Work Text:
Even if she really loved everything about university life, Cosette was glad to finally be back at home again
Unlike some of her friends, she hadn't lived in this house, or even this town for the first 18 years of her life, but it was the one that contained the everything she’d accumulated over these years, full of her father’s and her stuff, memories strewn everywhere she looked. It was the fact that it still had half of her books because the apartment she shared with Eponine was small the way student housing often was, that her father and her had lived here long enough that it smelled like home, that their two cats getting between her feet all the time had become something she could ignore and that she knew how to avoid them even when it was 3am and she'd just woken up and only wanted a glass of water, that still made this place home.
Most importantly, it was fact that her father was there to pick her up from the station, pull her into a hug that felt too tight for her to breathe in anything but the neverchanging smell of him and tell her how much he'd missed her. Home is and always has been where he was, no matter how far they'd moved or what had happened.
She’d believed that from the moment he’d told her to come with him, back when she was nothing but a small, scared little girl. No matter what happened, even with child services at the door because a man with a criminal record trying to get custody of an orphan girl aroused suspicion, she’d still believed that Jean Valjean meant home. Even when he’d tried to do the same for the actual Thénardier children on the grounds that their parents were not fit to raise anyone and failed, he'd still been her hero. Back then, there'd been nothing to do but to promise her short-time foster siblings that their door would always be open for them, an offer Eponine had taken him up on the most by randomly appearing on their doorstep from time to time, staying for a few days and then going back home.
Cosette suspected that it was only her father’s iron will, inability to let go and the fact that he’d never done a wrong thing after getting out of prison for something she still didn't know the entire story of that had made them let her stay with him. She was incredibly grateful for the fact that Jean Valjean was who he was.
Right now, the man in question was at work and she had the entire house to herself, nothing around but the cats, some music and the memories of years spent surrounded by these very things, the perfect atmosphere for what she was working on.
Ever since her father had given her her first camera, a certain tradition had established itself in the Fauchelevent/Valjean household whenever Cosette was gone on her own for more than a week. It featured dinner - her favourite pasta dish followed by ice cream - and Cosette showing him her best photographs of where she’d been and telling him about what had happened.
While weekly phone calls made the storytelling somewhat redundant, he still wanted to see more of her college life and was set on keeping this particular tradition even if Cosette was by far too tall to sit on his lap and point out details in pictures taken on a colourful toy camera.
This was why she was sitting in the bedroom that had been hers since her father had moved here for work at her old desk and scrolling through the pictures she’d taken in the past semester, some a few from just days ago, when Les Amis had celebrated the end of exam season, and a few from immediately after she’d gotten back to the small town she called home to pick out the ones she wanted to show him and pondered the contents.
Cosette had always loved photography, never in a way that meant she thought she could still love it if she made a living from it but always in a way that meant she couldn’t ever imagine abandoning it.
Grantaire and her had talked about that one Saturday, when there was no Les Amis activity distracting either of them and they’d met up to for cooking and movies. They’d come to the conclusion that she loved photography the same way he loved history, literature and the city. His knowledge of it was part of who he was, he’d never abandon it and he’d always cherish it but making a living with any of it would probably ruin what he enjoyed about it.
That same day, Grantaire had said that he had phases where he lived and breathed nothing but art, when there was nothing he could think of other than what he was working on, when everything else became secondary. He’d admitted that he couldn’t imagine doing anything but painting and being content with it, that it was as much part of him as his hands and feet, though he both loved and hated it in turns but couldn't imagine not seeing things and thinking I want to paint that. Even if art could be infinitely frustrating and less likely to actually make him some decent money than many other careers.
Cosette was still slightly amazed that she’d gotten him to talk that much. Nothing like sleep deprivation and decent food to get a person to open up, she supposed.
At some point, when she'd been looking into universities and trying to make sense of her future, she'd considered it. She'd considered everything. She still remembered talking her possible choices through with her father and she knew that if she’d wanted, she could’ve become a professional photographer. Knew that Jean Valjean would’ve used his considerable determination, call in all the favours people still owed him, move the earth and possibly assassinate all her rivals if that was necessary for her to get what she wanted. She also knew that it wouldn’t have been, she was good enough that the earth at least could've stayed where it was.
Her pictures were good, she was talented and she knew it, her father had hung up a lot of her photos all over the house not only out of paternal pride, but because of their quality. Cosette didn’t think there was a room in the house where there wasn’t a photo she’d taken, much to her occasional embarrassment.
Most of them were of places she'd been to and liked, the only people to be found her father, sometimes Eponine and on even rarer occasions her siblings. Cosette had never had many people in her life that were important enough to for her to give them much consideration.
Looking at the folders of photos she’d taken over the last months, Cosette noticed that that, and thus her choice in subjects, had changed without her conscious decision just as many things about her life had when Les Amis swooped in. There was a picture of Courfeyrac asleep on top of Joly during pre-finals week, one of Enjolras giving a speech, fierce and glorious, one of him and Combeferre, heads bent together as they talked and smiled the smiles of co-conspirators, one of Eponine on a rickety barstool in their kitchen, no makeup in her face, wearing a tank top and boxershorts, eyebrow raised at her when she’d left the room with her camera in her hand (“If you show that picture to anyone, I’ll end both you and that infernal thing,” she’d snarled, not nearly as serious as she was trying to sound) and one of Eponine and Feuilly when he’d given her a tiny folded paper flower made from notebook paper covered in what was probably Bahorel's lecture notes after she’d had a bad day at work. The most astonishing thing about that was that Bahorel had lecture notes to steal in the first place.
More recently, Grantaire had started to appear in them, smudges of multicolour paint in his hair, on his face and on his fingers, in the sun by the fountain she’d pushed him into that first Wednesday afternoon, half asleep on her sofa and cradling a cup of coffee as if it was the most precious thing in the world, sitting flopped down somewhere and doodling on a notepad. She’s later discovered that what he’d called a doodle was actually a sketch of her in which she looked amazing.
There were pictures of the group in various constellations at the Musain, in the park or at someone’s flat.
There was all of them so close they were half on top of each other, Cosette having jumped onto Bahorel’s back just before the timer of her camera went off. Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Enjolras together, arms slung around each other’s shoulders and Enjolras’ hair uncharacteristically not in a complete mess of righteous fury and too much stress.
Some of them in the park one afternoon, Jehan writing on a napkin and using Bossuet as a table while he in turn was using Joly’s lap as a pillow and Joly was half asleep on Musichetta’s shoulder, Grantaire just cut off on the side of the picture, the shoulder of one of his oldest, most paint-streaked shirts the only thing visible of him as he’d turned away to, she thought she could remember, start another argument with Enjolras.
Another one had Marius and Courfeyrac smiling for her camera. It would've looked boring if not for the fact that both their faces were covered in peanut butter. She didn’t even remember why or how that had happened but Courfeyrac had then gone around asking everyone to lick it off. She couldn’t say if anyone had actually obliged him, but wouldn’t be surprised. They were students, food was not to be wasted and peanut butter was delicious. Marius had been infinitely more polite, disappeared to the bathroom and come back with a clean face.
Eponine, who had been a bit drunk at that time, had called that fact a complete waste.
Among the dozens of photos she’d taken over the course of this semester, very few were of places, there was one of her flat, two of university, one of the part and one of the Musain when everyone had already gone home, a few from out of the way places Grantaire had shown her. None of these were actually special in any objective way and her father had already seen the flat and the campus. She supposed he’d have to deal with not knowing every tiny detail of her city well enough not to get lost anywhere if left to his own devices there, she’d just have to disappoint him on that front this time.
The fact that she was getting to know the city better than she’d ever thought she’d know a place with that many people in it wasn't actually noticeable in most of these photos. Mostly because she usually didn't feel like going back to get the camera when Grantaire told her that there was this place where they should go because she needed to see something.
She suspected that her father’d be happier seeing what she’d found these people than seeing any places that were on flickr ten thousand times over already, anyway.
Picking the actual pictures was harder than she’d expected. A lot of them were not exactly what she wanted to show him, quite a few never meant to be shown to anyone who wasn’t one of them and some only meant for the eyes of her and the person on it. In the end she took the group photo, a few of Eponine to calm his worries about his errant not-daughter and some mostly normal ones of Les Amis, frequency of their appearance depending on how much time she spent with the person in question and edited them as necessary.
She’d be proud to show him that she surrounded herself with the most amazing friends on this planet, that she wasn’t alone and that she’d found something she'd be glad to return to taking pictures of for however long they'd let her. These people were fascinating and facetted enough that it wouldn’t get boring. She smiled at the faces of her friends grinning at her from the screen.
Her father should be home soon, she was done with editing everything just in time, she thought as she set everything up so some of the most amazing people on the planet would appear in all their chaotic glory on their living room TV.