[A/N: Sorry about the lack of updates-I'm back at school, so they'll probably be infrequent for another two months or so. As always, please R&R and enjoy!]
There is nothing Javert loves more than his midnight patrol shifts, for without them, he is forced to feel the fires of Hell lick at his very bones.
The sun, how the sun causes their skin to crack and tighten and burn with bronze.
It is base, animalistic, and practically criminal in the eyes of the Lord, and yet his flesh's siren call welcomes him every night like the lullaby of his damned mother.
The songs from the lash are always agonizing at first, but as the strokes continue how they moan.
The torture begins, as everything in life does, with denial. Face washed, shift on, prayers said, he lies in his narrow bunk and feels the thoughts he's repressed all day flood from his brain straight into his groin.
Heat, tight, aching, leaking, moaning, begging-
"The saints!", his conscience screams, "Name the saints, you whoreson!"
Whoreson. Whore son. Being made a whore of by those brutes, forced to kneel and-
"Maria! Maria! Virgin to her duty as you are to your-"
"Jean! Beloved apostle of Jesus, our Lord and-"
Savior. To be saved from this agony, saved by a man with gentle calloused hands and the strength of the-.
"Heavens! Heavens forgive me!"
Javert accepts the dampness of his sheets (the shame of the unworthy), and finds rest.