Chapter Text
"I hate penguins," stated Cosette firmly, kicking her stockinged feet against the wooden floor as she laid on her belly, drawing.
"Cosette," said Jean Valjean, raising one eyebrow, "what do you think I'm going to say to that?"
The patter of her feet slowed to a stop, and she turned big, guilty eyes toward her father. "Cosette, I love you very much?" she tried. When her devoted papa maintained his steady stare, with only the slightest glisten in his eyes to suggest that he was moved by her words, she bravely tried again, but her darker tone gave away that even she knew it was a lost cause. "Look how well you're drawing in that book?"
Valjean sighed and scratched his beard. "Come here, darling," he said, and patted his knee. His daughter crawled over and rested her head against her papa's thigh, absently rubbing the soft, textured corduroy trousers at the calf.
"We don't hate anyone or anything, for we are all God's creatures made in love," said the little girl glumly, and her father nodded and stroked her hair.
"Now, sweetheart, you are seven years old. You are sweet and kind and smart. What on earth about penguins could make you so angry that you forget to be the loving, forgiving child you are?"
Cosette's open face crumpled. "But Papa, the penguins are mean and never let me talk to my friends, and sometimes they rap my knuckles when I forget my sums!" Abruptly, she stood to her full height, looking her seated father in the eye, and crossed her arms. "Who needs to remember when God gave us ten perfect fingers, and even ten perfect toes to help us?"
As his daughter demonstrated how to add eight and nine using only two hands, Jean Valjean considered her words and her feelings toward her Catholic school educators. "I shall have a word with the nuns at your school," he promised, poking at her folded arms until she giggled and moved them to a more natural position at her signs. "Although if you get a talking-to for calling them 'penguins', I'm afraid even Papa cannot defend you."
"All the other girls say it too!" she protested, before a smirk crossed her little face. "Fine. I'll just get Javert to protect me. You are strong, but he has a gun and a billy-club."
Unable to suppress a chuckle at the thought of the police officer taking on a herd of squawking nuns holding rulers, Valjean shook his head. "You know perfectly well that the only thing Javert respects more than the Law is the Lord."
"Only 'cause he's afraid he'll get in trouble for never coming to church with us," said Cosette.
"Yes," said Valjean gravely. "And because Javert is very, very old, he has missed many, many Sundays. Imagine the number of raps his knuckles will receive if he faces the penguins in your place!"
The little girl took a moment to think about this, then paled. "I do not think I can count that high," she said.
"And that," replied her father victoriously, rising and giving her a kiss on the forehead, "is why you must practice your mathematics."
****
"Penguins," snorted Javert that night, sliding out of his uniform and into the pair of flannel pants he kept at Valjean's home for his nights off. "That's what we called them at St. Mary's orphanage when I was a kid, too. Good to know kids never change."
"You don't think it's a problem?" asked Valjean, toothbrush hanging from his mouth. "I want to make sure Cosette grows into a respectful young lady, and I think nuns especially should be treated with-"
"Do you honestly think a childish nickname means she's headed for the bad? Honestly, Valjean, sometimes I wonder what kind of child you must have been." The tall man crossed into the bathroom and stood behind his lover, placing his hands on the other man's hips while he finished his bedtime routine.
"A polite one," Valjean said, and spat foam into the sink. Javert hummed knowingly, and slid his hands further around Valjean's front, dipping low. Valjean glanced at their reflections, meeting Javert's in the mirror.
"As if any child of yours would be rude," Javert murmured in his lover's ear. "Come now. I have tomorrow off, and you're fretting over the most ridiculous things."
Valjean sighed, but allowed Javert to coax him into the bedroom. "Maybe I am. But it bothers me, Javert. I want to do something to make sure Cosette is happy at school. You should have heard her when she said that about the nuns... of course they shouldn't be so hard on the children, but I want my daughter to understand that through adversity comes strength."
"No one knows that better than you," Javert muttered; Valjean graciously let it slide, as smoothly as Javert's hands moving up his chest. "Anyway, there's a simple solution to curing her aversion to penguins. It doesn't take being a father to figure it out."
"What?"
"Just think about it." Javert poked a very serious tongue in his ear, and Valjean squirmed and turned around, staring him in the face.
"You are making it difficult to think, Officer."
"And speaking of that," Javert tilted his head, "I've been called all kinds of things in my line of work. Do you mean to imply that we pig cops were not treated with the utmost respect? "
Recognizing a not-so-veiled reference to prison when he heard one, Valjean kept quiet, and enjoyed being touched, returning the embrace and gently turning them so that Javert's back faced the bed. Previous occasions had taught the both of them that the past should stay out of this place if they wanted to keep their nights peaceful and companionable. Still, he couldn't resist a minor rise to the bait. "Even when I was not always well-behaved, I was never impolite," he said, and tossed a smile toward his partner. Javert rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed, pulling Valjean down over him.
"At least you're not always well-behaved," he said.
****
As they were drifting off to sleep curled around one another, Valjean's eyes opened in the dark. "You mean, take her to the zoo?"
"It didn't need said, Valjean," Javert grumbled into the pillow, and smuggled deeper into the other man's shoulder. "After all, who doesn't love watching real penguins?"
****
Cosette was no exception to the rule.
(it's a stuffed toy, FYI, but it came from the zoo!)