Work Text:
Javert is not a cop anymore.
He believes in the law, and the proper order of things. He believes in rules and consequences and that the innocent have nothing to fear. While the wrongdoers, the villains, those who would break the peace ought to quake in their boots at the inevitability of justice coming down on them.
Javert believes these things with all his being, all that his stony heart is able to give, and he has dedicated his life to upholding those principles, the cornerstones of his world.
But he is not a cop anymore. How could he be?
The stack of papers in front of him does not get any smaller. It does not get any bigger, either. On his first day at his new job one of Javert’s colleagues had set a small stack of documents on his desk – a tiny rickety thing that no amount of newspaper shoved underneath will keep it from wobbling – and assured him with a smile that it would not be a mark of shame if it ever towered over his head. Too much to do, too few hands to do it.
Javert has nodded, thanked his colleague and set to work. While around him on the desks the stacks grow, utterly immune to overtime and weekend work, Javert’s pile stays the same size, as he works one case after the next with the same dedication he once used to put the same people he serves now behind bars.
Javert works as a counsellor for ex-convicts, because he believes in making up for his mistakes.
“You should take a break, dear.”
Javert grunts, but accepts the offered cup of coffee while he scans a list of available translators. It’s a travesty employers don’t provide them – no one has an easy time grasping the legalese of employment contracts much less when forced to read them in a second language.
Javert does not put much stock in conspiracy theories and the like. He has strong opinions about things like self-pity and victim mentality. But he can’t help but wonder if the contract he skimmed earlier, and for which he is currently seeking a translator, would have been worded differently if the employer had written it with someone in mind who had a firmer grasp of its language. His own contracts certainly never looked like that.
He goes down the list of translators, frown deepening with every line he skips past. Busy, busy, not specialised in legal documents, busy, busy, too expensive -
Unless. Javert hums thoughtfully, makes a few estimates in his head, counting in his monthly rent and what little he needs outside of that.
Satisfied with his calculation he puts the name of the translator down with a recommendation to his client.
“Javert?”
He startles, looks up. His colleague still stands at his desk, her ageing face formed into a hesitant smile.
“Yes?” He hesitates, tries not to let it show how hard he struggles for a name. “Jeanne?”
Her smile grows bigger and Javert counts it as a personal victory. He longs for the days when his colleagues didn’t show enough interest in him to warrant learning their first names and they wore their last on their uniforms.
“I was just saying you look tired. Are you settling in alright?”
The conversation unravels before Javert, not unlike his life a few months prior. Frowning he looks up at Jeanne, fingers twitching to get back to work – work that doesn’t embarrass him with his inability to keep up.
“I’ve been here for several months now,” he says carefully.
“Six, next Monday,” Jeanne replies just as cheerful as he is reserved. “We’re thinking about getting you a nice cake, but don’t tell anyone I said anything. It’s supposed to be a surprise. But I meant at your new flat. You just moved, didn’t you?”
Jeanne would have made a good detective. It will take Javert until later this week before he remembers when he told her – and he never did, in so many words. He mentioned once about having finished unpacking. He doesn’t know if he should be flattered or unnerved by her interest in him.
“I am settling in alright, thank you.”
His answer, non-committal as it is, earns him another smile.
“Well, make sure to enjoy the new place. Maybe take some time off to treat the wife.”
“There is no wife.”
“Husband, then.”
“I’m not married.”
Jeanne makes a face as if she’d just been told they still put cocaine in cola.
“Why on earth not? Handsome man like you, they must be lining up.”
How he hates flattery. Empty platitudes and before them the yawning maw of a conversational gap he does not know how to fill. The best he can do is a sort of grimace that even he can’t convince himself is a smile. This is why there’s no spouse waiting for him at home. Well, that and the fact that his belief in love holds far less firm than his belief in a good work ethic. It’s mainly that.
“No. There’s … no one.”
Years ago Javert may have entertained the odd daydream about having someone special to share his burdens with, but he has given up on those notions a long time ago. Long before the world showed him that it values none of his ideals as highly as he does.
Something must have shown in his face, or perhaps the tone of his voice, because Jeanne softens and pats his shoulder.
“That’s alright. The right person will come, dear.”
She says something else but Javert barely listens as he turns back to his work. To his endless frustration, his pile of paperwork has grown nigh imperceptibly higher.
That’s how it starts, this whole mess. It starts with Jeanne and a casual question over his marital status and it spreads like disease in the small office where he spends most of his time.
He makes himself a cup of coffee during a quick break and is asked by people he barely knows what he looks for in a partner.
He comes into work and the first thing he hears is an assurance that he’s perfectly handsome and charming. People whose names he barely remembers show him pictures of their friends and cousins, neighbours and acquaintances, mentioning ever so casually that the person in question just happens to be single.
Casual, always ever so casual. They’re trying to set him up while pretending it’s not on purpose. As if these things just happen. He’d much rather appreciate a good old fashioned courting to this wishy-washy nonsense of meeting up and talking and see where things go. As if there was not intent, hope, and risk behind everything that makes a proper, a real relationship. As if one could be spared from heartbreak by pretending not to be affected.
Javert rejects every not-offer he gets as politely and strictly as he can. He ducks around corners to avoid clusters of his colleagues inquiring after his wellbeing. He nearly up and quits the day one of his clients mentions a singles mixer happening soon. True to Jeanne’s word they make him cake on his sixth month anniversary and he is made to have a piece. He takes it home, and eats it over three days, so as not to overindulge.
It ends one sunny October morning, with a co-worker who is not Jeanne, but who is just as invested in his personal life as she and seemingly every other person in this office.
“My uncle is really sweet. He’s just come out and I just know you two would get along, if you just-”
“No, really, I can’t.”
It’s his third attempt to stave off this particular attempt at setting him up and it works about as well as the two before that. They pass a group of clients waiting in the hallway for their appointments, and Javert does not fail to notice that most of them look far too interested in the proceedings. Highly unprofessional.
“I’m not asking you to go on a date right away. We’re having a little barbecue next weekend, it’s just a casual thing, no pressure. It would do you good to get out a little. Don’t think we don’t know you’re coming into work on weekends all the time. It’s not good for you.”
Javert stops in his tracks, fed up, done with it all. They don’t like him working, fine. They want to mix private and professional, fine. They want to know every minutia of his life, romantic and otherwise, fine.
His eyes scan over the crowd watching him intently, and snag on a small rainbow pin on the lapel of a jacket. He barely looks at the man beyond checking for any inappropriate age discrepancies – he looks a little older than Javert, which is just fine.
“You,” he barks, pointing at the man, stalking over so fast he nearly trips over a backpack another client yanks out of the way so hastily it smacks her in the face.
The man looks to the left and right, then points at himself.
“Me?”
“Yes, you. What is your name?”
“Uh … Jean? Jean Valjean?”
Javert can’t help himself, his nerves get the better of him: “Is that a question or a statement?”
To his surprise the presumed Jean Valjean does not take offence. Instead he straightens up, pulls his jacket down to lie straight.
“A statement. Sir,” he adds with a cheeky grin.
Javert does not allow this to deter him.
“Are you available to rendezvous this coming weekend, M. Valjean?”
Jean Valjean answers in the affirmative, and when Javert asks for it, he writes down his phone number on a slip of paper.
This is how it ends. What ends? His life of quiet and normalcy of course. His colleagues are overjoyed. Javert, not so much.
The weekend comes too soon. Between work and his own impatience with these things, Javert has barely had time to concoct a foolproof plan.
He will take this Jean Valjean to a small restaurant his colleagues like to frequent. They will not stop to talk but make sure they are seen intently engaged with one another. Then, when he comes into work, he will tell his colleagues that he is now seeing someone, and they will believe him because they have seen the evidence, circumstantial though it may be, first hand. They will then stop pestering him about his private life.
He should have known it could never work.
When he meets Valjean in front of the restaurant, a small Chinese place his co-workers described as ‘cosy’, Javert finds to his consternation that his heart beats faster at the sight of him. Because, apparently, Valjean is handsome.
In the waiting room he had looked tired, shabby even, but today he made an effort. He’s shaved, dressed in casual clothes that nonetheless fit him better than the second-hand suit he wore before. The little rainbow pin is still there, pinned to the collar of his tshirt peeking out from under the unconscionably soft looking jumper. Javert frowns at the brief but powerful urge to bury his hands in it.
No matter. Stamping out any inappropriate desires and flat out ignoring his racing heart he strides up to Jean Valjean.
“I must be clear about this,” he says without preamble, earning a raised eyebrow and a mouth twitching in amusement. He does not find it charming. “I have no intention of actually going out with you.”
The smile vanishes. Good. This is a good thing.
“I have asked you out, here, so my co-workers will stop pestering me about my private life. Seeing me ‘socialise’ will satisfy their curiosity and allow me to focus on my work. In return for your assistance I will pay for the meal and whatever fare you paid to get here and back home again. If this arrangement is not to your satisfaction, tell me now.”
The smile is back again along with Jean Valjean’s arm which he holds out as if he genuinely expects Javert to take it.
“Fine by me,” Valjean says and with nothing but patience and wordless insistence, he persuades Javert to link their arms.
Valjean is warm and solid against him and Javert takes to listing the menu items to distract himself, only realising halfway through that perhaps this is not what most people consider small talk. But when he chances a look he finds Valjean smiling and listening attentively, so it must be alright.
They get seated and since Javert took up the first few minutes of this rendezvous by talking, he decides it must now be Valjean’s turn. Valjean does talk, makes conversation not exactly smoothly, but much more competently than Javert. He talks about his daughter, the existence of which is some small consolation. He doesn’t like children, so he will not be in any danger of getting attached to a single father.
Not that there was any risk of that happening before. Still.
“She gave me the pin,” Valjean says, having noticed the way Javert keeps glancing at it. “When I came out she was at university. Since she couldn't just drive home halfway across the country, she sent me this. And to think I told her over the phone because I figured it would be less painful if she ... well.”
Well, indeed. Javert probably would have handled his coming out to his family in a similar fashion, had he ever actually bothered to tell them. It’s not so much that he fears the rejection as that he has never understood why people feel the need to share their preferences with anyone but their partners. What business is that of anyone? Evidently, Valjean thinks it his family’s business.
“Would you have refrained from seeking out men had your daughter disapproved?”
Valjean hums, looks out of the window for a moment. Thinking about Javert’s question. He likes that, that he doesn’t just say the first thing that comes to mind, merely to fill the silence. No, Valjean takes the question seriously enough, or perhaps he doesn’t mind the quiet so much.
Not that it matters. They’ll never see each other again after today.
“Maybe. She’s the most important person in my life. I wouldn’t want to drive a wedge between us.”
And although Javert does not agree, he understands why Valjean thinks this way. He, too, would make any sacrifice necessary to protect that which is important to him.
It surprises him, how nice it is to talk to Valjean, how he doesn’t even realise his plan is working until Valjean points out his co-workers occupying a table suspiciously close to them, having completely forgotten all about it while he was being swept along by the conversation. It is so easy to talk to him, Javert finds himself speaking of things he has never told anyone before they even reach dessert. Once they have, he says things he barely thought to himself.
“How could I have stayed?” he says, stabbing at his piece of apple cake with more aggression than warranted, and deliberately gentles his touch. “My colleagues trod their badges into the dirt with their behaviour and with it everything it stands for. The law is absolute and they treated it like it was nothing, merely because there is not a judge alive who would make them face the consequences of breaking it. It should not be this way,” Javert adds quietly, mostly to himself.
Valjean’s face, which had twisted into a wary frown when Javert had mentioned his previous occupation, has softened, and does so further still.
“Don’t tell me you’re an idealist,” he says, his crooked smile when Javert looks up, enraged that Valjean would make jokes about this, utterly disarming him.
“Of course I’m an idealist.” Again his apple cake becomes the target of his heightened emotions, when he divides it into ever smaller pieces. “To be anything else is a waste of time.”
Valjean’s smile grows wider and Javert has to remind himself to keep his mouth closed.
Did ... did he do that? Did he put that smile there with just his words?
He wants to do it again, but it takes him so long to muser the courage to make a deliberate attempt, the date is over before he can try.
Valjean assures him he doesn’t need his fare covered and thanks him for a wonderful evening. They part ways, and Javert will insist the only reason he’s standing there watching Valjean until he is out of sight is that he has trouble finding his car keys.
Jeanne gushes about Javert’s date to everyone in the office, which means Javert doesn’t have to. When now he tells his co-workers that he does not wish to share his private life, they accept his answer, and don’t pester him anymore. Which is good. His plan worked. He has achieved what he set out to do and now he can focus on what’s important.
He can’t get Valjean’s smile out of his head.
No one has ever looked at him like that. Smiles are condescending, mocking, pitying. Not sincere. Not ... admiring.
Trying to put the whole affair behind him, Javert tackles his paperwork and his clients with renewed vigour. He helps write applications, phones businesses to ask if they hire felons and to persuade them to do so if they deny. In his mind he’s never been very persuasive. Forceful, yes. Resolute, yes. But persuasive? No, and that’s why it comes as such a surprise when more often than not he gets, if not outright enthusiasm, then grudging permission out of these talks. He’ll take every ‘oh, fine then’ with a kiss. Or would, if he was given to such frivolous gestures.
Although with Valjean such a gesture would not be as frivolous. Might have meaning, even, be as sincere as nothing else in this world is.
No.
He must stop thinking about blasted Jean Valjean. It was a one-time deal, a means to an end, he will not be taken by idle daydreaming over Valjean’s muscled arms, his broad chest ... heaven’s he could probably lift Javert with one hand, and ... no. No!
He calls in his next client with an aggressive bark he hopes has not scared them off. But after a small eternity they enter, and Javert looks up, determined to focus fully on this person who has come to him for help, who relies on him to navigate the world that is so hostile to someone who has made the mistake of ending up in the law enforcement’s undiscerning grasp. This is important. This is what he should think about.
And of course the person who walks through his door is none other than Jean Valjean.
Javert resists the urge to let his head fall onto the desk, because he is not a teenager. He can be professional.
“Great. It’s you.”
Well, mostly professional.
Once again Valjean does not appear to grudge him his rudeness. Instead he smiles, implies a nod and then sits down, one desk’s width between them and it is not enough to protect Javert from the seductive scent of laundry detergent and just the barest hint of aftershave.
“Jeanne’s on holiday. She referred me to you.”
Of course he’s on a first-name basis with his case worker. Javert does pointedly not think about what his own name might sound like, spilling from those lips.
“Very well, then let’s-”
“Did they buy it?”
“Pardon?”
Valjean gestures at the office at large,
“Our ruse. Are your co-workers still bothering you about your private life?”
Right. Valjean helped him with a lie, now he wants to know if it succeeded. He supposes that’s how things are done. This is only the second lie he’s told his entire life, and he’s never had a co-conspirator before, so he wouldn’t know. He should assure Valjean that his services were satisfactory, that he is being left alone now that his colleagues believe he has found fulfilment in his private life.
But perhaps it’s because of the way Valjean said ‘our’ ruse. Or because of his charmingly tousled hair, or the too tight shirt. Or because of his smile, which seems to come easy even if Javert is around, perhaps, impossibly, because Javert is around.
Or it is because Javert has not stopped thinking about him since they last met, but he finds himself telling the third lie of his life.
“No.”
“What?”
Javert hesitates, but he’s already committed to this.
“No, they did not believe me. They thought the meeting was ... of a professional nature.”
Surely Valjean must sense his lie. Javert feels his own face heating up, straightens the paper stacks in front of him, rubs his thumb against his index finger, certain that he will be called out, certain that Valjean will think less of him for it, but uncertain of why that thought sounds so devastating inside his head.
“Huh. Then next time we should do something more overtly romantic.”
And just like that the tension dissipates, leaving space for nothing but confusion.
“Next time?”
“Well, yeah. Another date should convince them, right? I’d be happy to help.”
And other than Javert, Valjean appears to be telling the whole and unvarnished truth.
They meet at an amusement park next, which is the most unprofessional setting Javert could think of. He wins a plush animal for Valjean - or rather Valjean’s daughter, who goes to university but will apparently be happy about a thing Javert associates with toddlers. Valjean persuades him to go for a roller coaster ride. He rubs Valjean’s back when he loses his funnel cake afterwards.
They stroll past the attractions with sodas, and decide that the ferris wheel is both suitably romantic for their scheme and slow enough to keep their stomachs settled.
Valjean uses Javert’s phone to take a photo of them both, to show Javert’s co-workers and once and for all convince them of what they already believe.
Javert never shows this photo to anyone, but he looks at it every day.
The lie grows, and keeps on growing. Javert comes up with more and more excuses as to why he desperately needs his co-workers to believe he is in a relationship and why, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, they still doubt him.
Valjean happily accompanies Javert on trips to the movies, the park, seemingly every art gallery and museum in town, and never breathes a word of doubt. Instead he shares with Javert his thoughts, his aspirations - he wants to go into local politics, but can’t see a way to do it with his background - and exactly as much physical contact as Javert can stand.
Or not ... exactly as much.
Javert mourns the loss of Valjean’s strong embrace the second he pulls away and wonders at the same time when he grew so used to this man’s presence.
They have just completed their by now customary stroll through the city park, and are saying their goodbyes.
“If this doesn’t convince them,” Valjean says, referring to more photographs they took trying to look suitably in love. “I may have one more idea.”
“Oh?”
Against his will Javert is curious. Valjean’s grin is downright mischievous, lively in a way it hasn’t been before. Javert desperately wants to know what put it there, if only so he can see more of it.
“Just let me know how it goes with your co-workers,” Valjean says and with a wink and an entirely unnecessary but oh so appreciated kiss to Javert’s cheek, he leaves.
Javert debates whether to keep the lie going all through the night and the better part of the next morning, as well. He should call it off. Tell Valjean that their efforts have borne fruit, he is free to work in peace, and they need never see each other again. But that thought, the idea of ending this courtship, even this false one, drives needles into his chest. For someone who worships the truth as highly as he does, Javert never thought he could get so attached to a lie. Just one more time, he resolves. Just to see what this plan of Valjean’s is, and then he’ll tell him the truth.
When he makes to take his lunch break just a few hours later, he is interrupted by a call from the receptionist, who sounds entirely too pleased with herself for his comfort.
“There’s a M. Valjean here to see you. He says you forgot your lunch at home.”
Oh, Valjean is good. At this moment Javert knows if his life every hinges on convincing someone of a lie, he will entrust the telling of it to Jean Valjean. To imply not only that he has been granted access to Javert’s home but cares enough to make such a detour to bring him his lunch is a masterstroke. He tells the receptionist to send him up, using the time to put himself into the headspace of someone who is in a committed relationship.
Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Valjean with a bunch of roses.
Roses.
Wrapped in crinkling white paper, twelve of them in all, almost hiding the plain brown paper bag that Javert has assuredly not packed himself.
He bought me roses.
Javert mechanically takes both flowers and lunch, feeling his body move but having no memory of telling it to do so. Nor does he consciously reach out to stroke one of the velvet soft petals, red as blood, the scent utterly alien to someone who has never received flowers in his life. Flowers that would have been expensive, prohibitively so on whatever meagre salary Valjean subsists of, since he also keeps refusing any and all attempt by Javert to reimburse him for his time.
And there, beyond the heady scent of roses, and the sack lunch clutched protectively against his chest, is the man himself, smiling that infernally charming smile, and being oddly close ...
Valjean bridges the distance between them and tips Javert’s chin up. Someone, maybe his co-worker Jeanne, swoons, but that is the last thing Javert perceives of the world before it expands a thousandfold just to make room for the reality that Valjean is kissing him.
His lips are chapped, but warm and just ever so slightly forceful, encouraging Javert to yield to their efforts. Rose stems crack under his fist as Javert tries desperately to keep up, to clear his swimming head, to do something other than gasp when Valjean cradles his face between his hands, helpless, vulnerable, and never having felt more comfortable. He’s being kissed within an inch of his life, Valjean’s teeth nipping playfully at his bottom lip, parting for the briefest of moments before he follows it up with another kiss, and another, until they all blend into each other, and Javert is lightheaded not from lack of air but the fact that this isn’t fake. No one could lie this well, and no one with even half the heart that Valjean has would lie about this.
They part when Javert pushes him away, averting his eyes so he doesn’t have to look into Valjean’s eyes. He has deceived him. He has deceived them both. Shame wells up in his chest, makes him swallow thickly.
“I have to ...” Javert says, gesturing vaguely with the flowers.
He doesn’t wait for Valjean to answer, all but flees into his office, and only just so not sinking to the floor right then and there. Instead he props himself up by the closed door, face buried in his sleeve, flowers forgotten by his side. No, not forgotten. Their presence burns a hole in his hand, this sincere gift that he wheedled out of Valjean via deception, this wonderful, charming gesture he is so utterly undeserving of.
He clenches his fist and inadvertently tears a hole in the brown paper bag, the pretence for Valjean’s visit. Morbidly curious, Javert takes a look inside. He is not surprised to find a proper home-cooked meal, nor the apple slices cut into little heart shapes. He is deeply, deeply ashamed, but he is not surprised.
All this, for a lie.
Vaguely Javert becomes aware of a conversation going on outside his door. Valjean, talking to his co-workers. A brief moment of silence then ...
“I see. Thank you for telling me.”
The lie is over.
Javert opens the door just as Valjean is preparing to knock. Wordlessly he bids him enter, catches quickly Jeanne’s worried frown. For Valjean he hopes. Javert does not deserve this kind of concern.
He speaks up before Valjean can.
“I had you meet with me under false pretences,” he says quickly. He forces himself to make eye contact, even though Valjean’s dejected mien tears into him like knives. “I wasted your time, and behaved inappropriately, even if it had been merely a ... casual diversion on your end.”
“It wasn’t,” Valjean says softly.
Javert’s shoulders drop. It’s not like he needs the confirmation. Of what he’s done. What chance he missed.
“You deserve much better than what I did to you,” Javert continues, determined to get this apology out. “I should never have pretended that our rendezvous meant nothing to me. The lie did you a disservice. If ... I understand if you would rather not see me again. But if you ... if I could have ...”
He can’t. He played a detestable game with someone who against all odds cares for him, and he can’t ask for forgiveness. He backs away, tries to put distance between them. Valjean makes no motion to stop him, but neither does he leave. He simply stands there, brows twisted in a confused frown.
“What do you mean you pretended this meant nothing to you?”
Javert raises his head at the utterly gobsmacked tone in Valjean’s voice, to find a matching expression on his face. He doesn’t know what the confusion is, but he tries to clarify nonetheless.
“I should have been honest with my intentions, just as you were with yours. By pretending that I was not in love with you, I showed a callous lack of respect for your person and your time. If I had been honest from the start, perhaps we could ... bah! It does not matter. I am sorry, deeply sorry for the way I behaved and-”
Valjean doesn’t let him finish. Once again the distance between them disappears, once again Valjean’s lips meet his. This time he doesn’t hesitate. He kisses back, not knowing what this means, if it’s to be a last goodbye or a sign that he might still earn forgiveness, but he doesn’t care. He slips Valjean a little tongue, even, as daring as he never was before in his life, and gasps in delighted surprise when it coaxes laughter out of Valjean.
“How would you-” Valjean says between kisses, breathless and grinning. “-make it up to me?”
The waves of relief and the tickle of Valjean’s beard against his jaw destroy Javert’s every attempt at being serious. He makes a valiant effort nonetheless.
“I would court you properly. Make up for my lack of sincerity in any way I can. I swear-”
His solemn vow gets interrupted by helpless peals of laughter when Valjean, to get them even closer, grabs him by the waist and discovers Javert is ticklish.
“Court me?” Valjean murmurs against his skin, kissing the corners of his mouth, along his jaw, then his throat. “Does that mean we can’t have sex right away?”
“Valjean!”
He bats at the other man in a way he only belatedly realises is playful. It’s the first time he’s being playful with another person, and he finds he doesn’t hate the experience.
He doesn’t, however, care for how his voice rises an octave into an entirely undignified squeak when Valjean picks him up with embarrassing ease and leans to whisper at his ear:
“Let’s give your co-workers something to talk about, hm?”
His co-workers do talk, especially when for the first time in six months, Javert takes the weekend off.