A/N: ficlet I wrote prompted by the phrase 'first impressions'. Valvert.
First Impressions
Javert first notices 24601 on a glaringly bright day in Toulon, Javert's first there as a guard. It has been a long struggle to get there, but now he is here he is determined to do the job as best he possibly can, determined to uphold the law against the scum that threatens society.
As he takes over his first shift watching over the prisoners, these good-for-nothing galley slaves that are his past, the guard who is his future whispers in his ear.
"That's Jean-le-Cric," he says to Javert, pointing out a particularly muscular man about five rows back. "I'd keep an eye on 'im, if I were you. 'e's strong as a bull and as angry as one too. 'e's tried to escape twice already, and no doubt he'll try it again someday soon. I wouldn't want to be the man responsible for letting 'im go...nor getting 'im back for that matter." The guard smirked. "'specially a scrawny little thing like you." He laid a hand on Javert's shoulder and traced a line down the young guard's back and Javert had to suppress a shudder as the guard turned and left him. The guards here were nigh on as bad as the prisoners. Well, Javert would not be one of them, he was sure of it. He would not succumb to his inheritance and become a beast.
And he would keep a watch on this half-feral beast, this Jean-le-Cric.
Valjean noticed the piercing grey eyes of the guard, barely more than a boy, the next day. He had been battered and bruised after having just suffered punishment for his latest escape attempt, and had not wanted to concentrate on anything but the weight of the rope and the sting of seawater the previous day; he had barely dared to look the guards in the eye, lest he be beaten like a dog again for his insolence.
A night's sleep, however, did him some good, and the next day when Javert was assigned to the team of galley slaves which prisoner 24601 was part of (like a grain of sand on a beach, or more accurately, a link in a chain), he felt the intensity of Javert's gaze. How could he not? The other guards looked, of course, but they did not watch like Javert did. The others looked at him like any other prisoner, any other beast; a little stronger, perhaps, one to be wary of, maybe, but just another part of the crowd of criminals. But Javert's stare upon him made him feel as though he were capable of doing more than the others, doing wonderful things, terrible things. When Valjean looked into those old grey eyes in that young grey face, he saw a wolf. A wolf confronting a bear.
Later, Valjean learned that this wolf did not hunt in a pack. A lone beast, he stood sentinel on even the darkest nights, howling at the moon, praising the wonderful, condemning the terrible. For Javert, the wonderful was the Law, and the terrible was those that transgressed it; the guards who broke their own rules, the prisoners, but, above all, prisoner 24601. Every time Valjean managed to escape, Javert seemed to be the one responsible, or the one in charge of getting him back, and so the two men became each other's torture. Valjean, the man who tried to escape just punishment by defying the law time and time again, and Javert, the man who would always stifle the freedom Valjean thought his right and his need.