Work Text:
Valjean had walked towards the corner after the first cry: too loud for this time of the evening, and, in this part of the town, a sign that something unpleasant was afoot. Instinct bade him leave, called for him to turn and hasten away and pretend that he had never heard the sounds of a scuffle and that soft, surprised cry of a voice that spoke of pain or injury.
Nothing good could come of this, he told himself. What was there to gain by appearing in the aftermath of a fight? For so long, he had tried his best to avoid all notice. Now they had forced him to accept the mayor's chain; now he could evade notice no longer, and certainly that had to be even more reason to stay away from places where criminals roamed, and where the eyes of the law rested with never-ending suspicion.
But there had been a cry, and as much as his fearful heart bade him hide in his rooms, the sound of pain forced him to round the corner in uneasy concern – and there, he very nearly ran into the man whom he had so far done his best to avoid: a shadow that followed him in his nightmares, a man recently come to Montreuil who seemed little more than the embodiment of restless suspicion.
Javert was still standing, although he had one hand pressed to his face while the other rested against a wall to hold himself up. Valjean, who shuddered with instinctive fear whenever he felt the gaze of this man come to rest on him, now reached out with instinctive concern, touching Javert's shoulder to offer support. With his other hand, he took hold of that pale, terrible face to tilt it into the light, to better see where the blood was coming from that had dripped onto the man’s hand.
“Ah, Javert!” he said, all fear forgotten for one moment at the sight of red blood dripping from a cut in the man's lip. “What happened? You are hurt!”
Javert had been swaying from exhaustion. At the touch, he looked up in shock, his brows drawing together, his lips tightening for that same expression of ferocious disdain – but the motion opened the cut in his lip once more, and a new line of bright, red blood spilled from it. And when Valjean, still led by that same instinct that bade him give comfort without thought, pressed his fingers very lightly to that wound, probing the swollen lip for further injury, Javert stiffened and ceased breathing and looked at him from eyes that had suddenly gone wide and dark.
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of Javert's labored breathing, the heat of his breath against his hand, the throb of his pulse beneath the skin. Javert's lip was strangely hot and starting to swell, and his blood was wet on Valjean's fingers. Valjean did not know what to say, or what to do – he thought that maybe he should take out his handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood, but there was something so unsettling to this sudden closeness that he was too terrified to move, like a man who suddenly found his hand in the jaws of the tiger and dared not flinch lest at his slightest motion, the beast would sink its teeth into his flesh.
He could feel the fast, panicked thudding of his own heart in his chest. Before him, Javert stood, as terrible as ever before – and yet, there was something different now, something seemed to have changed in Javert as well. Perhaps it was simply the pain of the injury, for the lip was still swelling and throbbing hotly against Valjean's finger. Javert's eyes were still dark and strangely unfocused, and that had to be the pain, Valjean told himself, and the shock. Suspicion would surely return as soon as the injury was dealt with; he would have to make certain to be out of the inspector's sight then, or find himself followed with renewed suspicion.
But Javert did not move or speak, and Valjean probed the injury very carefully, trying his best to ignore the unsettling sensation of Javert's warm breath against his fingers.
“You should see the doctor, Javert,” he murmured at last, sweat breaking out on his neck when Javert's throat worked, and Javert's eyes, still dark and unfocused, slid away from his face. Javert shuddered but did not speak, and Valjean at last forced himself to pull his hand away, his face burning as he realized that his touch had to be causing further pain.
“No, don't speak.” Valjean swallowed, the words sticking in his mouth. “It will only reopen the injury. Go to the hospital, inspector; any report will have to wait until the doctor has seen to you.”
Javert's breathing was shaky. His eyes were still very wide. Valjean resisted the urge to wipe his hand on his trousers and instead forced himself to turn and leave, feeling the heat of Javert's gaze on his back until he had turned the corner.
#
Months passed. It was enough time to forget that such a thing had ever happened. Injuries were to be expected in the line of work of an inspector of the police, even in a town such as Montreuil, where the recent prosperity had caused a recline of most crime.
Valjean should have forgotten that such a thing had ever come to pass. Indeed, if he thought back on it now, the thought roused fearful heat in him, and a tremor ran through his limbs as he remembered those eyes staring into his own, Javert's breath hot on his skin. It was the fabric of nightmares: a vision of a demon sent to hound him. Valjean shivered when he remembered it and did his best to keep his distance. At last, he breathed quiet relief when the inn where Javert had sustained such an injury changed ownership and was reported to attract a more peaceful crowd afterwards.
Almost he had forgotten that nightmarish encounter, until one day he sat in his office, opening his letters even before the first of his workers arrived to start the day's work, and there was a knock on his door. When he called out “Enter,” it was not his secretary or his superintendent, but Javert who stepped inside.
Valjean rose with sudden trepidation – was his secret out, had Javert come to arrest him? – but Javert stepped to his side and bowed his head, and there was a bruise right along his cheekbone. Something had left a large and vivid mark. The bruise was dark purple in the center, spreading out into an angry red that vanished into the bristly whiskers. Valjean found his hands led by instinct once more to gently grasp that face out of his nightmares, resting his palm along the injured cheek with gentleness to turn it into the light.
“It – is nothing, monsieur,” Javert said, his voice uneven and rough, and then it gave out and he was silent. Valjean had no thought for what event might have driven Javert to his office, for once more, the instinctive need to give succor had warred with and vanquished the crippling fear that usually took root when Javert was near.
Very carefully, he pressed along the cheekbone, as light and gentle in his touch as when he dealt with a child that had fallen in the street, or when he paid a visit to the hospital's injured or dying. Javert's skin was very hot. Blood pulsed angrily beneath the large bruise; when his fingers pressed against the bone, Javert shuddered and his lips parted, although no sound came out. The eyes that usually looked upon Valjean with cold suspicion now darkened once more, and Javert stood silent and still, with only the sound of his uneven breathing to give away his turmoil as Valjean pressed careful, gentle fingertips along the bruised bone.
“Ah, there – it is not broken,” Valjean said softly, more to himself than to Javert, but at his words, Javert swallowed and rocked back, his throat working again although no sound came out.
“Javert,” Valjean said somewhat helplessly, suddenly remembering who this man was and what was at stake. “Forgive me. Please, see a doctor immediately – that is, I assume, you have not–?”
“Monsieur,” Javert said and trembled again; his eyes were still very dark and wide, and Valjean saw that his hand now tightly gripped the coat he had not removed. “I – an attempt of robbery was made. On your factory, monsieur. I said to myself, Javert, what reason would a man have to enter your factory when it was still hours from when your workers usually arrive? I trapped the man when he escaped through a window; he has been brought to the station-house–”
“I thank you for your vigilance, Javert.”
Valjean curled his fingers against his leg, still feeling the heat of the bruise against his skin. “Please – do go and see the doctor immediately. I think it is not broken, but I am not a doctor. I will be happy to see your report in writing instead.”
For a long moment, Javert did not move, both of them frozen in this strange position. Then Javert released another shuddering sigh, and Valjean felt the tips of his fingers tingle with the strange heat of Javert's bruised cheek. He told himself that there was no reason for Javert to suspect him – and yet, what had driven Javert to pay such attention to the factory that he would apprehend a man entering in the middle of the night?
“There is no need for a doctor,” Javert forced out at last, jaw clenched, and now it was Valjean who had to press his palm to his thigh to keep from reaching out again to touch the bruise that still seemed to swell more with every passing moment.
“See the doctor, Javert,” he said, his voice soft, but firm.
Javert's own hand rose to his face, and his eyes darkened as a hiss escaped him when his fingertips prodded along the injury.
“As you say, monsieur.” Javert turned to leave, and Valjean, who had never seen such strangely unfocused emotion in the man's eyes before, once more wondered whether Javert had begun to suspect the truth after all, and was just biding his time now as he watched and waited.
#
There were days when it seemed nearly impossible to escape the watchful eyes of Inspector Javert. Every time he walked through the streets of Montreuil, it seemed to him that there were suspicious eyes watching from beneath that tattered hat, noting with suspicion whether he gave a man alms, gave a child a toy, or pressed the hand of a new widow as the grief spilled out of her.
Walking the streets of Montreuil had become safer with every month the town spent with the guidance of the kind mayor Madeleine; walking the streets had in a strangely ironic twist become more dangerous for Madeleine himself, for Javert's eyes seemed impossible to escape no matter where he went or who he spoke to. In turn, Valjean kept to himself even more, making certain to never speak more than the necessary, while his walks through the fields got longer and longer for the relief of being free of the weight of Javert's eyes there.
But Javert could not be fully avoided, and it was indeed at the end of just such a long walk along fields that had only recently been harvested that Valjean came upon Javert limping slowly back towards the town.
Valjean froze. Instinct bade him once more to duck and hide, to pretend that he had never seen Javert and continue along a different path. And yet, it was impossible to pretend such a thing when the fields were no longer high with golden wheat and there was nothing between him and the wall that circled the town than the bent, black figure of Javert: this shadow that heralded misery and fear for Valjean wherever he went.
Valjean hunched in on himself. He lowered his head, his face – so he hoped – hidden in the shadow beneath the rim of his hat. Perhaps Javert would not recognize him. Perhaps Javert, in his pride, would pretend he had not seen...
Only when he was nearly close enough to touch did he see that the trousers Javert wore were slashed, and that there was red blood coating the hand he held pressed to his thigh.
“Javert!” The word escaped without thought. When Javert froze and turned his head, he saw that there was more blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and that there was another bruise spreading along his jaw up towards his whiskers.
“Good God, Javert, what happened?” he asked, already on his knees before him, one hand carefully pushing aside Javert's hand to uncover the large slash that had torn Javert's trousers – and gashed his thigh in the process, he thought, his breath escaping with sudden worry at the size of the cut.
“You are bleeding,” he said, then fell silent with embarrassment, for Javert had to be well aware of that. His fingertips gently explored along the cut. Javert made a strange, strangled sound, but he did not move, even though the touch had to be painful.
The trickle of blood was slow; most of the wound had clotted, and after Valjean had carefully prodded the edges of the cut again, he thought that it was a shallow wound – a knife that had cut through the skin, but not through the muscle below.
“Ah, what a relief,” he said softly to himself, “it is not deep, there is no danger – but Javert, a knife?”
When he looked up, his fingers still placed high up on Javert's thigh, carefully holding the leg that was tense with pain, he found Javert's eyes on him, dark and dazed from the shock of what must have been an attack.
Valjean swallowed. Perhaps that expression had a different cause. Would Javert now reveal his suspicions? What reason had Javert for that strange heat on his face, if it was not the awareness of what hung between them: Valjean's lie; Javert's devotion to see a man like him returned to the misery of the galleys?
“Ah, I... tracked a poacher to the hut of M. Bernard,” Javert said haltingly, his voice as dazed as his eyes.
Valjean lowered his head in concern, grateful as well for the chance to hide his confusion, and touched his fingertips to the cut again, as gentle as he could. More blood welled up, but it was little more than a droplet; no, the cut had nearly stopped to bleed, and there had not been enough blood on his trousers and Javert's hand to make the man suffer from blood-loss. It was just the shock then, the surprise of the attack – was Javert becoming careless, to go after a poacher with no weapon of his own when such a man would have been armed?
“The hospital, Javert.” Valjean's hands still lingered against Javert's thighs, feeling the unsettling warmth of his body and the stickiness of the blood that had soaked into the fabric.
“Come, I will help you–” He fell silent when his eyes skirted past what must have been an unfortunate fold in the man's trousers. Certainly that was just a strangely positioned shadow. He was seeing things; it was the proximity to this man of his nightmares that had made him believe for one heartbeat that something stretched Javert's trousers in an unfortunate way...
His throat was dry. He did not quite know where to look or what to say, but Javert as well was uncommonly silent, and for once offered no protest when Valjean helped him to make his way towards the town. Valjean made certain to keep his eyes firmly on the houses in front of them. He kept his hand on the man's shoulder, ignoring the way his palms were damp with sweat, and tried to forget the memory of how Javert had been so tense and warm beneath his hand.
#
The sound of the fist that hit Javert was sickening.
It was strangely familiar, the sight of a trickle of blood that ran from the corner of his mouth, and then – why did Javert not defend himself, Valjean thought, pushing helplessly against the men barring his way. Good God, you would almost think the man enjoyed it to be beaten in such a way, when there was a cudgel in his hand, when he had never before known Javert to be fearful, when he himself had so often seen the marks Javert's peculiar fearlessness had left on his skin! Why did he not defend himself now, why did he–
And now Javert brought up his arm at last, cudgel in hand, his face twisted into a strange grimace; now he groaned when another fist landed another bruising hit against his collarbone, raising his own cudgel for a hit – and then he froze, breathing heavily, his eyes very wide, dazed with that same far-away look that Valjean had seen him display so often before. Only this time, it was not meant for him.
Javert's eyes rested on his attacker. The man had pulled out a pistol and held it aimed at Javert's brow, his hand trembling slightly as he snarled in rage – ah, God, but from that proximity it would not matter, those tremors would not save Javert! Again Valjean pushed, and at last, he broke through the throng of ruffians that had surrounded the fight, and whose sounds of laughter and amusement at seeing the police spy beaten had suddenly stopped.
The sight of the gun had changed the stakes. Those who had hungered for the sight of a copper beaten and bruised were too jaded to stay for the sight of a copper shot, fearful of the investigations such a thing would mean in Montreuil, where the last member of the police to lose his life to his duty had been a young lieutenant crushed by a run-away oxen years before Father Madeleine had appeared in the town.
At last, Valjean was close – but there he stopped, frozen by indecision as the barrel of the gun pointed straight at the space between Javert's brows. What could one do in such a situation? Any movement now, and the man might decide to shoot!
What could one say; what could one offer, to save the life of an inspector of the police from a man who had seen no other choice than to draw a weapon on the embodiment of the law in public? Had Valjean not known such men? Was it not true that once such despair had taken a man, there was no reason that could make them turn their back to the path of fatalism?
“Shoot!” Javert said and laughed, baring his teeth as the man snarled in return. “Shoot! The gun will not go off.”
Valjean wanted to call out, to berate this man who seemed to have neither sense nor reason – did Javert not know what was at stake? Had he not learned enough about men in the grip of despair to know that taunting such a man would bring no solution? Did he not know–
Valjean cried out when the man pulled the trigger. There was a heartbeat of silence as a violent shudder ran through Javert.
The gun had not gone off.
They jumped onto the man at the same moment, and a heartbeat later, he was on the ground, Javert's handcuffs in place around the man's wrists, locking him to a fence while Valjean found himself in possession of the gun.
They straightened. They looked at each other.
Valjean's heart was still beating painfully fast with the panic of seeing that trigger pulled, even though the gun had been aimed at Javert: Javert who had hounded him, and without whom his nights here in Montreuil would be peaceful at last, no longer plagued by nightmares of discovery.
But it was that same Javert who now was breathing heavily, and whose face had started to color with new purple bruises at his jaw and cheekbone. Javert's torn lip was still trickling blood. Once more Valjean found himself reaching out; the motion was so strangely familiar by now that it almost seemed a dream. He pressed a careful fingertip to the swollen, bleeding lip, and then, at last, it all seemed to make sense when Javert's eyes darkened and his breath escaped in a sound that seemed obscenely sensual, a low, throaty moan that reverberated between the houses and should have no place here, with the criminal cuffed beneath them.
Javert's breath was fast and hot against his fingers. Javert's lip trembled slightly, as if it would take no more than the lightest press of his finger for those lips to part and envelop him in heat.
Valjean shuddered. He looked away – but that was a mistake, for his eyes slid past where once again, a shadow revealed the way the folds in Javert's trousers had begun to shift, stretching over what was unmistakably a bulge. Javert's breath ghosted against his fingers, and suddenly there was an answering heat in his blood.
Rage, he thought, although he had left that sentiment behind long ago. But this was a different rage. This was anger borne from despair and helplessness. This was the anger that came from seeing a man endanger his own life through carelessness – worse: through a desire to be beaten, perhaps; to sport bruises and cuts. And as strange as that seemed, had he not seen the truth of it before, when Javert again and again managed to collect injuries only to stand silent and still and look at him with an expression he had never been able to place?
It had not been shock, those other times, he thought even as he gripped Javert's arm tightly, noting the way Javert's eyes slid halfway shut and another broken moan escaped the man as his fingers pressed into new bruises.
It had never been shock. It had always been this.
“You fool,” he found himself saying below his breath as he dragged Javert away from their prisoner, “you fool, you great fool, do you think I would not see?”
He pushed Javert roughly against a wall behind the house. The garden there was wild and overgrown; the house was clearly abandoned, although Valjean was so overcome by emotion now that he would not have cared had his sermon had an audience.
“You great fool! You very nearly died there, Javert, and for what? Do you place so little worth in yourself? Is it truly worth this? You could have died there, and you know it. You have no respect for your own life. No respect for God, who gave you this life. That is all well and good, Javert; go ahead, throw it away. But you tell me you are a hard man, as hard against yourself as you are against others, and yet where will this lead you? Is injury not something that will aid crime? Is an injury that needs to be treated not an injury against the state, and as such a far greater crime? A man's hand that strikes you strikes the law, and will you let that happen, Javert? Will you even invite it?”
He touched the bruise that ran along the man's cheekbone. It was darkening and swelling even as they spoke, and Javert's chest was heaving; overcome by some devil, Valjean allowed his fingertips to press just a touch harder, moved forward half a step until he held Javert pressed against the wall with all his strength – and Javert's eyes slid shut, and the man blushed, and trembled as he held him in place!
What devilry was this, Valjean thought helplessly, what was he supposed to do with a man who sought out injury, what–
Javert shifted. Valjean wanted to snarl, but as he pressed him harder against the wall, his leg slid in between Javert's knees, and there it was, there was his proof, unmistakable: a hardness throbbing hot and heavy beneath the fabric, something brought about by his hands on Javert, some twisted, devilish pleasure aroused in the man by those darkening bruises. As if to test this strange secret, Valjean allowed his fingers to press down on the bruised cheekbone again, watching with terrible fascination as Javert's swollen lips parted to release a sound that was a choked, helpless whimper as his body trembled harder, that unholy heat between them straining against his thigh.
“My God, Javert,” Valjean breathed, then – horrified, sickened, unable to look away from the way this man was breaking apart in front of him, had been cracked open blow by blow so that now, he could peel away the layers, could find the trembling, vulnerable flesh beneath the hardened armor of this nightmarish vision – he raised the gun that was still in his hand, and pressed the barrel of it hard against Javert's split lip.
“You fool,” he said again, helpless and enraged by this great waste, “you fool, you...! Is this what you want, Javert? Is that it? You can have it without getting yourself killed!”
Javert was still trembling, but at Valjean's words, his eyes slid open. Valjean thought to see terror there, or that great, deep suspicion he had to feel at seeing the mayor openly threaten him – now, now Javert would cry out in triumph to have him unmasked, to see him for who he truly was –
But instead, Javert's eyes were still filled by that strange heat, his pupils dark and dilated, and he looked at the weapon that was pressed to his face and opened his mouth. All that escaped Javert when the gun slid inside was another helpless whimper, and it sent a shudder of sinful need through Valjean. Good God, was this the man he had become? A man who would point a weapon at another? Who would – but Javert was still hard and heavy against his thigh, and those bruised lips curved against the cold metal of the weapon now as Valjean watched it slide into his mouth, watched Javert allowing that, watched him suck helplessly at the barrel, as though it were–
This time it was Valjean who made a soft, choked sound. He pressed the gun in deeper before sliding it almost all the way out, entranced by how those bruised, red lips molded themselves around the barrel of the gun, how Javert allowed this thing...
How red those lips were, he thought and shuddered. He pressed his thigh hard against Javert's prick for no other reason than to see what sounds the man would make, and he was not disappointed. His reward was a throaty moan vibrating around the gun; Valjean slid it slowly back inside, watching Javert's cheeks hollow and his throat work as he tried to suck on the metal. All Valjean could think of was how that mouth would feel like wrapped around his cock, how Javert, this fool, this ridiculous fool, was covered in bruises and wounds and had stood unflinching as another pointed that gun at his brow, but now opened his mouth willingly, allowing him to fuck his mouth with the weapon as he moaned and trembled and looked as if he would allow him to do anything, anything at all, even...
“Stop,” Valjean said at last. He had to force himself to pull the gun away, and he swallowed at the sound of Javert's heavy breathing, at the way those lips were swollen and glistening with his own spit, red blood still leaking from the corner of his mouth. “Stop, Javert. My God, you should–”
“Yes,” Javert said hoarsely, shuddering and licking his lips. Then Javert fell to his knees and his hands were on Valjean's trousers, freeing his prick with reverent, eager hands, and then Valjean was in Javert's mouth.
Somehow, the gun was still in his hand. He wanted to cup Javert's head, buck into his mouth, stroke his hair – but somehow he found himself holding the gun to his cheek, and Javert's eyes widened until they were nothing but dazed, helpless darkness. His throat worked around him as the moans that escaped from Javert's throat vibrated around his aching prick; it was unbearable, it was–
He pressed the gun to Javert's head, angling it so that the opening pressed into the purple bruise, and that drew another whimper from him. He pressed harder and Javert whined as he choked around him, his hips jerking helplessly into the empty air. Valjean could not breathe as he watched Javert spending himself untouched, and then it overwhelmed him too. He spilled himself uncontrollably, moaning in shock as he thought of his spend on Javert's tongue, his release drawn from him as much by the sight of this man overwhelmed and undone as by the heat of the eager mouth that even now swallowed hungrily around him.
When they were done, the gun dropped from Valjean's suddenly stiff fingers. Javert groaned and pressed his brow to his thigh. Valjean hesitated for a long moment, aching to leave this thing that could not be. Instead, he rested his hand on Javert's head at last, and found the hair damp with sweat. He did not know what to say, but he could not take his hand away either.