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The man who comes to his door that day is more animal than human. That does not surprise him. In these days, those who survive turn into beasts. Men are wolves who slaver and drool red blood as they stand over a corpse. Men are prey; the weak fall with their throat torn out by those stronger. So is the law after the stars began to fall, after Paris burnt, after the Pyrenees erupt into flame, after the Mont Saint Michel is turned into a new Atlantis beneath the tides of the ever-hungry sea.
The man who comes to his door that day is more wolf than man, and Valjean is wolf enough himself in these days that his hackles rise at the sight, that he grips the precious musket tightly, Cosette and Marius and the child well hidden in the crypt of this old church that is their haven in this world through which Apocalypse has ridden. He is wolf enough also to allow the man in – harmless enough at first glance, a starved scarecrow in a tattered, black coat, but there is something about him that makes Valjean tense, something almost like recognition, although certainly no one survived the inferno that was Paris when the stars fell.
The man raises his hands when the musket is pointed as his chest. He moves with great weariness, allows Valjean to force him against the wall – and there, musket aimed at his heart, the man freezes, his eyes widen, and the jolt of recognition sears through them both.
“Valjean,” the man chokes out, and Valjean, in his panic, grabs the silver candlestick from its place near the door, presses it hard against Javert's throat, eyes wide with fear, for this cannot be a living thing, this shadow from his past cannot have escaped Paris, cannot have followed him to this church that is all that is left of Digne...
Javert makes another choking sound, his lips very pale, but he makes no move to attack, and the skin there at his throat does not burn as Valjean cuts off his air with the silver candlestick. Javert raises his arms in surrender, looks at him from eyes wide with shock and disbelief, forces out a breathless “Please,” and Valjean relents enough to allow the man to gulp in a little air, although he keeps the silver there at his throat.
He does not burn – but then, there are many creatures abroad now, and who knows what this thing before him is. What shadow would choose such a guise, unless it intended evil?
He breathes in the scent of Javert that is warmth, sweat, dirt; so vulnerably human that it is almost painful to sense his mortal warmth after their long isolation – and then Javert, still holding his gaze, reaches out with his hand. His fingers tremble as he drops them into the fount of holy water near them, and a voiceless gasp escapes Valjean when there is no scream, no sound of pain, when Javert pulls out his arm at last and the liquid drips from skin that is pure and unharmed.
“Please, Monsieur,” Javert rasps, and Valjean relents and takes a step back, breathing heavily as he returns the candlestick to the pedestal near the door. Javert closes his eyes, slumps against the wall, gasping for breath as his wet hand grasps his throat.
“I don't want you here. Go,” is what Valjean hears himself say. The words are callous; he knows what is waiting outside. He thinks of the Bishop's door, open to every beggar, every convict; his hands tighten to fists and he still cannot make himself take back the words, not when it is this man, and not when it is this time.
Javert's eyes open; they are dark and unbearably weary. “Do not send me away, Monsieur,” he says at last. “I will plead; ask of me what you will, but do not send me away. Kill me rather.”
Valjean wants to laugh at the ridiculous demand; he does not, for he knows that there are far worse ways to die for a lonely man out there. He knows despair, he sees it before him now, and wonders with a shiver what demons Javert is running from.
“You are mad. I do not want you here,” he says, and Javert, that caricature of his former self, with wild eyes, torn clothes, long, matted hair, sinks to his knees, mute, eyes on him. Valjean shudders at what he sees in them. So, once, did he kneel and weep – he thrusts that memory away, locks it in a part of his mind, but Javert remains, there on his knees before him, and with him the memories of that life before the stars fell and everything changed. He would think Javert a demon, Satan himself come to tempt him in the desert, but if there is one last hope within him that will resist all assault, then it is the unwavering belief that even Satan himself would find himself unable to set foot into the church of Digne.
“I saw a dog-house out there; let me sleep there,” Javert says, voice hoarse, and Valjean flinches. “I'll swear you an oath of obedience. I'll be your dog; you may kick me when you feel like it, and I will come crawling back to your feet. Ask what you will of me, I'll give everything.”
“I am not that sort of man,” Valjean says, and then, again, because Javert does not seem to want to hear, “I do not want you here.” He forces himself not to tremble with dismay at the sight of a man on his knees before him; he makes himself think of Cosette, of what is at stake.
Javert's throat works. Did Valjean once dream of seeing this man humiliated? He cannot remember, and there is nothing pleasurable now in seeing this man broken apart, just one more ghost nearly hunted to death by the creatures spewed forth by the apocalypse.
“I have nowhere else to go, Monsieur,” Javert says at last, defeated, and raises an arm, pulls back the ragged cuff. The skin beneath is very pale, smudged with dirt; his wrist seems strangely thin and fragile, his palm too large. Valjean thinks that he should wonder when Javert last ate; instead, he watches the hypnotizing pulse, the throb of blueish veins, that proclaim the man's humanity in this world that is no longer the realm of mortals.
Javert presses a broken nail to thin skin, bites his lip; almost too late, Valjean realizes what he intends to do, and grinds his teeth. No, the damage is not yet done. Hastily, he grips Javert's hand, but it is too late: a few drops of blood are spilled here at his feet in offering. He clasps his hand over Javert's mouth instead in unhappy despair.
“No. No oath. No – I do not want you, do you hear me?”
Silently, Javert looks at his hand; at last he nods. His lips are rough against the palm of his hand; his breath is hot. When he takes his hand away, Javert licks his lips.
“What do you want then? What can I do? I would swear myself to you in any way you desire to prove myself.”
“Why are you so desperate?”
Javert laughs, a broken sound that echoes in the church. It makes him flinch. It has been long since this small building has heard the sound of such despair.
“If you ask that, it has been long since you ventured out of this place.” Javert closes his eyes. There are deep lines of weariness etched into his skin. He rubs at them; when he opens his eyes again, he keeps them lowered to the floor. “Is there nothing you would have of me? I will work for my keep. I am good for a few years yet. You once seemed to think my life was worth saving.”
Valjean reels at the sudden memory. It seems like a different life now – and it is a different life, a different world: that time when they had faced each other at the barricade, when Javert had been bound, when he had released him.
Javert's blood runs sluggishly down his hand. He forces himself not to listen to the slow drip of his blood as it splashes onto the floor. Javert bleeding himself willingly for him...
No. No, such things cannot be, he tells himself. There is Cosette to think of. There is Marius, and their little Jeanne.
“You did not want to be saved then,” he says, and Javert laughs.
“You do not know half of it.” The expression Javert's lips twist into could almost be a smile, if he had known that man to smile. “I wanted to die then. I tried to seek death.”
Valjean takes a sharp breath.
“It was the wrong night. It was that night. When I fell into the water, that was when the stars began to change their course, when they trembled and fell, and there were creatures moving in the water beneath me, large and terrible, and the water changed its course as well, as everything did. I did not die. Can you believe that? So many died, but I, who sought death, who should have been the first to suffer the wrath of the demons who had been sent unto us – I drifted against a boat, and pulled myself into it, and the current took the boat out of the city. I remember still the sight, the stars falling like balls of fire, consuming the city around me. The sounds Valjean, the wails in the air, I thought I must have died after all and arrived in Hell...”
At last, Javert reaches up to rub his eyes, trembling now that he has fallen silent. Valjean almost reaches out, but then another drop of blood drips to the floor. Javert is very pale. He can see the fast flutter of his pulse at his throat.
“I am sorry,” Valjean says a little helplessly. It is too much, all of a sudden. There is so much grief: for the past, for what they did to each other, for what might have gone differently. Perhaps, had not the stars fallen out of the sky, had not Paris fallen to flame, to pale demons, to the nightmares unleashed as the doors to Hell had been opened wide at last on humanity – perhaps then, he would have delivered the boy to his family, instead of fleeing with him and Cosette, and he would have returned to his home, and surrendered himself to Javert. Perhaps he would have found Javert before he could throw away the life God had given him.
He takes a deep breath. The blood that trickles down Javert's arm slows. It is a sluggish flow now. He is sorry. But he needs to be selfish now; there is the child to think of, he tells himself.
“Javert. We cannot have a stranger here. You know how it is–”
“We?” Javert asks, then catches himself. He sways a little, and for a moment Valjean wonders how far he has walked this day. “It does not matter. If you send me out there – you do not understand.”
His eyes come to rest on a place somewhere behind Valjean. Valjean knows what he sees. There is a very real menace now to the roof-high painting of fallen Lucifer, but Valjean cannot make himself cover it with a curtain. Sometimes, when Cosette and Marius and little Jeanne are asleep, he sits on a pew in the light of a single candle, ignoring the hunger, and stares at it, lest he ever forget that it was in this very place that his soul had been bought from the spirit of perdition, and given to God.
Javert swallows and lowers his head at last. “We both know that when I die, my soul belongs to him. Can you not grant me a few months of peace before I shall know everlasting damnation? It will make no difference, for my soul is lost, but I beg you... You do not know how long I wandered, you do not know what it is like to run, knowing your soul is tarnished beyond all salvation, hearing them on your trail, knowing they will take more from you than just your life...”
He almost chokes on his words. There are tears in his eyes. Valjean wishes he had forced him out sooner. He wishes Javert had never come here.
“Two times I have hidden from the full moon since I last saw people,” Javert says softly. “Valjean, I do not know where to go because there is no place left for me. If you do not trust me, then kill me. I would rather have it be you than some creature of nightmares and darkness.”
Valjean searches for words; he can find nothing for the emptiness within him. There is pain at the heart of him, and he does not know why he feels pain now; with all that happened, this man of all people should no longer be able to wound him. And yet...
“You do not know what you are asking for,” he says, and grabs Javert's shirt, pushes him against the wall. Javert's eyes widen. He can feel him tremble, warm and too thin in his arms. Javert is very real, very mortal. No. This is no nightmare.
“No,” Javert says. He can see the flutter of his pulse, the way his throat works as he swallows. “You do not know what you are asking of me, to tell me to leave. But if you let me stay, you'll have my fealty. I'd give you my loyalty. My soul, for what little worth remains to it.”
Javert leans forward before Valjean can move back, and suddenly, those lips cover his own. They are very warm. He cannot think, can only tighten his fingers around the fabric in his grasp as Javert kisses him. To seal an oath with a kiss – that, too, is not unheard of, and maybe he should have anticipated this; Javert is desperate, and how can he now send him away when he knows–
And then Javert makes a soft sound that is almost a sigh, exhales against him, and as his hands come up to lightly rest on Valjean's arms, his tongue slides in between Valjean's lips. Javert presses closer, his eyes slide shut, and then Valjean stiffens, arches against him, as Javert's tongue presses against his teeth and slices itself open on a fang with quiet determination.
Javert's tongue bleeds into his mouth. It is only a few drops, but it is sweeter than anything he has tasted in years, it is the taste of freedom after he left Toulon, it is the sweetness of little Jeanne's first smile, the laughter in Cosette's eyes, the light in the open door behind the Bishop.
He cannot think; he feels Javert's warmth against him, the starved, hard body trembling, aching to be even closer, and there, after the near unbearable ecstasy of Javert's lifeblood spilled onto his tongue drop after drop like wine at communion, there comes the dregs of the cup, and he drinks that too, drinks the gall of the pain they share, the wrongs between them, feels the scars on his back ache as they had when they were first torn open by the lash, feels in Javert's hand the weight of the whip and the sight of the blood he has spilled, hears the cries of the innocents as the chains are fastened, the moans of the guilty as they are torn away from their families.
When their lips part, Javert still trembles. There is a trace of blood on his lip, but his eyes are clear. There is no sign of fear in them, not even when he raises a hand in wonder and touches Valjean's mouth.
“Why did you do that,” Valjean says as despair descends onto him. It is true; how can he send Javert away now? That is an oath that cannot be broken, and yet – who is this man before him that would beg a monster for succor? It cannot be Javert. Javert of all people, who only saw good and evil, has finally been proven right, after all.
“I told you,” Javert says. He is still breathing heavily; Valjean can hear it, along with that sweet murmur of where his red blood flows hotly through his veins. “I suspected, there at the barricade; a man like you, so strong – and then of course, to see you here, to find out that you escaped from Paris that night, when everything else was lost...”
He squeezes his eyes shut; his hands that still rest on Valjean's arms tremble. “And now here I am, in your power once more, and I see more clearly than ever before. You are a saint in the body of a devil; and I have consigned too many souls to Hell during my years, Valjean. There is no salvation for me. There is no hope. When I die, mine will be the darkness, and the torment I deserve. But until that time, I would know my soul held in your hands. Let me cling to your light for a while. I will not ask for forgiveness. It is too late for that; that night, that moment before the stars began to fall and Hell opened, I handed my resignation to God. I am lost. But I will be content to know myself lost here at your feet for what life remains to me.”
Valjean swallows. He wants to kiss away the trace of blood that mars Javert's lip; he does not know if it would be welcome. Instead, he allows his hand to slide from Javert's shirt to his nape, to curl his hand around the warm, vulnerable skin, feel the excited pulse at Javert's throat. He strokes along a vein with his thumb. Javert exhales; his eyes darken, and Valjean feels the sweet tang of his blood still coating his tongue.
He is a monster. He is not the saint Javert thinks he is. But next to the monster, there is still the light of the Bishop within him, and he clings to it as Javert clings to him now.
How can he give Javert hope when the world itself has been swallowed by darkness?
“You fool,” he murmurs as he strokes his warm skin, and Javert sighs when Valjean does not move, and eventually steps into his embrace, wearily resting his head on his shoulder. “You fool. I do not know why you– “ He catches himself at the way Javert's breath is warm against his own throat. “You were lost, and are found. That is all I can offer you.”
“That is enough,” Javert says, and raises his head again. This time the kiss is clumsy, although Javert manages not to cut himself on his fangs. Despite the lack of his blood spilled into his mouth it is just as sweet, and when it ends, they remain standing there in the middle of the church, clutching at each other, sinner and monster, both of them found in a world that has fallen around them.