Marius Pontmercy had started his own practice, open to those with the money to pay for his services between eight in the morning and five in the afternoon. After hours, it was open for the unfortunates who needed help all the more because they could not afford it at full price.

Though they had both avoided the official opening celebration, when Monsieur Gillenormand had thrown open his house and invited all manner of students and men of law and learning, Javert had deigned to accompany Valjean to a private dinner.

Their conversation meandered after the dinner. Cosette was expecting and had withdrawn early, her soothing voice and shining smile sorely missed. And for all that he still remained bright-eyed in the day, Monsieur Gillenormand had immediately fallen asleep in his seat when they retreated to the smoking room. Valjean fretted silently over his lack of conversation skills while Marius attempted one topic after the other, only to have them all fall flat before the difficult old men he was hosting tonight.

Finally, Javert mentioned that his work had taken him to an artist's studio earlier in the day. After the anecdote Valjean seized the chance to bring up the topic of Javert drawing Cosette. Marius reacted with less enthusiasm to the idea than expected; too late did Valjean recall that the man knew both students and proficient masters of the arts, though his family connections and work. Moreover, though only a fresh lawyer, Marius had the means to pay for a full-scale portrait done in oil if he wished to own one. He made to apologize, when Javert harrumphed and left the room with annoyed strides. In a short time he returned with his sketching utensils in hand.

"Sit," he told Marius, who flopped back into his seat with the obedience of a schoolboy before his incensed master. "This will only take a moment," he continued, and indeed, the charcoal flew over the pad with impressive speed. Javert glanced up occasionally, tilting his head back and forth, though it was Valjean's impression that he drew equally from memory as from the moment.

When he finished, he held up the pad before his eye, as if to compare the image and the reality. He showed his teeth at the comparison. Oh yes, Valjean recalled, this was Javert's other smile, the one he had not seen in a while. Nor missed in the least, though it was amusing when Marius shrunk back from it.

"That was the warm-up," Javert said. He turned the page and began sketching anew. His strokes were somewhat slower now, and he asked Valjean to bring a light closer, and please put it on the little table near his subject. The large lines seemed to come easy to him, though he hesitated somewhat before beginning on the details. He gave Marius a long, measuring look first, then glanced at the sleeping M Gillenormand, before his gaze wandered towards the door through which Cosette had left them... There, following her path, Javert apparently saw enough to make a decision. He returned to his previous sure method, and quickly finished the image.

Javert tore both sheets off, rolled the first together and let it be swallowed by his sleeve, then rose and shoved the second attempt into Marius' face.

The young lawyer blinked, reached up and accepted the paper. He looked at the image – rarely had Valjean been more nervous on another's behalf. It brought to mind when Cosette would lead the recitals at the convent, though he had then felt both more secure of her knowledge of scripture, and more worried that she would let her nerves trip her up. Javert seemed to have no artistic shyness to speak about, and looked down at Marius with the same bored mien he applied to Valjean's attempts to introduce him to Schiller's poetry.

"But Monsieur..." Marius finally said, handling the image with great care when he returned it to Javert, "this is igood/i."

"It would not make much sense to continue to attempt it otherwise," Javert grumbled, and carelessly gave the image to Valjean.

He took it, looked down at the sheet, and saw an image of the young man who was Marius Pontmercy: all nervous smile and untamed hair, despite Cosette's eternal struggle with the comb and scissors. The light of the candle reflected in his eyes, like the spark of conviction for his latest cause. The skin of his face was mostly a white plane, not filled in, yet the shadow of his cheekbone and the tiny scratches marking his lashes around wide eyes turned it from paper into the unlined cheek of youth.

Valjean nodded in approval and made to return the image to Javert. Marius interceded, perhaps because he had been told of Javert's habit of destroying most of his sketches.

"I wish to show it to Cosette," he said. "With your permission, Monsieur."

Javert gave his permission, distracted and careless, and soon after they took their coats and hats and left the house.

"What did you think?" Javert asked when they were on the street. "Of..." He twitched his head back towards the large house, and Valjean weighed his words carefully.

"It was a good likeness," he said. "Very clear and evocative." He thought of the sketches he had seen Javert create in cafés and on park benches. "Although it was perhaps more gentle than you usually are."

"Hah, say it then! Less honest, wasn't it?"

"No," Valjean protested, "for you drew not to flatter and make pretty. Perhaps it is because I know the boy? In the little studies you have made when we walk together, I sometimes imagine an entire story. But I will never know if the truth is as interesting as the tale my mind spins, whereas I know Marius' character from life, and not merely from what I can read in your drawing. Perhaps it is the reason I found your sketch somewhat, well, flat."

The only reply from Javert was a vague hum, though he did not sound displeased with the critique. When next they reached a street light, he reached a hand inside his coat and took out a paper, handing it to Valjean with the more private of his smiles failing to hide beneath the shadow of his hat.

Valjean unrolled it. The coal had smudged somewhat and the light was bad. On the paper, Valjean saw Marius Pontmercy: his lips generous, but slightly petulant, his eyes too wide and so eager to gaze upon his dreams that he would forget where he was putting his feet. The hair had obviously been recently combed, yet managed to evoke the instinct to adjust it in anyone who had been a parent, while his cravat seemed to have been turned in on itself to disguise a spill. In the dawning illumination of joy on his forehead and from the hints of dimples appearing on his cheeks, Valjean recognized the expression. This was Marius one moment from opening his mouth and uttering what he thought would be a perfect compliment to Cosette. It was good that she heard the intent and not the words; Valjean, who couldn't but overhear the actual words said, had taken to clearing his throat at such times, in an attempt to quell his desire to correct the young lawyer.

Javert was weighing back on his heels. For all that he was a man grown grey and age-lined, there was an almost boyish lightness to his voice when he inquired whether Valjean still found it lifeless.

"I thought you were not one to flatter, nor require flattery," he replied instead, and put the image away as carefully as he could, before taking Javert's arm and hooking it in his own. Valjean thought he would keep the image in his desk drawr for it would do him good to look at, if his annoyance with the boy grew too great.

"It is not flattery to ask for an honest opinion," Javert protested.

"It is," Valjean insisted, "when you know I can only applaud you in all ways. For your artistic skill, which has obviously bloomed since you began to practice by drawing old men. And for your sudden gifts in diplomacy, which you have either just acquired or spent many years hiding from me."

"Diplomacy? He wouldn't have noticed either way!"

"No, but I might have committed an indiscretion, if I had both the image and the original to compare. I would only have been able to resist with great difficulty."

"Oh? But you would have managed to resist?" Javert said. "I suppose I must apply myself even harder, then."

"Attempting to drive a wedge between the son-in-law and the unfortunate father?" Valjean asked him with laughter in his voice. "Scoundrel."

"Policeman," Javert corrected. "There is a difference, however minor."

They walked homewards, stepping through darkness and light as their road took them from illuminated boulevards into dark alleys. In equal measure their conversation dipped from winding debates to long stretches of silence; but they both knew this entire night was theirs to ramble through.

When they reached his little house, Valjean was loath to let Javert continue home on his own. Though he had attempted to discover exactly where his friend lived, he had not been able to uncover the fact by honest means. And they both took care not to deceive or pressure each other these days, there'd been too much of that between them. Still, his instincts made him unwilling to let Javert go, when he most assuredly did not live in the safest area of Paris – and it made such a good excuse, too.

Sometimes, Javert would decline and they would spend upwards to a quarter of an hour in the little song-and-dance of 'But it would not at all inconvenience me' versus 'No, Monsieur, I cannot impose' and so on. Amusing as it could be to invent new reasons and deflect polite refusals, Valjean had no desire for it tonight. So he laid his hand upon Javert's and pulled him through the gate, knowing that such a physical invitation was unlikely to lead to a protest. Beneath his fingers', the Inspector's pulse beat a silent protest and Valjean knew he would pay for it with twice as much stubborn officiousness the next time they met in daylight.

"I am turning into a regular night-owl in my old days," Valjean said as they stepped through his front door. "However, if you are weary, the guest room stands ready for you to retire."

"When does it not?" Javert said and carefully hung away his coat. "Do you even have other guests?"

"Ohh," Valjean said vaguely, "it happens, it happens... For instance, Marius brought over M Gillenormand's two little wards not long ago. I look after them sometimes, and help them with their letters."

"Wonderful. It is me and two half-wild children who are your most regular company. A wonder you haven't grown dotty from the isolation."

Almost embarrassed by the thread of worry he heard in Javert's voice, Valjean shrugged. "I do not need much company. As long as I have my daughter and you, my good friend, it is enough."

Javert stilled. He had been removing his protective collar, and when he now grew so completely unmoving it was as if his entire presence, all his natural authority and intensity, spilled out from his body to completely envelope Valjean. Whereas he had once felt the weight of that stare too heavily, dreamt nightmares of it breaking him like the rocks he had broken in his darkest years, the sensation of Javert's regard had now taken on a different quality. It still made Valjean self-conscious – he was not the Sphinx's riddle, who must be dissected down to every detail – but it also teased something within. Before Javert's eyes, beneath his pen, Valjean found himself examined and laid apart as he had never been before. And no matter how many scars were uncovered, no matter how he had felt ashamed for his marked back and lumpy old feet, he was only ever seen and never judged, each fault turned into a matter of light and shadow, Javert pulling him apart until every error became just another part of the whole and he felt... Not perfect, not beautiful. But complete and at peace, and that was the rarest feeling to Valjean.

"Let me draw you," Javert said, and Valjean was nodding before the words were finished. Yes. Tonight he wished to be seen.

"Why did you chose to portray Marius in the way you did?" he asked while he divested himself of his outer garments. Waistcoat and cravat went easily, the braces and shoes too. With the shirt, Valjean still found himself hesitating. He allowed himself to become engrossed in taking off the collar and then ever so carefully unbuttoning the sleeves rather than reflect on it, or experience had taught him that he might well freeze up entirely.

Without looking up from where he was stoking the fire, Javert snorted in a way that revealed all too well what expression he was currently wearing. "How do you mean? Well-meaning but somewhat dim?"

Valjean quenched a laugh at that; the boy was family now, and he would do his best not to belittle him behind his back. "In the moment before he reveals his love to the world," he clarified instead. He began to open the topmost button of his shirt, feeling his mouth grow drier as his fingers worked.

Javert meanwhile busied himself with bringing out his art supplies. Since he still drew only Valjean on the larger sizes of paper, he had left the roll of them here. They both pretended not to notice how the sheets somehow multiplied between sessions.

"It is one of his more common and easily identifiable expressions," Javert said. "It also has the advantage of not entirely revealing what a ninny he is, without falling into flattery." He took up his coal and inspected it critically. Valjean did not know what standards it was failing to uphold, but he nevertheless felt sorry for the little stick.

"Ah yes," he managed, recalling that they had been speaking about Marius just now. "Flattery! That most dreaded of artistic dishonesties."

His unease grew when Javert turned to him and regarded him for a long while. That strict gaze flipped down and Javert frowned at the stockings. Valjean wriggled his toes; Javert had done some detail studies of his hands and feet, which he had even looked over and critiqued, but usually he was not asked to bare them. "Should I –?"

In an irregular move, Javert hesitated, rolling his charcoal nervously between two fingers. He closed his eyes, finally, and nodded slowly.

"Would you..." The words seemed to stick in his throat and he brought the coal to his mouth; silencing himself with his pen, or praying with it, like one might with the rosary, Valjean could not determine.

"Would I what?"

Javert chose not to answer with words; only his hand moved, suddenly, in that grasping helpless gesture that stood for so much between them. When he opened his eyes, his gaze flitted from Valjean's discarded clothing to his standing form. Javert followed the line of him from head to toe, and in that conflicted look he knew the question at least.

He felt his palms grow sticky and it seemed, suddenly, to Valjean that this moment had been hidden behind his fear of disrobing from the very beginning. Would he? Sitting down and unfastening his stockings rather than giving an answer, he looked at Javert, searching for... Answers, perhaps, though the questions remained veiled in confusion.

Though Javert stood before him in his neatly buttoned shirt and meticulously repaired waistcoat, his sideburns immaculate despite the late hour, it seemed to Valjean that he had, in asking this, bared himself even beyond the way he had asked Valjean to disrobe.

He could not answer Javert. His shame, the past and all the marks it had left on him, hung like an ugly stench in the air, and Valjean felt himself wilt beneath the weight of it. Perhaps sensing his hesitation, Javert stepped closer and reached out with the hand holding his charcoal. Though he had closed his eyes again, he found Valjean by feel alone, touched him silently with the tip of that small drawing implement – a small point of contact that nevertheless burned like a brand.

"Let me see you," Javert asked through stiff lips. "Please. Let me just... see you."

Cold crept up Valjean's back; fire grew behind his eyes and he blinked vigorously. He drew a breath to answer; the words would not come. He made a move to agree but he'd grown clumsy and pushed Javert's hand away. His friend jerked back as if stung, eyes flying open, turning from him, until Valjean grabbed his hand, found a word and spoke it in the voice of one who has run and been hunted for hours. "Wait."

The seams of the shirt felt rough against his skin when he pulled it off. It stuck on his ear, it scratched at his face, and he threw it away with something near rage. He would not look down, only used his clumsy hands to unfasten ties and buttons. He felt a rush of air when the fabric pooled around his ankles. He stepped away from the clothes and felt bare planks beneath his feet. Valjean shivered at the draft of air from the window.

"Where do you wish me?" he asked, still not allowing his gaze to in any way leave Javert, keeping his hands well out from his sides; not thinking, only walking with slow, falsely sure steps.

"God above," Javert whispered and the hunger in his voice curled around Valjean, made him intensely aware of every part of himself; deep, ugly grooves of scar-tissue on his ankles, knobbly, creaking knees, lash-marks gouged into his back and coarse hair covering him all over, too peasant-like and rough, while still not doing anything to hide his shame. His chest and shoulders remained strong, though he knew his arms were growing weaker with age, and he became at once acutely upset that the head on his hair had been allowed to grow too long, messy white strands uncomfortable against his neck.

"Here's Jean," he said, and then he had to bite his lips, desperate to keep the laughter back for it could only descend into hysteria.

Fumbling with his coal, Javert's eyes would not leave him as he reached for the paper. "Do you wish – on the bed, I can draw you from behind? No; no, you are right..." His eyes cast about the room, always pulling back to Valjean like one of the curious magnetic demonstrations they had seen. Javert stalked to the settee, took a spread from it and threw it on the carpet in front of the fire. "I need light," he said, "to see you."

Valjean lay down, hesitant, and he could not resist bringing his legs together, could not help the blush that spread over his face as he felt his nipples stiffen and a trembling grow throughout his limbs, up his torso, until he was shaking like a leaf and he must turn his face away.

"Please don't," Javert said. "Please, look at me."

But Valjean found he could not, could not look at anything at all. His fists were clenching, and all the scars and age lines became claws that dug into him; he was curling together, hiding away, ashamed as he had not been since the beginning, ashamed and old and iugly/i.

And then a button pinged against the planks and another fell against his elbow. A rustle of cloth, cursing, and Javert was kneeling next to him, shaking his naked shoulder. He too was shirtless and looked horribly embarrassed about it, but he bent close, until the warmth of his breath could be felt against Valjean's skin, and his voice was strong with honesty and determination in equal measures.

"I need only to draw you on this," he whispered, and he held out the little sketch pad; safe and friendly after months of peaceful company. "I need only too... Oh, let me see you, please, let me look."

His mouth was frozen, his eyes strained to shut out the world; Javert waited, and his breath unfroze the fear lodged around Valjean heart. "Who do you see, then?" he managed, at last.

"You," came the reply, without hesitation or doubts, "I see you, Jean Valjean."

Tears did not quite rise to his eyes then and he managed to roll somewhat onto his back again. With effort, Valjean relaxed his hand, though it still partially obscured his eyes. But Javert nodded, put the coal to his pad and began to sketch. He attacked the paper with the ferocity of pursuit and threw down lines almost haphazardly, smearing them out before tearing a sheet off and beginning anew.

The fire brought warmth from one side. Javert's eye, measuring him and finding each detail worth recording, finding Valjean worth elevating from the flawed world of reality to the gentler planes of the paper, warmed him from the other side. By that hand, he had seen silly boys and wretched beggars acquire a strange dignity – as if their transformation into shadows and greys, as if their diminishing into the world of planes and lines brought forth a light invisible that shone out from their souls.

When the small sketching pad was almost consumed, Javert dropped it unceremoniously on the floor and took up a larger paper, fastened it to his drawing board.

Valjean's curiosity overcame him then, and he reached out his hand, managed to find the sketch pad and pull it closer.

"Oh." There were a dozen sketches of a man there. He was an old man, anyone could tell even though his face was hidden. A man whose life had led him on a long and winding road, before he ended up here, lying half turned away, one leg slightly drawn up and a foot pressed against the floor as if he was only waiting for a signal to roll over, push away and take flight.

"They're only exercises," Javert muttered and tugged at the notepad. "Please have patience, and wait until I finish one that at least halfway captures your likeness."

"But this isn't... He is not caught in your lines, this man," Valjean said, and he stared with wonder at the next image. Here, Javert had left the lower body almost completely unfinished, only a thin scribble outlining the legs; the focus was on the hidden face, the pen having gently lifted the shadows. Each mark was softly smudged, as if he had not wished to bring any sharpness near the vulnerable centre of the portrait. The next image had Valjean flushing; a smudged softness again, though this study dared delve down to the shadows beneath his hips.

"I have no wish to capture you like this," Javert said, and he knelt closer to Valjean, dared lay his large hand fully against his cheek. "Only to know you. Only to know. That has been all, for longer than I dared admit even to myself."

"Yes," Valjean sighed and he finally found himself relaxing back into that sweet mood which only Javert's sketching pad could bring out. "I wish to know you too."

The hand against his face trembled and Javert's lips widened. "May I, then?" he asked, and Valjean was nodding, expectant now to see the result of his art, almost impatient – when lips were pressed against his own, when stubble scratched against his cheek and chin and all his senses filled with the scent of Javert. Without his mind's knowledge or consent, Valjean's hand buried deep in the steel-grey hair and he found himself groaning against Javert, a wave of desire roaring to all-encompassing life within.

The sound Javert made then, the way his fingers crushed the coal, then grasped at Valjean's arms, heedless of the black marks he left... He pulled Valjean closer until their naked chests were pressing at each other, his kisses silent prayers of supplication. As the drawings managed to pull dignified beauty from the meanest subject, Valjean thought his carnal lust grew hallowed beneath Javert's eyes and his careful touches.

Valjean found his mouth again; they kissed. Their teeth bumped together and the wetness was unaccustomed and odd; they were too close, he was too old, they were... they... They kissed, clumsy and new at this skill. They kissed; and they drew each other beautiful with that kiss.

"I was honestly," Javert gasped when Valjean's fingers found the edge of his trousers, "drawing you, only planned to draw you."

He hummed in agreement. For all that there had been a thread from Javert's eyes, tugging at his own excitement from the very beginning, Valjean had never felt himself being leered upon. The gaze had been scientific and admiring in turns, but never naughty, never stealing what he did not yet give; beneath its honest appreciation, his desire had slowly grown and could now freely burst into flower.

Javert was warm in his hands, and the unprecedented sensation of having another's flesh pressed against him there, to know the hardness of another's muscles and the softness of skin upon skin... It broke through all the defences Valjean's many years of chastity had left him with, delivering him to this sweet delirium of the body. He dared hardly wrap a hand around Javert's arousal, fumbled his grip, yet was still rewarded with a sharp hiss and a needful thrust. They knew each other, and that knowing took him apart. It left him overwhelmed and blind, this simple act, it had him aching from the sensations – fingers fumbling along his chest, tangling in the hair upon his chest, a hoarse voice speaking his name over and over again – but his completion was found in something deeper than bodily delights.

For only because he knew that it was Javert's eyes seeing him, Javert's fingers waking him from shame to pleasure, could he accept it all – eyes that demanded and hands that aroused and a hungry, tasting mouth that knew him and accepted him with all his myriad of faults.

When Valjean spilled his pleasure between them, he sank back to lie wholly on the floor, too boneless and lax to even think of moving further. The blanket was the softest meadow beneath his back and his breathlessness a glimmering psalm to beauty. Javert's face was flushed above him; he drew back and touched hesitant fingers to the wet traces on Valjean's stomach, looked at this little proof of pleasure with a face almost wrecked by emotion. Lifting his hand, eyes closing in reverence, he brought a finger near his open mouth and drew in a breath – Valjean could not contain a moan at the sight, spent that he was – before he tasted the trace. Tongue moving against his finger, his ragged breath, and the shiver which took him as if he had just savoured a new delicacy; all these images swirled before Valjean and his arm, still so heavy with fulfilled pleasure, strained upwards to find Javert's thigh, to squeeze and help hold him fast. Then Javert's other hand found his own hardness, drawing upon it with perfunctory strokes, and he looked down upon Valjean, reaching down towards his chest again. His lips formed words, though he seemed to have lost his voice – may I? And he was smearing the fluid against Valjean's stomach, dipping his thumb into the hollow of his belly-button, before bringing his hand up again with such a look of hunger that Valjean knew that had he been but a few years younger, the fire in him would have kindled again.

"You should," he managed, "know me, please."

And then Javert reached for his hand, made him touch his own release and pulled Valjean's fingers to his lips. He tasted Valjean in entity and completion, and before delighted eyes he gave himself over to pleasure and spilled himself upon Valjean.

He swayed in his seat, looked almost undone by his actions, and so Valjean assisted him. He pulled Javert down onto himself, caught his elbow before it might thud painfully into the floor, and held him close at his side as they found a moderatly comfortable position next to each other. The carper felt too thin beneath him now, the clouds of desire having dispersed, but Valjean had slept in more uncomfortable places and never had he felt another sharing this warmth; he would not abandon this bed just yet.

They spoke not, and around them the white sheets with their silent observations were the only witnesses to their joy.