Not off the Track
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the following characters. They are all the creative genius of one, Victor Hugo.
Yes, it's slash, and yes its Javert and Valjean as well.
Javert didn't have much to say regarding his current state.
It was so intolerably aggravating that Valjean had interceded in his suicide plans.
He had made certain not to jeopardize his mission by exposing his actions to any other than the stars in the heavens and the clashing of the river's waters. He had no intentions of surviving suicide. It was unthinkable. He had been so exact.
No phantom shadows lurking around corners to valiantly rescue him when he plunged. No threat of any strange savior. No creature of miracles born forth from the carnage of the barricades that night. No soul to rescue him from the icy jaws of death. No Jean Valjean to heroically, sabotage his act, with his slanted sense of ethics, dragging him up with the strong arm of a galley slave to the safety above. And oh the irony that Valjean had been that very person. His strange savior.
He had felt the water infiltrate his lungs until there had been nothing. Pain of defeating the severe carnal instincts to survive had wrenched frantically through his mind. Fortunately stopped short by the raging coursing streams at last discarding his wretched body to murky depths of the Seine's cold embrace. After this he could only infer the following events that would undoubtedly occur.
He would then be bloated and filled with sick gases of decay only released in post-mortem…to rise eerily to the surface. A funereal and satirical mornings greeting to the dockworkers (only days later?).
Not that he would have been allowed to relish in that particular sight. Seeing as how he would have had the particular complications of death and all.
And all the burden of his pitiable existence would be at… released.
But alas, things never went accordingly.
Valjean stood at the window, arms crossed across his chest, wearing a pensive expression. Eyebrows furrowed as if in deep contemplation. His weary, gray eyes sauntered along the grim squalor of the street below. The sky was ashen, in the pallor of the aftermath. Just days before, carnage of young men had littered these streets, discardable as flies, lined up eerily among the wreckage of the barricades. The atmosphere lent a dull cast, infusing a vague sense of defeat throughout the phantom city.
His face was gaunt with age and creased by exhaustion and strife. There was no hint of the determined spark that once danced so gallantly in those eyes. None of the original hue in the now, pale cheeks.
His hands wrung at his sides. Those hands had always been the particular characterization of this man. Large, coarse, with jutting knuckles and rippled veins, nails stained with ink and dust. A strange marriage of Proletariat and Bourgeoisie.
His hair a thick pale brown mass, peppered with gray, curling imperfectly around his face.
A sturdy man, born of strength. Shoulders broad, legs grounded in thick, expensive boots, lightly worn at the toes and heel.
This was Javert's hero. The man he had ultimately persecuted for nearly 20 years.
A man who had defied the law.
A man who had defied Javert.
A man whom had risked much, and saved many.
A man, whom Javert had laid down his very existence for, in order to exonerate.
"So here we are." Javert spoke, finally.
He noticed his precarious position- vulnerably wrapped in sheets like an invalid upon a modest bed.
Not that he had any surviving dignity to guard.
" Right. Here we are." Valjean turned steadily to look upon Javert with his uncertain, sad eyes.
There was nothing much to say, and everything to be said.
" Valjean."
" Mm?"
Both knew any questions would be trivial, and had been answered innumerable times throughout the years. They knew all answers long before they ever thought of any questions.
They would be going around the predictable cycle that interrogation of one another had always led to. There are no two who understand one another better than the hunter and his prey.
Both had swapped positions of Cat and Mouse several times over the decades and come to unravel the seemingly insignificant quirks of their tediously complicated relationship.
The two men, whom had lived many years in strife with one another, existed like that for awhile, merely observing the other's presence, while lost in the enigma of their troubled thoughts. Dusk was soon to set in, until then; there was a relative amount of easy peace.
Dawn blazed a fiery streak across the dark, dusty sky.
Javert stirred from his sound sleep. Shifting drowsily, he omitted a deep yawn.
Valjean swept a lazy hand over the cold forehead. Javert shivered…just barely leaning into that touch…
Valjean slipped a hand beneath Javert, propping him up onto his pillows.
Is there shame in being saved? Is there shame in being cared for?
Utterly irreproachable, austere, even neurotic, was the character of the Inspector. He had pressed himself against that parapet in misery, hating himself.
He had known loneliness- an intimate friend. The friend he had leapt over the bridge with.
He hated himself now for desiring that small bit of offered affection from one whom he so vehemently despised…
No, he didn't despise him. He was, well, admittedly, obsessed with him.
Javert was a man a great principles, and if he didn't act accordingly with which his principles dictated, then he was lost. He knew Valjean was a good man, and it confounded him. He was the law and the law was never wrong. And when it was, it had to be eliminated, immediately.
Such was the conundrum Javert faced by being alive.
He pulled himself away from the touch. And it hurt.
" Don't pull away like that, I need to see if you have a fever."
The warmth of the man's breath gusted against his cheek, rich voice lulling him.
" Then see that I do and leave me be… ," Javert rasped out, hoarsely.
" Stubborn."
" Always." Javert quipped back acerbically. It seemed as if he was on automatic response, as he was only half-conscious.
" You are lucky you're not dead."
" Is that what you call it? Lucky? And here I thought 'how unfortunate, I'm still not dead'."
" Hush, try not to talk so much, drink this."
Javert obeyed, thereby surrendering himself to the mercy of his attendant.
Valjean smiled to himself. This morose man was endearingly amusing, despite the serious circumstance. He would have made a rather satirical corpse caught in the fishermen's nets.
" What do you plan to do with me once I've recovered?"
" What would you have me do with you, Inspector." Valjean replied, preoccupied with heating a kettle.
It was really not so much a question.
Javert was… annoyed.
" It's bad etiquette to turn a question back on an unwell man."
" Well, Inspector, what would you have me do? Release you, just so can go and try to do away with yourself again?"
" What I do with my life is of no concern to you."
" I might have said likewise, as you had made it so clear that my life, and my business was of immense importance to you."
" Oh. How venerable. So this is your revenge."
" On the contrary. I respect you Javert."
Javert, exhausted all at once turned away and closed his eyes.
" Had you respected me, you would have allowed me my peace, and let me leave this god-forsaken, wretched hell…"
For the first time, wet tears betrayed themselves and rolled down the man's gaunt face, staining his pillow where they fell.
" And you would have left me alone then, what purpose would I have had?"
Javert was incredulous, and furious beyond all reason.
" Why you! You contemptible- you… you are nothing but the most base, inhumane, miscreant-!"
Javert fuming sat up and belligerently glared at his offender.
Valjean retained his calm demeanor.
" You are mad, you are sick, you need to calm down, immediately, and that, Javert, is an order, that you will take because you are here under my supervision, under my authority. Is this at a level that makes any sense to you?"
" You make no sense." Javert stated, at once placid.
" How so?" Valjean sat down at the edge of his bed.
" You have your daughter. I have no one. You have something to live for."
" Do I? She's a woman now. Engaged to a fine upright young man. She no longer needs me. But you on the other hand, obviously need someone-" Valjean smiled tiredly.
" I did not ask you. That is not your place to-"
" Oh, is it not? Well, you would have ended your life to allow me peace."
" And you won't have it that way."
" It is not your place to sacrifice yourself for-"
" I didn't do it for you."
Javert sat arms crossed in front of him, glaring at the other man.
Valjean spoke carefully, " No, but you did it because of me."
" That's presumptuous." Javert accused, diffidently.
" Will you take your soup hot or cold?" Valjean inquired, briefly enforcing an impermanent interlude
" I won't have any." Once again displaying the tiresome viscosity of his nature.
" You certainly will."
" Hot."
" Very well."
" So what of my career? What of my life? What of that?"
" You'll of course, stay here until you're well and move back, or stay here, and then you can continue to work, or not. Whichever you prefer."
" What on earth would give you any idea that I'd want anything more to do with you?"
Valjean was silent. He poured the hot liquid from the kettle into a bowl and handed it to the other man.
" This is not soup." Javert stated with careful reproach.
" It's not, but it's all I have right now. At least until the streets are cleared, when the market place re-opens. " Valjean looked outside despairingly.
" It was pointless." Javert said quietly.
Valjean was puzzled for a moment. Had he meant the rebellion? His attempt at suicide? Javert's pursuit of him all these years?
Perhaps it was a general consummation of all these.
" Javert, I'm nearly 50 years old, I've seen a lot, been through a lot, sometimes in company, and mostly alone. You may be the only thing that has remained a constant in my life, all I ask is that we put aside the past. At the very least make an attempt to survive. And perhaps…together."
If Javert had been less of an innocent, he would have instantly understood the ramifications of this; instead he was merely confused.
" What kind of proposal are you making, Valjean?"
Valjean reluctantly turned away from the window and looked back at Javert.
" I'm not sure. Time perhaps will tell, but only if you consent. Really, what other choices do you have? You're at a pivotal point in your life, as am I. Something has to change."
" Fine." Javert acquiesced. He was quite simply, inspired by his curiosity, could he possibly find refuge in the company of his long-time enemy?
Some change came over him then, kindling the long dormant flame within.
And suddenly, he was embarrassed to be so improperly dressed and in such a vulnerable position on the other man's bed, acknowledging all implications that came with this.
" Oh!" Heat ran to his face.
" Javert you don't have to-"
" I-"
Valjean was suddenly regretting that he had verbalized his offer, it had been only on a whim that he had decided to do so, and now, the other man, was obviously humiliated and horrified. Really, he had meant to speak of it later, when Javert had had a few days to recover.
Valjean had of course thought the two would be perfectly suited for one another, different, yet the same. Finding solace in each other's arms, sharing thoughts, or simply sitting in companionable silence with one another until their quiet end. Of course, he taken into consideration that Javert was highly driven by piety and law, but perhaps, he could somehow be separated from the shackles that chained him to the loneliness of what he thought was right and wrong.
He was not asking for a physical relationship if that was not what Javert wanted, for they were both older, and neither had the strong desires of youth. Valjean would of course be open to sharing his bed, opening his arms to the other in the dark, cold night.
If he could get Javert to see beyond his biases and open up to him, then they could have the union they both so needed, regardless of whether they both realized they needed it.
" Valjean, I need… to"
Javert looked suddenly very tired and pale, and lay back on his pillows.
Valjean immediately came, kneeling on the floor beside the bed. He felt a stab of pain, as he so vividly recalled this exact situation not more than 15 years ago, with Fantine. The only other he would have spent the rest of his life with.
" Just rest, get better…" Valjean pleaded, unconsciously stroking the other man's face.
" Valjean… please. Don't. I can't. You don't understand-"Javert whispered.
" What? What can't you do? What don't I understand?" Valjean asked softly.
" It's not right." Javert declared simply.
" Then tell me this isn't what you want."
" I can't," Javert turned away, closing eyes, ashamed, " I can't lie and say this isn't what I want, but I've never. Not with anyone. And it's wrong. The bible-"
" But you-"
" Yes, I know. Suicide is also a sin… so, either way I'm damned. Curse you Valjean, yes. I want it. Why else do you think I've remained celibate! You think it's because I'm so pious that I would wait until after marriage? You wonder why I'm so cold? Why I've had no women?"
" I had no idea. I never knew you were-"
" Yes, well now you know. Have your satisfaction at my expense."
" I will do no such thing. Javert, let me teach you, let me share my life with you. Share yourself with me."
Valjean took Javert's hand and encased it in his own; the other one he placed a soft kiss upon. Javert stared straightforward; lips pursed together, eyes tightly shut, neither responding, nor pulling his hand away.
" I'm going down to your flat to pick up some of your things. If you need anything, just ring this bell, Madame Toissant will assist you until I get back, alright?" Valjean said, standing up, brushing his hands down the front of his vest, smoothing it out.
Javert nodded. He noticed how cold his hands were now that Valjean had released them.
Such strange feelings…