KITTIES!!!!!!!

[A/N]

hey! sorry this chapter was so delayed I've been having some mental health issues but the new chapter is here now and that's all that matters

also, this one is dedicated to my best friend who thinks she's psychic

(ps this one is pretty long)

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"The next person to walk into through that door will die a horrible death in the next forty-eight hours," said Jehan gravely.

Cosette looked up from her book, How To Take Down The Entire Patriarchy With Your Bare Hands: A Step By Step Guide. "Why?" she asked simply.

"I have a gut feeling."

"So you're a psychic now?"

Jehan shrugged. "If that old man dies in the next forty-eight hours, then I guess so." They pointed a slender finger ridden with stack rings to the door, and Cosette followed their gaze to see the grumpy elderly Mr. Miller who lived under Enjolras and Combeferre and down the hall from Jehan and Courfeyrac. He complained about noise almost every single time they all met up in one apartment or another, no matter how close or far his flat was from theirs. Joly swore his hearing aid had been tampered with to hear a pin drop from anywhere within a three-mile radius.

"Let's hope so," Eponine scoffed from the couch. "By the way, that 'gut feeling' might just be the omelet Bousset made you this morning."

R pointed an accusing finger at her. "Bousset's omelets are all individual masterpieces that belong in the Louvre and I will not tolerate your blasphemy in my holy temple of eggs and ham." She put up her hands in mock surrender.

*

Enjolras tapped his fingers on the wooden surface of the coffee table, sighed and closed his computer, rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands in front of his mouth, stared out the window for a few moments with eyebrows knit together thoughtfully before reopening his laptop again and continuing to type away furiously.

Courfeyrac turned to Joly and whispered, "Its the fifth time he's done that exact routine today, and it's not even noon yet, which is his usual stressing hour." They were both carefully examining the blond from the safety of the kitchen threshold.

Joly raised an eyebrow. "He has a stressing schedule?"

Courf nodded. "'Ferre made a spreadsheet. Between noon and five is his most worried time period, but it usually peaks around 1:30 and goes down from there."

"I'm surprised he's not stressed later in the night," the doctor admitted. "That's usually when our meetings are.

The brunet shook his head. "Nah, that's where he feels most comfortable. It's his emotional support cafe. So, what's your diagnosis?"

Joly scrunched his nose and knit his eyebrows together, his signature thinking look. "I'd love to help, but this sounds like a psych issue. Have you tried just asking him what's up?"

Courfeyrac opened his mouth to respond but froze. "Actually, no."

"Then do that. My prescription is some TLC from one of his best friends."

"Tender Luscious Chicken?"

Joly nodded sagely. "Yes. Exactly."

Courfeyrac nodded in agreement and slowly moved from the safety of their kitchen into Enjolras's territory. He slowly approached the back of the couch, making as much noise as possible so his presence was known and he didn't scare Enjolras and end up with a pen in his eye. The brunet leaned over Enjolras's shoulder. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Eponine is having some commuting problems and asked me to help her find a new apartment closer to the city and our meetings," he muttered distractedly. Courfeyrac nodded, knowing that she usually stayed in Joly, Bousset, Musichetta, and R's apartment (which was already pretty packed as it is) after meetings that happened that ran late so as to avoid the long ride back to her and Gav's small apartment on the outskirts of the city.

Courfeyrac looked over at his computer screen and found just about eighty tabs open for apartments in their area and another sixty about other miscellaneous things. Enjolras never closed his tabs because he thought that they might come in handy some other time(as if a Wikipedia page on a long-extinct virus would ever be used in a modern day conversation. "Hey, remember that huge Rinderpest epidemic of 1890? That was wild, man.") Combeferre had tried to inform him about the system of bookmarking web pages, but Enjolras liked his chaos better. "Well, that's awfully sweet of you, Enjy," commended Courfeyrac.

Enjolras simply hummed in response. He seemed to do that often. A stranger would take it as Enjolras thinking he was too good for their time and couldn't be bothered to respond, but it was really just that he had about eighty other things running through his mind and probably forgot to pay attention to what you just said.

"But maybe," Courfeyrac continued hesitantly, "We could go get a cup of coffee down at the Musain?"

"The eight cups you've already had today not enough?" the blond chided.

Courfeyrac shook his head. "Never. Plus, we can just relax for a bit. In the words of Joly, 'Relaxation is the key to a healthy life.'"

"Joly is always stressing. That doesn't sound like him."

"Trust me, he said that."

Enjolras seemed wary but stood anyway. "Fine."

*

Cosette, Jehan, Eponine, Grantaire, and Bahorel had been loitering in the cafe all morning, which was probably against the law, but their group of delinquents wasn't exactly known for "following the rules". Cosette was asking Jehan various questions to see if they were actually psychic(and blaming the ones they got wrong on her mind not being focused enough for them to see the answer clearly) while Grantaire, Bahorel, and Eponine poked fun at the pair lovingly.

"Prouvaire, my cat is just about as psychic as you," skepticized Grantaire, taking a long sip of coffee.

"Your cat Apawllo?"

"Mhm."

Jehan tapped their index finger against their head. "I knew that because I'm psychic."

"You've literally been to our apartment thousands of times; there's no way you didn't know my cat's na-"

"I'm sensing something!" Jehan interrupted, squeezing their eyes shut and pressing their left middle finger to the corresponding temple. They opened their right eye for a split second to look out the window of the cafe before shutting it tightly again. "The next person to walk through that door will never forgive R for shattering the flower vase Gav made for him in art class."

The group turned to look at the door as the bell above it rang and Eponine stifled a chortle as Enjolras entered, Courfeyrac in tow. R narrowed his eyes. "Very funny, Prouvaire. And for your information, that was not my fault."

Courfeyrac jumped down into the side of the couch, making the old cushions ripple, as Enjolras sunk into an armchair. Jehan frowned. They spoke softly and wisely, "Enjolras, you're tense." 

Courf nodded. "Yeah, actually. That's why we came over." Cosette gasped and gently put a hand over her mouth.

"Okay, that's not fair," protested Bahorel. "Enj is always tense."

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" fretted Cosette. Enjolras looked over at his half-sister. All of Les Amis knew that she was the only one who could get away with calling him nicknames like that. Courfeyrac had called him Honeybuns once during a meeting and ended up with an eyepatch for a week after Enjolras threw a grape directly into his eye. The man's aim was impeccable and the instance had been used as a cautionary tale ever since. Upon hearing it for the first time, Grantaire, of course, swore he doubted it ever even happened, but despite his claims, he coincidentally gave up the nickname "Apollo" for the next few days. But Lord knows he was all too fond of it and picked it back up within the week. All of Les Amis wondered how he'd avoided getting shot by Enjolras because of the nickname, but then again, they wondered that about a lot of things.

The blond man spread his palms as if showcasing the fact that he had nothing to hide. "Everything's fine."

"That's your response to literally everything," Bahorel ever-so-kindly pointed out. "'Hey, Enjolras, how's your master's degree going?' 'Enjolras, why are you in a holding cell?' 'Hey, why is your apartment on fire?'"

"Is this about my apartment?" Eponine asked softly. "I told you that you could look around when you got to it," she reminded him. Anyone who knew Eponine knew she was never one to stir up trouble and she absolutely loathed doing anything that caused other people inconvenience. Bousset always joked that she was too unproblematic to be hanging around with troublemakers like them.

Enjolras opened his mouth to respond, but something outside the cafe piqued his curiosity. He stood quickly and walked over to a floor-to-ceiling window on the wall opposite of his armchair, narrowly avoiding a distracted collision with the coffee table. Pulling back the beaded curtain, he knitted his brows together in a concoction of confusion and concentration. Courfeyrac jumped up and joined him. "What? Is that shirtless biker out again?" he asked a little too eagerly.

"No, he rides on Tuesdays and Thursdays around five and Saturdays at three. It's Sunday," reasoned Cosette, taking a place next to Enjolras and following his gaze.

R sighed and joined them at the window as well solely because of mob mentality and took a long deliberate sip from his coffee mug. "You guys need a life."

"Two ambulances headed down Maiden." Enjolras pointed out the window down to where the vehicles were blaring their sirens and racing each other down the street like some sort of medical care drag race.

Cosette frowned. "Isn't that the way to our building?"

*

Jehan whimpered softly through the hand covering their mouth as the paramedics rolled Mr. Miller's corpse out of the apartment lobby. Gently rubbing their shoulder blade, Courfeyrac looked over at Cosette, who was just as bewildered. "Jehan, you were right," she muttered incredulously.

"They said it was a heart attack," reasoned R, who was leaning against the doorframe. "He'd been having problems for years; this was a long time coming."

Eponine snorted. "Well, whatever caused it, I'm praising every God in existence. We can finally play Drunk Scrabble in peace." They'd had to put a pause on their fun drinking game because whenever he got drunk, Bahorel got deafeningly loud and Mr. Miller came storming down the hallway, shouting about them "ruining his viewing of Jeopardy." Courfeyrac and Eponine theorized that he had a secret crush on Alex Trebek.

"This is no laughing matter," Cosette gently scolded.

"If Bousset was here, he'd back me up."

Cosette scanned the room quickly. "Where even is he?"

"It's March, remember?" R provided unhelpfully, as he often did.

"So?"

"The flu." Every year without fail, in early March Bousset contracted a case of influenza, no matter how many times he was vaccinated. Musichetta and Joly had their respective jobs with Musichetta taking care of him(but rather than doing this, she often just invited Cosette over and they watched the Bachelor and cleared their fridge of low-calorie sorbet) and Joly stealing medicine from the hospital so they didn't have to pay for the doctor's visit and prescriptions.

Enjolras cast one more glance out to the ambulance before turning to their quite distressed-looking landlady, Madame Hucheloup. "Does this mean his apartment is for rent?"

*

"I predict that Enjolras is gonna lay down a word about politics at some point during this game."

R threw a bottle cap at Jehan's head as he walked by where they were lying on the floor, the small piece of metal barely making an impact as they quickly turned their cheek to avoid a head-on collision. "I'm being ATTACKED," they accused.

"If he ever shows up," commented Cosette, poking at the second A tile in the word "CATASTROPHIC", laid down by Combeferre, as one could infer by the nature of the word. "Whose turn is it?"

In truth, only whoever you worship could've known. Most of these nights went on like the following: "Hey, I haven't gone in a while." "I guess it's your turn, then."

"I'll go," said Courf. Carefully laying down each tile, Courfeyrac spelled out the word 'bootylicious'.

"I don't think that counts as a word," Combeferre ever-so-kindly pointed out.

"Oh, so you're allowed to put down eight different species of moths but I can't put down one iconic Destiny's Child lyric?"

Successfully breaking up a petty argument before it started, Enjolras came through the door. 

"Enj, you're late," R scolded smugly.

Enjolras simply ignored him as he always did when he was being insufferable. He sat down in the dirt brown eye-sore of an armchair across from the couch Eponine was relaxing on, leaning forward in the chair and resting his forearms on his knees. "So, turns out the apartment below me and Ferre is now out for rent. I asked Mrs. Hucheloupe to see if we could tour it tomorrow."

Eponine grinned widely. "Enj, you're the best."

"E and E, house hunters," Courfeyrac narrated. "You two should start a show on HGTV."

R rolled his eyes. "Are we gonna get wasted and play 80s boardgames or what?"

*

Madame Hucheloupe opened the door to apartment 24b, sporting a cheek-splitting grin. "Enjolras, darling!"

Enjolras smiled charmingly back. "Madame," he greeted, nodding to her. She reached up quickly and pinched his cheek. Enjolras opened his mouth to object, but she was faster than him. Eponine bit her lip to stifle a laugh. When she recounted this story to Grantaire later, there would be no way he'd believe she'd witnessed such an iconic event.

The woman retracted her hand and looked over to her favorite tenant's companion. "And you must be Eponine." Eponine nodded.

The plump woman briskly stepped aside. "Come in, come in." The pair did as they were told and made their way into the homey apartment. It was just as big as all of her friends' --three rooms exempting the two bathrooms--, but this one had none of their quirky flea market furniture finds; the living room they walked into included an antique coffee table and two old armchairs that were upholstered with the same pattern that you'd find at your grandmother's house. The walls were decorated with paintings of cats just detailed enough to make them questionable. It didn't take a genius to know that the room was still furnished with all of Mr. Miller's old furniture.

They took a tour through the apartment led by Madame Hucheloupe, seeing the small kitchenette attached to the living room by an open doorframe, the master bedroom, a second bedroom Eponine decided she would use for Gavroche, and the two bathrooms, one off of the living room and another connecting the two bedrooms.

"Well, I'll leave you two to talk about it," Madame Hucheloupe said hopefully as they reentered the master bedroom.

Enjolras nodded. "Thank you." She nodded to the blond man before stepping out back into the living room.

Eponine plopped down on the mahogany canopy bed, spreading her limbs out while Enjolras stood at the foot of it, clearly satisfied with his work as a house hunter. "Well?"

"It definitely needs a makeover- what is up with those cats?"

Enjolras shrugged. "He was an interesting man. I think he was into taxidermy or something like that."

Eponine gagged. "Well, other than that, I think this is my new apartment!" she said excitedly, flashing a toothy grin.

Enjolras smiled widely, his blue eyes getting the familiar sparkle they always did when things went his way. "That's amazing," he said warmly, already grabbing the door handle to go find Madame Hucheloupe. Eponine got up from her comfortable bed cocoon and following him. Enjolras had a certain quality about him that made people want to follow him; whether you called it "leadership" or just "being bossy".

As she walked past, Eponine gazed around the bedroom full of weird keepsakes. Suddenly, when he reached the doorway, Enjolras stopped dead in his tracks, making the distracted Eponine slam straight into his back. She let out a sound of surprise and looked over his shoulder, seeing a bitterly familiar face.

In the living room, sweetly chatting up Madame Hucheloupe was one of Eponine's father's associates. She recognized him well -- he wore messy raven hair that paired well with his tanned brown skin. His venomous wit was sharper than his jawline, Eponine could guarantee you that much. He could only be described as pretty, plain as day. Not so much handsome, his features were too dainty. However, anyone who'd happened to get on his bad side knew that the adjective "dainty" did not exactly apply to his uppercut.

Eniolras craned his neck back over to Eponine, not taking his eyes off of the stranger standing in what he was now calling Eponine's living room. "Who is that?"

"Montparnasse," she growled.

The man in question smiled broadly. "Eponine." He spoke not in a friendly way, but not unfriendly either. He sounded indifferent like he was simply acknowledging that she was in the room, glowering at him from the doorway of the bedroom, and wasn't all too bothered by it. "Wonderful to see you again, darling."

"You two know each other?" Madame Hucheloupe asked.

"She's an old friend." Eponine visibly grimaced at his choice of words.

"Madame?" Enjolras asked.

The stout woman looked up. "Yes?"

"What is he doing here?"

Madame Hucheloupe laughed softly. "This charming young man is here to look at the apartment as well."

"But-!"

"Is there a problem?" she asked sternly.

Enjolras took a step back, his posture shrinking out of its defensive stance. "No, ma'am."

Eponine let out a chortle, but as the landlady's gaze turned to fix on her, she disguised her laughter as a painfully obvious fake sneeze. "Allergies," explained she.

"We're just a little concerned that he might not feel comfortable living here," Enjolras stated.

His ability to lie that seamlessly was significantly frightening to Eponine, but nevertheless, she played along. "Oh, yes."

"And why is that?" Montparnasse interrogated.

"Well, you'd be living right underneath me and Combeferre."

"So?"

Enjolras opened his mouth to respond but seemed to be at a loss, so Eponine scurried to his rescue. "They're sadists."

"Absolute sadists," agreed Enjolras, shaking his head.

"Yeah, the man who used to live here had a hamster he loved to death." Enjolras nodded in agreement, despite having absolutely no idea where she was going with this. "Like, seriously, he would've married that thing if he could've. And then Enj's roommate threw it off the fire escape."

Enjolras turned to Eponine wearing a simultaneously incredulous and exasperated expression. "He-?" Eponine interrupted him with a glare as if to say, Do you want him out of here or not? "He did."

Montparnasse turned to the landlady next to him, his expression holding an exceeding amount of doubt. "And you let this happen in your building?"

She simply shrugged. "It wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen here." Governing a group of rather eccentric political activists was a tiring task for a woman of her age, but watching them live their lives and being apart of it was the most fulfilling feeling. She had nothing but full confidence that they would change the world. And if that came with sadism and throwing old men's pets off fire escapes, so be it.

Eponine concluded her lengthy spout with, "So, yeah, you don't wanna live here."

"Sadism doesn't personally bother me," Montparnasse shrugged and turned to Madame Hucheloupe "Shall we go see about that offer?" he asked, taking her grubby hand a gently placing a kiss on her knuckles. She grinned and nodded, following him out of the apartment door.

After the slam of the door, the room was quiet for a moment, Eponine left in shock and fury, Enjolras lost in thought before the latter turned to the former. "Sadists?" he asked incredulously.

*

"What in science's name are you doing?"  cried Combeferre, almost dropping his cinnamon latte. He'd just come from a coffee run to Café Musian, only to find Cosette standing outside of a dumpster, filming Jehan diving inside and posting it on her Snapchat.

The blonde woman whipped around. "Jehan got a premonition that there's something valuable somewhere in this dumpster."

"I swear to God if I hear one more word about these premonitions of yours," a voice exclaimed from above. Jehan stopped knee deep in garbage and looked up at Eponine, leaning out of R's window and calling down to them.

Jehan cupped their hands around their mouth. "Fine, then don't come running back to me when I find a million dollar lottery ticket in here!" they called up.

"Will you share it with me?" Cosette asked sweetly.

Jehan turned to their companion with a determined look. "Cosette, darling, you're an angel and you deserve everything in the world. Of course, I will share it with you."

"You better give me some too!" Courfeyrac shouted from his window, a floor above Grantaire's that Eponine was leaning out of and two windows to the right.

Craning her neck to look up at the new addition to their conversation, she called up, "I thought you were looking for jobs today?"

"Yeah, I was, but then I got bored."

"Oh, so then you're free to babysit Gavroche today?"

Courf inhaled sharply through his teeth. "Uh..."

"Woah, I thought I was babysitting Gav today?" asked Bahorel's gruff voice from below.

"Honestly, I kind of trust Courfeyrac more than you," she said bluntly.

Bahorel gasped, scandalized. "What?! I'm amazing with kids!"

"When you babysat for Mrs. Marchand you drew angry eyebrows on her eight-month-old in Sharpie."

"R came over and we thought it'd be funny."

Grantaire squeezed into the window frame next to Eponine. "Don't you drag me into this!"

Courfeyrac peered down at his significant other buried in garbage. "Jehan, is that your new sundress? You're gonna ruin it!"

The genderless entity in question looked down at their white flowy dress covered in a yellow, pink, and green floral print as well as weeks-old trash and shrugged. "It'll survive." They continued to dig through the dumpster and let out a sound of surprise upon finding something moving between the black garbage bags. They thrust their hands down into the abyss of terrible and unidentifiable smells before retrieving a scrawny brown cat covered in matted taupe fur, peering angrily up at Jehan through its eyes -- one green and one blue. Cosette gasped. "CAN WE KEEP IT?!" Jehan yelled up.

"My sweet Domino's two-for-one deal, you know I'm allergic to things that smell like my dead gay grandfather."

Combeferre peered up at Courfeyrac. "What does gay smell like?"

"Like updog," responded Courfeyrac without missing a beat.

Combeferre, however, was only more confused. "What's updog?"

"Oh, God, no," R muttered.

Courfeyrac took a deep breath. The moment he'd been preparing for since he'd met Combeferre had finally arrived. "NOT MUCH, WHAT'S UP WITH YOU?" he yelled down.

Bahorel started yelling, Grantaire pretended to shoot Courfeyrac and then himself, and Eponine shook her head sorrowfully as Combeferre stared at the brick wall, absolutely and utterly destroyed.

*

"Baby, please, get that thing out of here," Courfeyrac's disembodied voice begged from the bedroom where he'd barricaded himself from the foul beast in their living room.

"But he's so cute!" begged Jehan, giggling as it licked their hand while Cosette ran a delicate hand over the mangy alley cat's back. Enjolras, lost in thought, stared at the feline from his seat across the coffee table where it was perched. The cat seemed to notice and flicked its tail at the man, who flinched gently.

Joly frowned from his perch on the back of the couch. "Guys, Courf's right. He could die."

"You don't want the love of your life to die, do you, Jehan?" Courfeyrac's voice called.

"Courfeyrac, there's no way this cat will die on my watch."

Courf put a hand over his now aching heart. "Ouch."

"Plus, we have no idea where this thing has been. It's probably carrying all kinds of diseases," reasoned Combeferre.

Eponine gently scooped up the cat in her arms. "Maybe its time we take him back to his home. I'm sure he likes it better in his garbage can."

Jehan bit their bottom rosy lip. "Can I at least visit him?"

Eponine smiled softly. "Yes, Jehan, you can." She started toward the door, but the cat let out a squeal of protest and flicked its tail, so she retraced her steps and the stray leaped out of her arms and pranced over to Enjolras, rubbing its head against the leg of Enjolras's pants, the taupe fur sticking to the corduroy fabric.

"Aw, he likes you!" gushed Cosette.

Enjolras just picked it up, letting it purr softly against his chest. "Let's go," he said to Eponine, his voice far too serious for a man cradling a cat in his arms like a baby. Eponine followed him out the door and in a few moments they were walking out of the complex just as an unfortunately familiar face rounded the corner.

Montparnasse's eyes flicked down to the cat and his smug expression changed entirely as he stumbled back several steps. "Keep that thing away from me!" he yelled threateningly.

Enjolras looked around and then down at the cat. "This thing?" He extended his arms out toward Montparnasse so as to gesture to the feline, which only made the man recoil back farther.

"I'm serious!"

The corners of Eponine's mouth slowly upturned into an unabashed grin. "You're afraid of cats?"

The man in question's shoulders visibly tensed up and he quickly cleared his throat. "I have to go," he brashly stated. "I have a meeting with Madame Hucheloupe." As he briskly made his way through the doors of the apartment building, Enjolras and Eponine exchanged devious glances.

*

Cosette craned her neck up to the painted wooden sign above, "Madame Arcadia's Psychic Readings."

Jehan knitted their eyebrows together. Courfeyrac had kicked him out of the apartment until he'd sworn off all this "psychic" nonsense. He said that he liked it at first, but now it was going too far.

Any normal person who'd heard that a twenty-something was being kicked out of their apartment by their boyfriend would be worried about their safety and pity them, but Les Amis were far from normal. They knew Jehan and Courf too well to believe that Courf would keep his door shut all night or that Jehan wouldn't drop his "gift" within two seconds. "She sounds trustworthy," Prouvaire admitted. "Maybe she can give me answers about my gift," they mused solemnly.

Cosette pushed open the door and held it open for her clairvoyant companion. Right as they walked through, they were met with a bead curtain in the threshold that caught strands of Cosette's hair in it, pulling them out of her neat low ponytail.

The door opened straight into a cozy, quaint living room full of mismatched furniture including secondary-colored armchairs surrounding an old mahogany coffee table littered with tarot cards and teacups surrounding a cheesy purple crystal ball. The windows on each wall were covered in sheer purple fabrics pinned above the frames in the place of curtains. A woman was standing in the middle of the room, tidying up her stack of tarot cards, and looked up at the sound of her plastic beads clicking together. Her face brightened in surprise upon seeing new customers.

The woman quickly ran to them, shoving them down into the lumpy couch opposite the two armchairs on the other side of the coffee table, muttering greetings and pleasantries. She plopped down in one of the armchairs, her long, flowy maxi skirt fanning out around her on the seat. "Welcome, welcome, darlings." Jehan grinned.

Cosette cleared her throat. "We're here because-"

The woman cut her off with a harsh shush as she waved her hand around as if to wave her statement away. "I know why you're here."

Jehan leaned forward, their eyes brightening. "You do?"

Madame Arcadia looked up and faltered. "Yes, I do... but you two seem very excited to tell me, so I'll let you explain."

"Well," began Jehan, "I've been having some psychic premonitions lately, and I don't know what to do about them."

The clairvoyant frowned. "What makes you think you have to do anything about them?" She leaned across the table and clasped their hands in her bony ones. "Powers like ours are a gift, my dear. They let you view into the spirit realm! You can see the future! You can do things other humans only dream of!"

"Yeah, but I went dumpster diving the other day and my boyfriend threatened to break up with me."

She snapped her fingers. "Yes, I had a feeling you had recently been in contact with trash!" Jehan exchanged an excited look with Cosette. Madame Arcadia cleared her throat and leaned forward. "Darling, what I suggest you do is perform a ritual that is sacred to us psychics."

Jehan's eyes widened. "How do I do that?" they asked, enthralled.

*

Madame Hucheloupe pushed open the door to apartment 24b in one broad gesture. ". . . And right this way to sign the papers . . ." she started, holding open the door for Montparnasse, who nodded in thanks, before yelping as he felt a furry tail wrap around his ankle. He jolted his leg back, violently brushing cat hair off of his pants.

Madame Hucheloupe gasped. There were just about fifteen cats all lounging on the late Mr. Miller's furniture, successfully covering it all with a layer of cat hair. "Oh, someone must have left the window open, and let all the strays in!"

As if they had been waiting down the hall all day to hear Montparnasse enter the apartment and freak out about all of their furry feline friends, which definitely was not what they were doing, Enjolras and Eponine came hurrying down the hall. "We heard a high-pitched scream and thought a girl scout was in trouble!" exclaimed Eponine, earning a death glare from Montparnasse.

"How did this happen?" He jabbed an accusatory finger through the doorway. Enjolras peeked his head through the door to examine the situation he was totally seeing for the first time.

"I mean, we get a lot of stray cats around here, this is New York," he pointed out. "They're always looking for a warm place to stay, so if you so much as leave a window cracked, you're bound to get maybe . . ." he paused, looking to Eponine for confirmation, "twenty? Thirty?" Montparnasse visibly flinched at this.

Ponine nodded. "That sounds about right."

Montparnasse turned to Madame Hucheloupe, who nodded sagely. He sighed gruffly. "You know what? I know you two are trying to drive me out of the apartment," he pointed a finger at Enjolras and Eponine, who put their hands over their hearts as if to say 'I would never!' "Well, I wouldn't want to live in the same building as someone so selfish!" He jabbed his finger at Enjolras, whose eyes widened. "You can have it!" Without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed down the hallway.

The apartment was silent for a few moments, except for the soft mewing of a few cats. Eponine frowned and turned to Enjolras. "Now I feel kinda bad." He gave her a look of sympathy, which shattered in a matter of seconds as the three dissolved into loud laughter.

"Oh, God, I'm so glad he's gone," breathed out Eponine through cackles.

*

Madame Arcadia, Cosette, and Grantaire watched silently as Jehan sat in the grass in Central Park, surrounded by several freshly-harvested herbs they'd ground up with a marble mortar and pestle and several crystals of varying abilities, and one of Madame's old spellbooks, containing an incantation that they were muttering to themself whilst sprinkling the crushed herbs around his little patch of grass.

"Is this really gonna work?" R asked Madame Arcadia, not taking his eyes off of Jehan.

She leaned in toward the skeptic. "Well, it's kind of like a placebo. If he believes his powers are gone, they will be."

R raised an eyebrow. "So, you're like the Wizard of Oz for lunatics?"

Madame Arcadia scoffed. "I guess you could call me that."

*

A few days later, Enjolras walked excitedly into Eponine's new apartment, not even bothering to knock. He was immediately met with around seventy unpacked boxes and only one piece of furniture: a couch Eponine covered in forty cats purring softly and rubbing on her sat on.

He knit his eyebrows together. "I thought you said you were going to get rid of those cats?"

Eponine nodded solemnly. "Yeah, but then one of them rubbed my hand and so now they're all my children."

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[A/N]

every single person who sees this click on this paragraph and comment "egg noodles are disgusting" im trying to prove a point to a friend