Work Text:
Cosette was nervous.
Prom was only a month away, and she did not yet have everything in order. Her father had purchased her an exquisite gown, floor-length and blue. He had refused to buy her anything shorter, but this was nothing new for her. She withstood it all without complaint; she loved her father, and though he was at times overprotective and too conservative for her liking, he loved her with all of his heart.
In fact, her father had helped her with almost every stage of her prom planning. She convinced him that a hair and nails appointment the day-of was a necessity, definitely more of a necessity than attending class that day. It took some wheedling, but he finally agreed.
There was just one issue that remained, and that was her date.
It was Éponine Thenardiér who approached Cosette. Though Cosette had originally been wary of her and Éponine did not excel at school the way Cosette did, the two bonded after being paired up in their visual arts class. Cosette admired her sense of raw determination; she had never met such a strong-willed individual. Her clothes were often old; Cosette could tell she got most of them secondhand. She knew Éponine skipped lunch more often than she ate it. Despite all that, though, she faced every day with a determination Cosette had not found in anybody else.
Moreover, Cosette knew just how enamored Éponine was with her. It didn’t take Cosette long to notice the way Éponine lit up at the beginning of their art class, or her rapt attention when she talked about things she knew would bore others. She never seemed to tire of listening to Cosette, who could often be pig-headed and stubborn, rambling to Eponine about the trivial details of her day, and minor arguments with others.
Cosette was the only one of them who had been openly queer. Though she had briefly dated a young man in her grade, her position on her school’s GSA’s executive council raised questions about her sexuality. She spoke up angrily in class whenever anybody said anything homophobic and was well-known for her stubbornness and outspokenness. She had never attempted to hide her bisexuality, but rather wore it loud and proud.
She was unsure about Éponine though, and did not want to damage their friendship and class partnership by asking, lest Éponine think she was coming on to her.
So, three weeks before prom, when Éponine asked her to be her date, Cosette was over the moon.
They had mutually decided that prom would be their first date. They would continue to see each other in class and text after school, when Cosette went home and Éponine went to work, but they would not see each other outside of school until that night.
But she would have to tell her father of her date.
The butterflies in her stomach from Éponine mixed with the growing anxiety of telling her father about her, and Cosette thought of little else as she walked home from school.
She kicked off her shoes soon after walking in the door. “Papa,” she called. “Papa, I’m home!” She dropped her bag next to her shoes and walked into the kitchen, where her father was seated behind his laptop at the kitchen table. He looked over the top of his laptop and gave her a warm smile as he greeted her.
Cosette opened the fridge and stood in front of it dumbly; she stared at its contents as if searching for the right way to approach him about her date. Eventually she shut the fridge loudly without taking anything from it, and sat down across the table from her father.
He closed his laptop and smiled at her again. “How was school, sweetheart?”
Cosette managed a smile. “It was fine, papa. I was wondering if we could talk about,” she paused to swallow. “Prom.”
His brow furrowed, noting Cosette’s concern. “Of course.”
Cosette took a breath. “I got asked to prom by somebody today,” she said, slowly.
“Oh, yes? By whom?” Cosette desperately wanted to read the expression on his face, but had instead taken to staring down at the table.
“My partner in visual art,” she started. “Éponine, Éponine Thénardier.”
Her father did not respond. Cosette’s heart sank. Finally, she lifted her head to see a look of grim shock on his face.
“What name did you say?”
“Éponine Thénardier,” she repeated.
Her father froze. Cosette waited.
“What about that boy, Marius?” He inquired.
“What?" Cosette yelled. "You hated Marius! You went on and on and on about how little you liked him, how little you liked the idea of me dating him!”
“You were fifteen, Cosette,” he countered. “That was too young to be dating. But now you’re 17, and he’s a nice boy, from a good family, and,”
Cosette cut him off. “God, I knew you would do this!” She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, not being able to contain herself to the chair any longer. She began to pace around the small kitchen.
“Cosette, do not take -”
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, yes, papa, I know!” She stopped and turned to him. “I knew this would be how you reacted. Yeah, you say you’re fine with me helping out the GSA, you’re fine when I came out to you, but that’s when it was only a theoretical possibility of me dating a woman, right?”
“It’s not about that,” her father said, his voice growing loud and stern, but falling short of shouting. “You know I love you, you know I don’t care that you’re,”
“Ha! ‘Don’t care’, he says! No, definitely don’t go to prom with this Éponine! Why not with that boy Marius?” Cosette brought her hands to her scalp, bunching up her hair in fists. “You don’t even know her, you don’t know,”
It was Cosette’s turn to be cut off.
“Enough,” her father all but shouted, now also rising from the table. “You are not going to prom with this Éponine Thénardier, and that’s that.”
“Papa,” she started.
“Enough!”
Cosette let out a frustrated yell and left the kitchen, grabbing her backpack on her way up to her room. She slammed the door, then immediately regretted it; it was a childish action, and she was too old for that. She flung herself on her bed dramatically nonetheless, and sobbed into her pillow.
***
Several hours later, a firm knock on her bedroom door woke Cosette from a nap she hadn’t intended to take.
“Cosette,” her father’s voice rang through the door. “Cosette, dinner’s ready.”
“I’m not hungry!” Cosette shouted back. She was lying; it was now almost seven, and she hadn’t eaten since just before noon. She heard a long sigh through the door, and then footsteps descending the stairs.
Cosette pulled out her phone to text Éponine about the afternoon’s events.
***
An hour later, Cosette finally went downstairs, her backpack slung over her shoulder. She found her father in the living room, reading.
“I’m going out,” she stated, simply.
She saw her father eye the backpack. “For the night?”
“Yes.”
“To see whom?”
“My friends,” Cosette replied curtly.
Her father let out a resigned sigh, then glanced at his phone, checking the time. “No parties,”
“Yes, papa.”
“No drinking.”
“Yes, papa.”
Cosette turned around to slip on her shoes. With one hand on the doorknob, about to leave, she turned back to her father, who had returned to his book.
“I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon,” she said, trying to sound calm. She was angry with him, but didn’t want to leave on a bad note. “I love you.”
She hurried out the door before she could hear him respond.
***
Éponine finished work that night at nine; when she left the chain restaurant she worked at, she found Cosette waiting for her, as they had planned over text.
Cosette tried to hide her puffy eyes. Éponine just regarded her, sadly.
“Are you,” Éponine started, awkwardly. “Do you want, should I,”
“Let’s go get ice cream,” Cosette blurted. “My treat.”
Éponine stared at her, and then smiled. “Sure thing.”
Realizing there weren’t any ice cream stores within walking distance, they settled on buying a couple ice cream bars from a variety store. They walked through the city, Cosette filling Éponine in on the details of the fight with her father, Eponine in turn complaining about the customers she dealt with at work. They continued until they came to a public park. By now, the sun had set, and the park was empty.
“Come on,” Cosette said, smiling. She grabbed Éponines hand, then began running toward the playground equipment. Eponine laughed as she followed her. Cosette climbed on top of one of the roofed parts of the playground, and pulled Eponine up next to her.
“This is so stupid,” Cosette started, “but I love this park so much. Papa would bring me here all the time when I was little, they’re some of my best memories from being a kid.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Éponine replied quietly.
“He’s not really my father, you know,” Cosette stated. “We don’t really talk about it, but I know he isn’t. I remember living with other people when I was very young, but I don’t remember who they were. I don’t think they were my parents either. I think I was very unhappy, though, so papa came to take me away.”
“You don’t remember them?” Éponine asked. “The people who took care of you before your dad?”
“I remember being unhappy, but that’s it,” Cosette responded. She looked up at the stars, as if she might fight an answer there. “I must have been very young. I don’t think I had even started school yet.”
“But you’re happy with your dad?”
“Oh, yes!” Cosette exclaimed. “I know he loves me, and he probably spoils me more than he should. I couldn’t ask for a better father, but sometimes I wish he wasn’t so strict.” Cosette sighed. “Like right now.”
“Like right now,” Éponine repeated.
“What about you?” Cosette asked. “What are your parents like?”
“Idiots and thieves,” Éponine blurted. She sighed, and Cosette gave her a strange look.
“Promise not to tell anyone?” Éponine pleaded.
“Promise.”
“I’m emancipated,” Éponine said. “Since I was fifteen. They’re crooks, both of them. I hate them, and I don’t think they ever loved me. They never seem to end up in jail, though, but apparently it was bad enough that the judge thought I’d be better on my own.”
Cosette just stared at her.
“I live alone, but they have to pay for my rent and all that until I turn eighteen, which isn’t until this November,” she continued. She seemed unsure of herself. “I pay for everything else, though, like groceries and clothes and my phone. It’s hard, but it’s better than living there.”
“Oh, Éponine!” Cosette cried. “I didn’t know, I had no idea, I’m so sorry, I must sound absurd, complaining about papa when,”
Éponine cut her off with a kiss, and it startled Cosette such that she almost fell right off the playground.
“Don’t,” Éponine pleaded. “It doesn’t matter, it still sucks about your dad.”
Cosette was just staring at her again.
“What are we gonna do about prom, though?” Éponine asked.
“I want to go with you,” Cosette said quietly. “I don’t want to go if I’m not going with you.”
“But your dad,”
“I’ll handle it,” Cosette said. “He’ll come around.”
Éponine looked at her, worriedly.
“Maybe we should make a plan just in case he doesn’t,” Cosette admitted.
“Yeah.”
***
The plan was to sneak back into Cosette’s house that night, and, without alerting her father, retrieve her dress, shoes and jewelry she had gotten ready for prom. She would hide them at Éponine’s apartment. She would tell her father she no longer planned to go to prom at all, since she could not go with Eponine. If that did not convince him to let her go, she would simply lie and say she was going to attend class that day while instead taking the day off, as the rest of her classmates did, to get ready for prom.
Of course, she would text him after school, saying she was going, so he wouldn’t worry.
But not until he wasn’t able to stop her anymore.
Cosette jumped down from the playground, and again helped Éponine climb down. They both had their heavy backpacks with them -- Cosette’s with her overnight stuff, Eponine’s with her school books and work uniform -- but they figured the situation was desperate enough that they could manage a third bag between them.
It was nearly midnight by the time Cosette got home. They snuck in the gate through the back yard, the sliding door being by several degrees quieter than the front door. It meant jumping a fence while both holding their backpacks, but they managed all right.
WIth a hand on the handle of the sliding door, Cosette glanced at Éponine, placing a finger to her lips. She slid open the door slowly, and they tiptoed inside.
Cosette could see the light on in the basement, which puzzled her. Her father was usually asleep well before midnight, and she felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps he was upset enough about their fight that he had been unable to sleep and had decided to watch TV instead. She strained her ears, and indeed, heard the sound of the TV from the floor below.
She let out a quiet sigh before pulling her phone from her pocket. She turned it on and shone it at the floor, lighting their way through the kitchen and living room, then up the stairs to her bedroom. They tiptoed, but the house was old; Cosette cursed every creak of the steps as they made their way upstairs.
“Your house is nice,” Éponine whispered.
Cosette smiled at her as they reached the top of the stairs. They walked into Cosette’s room, and, figuring it would be too hard to find everything in the dark, and since her father was in the basement anyway, turned on the light.
Éponine lit up almost as brightly as the room had. She let out a silent exclamation as she looked around at Cosette’s bedroom, and began admiring the pictures that hung in frames around the room. Most of them were of Cosette and her father, but she had a few of her and some of her classmates.
Cosette stood at her closet, then stole a glance at Éponine. She had been frustrated about breaking their pact not to see each other outside of school before prom, but Cosette had scarcely adored anyone the way she adored Eponine in that moment. When Eponine looked like she might turn around, Cosette quickly turned back to the closet, opening the door as quietly as she could.
She grabbed the large garment bag that held her dress and the shoebox with her new high heels, and tossed them on the bed. She grabbed the jewelry from the decorative box she kept on her dresser and grabbed an old gym bag from her closet. She winced at the thought of having to fold her dress and squish it into such a bag, but she reasoned she might have no other choice.
After managing to fit everything into the gym bag, Cosette and Éponine walked quietly from Cosette’s room, closing the door as quietly as they could manage. They tiptoed back down the steps, Cosette lighting the way with her phone and Eponine managing the extra bag.
They had just turned into the living when the side of the gym bag hit a shelf Cosette’s father had set up and adorned with various decorations and photos. Cosette froze in fear and heard Éponine curse under her breath as a picture frame fell to the floor, shattering. They looked back at each other, Eponine pleading silently with her eyes for Cosette to forgive her, and Cosette too struck to do much of anything.
Before they could react at all, they heard footsteps rumbling up the staircase from the basement. Cosette shut her eyes, bracing herself for her father’s reaction.
“Police!” A voice called. Cosette could see the light in the living room turn on through her eyelids. “You’ve picked -” the voice faltered. “Cosette? Jean, it’s -- it’s not burglars, it’s just Cosette!”
In her state of panic, Cosette had failed to notice the unfamiliarity of the voice. As it paused, she heard a second set of footsteps climbing the stairs. She turned toward the voice, opening her eyes to see a tall, thin man in jeans and an undershirt staring dumbly at her.
“How do you,” Cosette started, before her father joined the man at the top of the stairs. His hair was a mess, and Cosette noted that his shirt had been buttoned incorrectly.
“Cosette, what are you doing?” He snapped.
Cosette looked from her father to the man, then back to her father. “What are you doing?”
“Maybe we should all sit down,” the man suggested. He seemed to be eying both Cosette and her father warily. “Jean, where’s the light to the kitchen?”
Cosette could hear her father fuming as he turned on the light to the kitchen. He looked at Cosette and Éponine both, then nodded to the table. “Sit down.”
The man looked warily back at her father. “Jean, maybe I should go.”
“Don’t you dare,” her father snapped at the same time Cosette yelled, “No, nu uh!”
He looked as if he was about to protest, then took a seat at the table as well.
Cosette heard her father let out a deep sigh. He was still standing in the kitchen, staring at the three of them at the table, none of them looking at each other. “Can I get anybody anything to drink?” He asked, awkwardly; the struggle for composure was evident in his voice.
“I’ll have a water, please,” Éponine said quietly. Cosette kicked her under the table, and the other man shot her a surprised glance. Cosette watched something in his expression change as he regarded Eponine, but could not quite place it.
Nonetheless, Cosette’s father sat down at the table a moment later with a glass of water for Éponine. She thanked him quietly.
“Éponine Thénardier, I presume?” Cosette’s father asked.
She nodded slightly, looking down at the table as Cosette had earlier.
“I’m Ultime Fauchelevent, Cosette’s father.” He glanced at the man while he said it.
“Thénardier,” the other man said slowly. He glanced back at Éponine. “As in?”
“Yes, officer, those Thénardiers,” Éponine stammered, cutting him off. She sighed. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your uniform, Monsieur Javert.”
Cosette looked around wildly. “Does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Language,” her father admonished.
Cosette made an indignant noise, then looked at the man Éponine had called Javert. She then turned to Eponine. “You know this man?”
Éponine looked at Javert slowly, then back at Cosette. “Yeah. He’s a cop, I’ve seen him a few times, usually trying to arrest my parents.”
“Police officer,” Javert corrected. “And as far as your parents go,”
Éponine cut him off again. “I know. Cheats and thieves. I moved out.”
Cosette’s head was spinning. She looked at Javert and then at her father, whose head was in his hands. “And I take it you two are sleeping together?”
Her father yelled “Cosette!” while Javert said, “yes.” Cosette heard Éponine giggle.
“So I’m not allowed to take a girl to prom, but as soon as I leave the house you invite your boyfriend over?” Cosette yelled.
“Cosette,” her father started, but if he had something to say, he lost it.
“Well?” Cosette demanded.
He looked up at her, slowly. “It isn’t because she’s a girl,” he said, softly. “It’s her parents. I know these people, Cosette, they’re,"
Before he could finish, Javert let out a short, sharp laugh that made Cosette jump. “Bit hypocritical coming from you,” he said.
Cosette felt the table shake, she imagined her father had kicked Javert.
“I moved out,” Éponine repeated quietly.
“They’re what?” Cosette demanded. “How do you know them? What does he mean, ‘a bit hypocritical?’”
“Do you remember anything from before I became your papa, Cosette?” her father asked, slowly.
Cosette regarded him. In Cosette’s 17 years of life, they had not yet spoken of it. “I remember being unhappy.”
“Éponine’s parents had taken you in as a foster child,” he said, slowly.
Everyone turned to stare at her father.
“I imagine you’re too young to remember much of it, Cosette, but they’re terrible people,” her father repeated. He looked apologetically at Éponine. “When I heard the name, I remembered they had a daughter about your age. I was afraid of what they would do if they saw you again.”
“I think I remember that,” Éponine offered. “I remember another girl living with us, besides Azelma. I thought I’d just made it up, like she was just an imaginary friend.”
A hush fell over the table; it was Javert that broke the silence.
“You said you moved out?”
“When I was fifteen,” Éponine said. “Emancipated.”
“Good for you, kid.” Javert said. He looked genuinely impressed.
Cosette was still struggling to process everything that had just come to light. “Then why did you let me believe that it was because she’s a girl?”
“I’d rather have you hate me than remind you of that place,” he said, quietly. Cosette thought she saw Javert roll his eyes.
“Oh, papa,” Cosette said. “I’m so sorry for yelling earlier.” She looked at Javert. “But why... Why have you never told me you were dating someone? Why did you never tell me you were gay? Don’t you think I would have liked to know?”
“You’re my first priority, Cosette,” her father said, slowly. “I didn’t plan on seeing anybody, not while you were still living here. I did not want you to think I loved anybody more than you. I was happy, just living here, just the two of us. I never intended,” he stumbled to find the words. “It just, sort of happened.”
“What do you mean, ‘just sort of happened?’” Cosette said, glancing between the two men. “How did you guys meet? And why does he keep calling you ‘Jean?’”
Javert made a pained face, as if he had only now realized his mistake.
“It’s,” her father stumbled for words again, and he glanced at Javert, as if his face might hold the answer. “Complicated.”
“A story for another time, perhaps,” Javert offered.
Cosette didn’t press the issue.
“So... Can I go to prom with Éponine?” Cosette asked. Out of the corner of her eye, Cosette saw Eponine perk up.
Her father sighed. “Yes, I suppose that’s okay.” He glanced at Éponine. “But if you hurt her,”
Javert laughed again, and Cosette found it no less frightening than the first time. “Come on, Ultime, these girls have been through enough tonight. No need to threaten anyone.” He stood up from the table. “Come on Éponine, I’ll drive you home.”
The other three stood up from the table, and the couples glanced at each other, unsure of what kind of goodbyes would be appropriate. Cosette and Éponine settled for a quick hug, and Cosette’s father pecked Javert on the cheek.
Javert retrieved his shirt from the basement and he and Éponine left, awkwardly sidestepping around the broken frame that still lay shattered in the living room. After Cosette locked the door behind them, she turned around to see her father holding the once-framed photo. A broad smile lit up his face.
Cosette walked over, resting her head on her father’s arm as she looked at the photo. Cosette was sitting on a swing at the park she had visited earlier with Éponine, her hair tangled and windswept, a huge grin on her face.
“This was the first time I took you to that park,” her father said slowly. “We used to go every day.”
“I remember, papa,” Cosette said. She stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek.
Her father smiled, then yawned. He glanced from the broken glass on the floor, then back to Cosette.
“How about we clean this up in the morning?” He asked. “I’ll make breakfast.”
Cosette laughed. “Sounds good,” she said, and she wrapped her arms around him. “Maybe after that, we can go to the park,” she suggested. “And you can tell me all about how you met your boyfriend."