Musical/movieverse, not literary! A set of silly drabbles. Warnings: Crack. Fluff. Slash. Fix-it ending.
1.
The river spat him out.
He came to himself on the bank, freezing, filthy. The pain in his arm made him think it must have broken, but his fingers could not find the break. His chest and belly ached from expelling water.
Half his uniform was gone. The other half was ruined.
He could not stand. When he could summon the strength to crawl, he pulled himself beneath the bridge. The ground smelled like rot. Perhaps he smelled the same to the ground.
The night chill was not cold enough to take his life.
Even Hell did not want Javert.
2.
In the morning, he tried again.
This time he prayed for hours first. He listed his many sins. Perhaps he had to acknowledge each of them before he could be released in death.
When he came to, a crowd of people had gathered around him. Because of his ruined uniform, they thought that he was still an Inspector, a victim of foul play.
When he explained that he jumped into the river to die, they thought him a madman.
Absurdly, the people were still kind. One of them brought him bread. He did not have the strength to refuse it.
3.
The third time, he washed up near a church.
"Come inside, for you are weary," said the priest.
"I am a dead man," Javert told him. Yet he slept on a pile of blankets in the church, and in the morning, because he owed it to the priest, if not to God, he confessed: "I am a suicide."
"You are still alive," the priest observed. Javert might have feared God, yet he had never met a man of God who did not babble. "The Lord still has work for you."
"The Lord has never paid me any notice," retorted Javert.
4.
The fourth time, he thought he would be clever. Then the Devil would have no choice but to accept him.
He made a noose, but as he tied it over a branch, the rope frayed.
He jumped from a rooftop, only to land safely in an unseen garden.
He tried to cut his throat with a piece of pottery he found. The shard was dull. His heart kept beating. It was even harder to slit his wrists.
He cursed himself for having lost his gun.
He leaped into the river with his hands bound. And rose, freed, on the bank.
5.
Somehow, after the fifth time, he ended up at a convent. He woke with fretting nuns around him.
And Jean Valjean smiling down.
"This man is my brother," Valjean announced. "He saved me in the sewers."
"Two lies, two sins," muttered Javert.
"On my soul, not on yours." As usual, Valjean ignored Javert's words. He brought clean clothes. He made certain Javert was kept warm and fed.
When Javert tried to creep back to the river, Valjean followed, carrying him back like a swooning girl.
It should not have surprised Javert when Valjean kissed him.
There was no sixth time.