"Well, Javert?" said a rather playful voice, and Javert looked up from the paper upon which he was writing neatly to see Inspector Antoine Leroux leaning back against his own desk and giving him an expectant look. Javert glanced around the room in the station-house, a bit surprised the find that nearly all the other inspectors had finished their work and were putting on their greatcoats and picking up their hats. Leroux held out his hands expectantly. "Will you join us? Martin's birthday, you know."
"Oh." Javert swallowed hard. He contemplated his options then, feeling a twinge of anxiety. Part of him thought he should decline the invitation to go out with his colleagues to celebrate Martin's birthday, that he should simply go home to Cosette. He was only a few minutes from the end of his shift; she would worry terribly if he were hours late. But Phillippe Martin had served as the witness to Javert's wedding and had seen the unexpected drama at the ceremony; Jean Valjean had taken Martin out for a meal and had given Martin a complex excuse about Cosette's parentage. Javert feared now that if he turned down the invitation to celebrate Martin's birthday, he might make Martin cross enough to make the man spill secrets to the others once he was soaked in wine. So Javert pinched his lips tightly and nodded, quickly filing away the paperwork he'd been doing for the night and drawing out a small, blank sheet of paper. He dipped his quill into ink and scribbled briskly,
My dearest Cosette, I am compelled to join my colleagues for a social event this evening but will be home in a few hours' time. You occupy my thoughts all the while. With affection from your husband, Javert.
He blew on the letter to dry it and put his quill away, folding up the paper and rising from his desk. He reached for his hat and slid on his coat, for it was chilly and drizzling today. The others seemed quite pleased that he had agreed to join them, and Javert sighed as he strode from the police station, following the jovial Leroux and Martin, along with Inspector Vincent Dufresne, a younger man of perhaps thirty or so and new to this level of the Paris Police with a shock of ginger hair and a freckled face to match his shy demeanour and studious dedication to solving cases. The straggling member of the party was Inspector Luc Moreau, for whom Javert did not care very much. He was in his late thirties and had fought at Waterloo, something he reminded people of rather incessantly and obnoxiously. He was also a bit of a jokester and, Javert thought, was a bit ineffective as an inspector.
The men made their way out into the street, and once they did, Javert looked about until he saw a cluster of street urchins huddled near the fenced wall around the station. He let out a low whistle to get the children's attention, and a few of them startled, looking like they were about to run.
"Two sous to deliver a message for me," Javert called out, and then two of the boys hesitated, looking at one another and padding barefoot on the damp pavement back toward Javert. They both looked to be around eight years of age, skeletal in their hunger, clad in rags insufficient for the autumnal chill that was quickly approaching. Javert let out a little huff, noting that two boys had come trotting over to his summons to deliver one message. He raised his eyebrows and looked between them. He gestured to the boy on his left. "Your name?"
"Arnaud." The boy patted his sternum proudly, and the other boy hesitated again. He shirked back a little as though he was uncertain of whether or not to trust Javert at all. Javert narrowed his eyes, tipping his head, and noted quietly to the boy who would not speak,
"And you. I know perfectly well who you are, Aristide, though you are looking a bit hungrier as of late."
Still the wretched little creature said nothing at all, and he seemed as though he were a half second from sprinting away. Javert remembered vividly now the way this particular child had followed the cab he and Cosette had been in, calling out to them for charity. Cosette had worried, and Javert had assured her that Aristide had always been fine. The boy did not look particularly fine just now; his eyes were badly sunken and he was very thin. Javert cleared his throat and reached into his pocket, pulling out a few coins. He passed over a five-franc coin to each boy, and he watched as their mouths dropped open in utter shock.
"Monsieur," Arnaud gasped, and Aristide almost looked confused. Javert scowled a bit and scolded the two boys,
"Be careful with those. And I told you, there's work to be done for it. Here. This letter is to be delivered to the Madame living at 27 rue de la Croix-Nivert. Do you know the place?"
"I know it well enough," nodded Aristide. He sniffed and shoved the five franc coin into his ragged trousers, snatching at the folded letter Javert held. He tipped his chin up defiantly to Javert. "27 rue de la Croix-Nivert. It'll get there straight away, Inspector."
"Right. Off with the both of you, then, quick as you please, and get yourselves out of the rain," Javert instructed them firmly. He watched the two boys turn and sprint off then, and he could hear them shouting to one another about the enormous amount of money they had been given as they did. He stood there for a moment in the drizzle, until he heard a somewhat irritated voice from behind him snap,
"Javert, are you coming or not? We're not going to stand here all night in the rain waiting for you."
"Coming." Javert turned and walked with the others, away from the station house and off toward whatever the night held for them.
La Vie Joyeuse was an appropriately named tavern, perhaps, given how raucous and rowdy it was, but as Javert sat at the corner table with Leroux, Martin, Dufresne, and Moreau, he found himself annoyed. Inspector Leroux had been responsible for choosing the venue for Inspector Martin's birthday celebration, and in lieu of anything vaguely civilised, Leroux had selected… this.
"Your glass is empty again, Javert!" cried Moreau, laughing wildly and seizing a green glass bottle from the table. He made a move to pour wine into Javert's thick, plain tumbler, but nothing came out of the bottle. Moreau laughed harder than ever, holding the bottle up and complaining, "Ah! The bottle is empty, too! We have had far too much, it seems."
Javert was about to counter that perhaps Moreau had consumed far too much, and to speak for himself, but in reality, he himself had already had at least three - four? - full tumblers of wine and was certainly feeling his head swim already. He shrugged a bit helplessly as Dufresne, who somehow became more pensive and shy than ever when he'd been drinking, reached for a newly uncorked bottle of wine and poured some of the scarlet liquid into his own glass. He held the bottle up toward Javert to offer him some, and Javert nodded, prompting the younger inspector to fill his glass, and then Moreau's. Moreau held up his glass and cried out,
"Happy birthday, Martin!"
A great cheer went up through part of the tavern, not at all for the first time that night, and people erupted into laughter as the policemen in the corner devolved further into their drink. Martin, for his part, seemed nearly as grumpy as Javert as he slurred,
"I do not suppose the Commissaire would be happy to see us all so… so drunk in uniform in a place like this, Leroux."
"Oh, do cease your infernal unpleasantness, Martin!" Leroux rolled his eyes, and Moreau cackled, swigging his wine and slamming down his tumbler until some wine splashed on the table. Javert took a few sips and set his own glass down more calmly. Leroux gestured around rather grandly at the cramped interior of La Vie Joyeuse. Javert flicked his eyes about and saw the way a young couple were unabashedly kissing at a table near the large hearth. He watched the fiddler, who was taking a break from his playing, chatting with a few older men gathered at the weathered bar. He sniffed and sipped his wine again as he took note of a lone student, perhaps twenty-five years of age, bespectacled and exhausted-looking, a book and a parchment before him, ignoring everything around him as he glanced between the text he was reading and whatever he was writing. Javert sighed heavily and heard Leroux insist,
"It is all in good fun. God above knows, Martin, you need some fun every now and then. I do not suppose you get very much at home. You have said so yourself. Poor man."
"And you do?" Martin scoffed. Javert heard the good-natured ribbing that lay in an undercurrent there, as if there were some sort of brotherhood of misery between Martin and Leroux. Javert blinked a few times and finished off his glass of wine, setting down the empty tumbler and realising as he did that he was farther gone from the wine than he'd thought initially. He gulped, thinking he ought to slow down. But when he turned his gaze away from the other patrons in the tavern, he saw that Dufresne was silently filling all of the glasses at the table again, and very much on instinct, Javert plucked his tumbler from the surface of the table and sipped.
"You're married, Moreau, aren't you?"
"Hah. Unfortunately. The woman drives me mad. She was pretty enough when we wed, but she's positively fat after five children, and she's going to bankrupt me, I swear." Moreau's earlier japing merriment seemed to have dissolved entirely. Javert heard the fiddle start back up, though the fiddler was playing calmer, gentler music now than the frenetic folk dances he'd been thrumming out earlier in the night. Javert glanced over to see the young couple beside the hearth rising from where they sat; the young man was taking the young woman by the hand and leading her out of the tavern, and she was giggling like mad. He frowned and his stomach twisted. He wanted Cosette, he thought suddenly. He was terribly jealous of that young man and the woman with him. Cosette was waiting for Javert at home. He wanted to be there with her right now; he wanted to kiss her until she yanked her face away and begged for breath, to thread his fingers through her blonde hair and feel her own hand up in his hair. He wanted to put his lips to the skin beneath her ear and whisper to her that she was his beautiful Songbird, and he wanted to feel her -
"Javert?"
He snapped to attention at the sound of his name, his cheeks scalding hot as he realised he had completely detached from reality for awhile. The others around the table looked at one another, and Leroux and Moreau laughed a little, seeming very amused as Javert took a few large sips of wine.
"You were distracted, it seems," Inspector Dufresne noted quietly, and Javert huffed a bit defensively. He set down his wine and shrugged.
"Sorry. What?"
Antoine Leroux drummed his thin fingers on the table and sounded quite blurry as he taunted Javert a little. "I was just discussing with Moreau and Dufresne that Martin and I think you to be the luckiest man in Paris, and we all rather despise you for it."
"Hmm." Javert curled up half his mouth and tipped his head. He took another sip of wine and considered saying nothing at all, contributing nothing to this discussion. He considered pointing out that his marriage to Cosette was none of their business. But right now, he was downright drunk, and he had found himself jealous of the young couple and fantasising about Cosette. He remembered the way Martin had seemed envious on Javert's wedding day, the way that had made Javert instinctively puff up with pride. He could not help that. It was an animalistic urge, to want to brag about the fact that he would never have to purchase relations from a whore, that his was a marriage of love and that his wife was nearly perfect. Would Cosette mind him speaking of her right now? He did not think she would. Still, Javert took another gulp of wine for courage, to steel himself, and then he tipped his chin up a little and spoke loudly enough for the others to hear him over the fiddle music, announcing rather proudly,
"Despise me if you will. I am the luckiest man in all the world, I think. Cosette, my wife, is very young and extraordinarily beautiful. She is very well-read, very intelligent. It is easy and pleasant to converse with her; mealtimes and recreation at the opera and such are good fun with her. She is conscientious with money and asks for very little. She is patient. She is a caretaker, even at her young age. A soothing and gentle little personality. And, of course, she ignites within me a veritable flame of…"
Javert trailed off then, realising he had gushed so much about Cosette that he had rather made a fool of himself. The others were all staring at him, open-mouthed and surprised, and though there was still a raucous din in the tavern, the table had gone very quiet. Finally, Martin cleared his throat and affirmed,
"The two of you did seem… remarkably fond of one another when I saw you on your wedding day, Javert. It is enviable, to be certain."
Javert instinctively gulped down a bit more wine, shutting his eyes and wondering if he had embarrassed himself badly. Rather impulsively, because some distant corner of his mind told him that injecting some crude masculine humour into the situation might serve to dissolve the tension, he opened his eyes and blurted out with a shrug,
"It certainly helps things that she is not only willing to suck my cock, but practically begs to do so whenever I allow it. So."
He barked out a laugh at that, setting down his nearly-empty wine and tossing his hands up helplessly as the tavern started to swirl around him in his drunken state. Moreau choked out a strange noise and smiled crookedly, and Leroux emitted some nervous laughter before sipping from his own wine, but Martin's eyes just bugged straight out of his skull in shock, and Dufresne sat in silent alarm as though he knew better than to give much of a reaction.
"Erm…" Javert shook his head a little and knew he had not ameliorated anything. He gnawed his lip and tried, "What I mean is… she… erm… I ought not to have mentioned it."
He felt stupid and ashamed and profoundly inebriated then, and he put his elbow on the wooden table and leaned heavily onto his hand, cursing under his breath and chomping his lip almost until it bled. He listened to the fiddle music for awhile, and then at last Leroux saved him by saying in a jovial voice,
"Well, Javert, now I truly do despise you. I have never heard of a man in your position in all my life. More than fifty years of age, married to a very beautiful young woman of, what, nineteen?"
"Sixteen," Javert gulped, raising his bleary eyes. He sighed and repeated a bit more loudly, "Sixteen."
Leroux looked surprised, his eyebrows going up, but he nodded and scoffed before continuing, "Well. All the more to my point, then! A beautiful young wife of sixteen, who is, by all accounts, madly in love with you."
"God knows why," Martin said, though he, too, was smirking rather good-naturedly now, and Javert finally rolled his eyes and shrugged as Leroux barrelled on,
"Well, whatever her reasons… she is inclined, it seems to give you happy days and very happy nights, Javert. Yes, I do suppose we are all mightily jealous indeed. I myself am sick with envy. Or perhaps I am sick from the wine. Who can say?"
Moreau laughed at that, raising his glass and proposing, "To Inspector Javert, the luckiest and happiest damned old man in all of Paris!"
Even Dufresne pounded the surface of the table in approval at that, and Javert could not help but smile just a little as he drank a bit. He was about to suggest he should get going, but a small gaggle of young women were making their way over to the table where the policemen were seated, and Javert scowled.
"Wouldn't be whores, surely; they'd know better than to solicit police," muttered Moreau, and Javert just stared at them. One was very short in stature and a little plump, with her dark brunette hair piled atop her head and a few messy curls hanging around her face. She was dressed simply, in a dark patterned calico dress, but her clothes were clean and nothing was torn. The other two women were slightly taller and looked similar enough that they might be sisters; both had light blonde hair and fair skin and eyes with slight frames. They, too, wore dresses of simple cotton, clean but very unassuming. As they approached the table, all of the other inspectors rose from their chairs, which of course was the gentlemanly thing to do for women who had come, but Javert stayed seated, for he was more than a little suspicious.
"Police inspectors in La Vie Joyeuse," gushed the shortest of the three young women. "To what do we owe the pleasure? May we sit?"
"Yes, of course," invited Leroux, his voice a haze from how much wine he'd had. He reached over to drag a chair from another table and nearly toppled from his own, and that prompted fits of giggles from the girls, who got chairs for themselves. They summoned some wine for themselves from a passing waiter, and when Leroux paid the waiter, Javert huffed an indignant breath. These women wanted something for free, he thought. Wine, lodging, something else. He did not trust them. Perhaps they were whores, very bold whores.
"So." The shortest young woman grinned, looking about the table again, "What brings you all in, inspectors?"
"How did you know we were inspectors?" asked Dufresne, and the girl gestured to his uniform jacket.
"I know the ranks of the police well enough." She winked at him, and his pale freckled face flushed red. Javert gave him an angry look; he had a wife of his own at home, just like the rest of them. And, unlike the others in very unhappy unions, Javert was made to understand that Dufresne was not altogether displeased with his wife.
"We are celebrating the forty-eighth birthday of Inspector Martin here." Leroux gestured grandly, and Martin waved a bit flirtatiously to the three young women.
"Oh, well, a very happy birthday, Monsieur l'Inspecteur!" the smallest of the women patted Martin's shoulder. She pointed to her friends and said, "We live just around here; we've only recently arrived in Paris from Châteroux; we are performers. Singers and dancers, you understand."
"How marvellous," purred Martin, surveying the young woman up and down with hunger in his eyes. "What did you say your name was?"
She grinned broadly. "I am Coralie. These are my friends, Manon and Margaux. Twins, though not identical, of course!"
So Javert had been right about the other two being sisters. He pinched his lips tightly as Martin began speaking animatedly to the young performer, Coralie, who had approached him. He tried to ignore everyone and focused on finishing off his tumbler of wine, knowing he had already contributed his money for the evening and could just get up and leave. He felt like if he stood now, though, he would sway so badly that he would stumble, so he shoved his empty tumbler away once he had drained it of wine and blinked slowly, trying to gather himself.
"Inspector Javert?"
He frowned deeply, looking up to see one of the tall, thin blonde twins staring down at him. "Who told you my name?"
She smiled warmly and pointed at Leroux. "That man there. Inspector Leroux. He said you are our neighbour! I did not know. Coralie and Margaux and I… we have taken a large room in a house on the rue de la Croix-Nivert."
"That hardly makes us neighbours, and I scarcely think it appropriate that you should know my address," Javert snarled. Manon, the girl before him, startled at the bite in his voice, but Javert did not care that he had frightened her. She had been flirting with him, and he did not like it one bit. He heaved himself slowly out of his chair and swallowed hard, shaking his head a little and then glancing back to the table. He tried to remind himself of what Martin had witnessed - in more ways than one - on his wedding day, of what Valjean had told Martin to cover for things, of why it was so important to stay in Martin's good graces. He let out a shaking breath and finally nodded, saying to the thin blonde girl, Manon,
"A pleasant evening to you."
"And to you, Inspector Javert." She smiled at him again, too widely, batting her eyelashes in a way that made him wince. He put on his top hat and pulled on his coat after fetching them from the rack, struggling to stay dignified on his feet as he swayed and staggered a bit.
"Many more birthdays for you, Martin," he said firmly. The others let up a little roar of approval.
"Goodnight, you lucky old wolf!" laughed Moreau, who had somehow managed to get the other blonde woman engaged in quite the conversation. Javert nodded and turned, leaving the tavern without another word.
Cosette was asleep when Javert got home.
He made it upstairs to find she had left a candle burning in their bedchamber so that he would not be blindly lurching about in the pitch black room upon arriving home. That had been considerate of her, he thought. He saw, too, that the note he had sent for her about coming home late had indeed been delivered, and she had left it open on the bedside table. She did not rouse completely when he slipped into the bedchamber, though she did stir and roll over when she lay until he could see her pretty face in the candlelight. He stared at her as he stripped off his uniform, piece by piece, deciding he would wash in the morning, that he had no energy to do so now.
He slid into the bed, beneath the boutis quilt and the soft sheets, and he arranged himself on his back with a heavy sigh. When he did, he felt Cosette curl up against him, her leg snarling over his hips and her arm draping across his chest. She was awake then, he knew, because he felt her lips touch his bicep and heard her laugh softly and murmur,
"Mmm… you smell like a stale bottle of wine."
"Sorry," he whispered, but she kissed the muscle of his arm again and asked him,
"What was the social occasion?"
Javert shut his eyes. "Martin's birthday. Forty-eight. Younger than me, the son of a wretch."
Cosette giggled a bit. "Did he have a very fine birthday?"
"Fine enough by the end of it," Javert conceded, for when he'd left Martin, the man had been engaged in a very enthusiastic chat with a woman who was most definitely not his wife. Javert frowned and felt compelled to tell Cosette in a voice that was blurry from wine, "I… wanted you. Badly. I was thinking of you, of wanting to kiss and touch you. I spoke much too freely about you to the others; I was trying to make them jealous, and of course it worked, but in truth it was my own mind whirling away from me thinking about you and…"
He sighed, and then Cosette pushed herself up a little to stare down at him. She seemed concerned, and she studied his face for a long moment. She reached to stroke his cheekbone with her small fingertips, which made him shudder, and when she moved her hand to drag her fingernails gently through his hair to massage his scalp, Javert growled a little and pulled her hand away, protesting,
"Cosette."
She gave him a crooked little smile. "What's the matter? You said you wanted me. Do you not want me now?"
"Of course I do." Javert felt frustration surge through his veins then as his cock started to flush hard. He squared his jaw and met Cosette's gaze as he seethed through his teeth, "I made a fool of myself and I besmirched you."
Cosette's full lips parted, and she pulled her hand out of Javert's grasp as realisation crossed over her features. She nodded and whispered, "You told them. You were drunk and you were boasting about me, and you told them what I like to do to you."
Javert shoved his head back against the pillow, shutting his eyes. "Forgive me."
There was a long moment of quiet then, until Javert sucked in air hard at the feel of Cosette's lips against his neck. His breath shook at the sensation of her climbing onto him, of her legs slowly going onto either side of his hips and her sinking down to grind against him. She was using both hands to massage his scalp now, and she pulled her mouth up the side of his neck until her lips were beside his ear. Javert reached up and took firm hold of Cosette's waist, encouraging her to move atop him, to gring herself against the knee-length cotton flannel underwear he had left on for sleeping out of sheer laziness. As she cycled her hips against his, Javert's breath shook like mad and he found himself reaching beneath the hem of her nightgown, desperate to feel her skin, to touch her. He squeezed at her thighs, at her backside, and he snarled out a beastly sort of sound, bucking his hips up roughly. Cosette moaned and gasped as she lapped and suckled at his neck, and then she suddenly sucked a spot so hard that Javert thought she would leave a mark there. He should care about that, he thought, but instead the feeling just made his cock swell up and throb more insistently. She did it again; she bit a little and sucked the spot before soothing it with some kisses, and Javert groaned helplessly.
"What did they say?" Cosette demanded breathlessly, her lips moving up beside Javert's ear. "The other inspectors, when you… when you told them what I do to you? What did… what did they say?"
Javert could not answer her at first. He was drunk. He was dizzy. He was about to spill himself and be lost to sublime pleasure. How could he answer such a question?
"Cosette." He grasped her hips hard and ground her mercilessly against his cock through the material of his cotton flannel underwear, and when he did, she sat up a little and cried out in an almost panicked way, tossing her head back and putting her fists to Javert's chest as her face scrunched up and flushed red. She was reaching her own peak, Javert knew, and watching her do so was more than enough to drive him over his own edge. They almost never achieved satisfaction simultaneously or harmoniously; usually one or the other of them was attended to in full first and then it was ensured that the other was likewise fulfilled. But Cosette was still panting, her chest heaving and her hips still swiveling a little, as Javert's dam burst and his ears rang and his pleasure exploded. It was over too soon, but the intensity was beyond compare; Javert had never perceived such powerful explosivity since he had been on a battlefield. He must have said Cosette's name in a low, rumbling whine seven or eight times whilst his cock erupted, he knew, but he could not help himself. She was the cause of his pleasure, and so he would speak her name like a chant, like a prayer.
He quickly moved Cosette off of him afterwards, lying her gently on the bed so that the seed that he had spilt into his underwear did not make its way into her body somehow. She had made it clear she was not ready for motherhood. She lay on her back catching her breath as he staggered, still hopelessly drunk, over to the wash stand to strip himself naked and put his now-filthy underwear in the hamper. Isabelle would not be pleased about that, he thought, wincing. He managed, with some measure of difficulty and lack of coordination, to use a sponge and some water to daub away the mess from his own body and then returned to bed naked, thinking he would just dress in the morning. Once he was on his back with Cosette snarled up alongside him again, he closed his eyes and prepared to sleep, spent and weary and intoxicated, but she asked him again, as she had done before,
"What did the others say when you told them what I like to do to you?"
"Oh." He licked his lips and flushed a little, admitting, "They were, at first, very surprised I would say such a thing. But then they all admitted enormous envy. Obviously. Still, I… I should never have spoken of such a thing, and I am very sorry."
Cosette was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, "Were they telling you about things their wives do for them?"
Javert scoffed, turning to stare at her and frowning. "No."
Cosette seemed confused. "Why not?"
"Because they do not love their wives in such a way, and their wives do not love them in such a way," Javert said, as though it were obvious. Cosette's face crumpled in a manner that would have been rather adorable in normal circumstances, and she whispered,
"That is tragic."
Javert smiled a little. "I suppose it is. Perhaps I should not brag any more to them and should simply revel on my own in what I've got. Anyway, by the time I'd left for the night, they were all flirting with girls who were not their wives. Singers or dancers, provincial girls."
He'd sounded unaffected himself, he knew, and he made a move to return to his sleeping position, but Cosette seemed to panic from beside him, and she demanded in a shrill little voice,
"What provincial girls? Do you know these girls? Were you -"
Javert rolled his eyes at her. "No," he said sharply. "One tried. I made it abundantly clear I was not interested. I saw a couple across the room, and I found myself wanting to leave the tavern at once, to rush home and be with my wife, to kiss her and touch her, to whisper to my Songbird that I love her."
"Oh." Cosette's pale eyes watered. She nodded and tipped her face against him then, shutting her eyes. "Do get some rest. I'm sure your head will be absolutely pounding in the morning. You will be needing some of your Gypsy mother's hydrating solution, no doubt."
Javert choked out a laugh and let his fingertips drift up and down Cosette's arm until sleep robbed him of the ability to keep touching her, until he slipped away into slumber, into dreams of encircling Ulm in Napoleon's Army and then dreams of kissing Cosette in the library in this house.
Cosette hummed softly where she sat alone at the dining room table, chewing a small bite of baguette that had been sliced and then buttered and slathered with plum preserve. She relished the delicious flavours and sipped carefully from her cup of hot chocolate, drumming her fingers upon the lace tablecloth as she glanced about the dining room. Another few moments passed in contented quiet as Cosette nibbled more bread and sipped more of her chocolate. Then she heard the steady thud of boot steps descending the staircase, and she smiled a little as she turned her face to see Javert stalking toward the dining room. She gestured to the head of the table and explained,
"I started eating without you. I do apologise; I know you've got to get to work, and my Papa is coming soon to walk with me in the Luxembourg Gardens, so…"
She trailed off then, because Javert looked a bit irritated as he sank into his chair at the head of the table and started spreading butter and preserved on his sliced baguette. Cosette gulped heavily and asked quietly,
"Have I made you cross?"
"No," he insisted, shaking his head. "It's only that I had my schedule all wrong. For work. I had a niggling thought about it as I was pulling on my boots, and I looked in my diary… sure enough, I don't even work today. Woke up early for nothing."
"Oh!" Cosette curled up half her mouth and shrugged. "Well. I suppose you have an unexpected day off, then."
Javert rolled his eyes a bit. "I have been a bit absent-minded as of late, I fear. I feel foolish for it. I'll eat breakfast and go take my uniform off, I suppose. Or… you know, I'll wait and say hello to your father, at least. That's a fine dress; is that one new?"
Cosette felt her cheeks flush very warm. She glanced down at herself, at the olive green and muted gold calico walking dress she'd recently had made. It was a pretty autumnal creation, not overly formal or ornamental, but very flattering on her petite form, she thought. She hesitated and then assured Javert,
"This and the other two calico dresses… they were very reasonably priced, I promise."
He smirked a little, chewing his baguette and washing his bite down with some coffee. Then he assured her, "I am not at all concerned about the cost, Cosette; you ask for very little. I was complimenting you. That's all."
She nodded, reaching up to stroke over the braids that Isabelle had crisscrossed around her head today to go beneath her dark wool bonnet for walking. She tried to always look well put together, but not ostentatious. She hoped that Javert found her sufficiently good-looking without finding her gaudy. She realised then that she must have been moping, because at last, he asked her in a concerned sort of tone,
"Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing at all," Cosette assured him, smiling weakly and looking him up and down. He himself had come to the table in his full police uniform, since he'd thought he would be going to work today. Cosette swallowed hard then, staring at the buttons on his jacket and remembering how, two nights earlier, he'd arrived home from work and had told her he'd had to engage in a long foot chase with a criminal, a man who had assaulted a woman in the Latin Quarter.
Did you catch the man? Cosette had murmured in their bedchamber, pushing his heavy police coat from him and feeling how the white shirt beneath was damp with sweat. He had nodded then, still a bit breathless, and she had told him that he needed to be rewarded for his gallantry as she had descended to her knees. He had hissed her name through clenched teeth then, over and over… Cosette. Cosette.
"Cosette?"
She snapped to attention now, here in the dining room, her face on fire as she thought of what she did alone with him, and when she met his worried eyes, his features softened, and a bit of an amused expression crossed his face. He opened his mouth as if he meant to say something, to tease her, but then there was a loud sound on the house's main door as someone banged the knocker a few times. Cosette startled and flew to her feet, muttering,
"That'll be Papa."
Javert huffed and rolled his eyes, setting down the remains of his baguette and heaving himself out of his own chair. Cosette hurried out of the dining room and made her way through the ground level of the house and into the foyer to find her father chatting amiably with Isabelle, who had admitted him. He was holding his top hat in one hand and a brass-headed walking stick in the other, and instantly, Cosette saw that his face looked far more tired and drawn than usual. She frowned a little as he looked at her, his aged face somehow seeming like all the wrinkles had dug in and deepened stubbornly since last she'd seen him. His pale eyes appeared weary, almost exhausted, but there was still distinct kindness in them as he curled up his lips and nodded.
"My dearest child." He held out his arms to her. "Come embrace your Papa, will you?"
Cosette hesitated, worried over him, but at last she plastered a happy look on her own face and rushed toward him. She was careful not to squeeze him too tightly, for he seemed just a little fragile just now. She put herself up on her tiptoes and reached to kiss his scruffy jaw, where his white whiskers were, and he let out a low laugh as she pulled away and stared up at him. But then they both went a little serious, and she demanded,
"Why do you seem so tired, Papa?"
He sighed heavily and shrugged. "I suppose… because I am, my dear. I am tired. My bones and my joints and my muscles have finally begun to protest loudly at me. When I fall asleep at night, morning comes far too quickly and I never quite feel rested. But that is the way of things, the nature of growing old. There is no need for worry, Cosette. Ah! Javert. I'd have thought you gone for work by now."
He turned his face a little and nodded, and Cosette did the same, noticing the mild look of surprise on her husband's face as he surveyed her father. Javert seemed just as struck by the change in her Papa's appearance in the week and a half since last they'd seen one another as she did. He cleared his throat a bit and said stiffly,
"Morning, Valjean. Erm… no. I had my days mixed up, actually. I haven't got work today, as it happens. Unforeseen day of leisure, I suppose."
"But you mustn't spend it inside; the air is crisp and fresh," Cosette's father said, almost pointedly. Javert frowned, and then Cosette noticed that her wool bonnet was in his hands, and he was dragging his thumbs over it almost anxiously. She had forgotten it in the dining room, and he'd brought it. She reached silently for it, giving him a thankful look, and she started to pull it onto her head. As she tied the ribbon beneath her chin, she heard her father continue, "Join us for a walk, will you?"
Javert looked a little uncomfortable, shifting on his feet. He glanced between Cosette and her father and said firmly, "I could not possibly impose, Valjean. I know very well that these walks in the Luxembourg Gardens have always been treasured between you and Cosette."
Her father's face was a bit odd then as he stared at Javert and nodded before saying in a careful, deliberate sort of tone, "I should very much like it, Javert, if you would accompany us today so that Cosette might show you all of her favourite places in the Gardens."
Javert raised his eyebrows but bowed his head respectfully and murmured, "Of course."
Cosette felt a bit uneasy then as she pulled on brown leather gloves and her own wool cloak, watching as Javert tugged on his great coat and put his hat on his head. She tipped her chin up then and asked him,
"Do you not mind being in uniform to walk with us?"
"No, it's fine," he said dismissively. He flashed her a small smile and waved his gloved hand. "It'll scare off the pickpockets, if nothing else."
Cosette scoffed a bit playfully at that, and she hesitated as she wondered whose arm to take. But Javert nodded toward her father, so Cosette threaded her hand up through her Papa's elbow and walked with him out through the front door and followed Javert down the steps, going slowly as her father seemed a bit more laboured as he moved today than usual. She met Javert's eyes as they passed through the gate out onto rue de la Croix-Nivert, giving him a fretting expression, and she knew he could tell she was troubled by how fatigued her father was acting today. Javert ambled patiently beside them as a horse-drawn cab moved quickly by, and he finally mused,
"It is indeed crisp air, Valjean; you were right."
"The sky is clear as glass and bright blue and it is neither cold nor warm. Perfectly autumnal, I think," Cosette's father replied. She smiled at each of them then, tightening her grip on her Papa's arm. It pleased her greatly when they were so pleasant with one another, particularly because she knew there had been a time when they had loathed each other deeply. She looked up ahead and then startled with a small gasp as she saw a crowd gathered around the front of one of the stone buildings on the right side of the road. A horse and cart were struggling to get past the crowd, and in the centre of the mass, Cosette could see a wildly whirling figure and could hear an energetic violin playing. From beside her, Javert huffed rather angrily and lamented,
"I haven't got anything on me… my truncheon or -"
"You are not on duty," Cosette said firmly. "You are not working today."
He glared at her and gestured ahead. "They are blocking the road. Look at that cart. That is an illegal gathering. I am wearing my uniform. Cosette, I am a servant of the law; ignoring such a thing is wholly unacceptable."
Cosette sighed a little but just nodded at him at last and said quietly, "Please be careful."
Javert chomped his lip and started stalking quite purposefully toward the large crowd. Cosette kept walking with her father, approaching the situation cautiously. She knew Javert did not have so much as a whistle on him, let alone a sword or handcuffs or any meaningful way of defending himself.
"Do not worry over him, my dear; he is more than capable of handling such a trivial thing as this," said her father comfortingly beside her, patting her hand, and when Cosette looked up at him, her Papa chuckled a bit, seeming amused. He shook his head and smirked. "I should think that an unruly crowd and a Gypsy dancer are nothing at all for a man like Javert to unravel. He has dealth with far worse single-handedly. I speak from experience."
Cosette scowled and whispered, more to herself than to her father, "The past is the past."
She watched, though, as her husband shouted angrily at the crowd to disperse, as he commanded them all to clear the road they were blocking. People started to fizzle away, and then Javert snapped a stern warning at the dancer and violinist at the centre of it all - clearly Gypsies - not to come back and perform here. This was a quiet, residential street, he barked at them harshly, and he insisted they leave at once. Then he whirled round and began to stride confidently back to where Cosette stood waiting with her father, his face an impatient glower.
"Inspector Javert? Inspector Javert, is that you?"
Cosette's eyebrows flew up at the sound of a female voice calling for him. She watched Javert stiffen, watched his boots scuff to a stop, and he shut his eyes and looked more irritated than ever where he stood a few paces away from Cosette. He finally turned around slowly as three young women in simple cotton dresses and plain wool cloaks came trotting up. Cosette's stomach twisted oddly and she felt an ugly coil of queasiness as she saw a short, rather plump girl with a broad grin followed by lithe, pretty blonde girls approach Javert. The shortest of the three dashed straight up to him and breathlessly exclaimed,
"Manon knew it was you! Fancy meeting you here. So you do live on our street, after all."
Javert said nothing to the young woman for a moment, and since he was facing away from her, Cosette could not see his face. She was gripping her father's arm so hard she feared she would rip it right off his body, but she worried she would fall otherwise. At last, she heard Javert say in an odd, stilted tone,
"Mademoiselles. None of you should attend gatherings like this… Gypsy street performers blocking the road."
The two blonde girls giggled and nodded, and one of them purred in far too flirtatious a tone, "Well, we do indeed apologise, Monsieur l'Inspecteur. It won't happen again. Promise. But you did break it all up very effectively."
"Right. A good day to you all, then." Javert turned away from them, and when he did, he walked directly up to Cosette and practically tore her arm out of her father's grasp. Her Papa let him do it, too, quickly stepping away with an astonishing amount of grace, as though he seemed to think it very necessary that Javert seize Cosette just now. Cosette sidled up to Javert immediately, and when she did, she saw the three young women from before eyeing her from where they stood. Finally, one of the tall, pretty blonde ones grinned and waved a bit at Cosette and said,
"I'm Manon, and this is Coralie and Margaux. We live just down the road. Number 42 rue de la Croix-Nivert. We've recently moved here from Châteroux."
"Ah." Suddenly realisation washed over Cosette, drenching her like icy water. These were the Provincial girls, the singers and dancers, who had flirted with the inspectors in the tavern at Martin's birthday party. One, Javert had said, had been rather insistent with him. Had it been this one, this tall and pretty blonde? Cosette's stomach fluttered uncertainly. She nibbled her lip and adjusted her stance beside Javert, instinctively moving her hand down to mesh with his, twining their gloved fingers together. She tipped her face up imperiously and said in a haughty tone to the girl,
"Yes, my husband told me about having met you all. I'm glad to finally make your acquaintance. It is always good to meet the neighbours. We shall have to call on one another; you must come for cakes and coffee, and I shall visit you at your home. I'm sure it's lovely. This is a wonderful street."
Javert made an odd, snorting sort of sound from beside Cosette, as if he could not completely contain his amusement. The blonde girl, Manon, suddenly blanched and then flushed scarlet, shifting where she stood. She looked at the two young women on either side of her and then stammered a bit awkwardly,
"W-Well… we are just renting the one room… for now."
"For now," repeated the shortest one insistently. Cosette tried not to smirk. She just gave a patient nod.
"Ah. I understand entirely. Well. If ever you find that space a bit cramped, you're always welcome to come calling. We've got a lovely little garden, and a fine library, and our Isabelle is a marvellous cook. Isn't she, dear husband?"
"So she is… though I daresay the finest furnishing in the house is the wife, and the home is utterly derelict when you are not inside of it," Javert responded smoothly, gazing down at her. Cosette gulped as she met his eyes, and when he flicked up an eyebrow and half of his mouth rather playfully at her, she wasn't certain whether to laugh or grab him and try to climb him right there. Instead, she just squeezed his hand and kept staring at him, until she finally heard Manon say,
"Right. Well, it was very nice to meet you, Madame. Good to see you again, Inspector."
"Do not tarry at gatherings like this anymore," Javert said stiffly to the girl, still staring at Cosette, and that seemed to be his way of dismissing Manon. After a few moments, the three young women had gone, and in fact, the entire street had emptied and gone quiet. Finally, Cosette heard her father clear his throat gently, and she managed to snap out of her reverie. She pulled back from Javert a little, but when she did, her father's tired face seemed cross. His normally tender voice was laced with judgment as he cautioned Cosette,
"You were most unkind to that poor girl."
Her face seared hot as she snapped rather defensively, "She covets my husband, Papa."
Her father tipped his face and gave her a sceptical look as he said quietly, "She and the other two are living in one rented room. They are Provincial girls, little more than paupers. Little wonder they've got stars in their eyes for police inspectors - even married ones. Do try to see things from their point of view, Cosette. Snarling at the girl and being boastful and cruel about your home… I had thought I'd taught you better."
Cosette gulped and shrugged, admitting with a sense of humiliation, "You did. You did teach me better, Papa. I am sorry."
He sighed and nodded. "Come. Let us go walk in the Gardens before I am too tired to do so."
"Should I be concerned?" Cosette stared at the ceiling in the bed she shared with Javert. From beside her, he grunted quietly, for he had been very nearly asleep when she had asked the question. He stirred a little and reached for her from where he lay, pulling her closer to him. Cosette curled up against him, kissing his bare ribs and breathing in the unique and characteristic aroma of his warm, bare flesh. She brushed her fingertips over his shoulder and then grasped at the muscle of his upper arm for a moment before demanding again, "Do you think I ought to worry?"
"About those silly girls from the tavern?" Javert croaked out. "Please, Cosette. Do not be ridiculous. I find it all mildly insulting, to be honest."
But she scowled where she lay and corrected him, "My father. I meant… should I be worried about my father?"
"Oh." Javert sighed heavily. "Erm… he was tired today. I noticed it, too. But he's an old man, Cosette. Old men have tired days. He is not gravely ill. He would tell me if he were."
Cosette's mind twinged with anxiety as she pressed, "Are you very sure about that?"
"Yes," Javert said at once. Then, very carefully, he added, "One of our promises."
"I see." Cosette shut her eyes. "Goodnight then."
"Goodnight, my beautiful Songbird." His voice was low and rumbling, and Cosette smiled at the comforting timbre of it. She whispered against his skin,
"How I love you."
He did not answer, though it was not because he did not love her back. It was because he was already fast asleep.
All of the bodies were covered in snow.
Javert's boots crunched and slid as he trudged, breathless and weary, his right gloved fist hardly able to grip his musket with bayonet any longer. How many had he stabbed through with his blade at this point? Did it matter? The ground was frozen and scarlet-stained, but new snow had fallen on the unmoving corpses, masking the blood, hiding the death, shrouding the carcasses of the boys and men who had, perhaps an hour ago, been valiantly engaged in combat.
Javert's breath clouded before him, crystalline in the Austerlitz air that had gone as numb as Javert's own limbs. His feet moved beneath him, ensconced within his boots, plodding and stumbling around the dead, but he could not feel them. His eyes felt glazed as he looked around him at the mass destruction wrought by cannon fire, by gunpowder, by bayonet—man's merciless eagerness to kill the enemy.
"Javert!"
He turned around at the sound of his name, sniffing a little as his nose ran in the frigid winter that felt endless just now. He saw one of his own fellow Frenchmen staggering up toward him, and his mouth fell open, because he could not remember the soldier's name just now, but what he could see was that the boy - and he was very little more than a boy - was bleeding profusely from a gaping wound in his abdomen and had gone white in the face. As he approached Javert, he collapsed to his knees and gurgled helplessly, and then he held up his hand and thrust something out. A letter. The boy was clutching a letter.
"Take… this… home to… France… for me…"
The boy collapsed onto his side and gasped helplessly, and Javert stared for a moment as he bled out on the snow, curled up in his French uniform among dozens of dead Austrians. Javert waited for the boy to stop bleeding, and then he carefully tucked the letter that had been shoved at him into his own jacket. He bent down and carefully examined the boy's body. Still warm. The Austrians around him had gone cold and stiff. They were covered in snow. But this boy was still warm, still leaking blood. Javert put him on his back and shut his eyes, sighing and sucking his teeth for a moment. Then he snatched the young soldier's hair in his gloved fist, taking hold of a great handful of the boy's wavy brown strands. He brought up the bayonet he'd been carrying for a while now, which was still stained with Austrian blood. He wiped it as clean as he could on the boy's French uniform, and then he sliced through the dead Frenchman's hair until he'd cut off a lock. Javert tucked the lock of hair away with the boy's letter into his uniform jacket and rose, turning and striding away quickly.
The corpse, he knew, would get buried with all of the others. If Javert made it home alive to France from Austerlitz, he would try to get the letter and the lock of hair to the boy's family.
"Javert!"
He stirred but did not wake, not entirely. He made an anxious sound, he knew; he heard it come from his own lips. He struggled to wrench himself from the dark tendrils of sleep that had hold of him, and he felt himself twining and panting where he lay. But then he felt something else, too… soft, gentle, small hands running up and down his arms, over his chest, onto his jaw. He felt lips touch his cheekbone, and then he heard someone shushing him, soothing him. He heard a female voice purring beside his ear, with far more comfort than he'd ever received,
"No, my dear husband, we are not in Moravia. We are not at Austerlitz. There are no enemies here. There is only your little Songbird, and you are at home. All is well. Wake for me, husband; I beg you."
"Cosette." Javert blinked his eyes open slowly and then realised there were tears, searingly hot tears, streaming from them and running down his temples, leaking onto his pillow where he lay on his back. His breath came quick and shallow through clenched teeth as his hands fisted at the crimson and cream boutis quilt. He shook his head a bit and tried to insist that he was fine, that it had been nothing but a silly dream, but of course that was not true. The nightmare had been a profoundly vivid and very real recollection of actual events… a memory made manifest in his subconscious.
Cosette was kissing the tears from his skin, Javert could feel, and for some reason that humiliated him. He wrenched his eyes shut again and hissed out into the darkness of their bedchamber,
"I am perfectly fine. I apologise for disturbing your slumber. Soldiers dream often of battle, even decades later."
"I can only imagine," Cosette hummed. He felt the bed shift then, and he cracked his eyes open to see that, in the warm flickers of dim light still bathing the little room from the dying embers in the fireplace, she was staring down at him, having sat up in her nightgown and braided hair. She stroked his chest gently and said in a quiet, patient tone, "When I was a very small girl, my Papa had terrible nightmares. They would wake me, sometimes, and he would apologise. I did not know then what he was dreaming about. I did not understand. I think I understand now; I think he was dreaming of prison."
Javert huffed and reached up to stroke at Cosette's thin fingers, feeling the shake in his own hand as he did. "Yes. Probably. It was hell in Toulon. Certainly enough to induce nightmares in a man."
He watched Cosette's lips go into a flat line, and then she tipped her head and hesitated before she admitted in a little whisper, "I have nightmares, too. I was very, very small… when I was at the inn in Montfermeil… but I have these hazy, wispy memories that seem to surface most sharply and painfully when I am sleeping. Memories of being scolded and whipped, of being alone and cold, of sleeping on a floor and not having any toys, of missing my Maman and wondering if she was still alive. Men grabbing at me, drunk men. The Madame taking gruesome delight in slapping me as hard as she could whilst everyone cheered. This is what I dream… sometimes."
"Cosette." Javert started to sit up slowly, his stomach roiling with sudden nausea. He shook his head a little, but Cosette touched his sternum and insisted quickly,
"I do not mean to… I am only trying to tell you that I understand, at least a little, that sleep can be a restless and torturous endeavour. That is all. And I am sorry for you, dear husband, because I know that whilst they gave you medals for bravery in battle, I imagine that in order to earn such medals, you must have seen and done rather awful things. Things to give you nightmares."
Javert bowed his head, just a little overcome by her then. He had gone his entire life without a wife until very recently. He had always been alone. And that had served him very well, until it had not. He had not been able to cope with life at all the night he had been a hair's breadth from leaping from the Pont au Change. Valjean had wrestled him down. He had wound up wanting Cosette, most unexpectedly. He had wound up marrying Cosette, very unexpectedly. And now it seemed to Javert as though having lived without her, or the concept of ever living without her again, was the most ridiculous notion on Earth.
"I love you more than any person has ever loved anyone else, I think," he mumbled, and when he flicked his eyes up, Cosette was giving him a playful little smile and tipping her head. She reached to tuck his grey hair behind his ear; it had come loose as he'd thrashed about in his sleep. She sighed and whispered,
"That may be a little dramatic, but I will not argue with you."
Javert reached to snatch her face in his hands then, unable to help himself, and he dragged her toward him and crushed her mouth with a kiss. She did not resist him, not even a little bit. Instead, she heaved herself toward him on the bed, climbing around him, putting a knee on either side of his hips and threading her lithe arms around his shoulders as she let him guide the kiss. Javert grunted into her open mouth and searched it with his tongue, perhaps a bit too aggressively, but she stayed passive and let him drag his tongue around the roof of her mouth, let him suck hard on her lip, let him shove her head aside roughly so he could gnaw at the delicate flesh beneath her ear in a way that would leave an obvious mark. She gasped and then moaned, her arms tightening around his shoulders, her knees cinching around his hips, and Javert felt a surge of want for her, a fire flaring inside of him. He'd awakened uneasy and vulnerable and frustrated. But she was here and she was perfect, holding him and drinking him in and moaning and…
"Cosette." Suddenly he found himself burrowing his face into the crook of her neck, and as she pet his grey hair and then slowly untied the ribbon still binding his queue, he huffed onto her warm skin. She dragged her fingernails through his hair and he groaned onto her neck, craving her, needing her, and his right hand caressed a breast aimlessly through the thin linen of her nightgown. He pawed for a moment at the round orb and thumbed her peaked nipple through the nightgown, murmuring onto her flesh that she was pretty, that she was pretty everywhere.
He was dizzy.
Somehow he wound up on his back again. Javert was not exactly certain how that happened. Hadn't he been the one grabbing Cosette's face and crushing her with aggressive kisses? But he did not mind one bit how things were going now as he lay on his back atop the boutis quilt and stared at the ceiling, feeling small hands pushing up his nightshirt and encouraging him to wriggle out of it. He did not voice even one word of protest when Cosette started to touch him everywhere she could, when her fingers gripped and grasped the muscles of his shoulders and his arms, when she pushed his hips down because he'd begun to impatiently buck them a little. He huffed and threw his head back, shutting his eyes, and when he did, he felt her lips on his, careful and light, and then her breath was warm as she whispered,
"Tell me how to please you, husband."
Everything you do pleases me, he considered reminding her, but instead, he reached up and dragged his knuckles around her soft face, pulling her down for another kiss before he replied,
"You know how to please me, Cosette. You know I am most pleased by that which belongs only to you and I. Hmm?"
"Yes." She touched her lips to his again, and then she was gone. He watched her. He watched as she situated herself between his bent thighs, as she fondled his orbs in one hand and swallowed up his cock with long, sweeping strokes that alternated with now-expert laps at his tip. She kept her eyes locked on his. She hummed onto him. She told him a few times that she liked it, that she liked to do this. That she was his and he was hers. She delved very deeply a few times and suckled hard, and that was it. Javert could stand it no longer. He snarled out her name very desperately and emptied himself and she dutifully drank down his seed like elixir, and then she lay her face upon his thigh, seeming sated and tired and energised all at once.
Javert could not leave her unattended to, of course, so he urged her upward, and she instinctively curled up alongside him. He used his fingers between her legs, having become something of an expert with her there himself. He knew now what she liked. They were familiar with one another now. He knew that she liked circles on her nub with his thumb, so he drew them. She liked three fingers inside of her, though she did not like when he thrust those fingers too deeply or quickly. She liked careful, teasing exploration of her folds in tandem with that constant pressure on her most sensitive spot. She liked him murmuring gently to her all the while about her being his precious Songbird, about her being lovely and his . She liked when he kept his voice a steady baritone during these things. This much Javert had learnt about her. He adhered to all of his learning now, careful to try and pleasure her as much as possible. So she writhed beside him as she reached her zenith, clutching at him and frantically kissing his scruffy jaw as she seethed, as her walls contracted around his fingers.
When at last Javert had cleaned them both up a little and stoked the fire and they'd arranged themselves back beneath the blankets, Cosette asked very quietly,
"Will you find peace now, when you fall asleep again?"
Javert smirked a little where he lay. "I don't know. It doesn't matter. I am happy I woke, in a way."
From beside him, Cosette stroked his bicep and was silent for a few moments, until she mumbled in a very uncertain voice,
"Do you grow cross and impatient with me, husband, that I… that we do not very often… I know it irregular that you do not spill yourself inside of me, that we make no effort to have a child. I know it is my duty -"
"You are sixteen , Cosette," Javert growled, and then he moved, feeling protective of her all of a sudden. He shifted to face her, to snare his arm around her and meet her gaze where they lay. Her pale eyes were wide and searching, uneasy. He kissed her forehead and reminded her, "I had no children for fifty-four years, Cosette; I have never had aspirations of fatherhood in my life, and I do not have them now. If it ever happens for me that I become a father, so be it. If not, very well. But I refuse to unnecessarily lose you to childbirth, and that happens very often, you know, to women. And you are very, very young. You've all the years of the world ahead of you. It is preposterous that I should put a child on you when neither you nor I need me to do so to love one another or to feel pleasure. Anyway, that is not why I married you. You know why I married you."
Cosette nibbled her lip and nodded, glancing away. She sounded rather glum then. "Yes. You and Papa struck a bargain. I know. I was almost certainly going to marry Marius Pontmercy, if he had lived, but he did not. He died. And my father was very frightened about the idea of dying and leaving me all alone in the world, with no mother and no other family. Money is not enough to protect a young woman, I know. And he saw that you and I were fond enough of each other. And so he convinced you to marry me, and you agreed, I suspect in part because you and my father… owed one another a great deal by -"
"Cosette!" Javert sat up quickly and glared down at her. His grey hair was hanging limply in front of his face, and he shoved it roughly back, shaking a bit to hear her talk the way she'd done. She stared up at him, still lying down, looking just a little defiant. She shrugged a little from the pillows and demanded,
"Haven't I got it all right? I heard the two of you talking once, in the dining room, about my mother, about your regrets… I know you both plotted about me…"
"I love you," Javert snarled at her through his teeth, his eyes burning like mad. He felt a bit of honest rage then as he scoffed and nearly spat out, "We were not conspiring over you like you were some sort of prize, like you were a bit of property. I'll have you know that. Do you have any idea, my little Songbird, what sort of sacrifice of my pride it took for me to beg Jean Valjean of all people for permission to marry his adopted daughter? Hmm? Have you got any notion of how badly I shook, trying to choke out to your father that I wanted to marry you, that I would give you everything I had? I have told that man to his face that I love you."
He was panting then, and he felt embarrassed again for some reason. He shook his head a little and suddenly yanked himself up and out of the bed. He stalked across the bedchamber and over toward his wardrobe, flinging open the small doors and starting to drag out random, half-matched bits of a casual ensemble. Black woollen breeches, a black silk waistcoat, his burgundy wool tailcoat, the one with the brass buttons. He started to dress as quickly as he could, and as he did, Cosette demanded from the bed in a fretful, anxious voice,
"What are you doing? Where are you going?"
"I am going for a walk," Javert answered simply. He had his clothes on so quickly that even he was surprised; he'd not readied himself so expeditiously since his Army days.
His Army days. His mind flared again with thoughts of Austerlitz. Suddenly his nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder mixing with the metallic tang of blood, the distinct icy chill of the air and the whip of wind on his frostbitten face. Javert shut his eyes and leaned on his washstand for a moment; his ears reverberated with the roar of gunfire and the thudding of the cavalry's hoofbeats, with the screams of the dying. The ground beneath him shook with cannon blasts. He opened his eyes and quickly steadied himself, reaching for a tie and yanking his hair back without brushing it. He stepped into his most casual black boots without having put on any proper socks, and he started to stalk from the room.
"Wait. Wait!"
Cosette had slid out of the bed and grasped his arm. Javert paused by the door and turned to her, staring down at her and keeping his face neutral. She looked utterly terrified, her pretty eyes round and her full lips parted and quivering. She shook her head wildly and pleaded in a choked, tearful voice,
"Please do not go. Please don't leave me. I'm sorry. I did not mean to anger you."
"I am not angry," Javert told her. "I am merely in need of a walk. That's all."
Cosette seemed terribly confused. She licked her lips anxiously and seemed unable to catch her breath, making a frustrated sound. She actually stamped her foot and tried, "You can… you can have whores, if you like! Or those Provincial girls! If you're bored, you can -"
"Bored." Javert whispered the word and tipped his head. He scoffed and then sucked his teeth. He reached for Cosette's face and cupped her jaw in his hand, shaking his head. His voice was low but trembling then as he said to her, "I married you, Cosette, to take care of you but also because I am catastrophically in love with you. I have no need whatsoever to put a child on you. And you do anything but bore me. Now. If you will excuse me… I am going for a walk."
Cosette blinked a few times and managed to choke out, "It is half past two in the morning."
"Good," Javert nodded crisply. "Then no one will be about."
Javert's eyes fixed down into the shadowy depths of the Seine. The water seemed colder now than it had looked when he had been on this bridge in June. Contemplating suicide in the summer, somehow, had seemed less intimidating than just standing here and peering at the river in the autumn. The water now was black and beckoning, even though all Javert was doing was staring at it.
His mother had been called Zoya, and she had died of jail fever. One morning, Javert had awakened in their tiny cell to find his mother delirious with a raging fever, convulsing, covered in a rash. Javert had tried to care for her; he had pleaded with the guards for a doctor, but all they had done was to tear him from Zoya and had told him that he would catch the jail fever himself and perish. He had never seen his mother again. They'd thrown her into a pit with all the others who had died, probably.
Just like the boy from Austerlitz, Javert thought. Thrown into a pit. Usually they tried to sort out one side from another after battles. Not always. Sometimes they just dug giant pits and threw all the dead soldiers inside. At Austerlitz, it had been too cold to dig very deep pits. Javert had heard that many of the bodies had been burned, or put into temporary, shallow graves in the cold, frozen ground to be dug up again in the spring.
Sacha. The young soldier's name had been Sacha Laroche, the boy who had thrust a letter at Javert before dying on the field at Austerlitz. And Javert had indeed cut off some of the boy's hair, and he had followed through on getting the letter and the hair where it was meant to go once he was back in France. That had not been difficult, since Sacha Laroche had been a boy from Marseille, and Javert had been headed for Toulon. He had delivered the letter and hair to the boy's young lover, a pretty red-haired girl called Lilou who had cried and cried when she had learnt of Sacha's death. Then Javert had left and gone to Toulon and had tried not to think about Austerlitz anymore, until they'd given him the damned Légion d'Honneur and had interrupted his ability to go on living in denial about war and the past.
The Seine was black and very cold tonight, Javert thought, drumming his fingers on the edge of the parapet as he sighed and stared at the way the water churned and rushed. There had been a good deal of rain over the summer and into the autumn; perhaps that was why the river flowed so aggressively.
Hubristic, brazen Enjolras and the fat drunkard Grantaire and all the other idiotic students had been sprawled in puddled of blood this summer, much more inelegantly than the dead soldiers had looked at Austerlitz, Javert considered. At least the dead soldiers at Austerlitz had had the dignity to lie still and quiet beneath a blanket of snow. The rebels this summer had been sprawled all over their barricades with limbs awkwardly jutting out, sticky with hot blood and sweat, their corpses quickly going rotten in the sweltering summer that was already foul with cholera. And Gavroche had been among them… Gavroche, just a child; he could not have possibly known better, but there he had been, just the same, bullet-riddled and scarlet-stained like the rest of them.
And at least Austerlitz had been predictably cruel and merciless. At least the wars had made sense in their barbarity. Javert had not at all been prepared for Jean Valjean's confusing mercy, for his compassion, his altruistic actions, his expression of forgiveness, his begging and pleading… he had not been prepared to have his own life saved multiple times, or to fall in love, to want to stay alive so that he could enmesh his soul with someone else's. The world had become very baffling, very quickly, and though Javert had tried desperately to convince himself that he was no longer baffled, sometimes he was not so certain about that.
The Seine was very black and very cold tonight, it seemed.
"I knew you would be here, but I am not happy to see you here."
Javert shut his eyes at the sound of her voice. He gulped hard and then turned his face as he licked his lips and forced his eyes open. He was shocked to see Cosette approaching him on foot with a lantern in her hand. She was wearing, it seemed, nothing more than her pink wrapper and brown leather shoes with leather gloves beneath her warmest cloak and a mismatched wool bonnet she had hastily put over her long braid. Javert stared at her in alarm and demanded a bit sharply,
"How did you get here? The sun will be up sooner than -"
"I walked," Cosette said simply, approaching him and shrugging. "Let ten minutes after you did. But my legs are far shorter; I'm sure you make much better time here."
Javert gulped. Even with his long, determined strides, it was an hour's walk from rue de la Croix-Nivert to the Pont au Change. He despised the idea of Cosette wandering the streets of Paris alone at this time of night, and all he could bring himself to whisper was,
"You could have at least taken a cab."
She smirked at him in the light of her lantern and shook her head. "None to be had. Not at a quarter to three in the morning. I was afraid you had come here, husband, with very bad ideas in your mind. Have you? Why are you on this bridge?"
He sighed and glanced at the river, gnawing his lip hard for a moment. He finally shrugged and whispered, almost more to himself than to her,
"I'm not… really entirely certain."
"Come away from the edge. You could fall, my dear husband," said Cosette very gently, and Javert curled up half his mouth, because he was standing nowhere near the edge of the bridge at all. He did not move, but then he felt her come up beside him and lace her hand through his arm, felt her rub at the sleeve of his great coat, and she murmured carefully again, "You must be careful, Javert. You do not know how to swim, and you could fall into the river, standing here like this. Please, come home with me. Anyway, it is dark and cold… this is no time to be outside, not when you are not on duty. Will you take me home?"
"Yes," he nodded, and he turned and bent low to touch his lips to her cold cheekbone, hearing her breath hitch with relief when he did. He huffed and started walking away from the bridge with her, off toward the Right Bank, and as they took off with some speed, Cosette said comfortingly,
"I think we could both do with some hot chocolate once we get back. I shall make it for us."
Javert nodded and kept walking, but then he lowered their hands and squeezed at hers and said, with his eyes locked forward,
"Your voice… it is like a Songbird's. Did you know?"