Chapter Text
Javert has Valjean cornered. The steel of the Inspector's sword has proved stronger than the wooden beam Valjean has seized to defend himself. Valjean can see only two options. He can launch himself at Javert with all his strength, which would probably injure and possibly kill the other man. Or he can find a way to distract Javert for long enough to make his escape.
"I know why you watched me," he spits.
"Because I knew what you were," retorts Javert. The point of his blade splinters the beam. Javert's chin lifts in triumph, not only in this brief, uneven struggle, but in Javert's internal battle between right and wrong. He looks smug in his virtue, certain of his honor. He holds himself blameless of the sin of pride.
Valjean glances toward the place where Fantine lies still and silent, her suffering at an end. He doesn't blame her for doubting that her soul was always in God's hands. God's presence is hard to feel in this place, especially now that the nurses have fled to safety, leaving only those delirious with sickness to witness Valjean's struggle with Javert. If he had time to pray, Valjean knows that he could summon God's presence even here, but at this moment, with the stench of decay in his nostrils and Javert's hot breath in his face, it is hard to sense divine love or forgiveness.
"I always knew," hisses Javert. "Long before I denounced you, I recognized you. Now you will pay for your crimes, 24601."
Though the beam is cracking, Valjean manages to push the sword to the side so that nothing comes between his gaze and Javert's. "I don't mean here in Montreuil," Valjean replies. "In Toulon. I know why you chose me to retrieve the flag. I was always the one you picked when you needed a man to fetch and carry."
"You were always very strong. But the law is stronger." As if to prove his point, Javert lunges to the side, wresting the beam away from Valjean.
"You didn't choose me to prove a point about the law." Valjean can see that Javert is now confident of his victory. Again, his pride exposes his weakness. He does not raise his sword to Valjean's throat.
Quicker than Javert can react, Valjean thrusts his arms between Javert's arms and chest. A quick turn of his body pins Javert beneath Valjean's heavier weight against the adjacent wall. Javert grunts as the breath is knocked from his lungs. Before he can make another sound, Valjean claims his mouth with his own, stopping Javert's breath, silencing any denial Javert might offer.
For several moments, while Javert is too stunned to react, Valjean presses his advantage. He has never kissed anyone like this before -- he has not kissed anyone at all since he was very young -- but it is not hard to guess how to cover Javert's lips with his wider ones, to thrust his tongue into Javert's mouth the way Javert had aimed his sword at Valjean. He grasps at Javert's wrist, digging his nails into the delicate skin just below the sleeve, until Javert makes a small noise of pain that vibrates Valjean's lips as the sword clatters to the floor.
Soon, all too soon, he must come up for air, though Valjean wishes that he did not. He feels intoxicated, a strange sensation for one who has so rarely indulged in wine. Perhaps it is from the struggle, the pleasure of disarming an opponent, or perhaps it is from holding his breath to kiss Javert. It is not something he planned to do nor ever imagined, which perhaps explains why it has affected him so strongly. His lips tingle and his loins stir.
From the way Javert's chest heaves against his own, the kiss has affected the Inspector as well. Javert's eyes flash fury, yet he does not try to wrest his hand free, nor has he closed his mouth.
Valjean's head spins. His lips, indulged once, itch to press Javert's once more, and his prick throbs as it has not done since he was a young man. He has not been honest with himself, nor with God. He has noted Javert's singular interest in him, has guessed at the reasons for it, yet he has never admitted to himself that beneath his resentment and his anger, he, too, has been guilty of the sin of pride -- pride in his own strength, pride that another man should admire him in such a way.
Of course he had been aware of the things men did with one another at Toulon. Such things did not disgust him the way they disgusted some of the others, but he had believed they had nothing to do with him. He had been grateful that his strength meant no one would try to violate him nor press him to accept a protector -- not another prisoner, not a guard. He had known that Javert watched him and had kept that knowledge close, meeting Javert's gaze defiantly. Even after God and the Bishop of Digne had changed his life, he had remembered how Javert watched him.
"Say what you must. Don't leave it there," Javert pants in a mocking tone, his warm breath now a temptation.
"You wanted..." Valjean dares not say any of the words he knows for something he isn't certain Javert would have let himself imagine, not specifically, not in the sort of detail that emerges in Valjean's thoughts. Even the thought of the words, now, like this, sends heat rushing low in his body.
He is still crushing Javert against the wall, too close to disguise the effect the confrontation and the kiss have had on him. "I wanted...what?" Javert asks in a dangerous tone, making Valjean realize the reason Javert is not struggling to escape, that Javert expects to entrap him with his own words.
His blood is still boiling in his veins, he is still too intoxicated to think clearly, but he knows that he cannot let Javert regain control. Again there is only one course of action which Valjean can be certain will distract Javert sufficiently. "You wanted this." Again he moves to take Javert's mouth with his own.
This time Javert realizes what Valjean intends the moment before it happens. He tries to evade Valjean, turning his head to the side. Yet Javert gives himself over to the challenge when their lips come together, his tongue duels with Valjean's, his hips push upward. Likely he means to push Valjean away, but the shift brings the bulge beneath Javert's uniform in contact with Valjean's swelling prick.
This is the worst sort of madness, yet Valjean can't break away -- not from the kiss, not from the delicious pressure of Javert against him. He shudders helplessly in pleasure, certain that Javert will take advantage of his moment of weakness.
Javert does not even seem to notice it. He is trembling as well, though his voice is defiant when he speaks: "You are the one who wants this, Valjean." The throaty growl as much as the words go straight to Valjean's prick, which strains against his clothing, frightening him in its urgency. Whatever this is, he has never wanted it before--this is not love or desire or even base lust, this is angry and hungry and alive between them, even with poor Fantine lying dead and the life of Monsieur Madeleine less than ashes.
He should put a stop to this, Valjean knows. He should do what he intended, push Javert aside and flee or knock him out. But Javert moves his hips again, and glances at Valjean's mouth, and Valjean's head tilts without his volition for another searching kiss.
Javert does not resist him. Javert chases Valjean's tongue with his own. The hand that Valjean does not have trapped within his own grasps his hip, not pushing him away but pulling him closer. "Did you want to have me, Valjean? Is that what you want now? To fuck me?" Javert demands in that same hoarse tone, and though the words are obscene, the thought abominable, Valjean is horrified to hear himself groan. "Do it, then," Javert taunts, not even pretending to resist when Valjean presses his hand back to the wall. "You will only damn yourself in the eyes of the Lord."
Swallowing, Valjean tries to think over the roaring in his head and in his body. "'He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life, but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction,'" he mutters, straining to remember a verse that might silence Javert or remind himself of his own path. He can feel what Javert wants plainly against his thigh. "The Lord knows what is in your heart and mine."
"Your heart?" asks Javert incredulously, his breath hot against Valjean's mouth. Valjean can't quarrel. This cannot have to do with his heart, though a strange passion moves in him, darker and stranger than the ache in his flesh, inflamed by the way Javert moves against him. With one foot he kicks at the sword, sending it spinning across the floor away from Javert's reach.
Javert seems not even to notice, pushing his thigh between Valjean's at the moment Valjean's leg moves toward the sword. He hasn't taken his eyes from Valjean's face. It's the same look Valjean recalls from Toulon, though its meaning seems so plain now that Valjean blushes to understand why he always dared to look back at this one. "I know why you watched me," he says again.
"If you think that I would trade your freedom for a base, vile --"
"No," Valjean cuts him off. "I think you believe that if you bring me to justice, all will be forgiven in you, even this." He does not give Javert a chance to speak again, but crushes Javert's mouth beneath his own. Javert's teeth bruise his lips as he returns the pressure. They are doing this together, they are making this happen together, even if Javert wishes to deny it. That knowledge makes Valjean shudder in pleasure anew.
The Inspector's eyes look wild, darting about first like a trapped animal, then like a cunning predator. "What you are doing to me, 24601..." Javert begins.
"My name is Jean Valjean." He punctuates the words by bucking his hips and can't prevent the surge of pride at the way Javert's eyes roll back with each thrust. The pride is the sin, he thinks, not the wanting -- nothing that makes Javert so irresistible to him could be sinful, he'd been afraid that he hated Javert, he who had felt God's eternal love, but whatever else this is, it is not hate. He does not think that Javert hates him either, no matter Javert's words about how men like Valjean can never change. His gaze burns with the same heat Valjean feels in himself, the same heat Valjean remembers in Javert's gaze in Toulon. "You have always wanted this."
"Never." Javert kisses him, pushing Valjean's mouth open, seeking with his tongue as if he expects to find some treasure hidden by a thief. Valjean sucks on the tongue, feels Javert throb beneath his uniform, guesses that Javert has never been kissed like this before either. He feels quite sure that Javert has never put his mouth where Valjean now can't stop himself from imagining it. "But you, what you want you always steal. You will take what you want..."
"No. You will give it to me." It is not a threat but a statement of something they both know to be true, for Javert is surrendering moment by moment, his body curving in to Valjean's, his hand clutching at Valjean's back not to apprehend him but to keep him there. "Let us have no more lies between us. You are giving it to me now." This is why it matters so much to Javert, thinks Valjean, though the Inspector calls it justice. This is why Javert begged for Madeleine to press charges against him when Javert believed he had made a false report. This is why Javert needs Valjean locked up forever. One of them must be in chains to keep them apart.
Rather than answer, Javert kisses him again. The kisses are both confessions and questions. Valjean wonders what replies Javert finds as they move together, no longer pretending to struggle. "This is a sin," gasps Javert.
"Pride is a sin. And wrath. Perhaps this is less of a sin than the others." He scarcely knows what he is saying, he doubts that his words will stand up to scrutiny later, when he has time to think, but there is no time now. There is a child who needs saving and a town he must flee and oh, there is Javert. "This is how it could be between us. In a different world, I would give myself to you on that hospital bed, I would take you against this very wall." It should be a parody of lovemaking, yet it is not. It makes Valjean's heart feel near to bursting as well as his prick. "I would do this more slowly, I would uncover you and know every hidden secret, I would kiss you until you understood that mercy can also be just, I would know you, Javert -- "
The sounds Javert makes, and the uncontrollable spasms that wrack Javert's body, tell Valjean that there is no need to have Javert so. He has had Javert like this, in the uniform of the police, hardly having touched his skin. This is Valjean's moment, while Javert is too breathless for movement or speech, now he must flee, yet his fingers will not unlock from Javert's wrists and his hips will not be still. "There is nothing you can take from me. You are mine, 24601," Javert manages to grunt in a shattered voice, and Valjean is past thought, past comprehension, he knows only that such pleasure is as powerful as prayer.
When he can breathe again, he realizes that Javert, too, has failed to seize upon the moment when he might have done what he came here to do. It could be that this is what he came here to do -- there is no denying that they both wanted it, though perhaps Javert has been as successful at Valjean at hiding it even from himself. Javert's breath is warm against his face and Javert's eyes scrutinize him as if looking for answers, confirmations for musings Valjean can only guess.
Because he can't think what else to do -- because he can't think clearly at all -- he kisses Javert again. It is gentler than the others yet still Javert tries to control it, moving his tongue against Valjean's. Like the previous kisses, this one teaches him something new both about Javert and about kissing. He does not want it to end.
But the heat of madness is passing, and Valjean recalls all too clearly what brought them to this. He thinks of Fantine. He thinks of the helpless child he has sworn to protect. He lets Javert kiss him, curving his own lips in a farewell that seems far too brutal, shifting his hand so that it will seem to be an embrace rather than strategy. In a moment he has both of Javert's hands pinned again.
"There is a duty that I'm sworn to do," he whispers, not without regret. Whatever had been open and curious in Javert's expression disappears like a shutter slamming over a window. Valjean glances to the side. The window overhangs the water far below. He feels Javert's lunge and is ready for it, backing himself toward the trap that is his escape.
He has no time for explanations, recriminations, apologies, certainly not promises. With a final glance at Javert's face, which now looks stormier than the sea at high tide, Valjean dives to his freedom.
The water is cold, so cold, though just moments before he had been sweating and warm dampness clung to his belly. He pushes himself underwater until his head starts to swim once more, then pushes himself further, refusing to let himself remember the surge of pleasure that last took his breath from him.
By the time he has pulled himself into the tunnel where he will hide until he can retrieve the things he needs to run, he can hear the horses in pursuit. If whatever just passed between them meant anything to Javert as it was unfolding, if it changed anything, the Inspector will already have set it aside. Even if Javert chooses to do penance for it, he will undoubtedly blame Valjean for the entire incident -- the corruption, the perversion of an officer of the law by a convict.
If Valjean could not persuade Javert to show mercy to Fantine's innocent child, he could never persuade him to show mercy to a criminal. It would be pride itself to believe that he could teach Javert that sometimes a small sin might be the path to greater good -- that a priest might lie to a policeman to protect a convict, that carnal pleasure might uncover a deeper love.
Someday, perhaps, things might be different. Perhaps Javert will be shown the same grace that the Bishop of Digne taught Valjean. But Valjean will never know. His path is clear now: he must find Fantine's little girl, and he must hide her and himself both from Javert.
He must hope never to see Javert again.
How strange and sad that, for a moment, that knowledge makes Valjean feel trapped once more.