Chapter Text
There was no conceivable way that an upright, obstinate, duty-bound man like Javert would be blinded, however momentarily, by what he felt were banal desires. This was certainly not the time to start.
A small town like Montreuil-sur-mer was not a town to incite temptation. It was not without its imperfections and evils and trespassers of many forms, but a significant amount of time had passed since Javert had been assigned to the town, and he had yet to traipse through a scene that would successfully court him into vice and away from his patrols. No fetching whore caught his eye, contraband and other illegally collected goods never incited him to be avaricious, and snuff would remain his only true pleasure, if he had any say in the matter. Indeed, he may not have been religious in the clerical sense, but he was, arguably, no less virtuous than one who contained themselves in a cloister. He was a proud man, both in his work and in his chastity.
But apparently, he had been sent a challenge in the form of Monsieur Madeleine.
At first, Javert had called into question Madeleine's charity and good works. It all seemed frivolous, and was more indicative of someone wracked with guilt and with something to hide. Ordained by the king or not, Javert found himself wondering why the mayor would not, or perhaps could not, temper his mercy with justice. He avoided the man whenever and wherever he could and his respect for the mayor was begrudging.
However, there came a time where as his respect for the mayor solidified, so did two other things: one was his suspicions that Madeleine was at one time the convict, Jean Valjean, though these suspicions became more subdued with his growing consideration for the mayor's own form of goodness. The other was a strange desire Javert had had no prior allegiance with.
It seemed that the mayor had planted an odd need in Javert to possess him.
It was not his fault. This desire could not have been formed of his own accord. Perhaps this was how the townsfolk felt, Javert had first wondered, and this was why the mayor had made himself out to be someone worth a large audience: he was a man who impelled those to see him the way he wanted them to.
Soon after came dreams and other wants. He finally had to concede, even if it was only to himself, that he didn't just admire the mayor, he was fascinated by him the same way one would be fascinated by a distant, unknowing beloved. This was something that required a vast amount of scrutinizing. He began to study the man like a war map, at first strategizing how the mayor might respond if Javert were to request for a formal meeting or to ask for the budget to allocate more to local law enforcement. He wondered how the mayor might respond personally to an informal greeting—a tip of the hat bidding him a good morning, for instance. Strategizing soon became fantasizing, and Javert wondered how the mayor would physically respond if he gripped his bicep to gain his attention, how he would color if he maneuvered his jaw a certain way with a tap or stroke of his fingers, how the mayor would tilt his head when Javert's face neared his own...
Javert had never been chained to a hobby or familiar pastime prior to his infatuation with the mayor, especially one that was not required of him or delegated to him by some superior. Even Monsieur Madeleine, also of few hobbies, was known to find comfort in books and walks in the fields when he wasn't making the town and its residents his priority, but he wasn’t entirely duty-bound, so perhaps such things came easier to him. This hobby of Javert's was a great novelty, and yet it did not seem to consume or make his police duties less efficient. His virtue, in a sense, remained intact like a rope of many fibers. He would not be brought down so easily, or so he thought.
The night Fantine and Bamatabois had their scuffle, and Madeleine's infinite mercy took Fantine out of the arms of the law rekindled Javert's suspicions, though the prior affair with Fauchelevent proved damning as well. He sent in a letter to the Prefecture in Paris, and once he received his response, set off to see the mayor and put the matter to rest. Javert knew his actions called for a just response. He hoped the mayor would be just in this matter as he wanted him to be. If the mayor did agree to his resignation, Javert could continue to be sure of how the world worked and how he functioned as a human being. Perhaps, he thought, he could till the ground and become a farmer, partake in honest work and not be spirited away by temptation.
***
Out of respect, Javert bowed his head. When Madeleine asked of him the reasons behind his visit, Javert made known his suspicions and mentioned the name Jean Valjean.
At this mentioning, he dared to lift his head slightly and saw that Madeleine's kind, yet stoic face—a face Javert had secretly yearned for and longed to respond to him—had grown ashen in color, his eyes as wide as a startled foal. It was the face of the guilt-ridden, of the hallowed found out to be mundane. His Monsieur le Maire had the perfect countenance of the criminal.
A triumphant stirring occurred below Javert's heart, but he would not allow himself to outwardly show it. Everything in him sang in victory—it was almost a form of relief. Immediately, he thought of a way to have what he so ardently tried to convince himself he did not want.
Hat still in hand, and cudgel under his arm, he stepped closer to Madeleine's desk.
"Monsieur le Maire," Javert began. "I am not entirely convinced of your current standing." He had, at this time, switched to the informal tu.
He noted that as Valjean responded, he was making a conscious effort to speak clearly, a definite attempt at masking his guilt. "Javert, you have received your response from the Prefecture, so therefore I cannot be the man you want.”
Javert allowed himself to smile at this. "Ah, but you are the man I want, and I am also a man of observation. I know the characteristics of the guilty. Your face is now without color; your eyes are wide, as if scoping out danger. Just now I could hear you swallow—your own throat betrays you."
He made his way closer to the desk. He entertained the possibility of stepping behind Valjean's chair and running his hands along the wide expanse of his shoulders, simultaneously subduing his own fears and challenging Valjean's magnificent strength. He would not allow himself such contact. Not yet, at least. He would only allow himself to reveal a lowering of his voice, a telling. "Such a look is very becoming of you."
At this, Valjean stood up from his desk, looking like a man just noticing a spring-based trap out in the woods only several paces away from where he walked. Javert nearly glided up to him, lessening their proximity in such a way as to be physically distracting. He hadn't planned to stand this close so soon, but he was quick to recover and placed the tip of his cudgel on Valjean's chest, pushing him back somewhat.
"I will admit that you are a man of great compassion, but unfair in how you distribute it," Javert began. His breathing had grown a shade heavier; it was clear he was not used to these sorts of intimations, but his self-restraint remained. Though he towered over Valjean, the latter was defiant in his own right. His gaze was unclouded—it was clear this desire was not reciprocated.
"I have always been just in my actions; it is a strength not easily cultivated. Perhaps it is time I showed compassion as well?"
Valjean placed his hand on the cudgel and began to turn it away from him as if a child had trained a wooden sword on him. "I demand you cease this nonsense. I will turn myself in and right this matter."
Javert again towered over him, but instead of placing his cudgel on Valjean's chest, he placed it with a sort of tenderness on the side of his neck. This allowed him to press himself blessedly closer to Valjean.
"You would allow yourself to be put back in chains when I offer you mercy? You would mock my offering?" Javert asked incredulously.
"I cannot allow an innocent man to suffer in my name,” Valjean responded.
"But you would allow your good works to go to ruin? You would prevent a woman from being reunited with her child—if indeed she is telling the truth?"
"Not if it meant the condemnation of one man to suffer in my stead."
Although Valjean had wavered in his speech before, his conviction had now been reinforced. The mercy Javert was offering was of no interest to him.
"What if I went in to testify on his behalf? I would be sure of his freedom, just as you can be of yours."
"And what then? What do you expect from me after you have returned from your testimony?"
Javert inwardly smiled at his prospects. "For you to retain your good status among the people, their adoration, your boundless charity, your peace of mind and that of the sickly mother expecting her child..."
The cudgel had never left the one side of Valjean's neck. Javert began to lift his other hand and place it with utmost restraint on the other side. His eyes glowed with a ferocious quality that had, up to that point, only been seen when he caught a criminal and was sure of their place in the world. He was sure at this moment Valjean's place was always within his sights.
"...And for you to be in my good graces. That is to say, in my company, when I desire it. You should know what I mean by that, when I say I desire your company? That you have placed in me a need for you, to know you?"
Valjean blanched. "I have done no such thing."
"I could beg to differ; I could not have made these needs so clear to you without your assistance. Now, which do you prefer? Would you prefer to bind yourself to the law, or to me?"
There was a tense silence. Valjean made no move to break away, opting instead to stare down his unfortunate salvation. Javert began to stroke the side of Valjean's neck with his thumb, as if to coax him to accept his strange form of compassion. He would let the choice be his. On one side-the cudgel: justice, fair in its distribution. A system Javert could be sure of. On the other side-benediction: a blessing that would burn as bright and hot as damnation. It would be new for both of them.
"I do ask one more thing of you," Javert continued.
Valjean answered him with silence.
"Whichever you choose, call me Monsieur Inspector."