Chapter Text
Since The Incident, Inspector Javert had not left Jean Valjean’s sight; oddly, dragging a fully-grown man out of a polluted and worryingly-torrential body of water did not appear to be an experience that the reformed convict, or the policeman for that matter, cared to repeat. Therefore, after much confusion and more total volume of emotion than Javert had dealt with in his entire life, Valjean had taken to tailing the Inspector on his patrols and so forth through Paris. For Javert, this almost ironic role reversal grew from a painful reminder to a mere annoyance to a pleasant and unfamiliar feeling which he later discovered, following a significant period of denial, was friendship. The two unlikely allies found that they were surprisingly well-matched in an intellectually-stimulating conversation, and despite their apparent lack of a formal education (outside of prison and books), neither was unintelligent. Thus the world had continued turning, and both men had simply enjoyed one another’s company, each without fully realizing that he had fallen deeply, irreversibly, madly in love with his counterpart.
As these things go, the reader may be aware, both Javert and Valjean had become increasingly more emotionally frustrated without explanation, until one unassuming afternoon when sheer luck had driven them to share an uncommonly small carriage on the way to the site of a theft. Needless to say, the prolonged level of physical contact between them was a worthy catalyst for realizations, and the poor driver had been asked to take a few detours to make time for the couple’s mouth-to-mouth confessions (although he would later recall that for some reason he was tipped extraordinarily well that day).
If the gentlemen had been inseparable before this fateful carriage ride, they were practically one unit after it. To appease both of their consciences, Javert had devoted himself to obtaining Valjean a pardon for his original parole breakage, going so far as to track down witnesses from the Orion occasion from over a decade previously. Once this grand feat had been accomplished, Valjean had wasted no time in convincing a very tired Javert to move into his remaining house, which Toussaint welcomed with her timid and motherly air.
Even disregarding the fact that homosexuality was not exactly a welcome practice in 19th century Paris, Javert and Valjean made a somewhat strange pair: they preferred comradeship to carnal pleasures, laughter to lust, and simply holding each other to any other activity. Both were reclusive—Javert by nature and Valjean by habit—so there were few visitors to No. 55 Rue Plumet save for Cosette and Marius, now happily married, and the occasional M. Chabouillet. To the world, the cop and robber presented two older bachelors sharing a space to battle loneliness and pool economic resources. To each other, they were exactly that with the pleasant addition of casual kisses and sharing a bed.
Life was no longer a constant chase for the weary lovers, and the joy they felt together was almost enough to make them forget their miserable pasts.
Almost.