tight, I’ve got to make a couple calls.”
- “Enj,” he mouths, and she twinkles her fingers at him as she pulls out her phone. It’s quite possible that Cosette, sweet pretty Cosette in her pink lip gloss and white sundress patterned with roses, is evil.
- One phone call and twelve minutes later, a very different girl is standing on her porch, dressed in battered skinny jeans and a leather jacket, with a slightly overgrown cap of dark hair and a kid half her age in one hand. He’s blond, wild-haired and grinning like a devil. Cosette introduces her as Eponine, and the kid as Gavroche. She’s very vague about how she knows Eponine—old friends, the girls say, waving it away, and Cosette explains exactly nothing to Eponine and she’s willing to help anyway—but after three more hours, Enjolras has learned several things.
- He’s learned an assortment of slang terms—his English is strictly diplomatic, and Eponine decries him immediately as a ‘snobby jackass’ before she beats an ability to use contractions into him.
- He’s learned that he should probably read the Harry Potter books, because Eponine looked sincerely betrayed when he admitted that he’d never gotten around to it.
- He’s learned that Cosette might be a little evil, but Eponine is terrifying. Like a hurricane.
- He’s learned that Gavroche is a sneaky little creature, because Enjolras’ brand new fake ID and wallet are gone.
- The third day, Enjolras goes to high school. It’s pretty unpleasant, actually—crowded and loud and boring—but Cosette drags him around by the elbow and introduces him to her friends. Bahorel, a second-year senior who works with her at the local retail store sometimes and looks like the opposite of a guy who would know how to match lipstick to blouse, all muscles and towering height. Feuilly, thin and whip-smart and funny, who tutors everyone and their cousin for extra money on top of his part-time job and his 4.0 GPA, possibly dating Bahorel although Cosette doesn’t seem any more certain than Enjolras. Marius, who makes Cosette turn pink, and Eponine snickers at the pair of them—the hearts and songbirds are almost visible, even Enjolras has to admit it. Joly and Bousset, practically joined at the hip despite the fact that Bousset is a year older, both beaming and cheerful and brilliant.
- Enjolras makes a pair of his very own friends, too, in his American Government class. He gets into a shouting match with someone on the subject of unilateral monarchy—he has spent two years working on a preliminary plan to get the fuck rid of the monarchy in Rive Lune in favor of a democracy, thank you very much, he is more qualified than this moron, although of course he doesn’t say that because secrecy. Cosette buries her face in her hands, somewhere between anguished exasperation and hilarious laughter. And the tall, solemn-faced boy with an undercut and glasses introduces himself as Combeferre, and his red-haired beanpole of a friend bounces up, beaming, to introduce himself as Courfeyrac.
- In one morning, Enjolras has made more friends than he has in his entire previous life, and he didn’t realize that being a prince was kind of lonely until now.
- At the end of the day, Cosette drags him to meet the two people they haven’t yet, and Enjolras is a little dazed at the idea that she has this many people around her all the time. But it’s good. He likes it. He’s thinking he’d like to keep it like this, with people who just…like him.
- He hasn’t been down to the art wing of the school yet—Enjolras is many things, including a diplomat, trilingual, and a better-than-passable chess player, but artistic is not one of them. Cosette pulls him along by the elbow, trailing Marius like a lovesick puppy with Joly and Bousset cheerfully bouncing alongside.
- “Grantaire!” Joly yells, and throws himself into the arms of a broad-shouldered guy in a green hoodie. Bousset is a bare second behind him, hooking his chin over the shoulder of the long-suffering Grantaire.
- Grantaire is tall, with a scruff of dark stubble along his jaw and wild black curls. A scar skates down one of his cheeks, and his hands on Joly’s shoulders are strong and wide and paint-spattered. His lips are twisted in a wry smile as he pats Joly’s back sarcastically, and his eyes glitter, green-blue-grey.
- Enjolras is not prepared to deal with this, someone please help him, he thinks he’s actually feeling his heart stutter.
- “You good, Enj?” Cosette drawls, and Enjolras snaps back to himself, closing his mouth with a click.
- “Fine,” Enjolras says, managing to keep his voice even. “Hello.”
- “Hey,” Grantaire says, peeling away from Joly and Bousset in surprise. His voice is deep and quiet and a little rough. Enjolras seriously considers seeing if he can smoothly make his way over to a wall, or something else suitable to lean against. “I’m Grantaire. You’re new?”
- “Yes,” Enjolras says.
- When he doesn’t seem likely to say more, Cosette rolls her eyes beside him and offers, “He’s my cousin, Alexander Apollon. We all call him Enjolras.”
- “Does he talk more than monosyllables?”
- It’s possible that Enjolras’ upbringing in an isolated royal household has somewhat stunted his ability to talk to ruggedly handsome artistic types.
- Eventually it registers with Enjolras that there’s someone standing behind Grantaire, a young man with long hair twined into a braid and dramatic turquoise eyeliner who grins widely and says that his name is Jehan. Enjolras manages to pull himself together and uphold some small talk, backing up the agreed-upon story for his home and reasons for being in America, largely by totally avoiding meeting Grantaire’s shifting eyes.
- “It was a pleasure to meet you all,” Enjolras says as Cosette makes a move toward the door.
- “The pleasure was all ours, Apollo,” Grantaire says, a faint smile on his face.
- When he and Cosette are in her car, she bursts into laughter.
- “Oh, mon Dieu, that was amazing!” she giggles, slumped over the wheel. “You have no idea how to be a human being, Enj.”
- “I hate him,” Enjolras decides.
- “Have you literally ever had a crush in your entire life.”
- “I don’t have a crush on him. I hate him.”
- “Sure,” Cosette says as she turns the key. “Whatever you say.”
- Enjolras decides fairly quickly that he does, in fact, hate Grantaire. Mostly because either Grantaire has the single worst set of beliefs he’s ever encountered in a human being, or Grantaire really enjoys watching Enjolras get angry. He has a feeling it’s the latter, and he can’t decide if that’s better or worse. They start sitting together at lunch—or rather Grantaire starts making sure he eats lunch, full stop, and sits with Enjolras and Cosette and their friends—and fight while they ignore their terrible cafeteria food.
- Here’s how it always goes: Grantaire suggests something and watches Enjolras rant.
- Immigration reform: Grantaire suggests that closing borders could help protect citizens and watches Enjolras rant.
- Vaccinations: Grantaire suggests that parents should have the right to decide if their children get vaccinated and watches Enjolras rant.
- Gun control: Grantaire suggests that private citizens should be able to buy any gun they feel is necessary to protect themselves and watches Enjolras rant.
- And so it goes. The others get in on the action with increasing vigor as they get used to having a battle royale taking place once daily. Sometimes twice, if Grantaire is really getting under Enjolras’ skin.
- Within about a month of Enjolras being packed off to live with Valjean, he’s entrenched in the school, fairly well-known as sweet Cosette’s much less sweet cousin, and they arrange a club that, at first, is just the Yelling About Social Issues Club. But the school says that they can’t call it that, so they brainstorm some ideas, and Musichetta, Joly and Bousset’s girlfriend from another school district, wryly suggests The Friends of the Downtrodden. Cosette translates it into French, Grantaire can’t quite resist the obvious pun, and they start holding meetings of Les Amis de l’ABC. It’s a good way for Enjolras to exorcise the never-ending keen of tension about the state of affairs in Rive Lune.
- With Enjolras generally failing his edict to lie low and stay out of trouble, it’s really just a matter of time before someone catches on.
- The note arrives resting neatly on the table in the library when they come in to start their meeting, seven weeks after Enjolras’ arrival.
- You’re not subtle. It would be a shame if your new friends got caught in the crossfire.
- The handwriting is neat and elegant and utterly bland, but the manilla folder of photos is clear enough. Cosette and Marius, on their first date a week and a half ago. Eponine fighting with her sister Azelma, Eponine with Gavroche on her shoulders even though he’s getting far too big for it. Joly and Bousset and Musichetta, stretched out on the grass in a park. Feuilly folding paper dragons and cranes, Bahorel ringing a woman up at the register. Jehan, bent over a notebook with a ‘composing’ wrinkle in his brow. And Grantaire, smiling while Enjolras rants, paint smudged on his scarred cheek and his green hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
- Confused murmurs break out as the other sift through the photographs. Enjolras looks up and meets Cosette’s eye and she looks…he’s not altogether sure, but he thinks the phrase might be ‘a towering rage.’
- “They don’t get to threaten us,” she says, deadly cold.
- “This isn’t your fight, Cosette,” Enjolras says at once—half snarls it, really, because he’s been living in a precarious state of emotional tightrope walking for almost two months. His mother is a captive, his country is floundering, and he will actually murder someone if his friends, the only thing that has kept him sane, pay the price for this mess.
- Cosette slams her fist down on the table, startling the entire room into silence, and for a split-second she looks like Valjean’s daughter. She’s adopted, Enjolras knows it, but she has that same look of lethal efficiency that Valjean had during the disastrous coronation.
- “I’d like to see you stop me, Your Highness,” she says, silken.
- “Your father will murder us both before Rive Astre ever gets the chance.”
- “That’s his problem,” Cosette grates out. “We’re solving this our damn selves, you’re going to go insane just sitting around and waiting for them to tell you it’s okay to go home.”
- Enjolras can’t argue with that one. “If Valjean is angry that we told them, I’m blaming you.”
- “That’s fine. Everyone, meet us at my house, Papa’s out for the day. We have some explaining to do.”
- Except, of course, they don’t make it all the way home, that would be too easy. Enjolras thinks he’s probably never going to get into a car without checking for assassins again, because the experience of having someone pop up from the backseat and whip out a Tazer? Singularly horrifying.
- Enjolras could accuse Inquisiteur Javert of a great many things—including being an unmitigated dickwad, a phrase that Eponine adores and Enjolras is considering adding to his vocabulary—but inefficiency is not among them. Clearly, when he threatens a dozen people, he knows how to carry through. So the whole lot of them—including Azelma, who Enjolras has met exactly once and who is utterly uninvolved—wake up on the floor of a warehouse, wrists and ankles duct taped.
- This is, possibly, the single most absurd position Enjolras has ever found himself in. He manages to prod Cosette hard in the ribs with a toe and wake her up, and she glowers at him.
- “Javert,” she mutters blackly, sitting up and scowling. “Why the hell does he have to be such a–” And then she launches into such a blue streak of cursing that Enjolras can barely make out the words, let alone assemble them into coherent ideas.
- “What the hell are we doing here?” Courfeyrac demands. He and Combeferre appear to have been duct taped together, a precaution that seems to have been applied to anyone who looked likely to pose a threat. Feuilly and Bahorel’s wrists are bound into a sort of large square, and Eponine is taped to both her siblings. Bousset, who managed to sprain his wrist two days ago and is stuck in a brace, was spared that treatment, but it’s not reassuring.
- “Being assassinated, I assume,” Enjolras mutters.
- “We’re leverage,” Cosette says, oddly serene. “Behave yourselves and let Enjolras do the talking.”
- “His Almost-Majesty can talk all he likes,” Eponine says, and Enjolras shoots her a startled look. “Oh, come on, Apollonaire, your fake wasn’t even that good, Gav and I did like twenty minutes of research.” She rolls her eyes and Enjolras shakes his head—the PPP could use some more modern tactics. Or better funding. Possibly both. It may be ill-conceived from the beginning.
- “Apollonaire,” Combeferre says, arching his eyebrow. “Like the royal family of Rive Lune?”
- “How do you always know these things?” Enjolras asks, genuinely curious. “Rive Lune is tiny. Our neighbors barely know we exist, let alone what the royal family is named.”
- “A world leader was captured and a prince disappeared, Enjolras,” Combeferre said with a disapproving glance over his broken glasses. “I do read the news.”
- “So you’re a prince, Apollo,” Grantaire says. He looks terrible, Enjolras assumes that he must have put up a fight—a black eye is rising on his face, and his beloved green hoodie is torn. He’s sort of crumpled up against a wall, as if he’s tired. “You lied to us.” Enjolras shoots Cosette a look and she sighs.
- “It was necessary,” she says, with that sort of perfect assurance she learned from Valjean. “In order for Enjolras to stay alive.”
- “No, I got that,” Grantaire says. “I was just making sure we were all on the same page. What’s even your real name, then?”
- “Not Apollo,” Enjolras says, and even though this is a totally inappropriate moment for the joke, he gets a smattering of laughter.
- “Come on, seriously, we’ve been hanging out with royalty and we didn’t even know,” Courfeyrac complains. “What’s your name?”
- “Enjolras,” he said firmly. “I go by Enjolras.”
- “Gabriel Alexandrè Enjolras Apollonaire is just a lot to fit on a dotted line,” Cosette says with a sigh, leaning back against a wall. “But come on. We can work this out later.” She stretches her shoulders, down and back, to reach into her skirt waistband. “Ha!” she huffs, grinning, as she manages to pull something out. “Amateur hour. Never underestimate a nice skirt, or the girl inside it.”
- She opens her palms behind her back to show them a Swiss Army knife, and gives a pointed look at Eponine and Feuilly. Gavroche manages to wriggle a knife out of his sister’s boot, and, through a not-insignificant amount of shuffling, Musichetta produces one from Feuilly’s inner jacket pocket. Grantaire shakes his head when Cosette looks at him and makes a rueful gesture to his face with one shoulder.
- All told, it takes them about thirty minutes to get everyone free, and by the time the warehouse door swings open, they’re ready and waiting. Enjolras stands in the middle of the vast open space, hands folded behind him and his usual red jacket as neat as possible. Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Cosette are ranged around him, with the others yet a third rank around them. It has not escaped Enjolras’ attention that Grantaire has contrived to be nearest the door and armed with Cosette’s little knife, standing with the loose and ready stance of someone waiting for a fight.
- Javert and his four men are evidently expecting to face a dozen terrified kids, not a room full of stern and angry teenagers on their feet.
- “Get the prince,” Javert commands—or that’s what Enjolras thinks he’s going to say. He doesn’t really get the chance.
- “Hi,” Grantaire says, voice gravelly with rage as he appears behind Javert, the little knife pressed to the soft skin at the corner of the Inquisiteur’s jaw. “I can guarantee that I can put this through your throat before you even twitch for that gun in your shoulder holster.”
- It’s possible, Enjolras admits in the darkest corner of his mind, that he might not hate Grantaire. In fact he might be a little bit—a very tiny bit—into watching Grantaire be dark and threatening on his behalf.
- “Bon jour, Inquisiteur,” Enjolras says, offering his coldest smile. “I believe you were complaining about getting my friends caught in the crossfire. Was there more you wanted to say about that, or would you like to toss me your phone now?”
- Eponine, giving her own rather larger knife a pointed flick, smiles toothily at the closest thug. “Hey, soldier boy,” she purrs, swaying forward. “Want to dance? How much do you want to bet I could put this through you and make you like it?”
- Enjolras stands by his initial assessment: Eponine is terrifying.
- Javert gives up the phone.
- Cosette calls her father, bright and cheery on the phone, while Bahorel and Combeferre settle down to liberal use of the roll of duct tape they found lying about. Feuilly and Eponine loom with their knives on display, and Grantaire keeps his blade to Javert’s throat.
- Gavroche, exactly true to form, ignores everything going on around him and starts interrogating Enjolras about being a prince.
- All right, so the PPP isn’t totally useless. Their operatives swarm the building and take the men into custody, and Javert’s thugs are spilling their guts about the location of Javert’s boss and Queen Lamarque before they even make the door.
- “If you were waiting for an opportune moment to make a move,” Cosette murmurs behind Enjolras as Grantaire hands over Javert himself, “you’re not going to get a better one than this.”
- Eponine, being Eponine, simply stalks up to Grantaire and punches him in the kidney—it looks quite painful—and hisses, “Go be a knight in shining hoodie, you fucking dumbshit.”
- Enjolras has almost been assassinated twice in as many months and he’s pretty sure that’s supposed to make a person brave, but he’s still really relieved when Grantaire is the one to walk up to him, grin wryly, and bow from the waist.
- “At your service, Apollo,” he says, those devastating eyes peering up through his lashes.
- “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Enjolras mutters, and reaches out to grab the front of the torn hoodie and drag Grantaire into a kiss.
- “You owe me ten bucks,” he hears Bousset mutter behind him, and Joly snorts dismissively and says, “Are you kidding, you care about money right now? Enjolras just swore!”
- “You can exile them, right?” Grantaire mumbles against Enjolras’ mouth.
- “Yes,” Enjolras says, pulling back so that he can laugh. “Yes, I can exile them.”
- “Good,” Grantaire says, toying with one of Enjolras’ blond locks. “No point having a prince for a boyfriend otherwise.”
- Eponine drifts past with her siblings in tow and offers briskly, “Pretty sure he’s actually a king, but whatever.”
- Enjolras is definitely taking all of these people with him when he gets sent back to Rive Lune.
