Musical/movieverse, not literary! Warnings: Fix-it AU. Fluff. Slash. Implied sexual content. Resolved sexual tension.
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When Javert woke, his head hurt more than he had known a head could ache without the skull cracking open. His chest and belly felt as if they had been squeezed and twisted inside out. He wanted to vomit.
"Is this Hell?" he asked the face looming over him. It was no surprise that the face was that of Jean Valjean, his personal Devil.
"I'm afraid so," said Valjean, who then attempted to feed Javert a few sips of weak tea and a few bites of bread. Javert promptly threw them up.
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Much later, he awoke to thunder. At least now the pain in his head had moved outside, roaring in the distance. Gingerly he reached up and touched bandages.
He had not expected bandages in Hell, nor rain that spattered loudly against shutters, leaking in to drip upon him.
"Good, you're awake," said Valjean. "You must be thirsty."
Javert forced himself to meet the convict's eyes. A terrible thought was looming, but he pushed it aside.
"I am not thirsty," he croaked, but Valjean brought him tea anyway, and held his head to help him swallow.
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"This is not Hell, is it," asked Javert despairingly when the smell of oranges roused him from sleep. Why would Hell have oranges? They were difficult enough to get in Paris.
"Eat," Valjean told him. "Would you like another pillow?"
"No," replied Javert. Valjean brought one and lifted Javert to prop him up with it. "If this is not Hell, leave me in peace."
"You are the one who chose Hell." Valjean smiled a little. "I would not have had the strength to pull you out alone."
Javert glanced at his clothes. He was not wearing his uniform, but this well-worn nightshirt did not look like something an angel would wear. "You pulled me out of the river!" he accused.
"You gave me no choice. You jumped."
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"Why will you not leave me to die in peace?" groaned Javert when Valjean arrived with a basin and a cloth and began to wipe his face.
"Hell is not ready for you." Valjean was not gentle with the cloth, nor did he pause when Javert flinched as Valjean tugged up an arm to wash beneath. "You stink of the river."
"You should have left me there." A terrible thought seized Javert. "Did others see?"
"Dozens watched me pull you from the water. Even policemen like yourself." As he talked, Valjean unwrapped one of the bandages around Javert's waist. "No one expected you to survive." The bruise beneath was large and dark.
"Leave me to die in peace," muttered Javert again. Though he had not washed him there yet, Valjean bent and kissed the bruise.
Javert clenched his eyes tightly shut, but even without looking, he saw Valjean's face as Valjean's hands moved over his body, the Devil's benediction, damning him anew.
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"I've brought you books." Valjean set them on the table by the bed. "Would you like a Bible?"
"I had not thought there would be Bibles in Hell."
Valjean's smile warmed Javert in places it should not have done. "I recall no Bibles in Toulon. But perhaps that is because I never sought one out. I could not read." He handed Javert a book. "If you do not wish to read for yourself, perhaps you would read to me."
"Have you not learned to read yet?" Javert glanced at the cover. It was a book of myths. He flipped through the pages until he found the story of Sisyphus. "I shall read you a story of Hell."
Valjean sat on the side of the bed and watched his face as he read. It made Javert's side ache to hold the book up. He let the heavy pages fall from his fingers.
"Perhaps you should sleep," said Valjean, and kissed Javert's forehead as he put the book away.
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"I am strong enough to do this myself," Javert insisted when Valjean returned to change his bandages.
"That may be so, but you cannot reach around your back." Valjean had hauled him upright before Javert could protest further. The soup Valjean had fed him earlier now filled his belly. He would have to humiliate himself by asking for a chamberpot.
The pressure in his lower body and the feel of Valjean's hands affected Javert strangely. He knew he must be recovering from his injuries, and told himself that it was only that - that, and being in Hell.
"Are you strong enough to take care of the rest by yourself?" Valjean's breath was warm against his ear. Javert's shameful condition had not escaped his notice. Javert wished Valjean would kill him and have it done with. He nodded shortly.
Valjean left him alone with the chamberpot, and a cloth, and the basin.
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"You look for excuses to touch me," Javert accused the next morning, when Valjean arrived with a clean shirt and insisted on helping him put it on after checking Javert's bandages. Valjean did not deny it. "Are you waiting until I am well so you can force yourself upon me?"
"You have a truly perverse mind," Valjean told him, roughly yanking the shirt over Javert's head so that Javert could not see his face while he spoke. "Is that what you've been lying here imagining?"
"Don't be absurd!" Javert felt his own face flushing. He shoved his arm through a sleeve. "Why else would you be tending to me so?"
"I am performing penance," said Valjean, looking very serious before breaking into a smile. "We are in Hell, remember?"
"You do not let me forget," snapped Javert. "Your hands are cold."
"So are yours." Valjean reached for them and rubbed them together. The heat crept into Javert's face, and lower. His prick was becoming unruly again. "Would you like to be warmer?"
Javert thought that Valjean was offering him another blanket. It would be easier to hide under more covers, he thought, and nodded. Instead Valjean pushed the bedclothes to the side and crawled in beside him, pressing against Javert's back, wrapping his arms around Javert's waist before Javert understood what he planned.
"What are you doing!"
"Warming you." Valjean's body was large and powerful, the strength of a much younger man, the arms of a -
"Stop that!" Valjean's fingers had accidentally found his prick. Or perhaps it had been deliberate, but they would not have touched had Javert's prick not been pointing out from its usual place of hiding like an accusation.
The fingers flattened across Javert's belly, holding him still. "Go to sleep," said Valjean.
Javert wanted to retort that he would not, he could never, with a known convict in his bed who might strangle him in his sleep or do far worse. Yet Valjean's arms were warm and his breathing was steady. In the minutes it took Javert to calm himself, so that he could be certain his voice would be firm when he spoke and his prick would not, the warmth crept into his bones and lulled him to slumber.
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"You are still here." The room was dim yet the air smelled warm, like sweat.
"I had thought to keep you comfortable."
"To keep me comfortable. Don't you have anywhere else to be? The girl?"
"She is with the man who will be her husband." Valjean sighed against Javert's back. "She was never mine to keep."
"Nor am I," Javert reminded him.
"You are the one who followed me to Hell." There was laughter in Valjean's voice. "Did you think you would be free when you believed that I was not? I have escaped you again and again."
Javert turned to look at him. "You are the Devil," he declared, though the words did not have the ring of conviction.
"I have told you, I'm only a man, no worse than any other." Javert could feel the evidence that Valjean was indeed a man like him, a ghostly shape against his thigh. He pressed himself over it and felt it become more solid. "Like yourself," Valjean added distinctly, pressing back.
Javert uttered an oath, but did not move away. "You are a criminal. This is a crime."
"I know the law. This is not a crime. A sin, perhaps, but a small one."
"An abomination cannot be a small sin." Javert's hips were not under the control of his thoughts. They rocked forward, and Valjean rocked back.
"When I hated you, that was an abomination." Valjean's breath hitched. "Besides, we are already in Hell."
"It would not be so cold in Hell. And nothing would feel this -" Javert stopped his speech, but his hips would not be still, nor would Valjean's. "I am unwell," he moaned.
Valjean stopped moving. "I am not hurting you?"
The convict was as strong as ever. He could easily have hurt Javert. In Javert's weakened state, Valjean could have pinned him to the bed and forced his legs apart and -
The cry that wrested itself from Javert's lips had nothing to do with pain.
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"That did not feel like an abomination," gasped Valjean, still clinging to Javert though they were both sweating now, panting as if they had been chasing one another all this time.
"That is because we are in Hell." It was scarcely possible to breathe, let alone think, with so much pleasure pulsing through his body. Why could Valjean never leave him in peace? "I have followed you to Hell, and my punishment is that I no longer can tell Hell from Heaven."
"I have been in Hell, Javert." Abruptly the arms slid from Javert's waist, leaving him cold once more, though the pressure against his bruises had made him ache while they were there. Valjean lifted his head onto an arm, regarding him. "You were there."
"The law is all we know of Heaven..."
"The law is love. There is mercy in the law. There is forgiveness." Valjean spoke with such conviction that Javert forgot, for a moment, that he might be the Devil. "My soul was bought with stolen silver. If this is a sin, it is a sin that God will forgive."
"I cannot live in sin."
"No, it is easier for you to leap into a river. I think God would forgive that, too, but do you truly believe this is a greater sin? Would your God be more pleased to hear me confess that I killed my enemy or that I loved my enemy?"
Javert could not answer. He did not think that anyone had ever loved him, not even God.
After a moment, Valjean said, "You are still not well." In silence he changed Javert's sweaty bandages and held the glass for Javert to drink, even though Javert was well enough to hold his own glass.
When Valjean moved to go, Javert said, "I am still cold." And then, "Perhaps this is not Hell."
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"Am I forgiven, then?" asked Valjean, pulling Javert from the brink of slumber.
"It is not for me to forgive you." What was his forgiveness worth? He was in Valjean's home, in Valjean's arms.
"I have already asked God's forgiveness for any sin I may have committed against Him. It is your forgiveness I need."
"If you have asked God's forgiveness, then you have no need of mine." He recalled Valjean's own words. "There's nothing that I blame you for."
"Thank you." The words were whispered. Warm lips brushed his forehead. Javert thought sleepily that Valjean sounded close to tears.
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"When I am well enough to leave?" asked Javert the next day, when Valjean had brought him bread and stew, sitting beside him on the bed to eat his own. "What then?"
Valjean lowered his spoon. "Then I imagine you will leave." In the bowl, he pushed a carrot aside. "Where will you go? Do you have family somewhere?"
"Gypsies," Javert told him. "Somewhere. I do not think I could live as one of them." He had nowhere to go. He had burned all his bridges behind him when he had jumped into the river.
Nodding, Valjean reached for the bread. By accident or by design, his fingers bumped Javert's.
"Stay here with me, then," Valjean said, his voice steadier than his hand. He smiled a bit. "This is not Hell."
"We cannot absolve each other's sins."
"No, but we can forgive. And love." Javert had to set down his bowl on the unsteady blankets so that he could cover his face. "Would you do that with me, Javert?"
"You are the Devil," Javert muttered. He looked up to see uncertainty in Valjean's eyes. Surely it was not uncertainty about whether Javert might be right. Valjean's faith, Javert now knew, ran much deeper than his own.
Perhaps Valjean was wrong about everything. Perhaps this was Hell after all.
Javert might just as easily have been Valjean's prisoner. It no longer mattered. He might never fully grasp God's love, but he could have this man's.
"Yes, Jean," Javert told him, leaning in to kiss him. Valjean tasted of stew and the promise of eternal joy. "I will stay."