Warning: men falling in love. Javert wanted me to write something in this fandom on which I couldn't use the tag "middle aged virgins."

It is widely believed that Javert has only one vice, that being snuff. In fact, Javert has two vices: snuff and Jean Valjean.

Since all his searching for the latter has been for naught, he has had to make do with substitutes. In the years since Valjean disappeared into an alley and out of Javert's reach, Javert has had carnal relations with dozens of men, perhaps hundreds, not one of whom has slaked his desire.

Javert is discreet but his appetite is voracious. In the underground where men find one another to share illicit pleasures, he has a reputation for seeking out only the strongest men. He is not obsessed with lookalikes, he does not confine his interest by the broadness of a man's shoulders nor the size of his cock, yet Javert only welcomes liaisons with partners who can overwhelm him physically, and Javert is not a man who is easily overwhelmed.

No man, whether rough or gentle, brutish or skilled, greedy or generous, well-formed or scarred, well-spoken or crude, well-mannered or violent, has been Valjean. No words spoken in the heat of passion by any other can sate Javert's wish to be spoken to by Valjean whether in anger or lust or joy. Never has Javert wanted to lie pressed against another in the aftermath, to murmur thanks, wishing or asking for a second encounter.

There is only one man with whom he dreams of doing this over and over, not only in a frenzied urge for release but in every way one men can gratify another. He envisions himself being fucked by Valjean for hours, perhaps trapped, tied up, kept, only to be released and demand it again. He imagines waking beside Valjean...offering...begging. If the opportunity were to arise, he might wish to give himself to Valjean forever.

Because of this, he tells himself that it is just as well he will never see Valjean again and his position would not allow him to surrender to such shame.

So Javert is not prepared for the shock when he recognizes the man who comes to the barricade. He could be forgiven for being afraid, yet he is not. The headiness of arousal is too strong - finally, finally to have the opportunity to see Valjean once more, to be touched by him, to know that Javert was right, that this man has no equal, that Valjean is as striking and strong and dangerous as Javert had remembered. It is satisfying rather than fearsome when Valjean approaches with a knife. Maybe, in the end, this is the only way that Javert's longings can be fulfilled.

He is even less prepared for the horror of being told that he is free. He has never asked to be free. Imprisonment at Valjean's side would be preferable to being free.

For hours Javert moves as if in a daze. He walks past the bodies of men and boys, seeking only one face, not finding it. When at last he guesses that Valjean must have gone into the sewers, hope leaps inside him. Once more his life has purpose. He takes himself to the mouth of the conduit and waits, praying to find Valjean once more.

Yet when his prayer is answered, he must choose. It is a greater horror than being set free. His thoughts have never been in such turmoil. He lets Valjean take the wounded boy home to give himself more time to consider. He paces the riverbank, thinking that it would be easier to give himself to the dark water than to face the darkness that has so long held him in its grasp.

In his thoughts, in his deeds, he has wronged a good man, yet he can't help wishing for the things he has always wanted from Valjean. He supposes that this means he is as base and vile as Valjean, but not even the taste of those words can stop his longing. He feels that he must resign, from the police and from whatever higher power has watched his life from the cold distance that has left him alone. He might as well be dead.

If he is destined for Hell, there is one thing that he wants first. So he goes to Valjean. The man seems woeful yet prepared to see him, as he had told Javert that he would be. Valjean sends his daughter and his servant to their rooms. They have both been crying. It seems that he has told them of all that has befallen him.

"You let me go when you might have killed me," says Javert. His heart is pounding. "You told me where to find you. I must understand why."

"Perhaps I am tired of hiding," Valjean replies. Indeed, he does look very tired. He is cleaner than when Javert last saw him, but he is dressed simply, like a peasant. His shoulders slump like an old man's. "Do what you must." Valjean holds out his hands as if he expects to have his wrists put in irons.

Unable to resist seeing him thus, Javert grabs his hands. Then he commits the transgression that he knows will cost him his uniform and everything else for which he has worked all his life. He tugs Valjean close and kisses him.

If this is madness, it is the most blissful sort of madness, the kind that lets men see the glories of the angels circling overhead and hear rapturous music playing all around. Even though Valjean does not kiss him back, seemingly too astonished to move a single muscle, it is the greatest pleasure that Javert has ever known.

When at last he must come up for air, Valjean stares at him with his lips parted. He makes no attempt to withdraw his hands from Javert's clasp. "Inspector," he begins, his tone uncertain, his voice not entirely steady.

"I will not arrest you," Javert tells him. All the promised glories of heaven seem contained in Valjean's smile. Why had Javert ever thought that he owed more to duty than to this? "You will be free, and our debts released."

Maybe it is only gratitude that causes Valjean to kiss him back, but soon the kiss is far more than that. Javert's mouth opens for Valjean, his hands slide up Valjean's arms. He thinks that Valjean kisses awkwardly, as if Valjean has not had much experience of kissing, which excites him further. If Valjean has only known the rapaciousness of the galleys, he will welcome Javert's yielding. Together they stumble from the room into the small chamber that holds Valjean's bed, though when Valjean has kicked the door closed, they collapse against the nearest wall, with Valjean returning Javert's kisses.

Valjean's mouth is inquisitive. It seems as though he cannot get enough of tasting Javert. Perhaps he has wondered too, perhaps he has even dreamed of this. The thought is painfully arousing and also strangely affecting, like the time Javert's fellow policeman surprised him with a celebration after a difficult arrest.

Javert cannot be still. He has imagined this for far too long and the reality surpasses his imagination. He presses himself against Valjean's thigh and feels that, too, move with curiosity over the bulge in Javert's trousers. A twitch against Javert's hip tells him that Valjean too finds this pleasing. Broad hands slide down Javert's back, cupping Javert's bottom, studying Javert's shape and form.

"Fuck me," Javert moans.

He feels Valjean go still. "What did you say?"

"Please. I have dreamed of you for all these years. Fuck me!"

All the delightful feelings stop at once as Valjean draws back. His face is tight with anger. "Is that what you think I am?"

Uncharacteristically, Javert finds himself speechless. "I thought - but you were kissing me!"

"You were kissing me," Valjean insists, moving as far away from Javert as he can with the wall behind him.

This time Javert will not let him escape. "You were kissing me back. You had your hands on me. You were letting me rut myself against you like a wanton whore!"

A faint blush spreads over Valjean's face. Javert wants to kiss it, first the right cheek, then the left. "Kissing is not -" He makes an abbreviated gesture with one hand. "Not fornication. I know you think I am a thief and a liar, but I have never been - that."

Javert stares in amazement. He knows what passes between convicts in the prisons and often afterward, when men who have acquired a taste for buggery seek other men willing to indulge them. He has sometimes lain with such men who confessed in the dark that they had spent time in jail and learned to take such pleasures. "You were nearly twenty years in the galleys," he says.

Again vexation twists Valjean's face before Valjean makes a visible effort in the dim room to calm himself. "Yes, I was. I have always thanked God that I was strong enough that no one could force me, and never so much an animal that I would think to force another."

"But surely you found men who were willing?"

"Is that why you are here? Because you assume that in addition to being a thief, I must be a sodomite?" No gentleness tempers the hands that push Javert away. He imagines that he can feel the barely-constrained violence in them and is ashamed that that, too, makes his prick swell with desire when Valjean advances upon him once more. "This is the price you would demand for my freedom?"

"It is not - I had not thought - I was not offering you a deal. A few moments ago you seemed to want it as much as I did!"

Valjean's breath sounds harsh in the quiet room. Turning, he rubs a hand over his face. When he looks back at Javert, the anger has faded, replaced by repugnance. "You say you dreamed of me for all these years?" he repeats in a rough voice.

There is a demand for details in the tone. It makes Javert's cheeks redden. "I did not mean that..."

"Oh, I think you did. This is nothing more than simple, vile perversion that you have carried since Toulon."

"Whatever it is, it is not simple." The surprise on Valjean's face impels Javert to continue. "When I went to the river, thinking that I might drown all my confusion in the darkness there, I dared to imagine that you would not hate me." He is blushing at his humiliation, but Valjean has not pushed him away again. "I thought that you would talk to me as you did at the barricade, to justify this sin for both of us."

The revulsion in Valjean's face has turned to sorrow, pulling down the corners of his mouth. "I do not hate you," he says.

"You must. You have had to flee from me and hide yourself. Now you think me to be a hypocrite. But I would not have you believe me to be a liar. You have known me for all these years and I dreamed that you might -" Javert tries to conjure the precise image that sets his fantasies spinning. "I wished that you would admire me." An unpleasant truth is gnawing at the edges of his thoughts like vermin finding scraps of food. "As I have admired you."

Valjean still looks incredulous, but at least he does not look disgusted. "If you admired me, why would you have wanted me to -" He makes a small, helpless gesture.

"To fuck me?" The noise of assent that escapes from Valjean sounds almost like a moan. It gives Javert new courage. "I admired all of you. Your strength. The way you carried yourself. When I gave myself to strangers, it was always your face that I imagined."

Valjean's look of abhorrence returns. He tries to step back, steps to the side instead. "You gave yourself to men who cared nothing for you?"

"It was a distraction. All that I could find. All that I thought I deserved." Javert pauses to take a breath. "If I had ever imagined that I might find you at the end of the long road, I would not have done so. I am sorry to have done it. To know that this is the reason you could never care for me, not the rest -"

Valjean's eyes close to cover some emotion that Javert can't name. He swallows, then opens them again. "Surely you are not saying that you care for me," he utters in a rough voice.

"I am not." Valjean's eyes lift to the heavens - whether he is asking God for strength or thanking God for sparing him such a confession, Javert cannot tell. "I know too little of love to offer it to anyone."

"Perhaps that, and not your confusion, is what drove you to the river." Valjean speaks pensively, half to himself. "Javert, I would help you if I could. But I do not know..."

He looks at Javert, who can hear the apology in Valjean's voice. Now, he knows, he will be dismissed. He tries to brace himself for it. The river will be waiting for him.

Possibly Valjean has the same thought, for his tone changes along with his words. "Stay here and rest," he says, now sounding more like the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer. "We have both had a shock tonight, or several. We have spoken imprudently. Let us sit, and share bread, and sleep, and not do anything rash."

It is more than he had any right to hope, so Javert nods. He is unprepared when Valjean opens the door, calling out, "Cosette? I would like you to meet an old friend."

The three of them share breakfast, Javert and Valjean with the girl who has been Valjean's reason for hiding all these years. She is demure and well-mannered, yet vivacious, delighted to know that the boy she loves has been safely delivered home and equally delighted to meet a friend of the man she calls father. Javert thinks that, in his limited experience of noticing women, Cosette would be considered lovely. In expressing her thanks, she tries to ask questions, though she demands no explanation for whatever Valjean might have told her earlier about the fact that he would have to go away.

Javert scarcely has eyes for the girl, however. It is Valjean whom he wishes to watch, every small gesture, the way he breaks his bread, the way he holds his cup. Even exhausted, the man exudes power. Though Javert tries to avert his eyes when Valjean sees him looking, he thinks that Valjean looks at first curious, then thoughtful.

Soon Cosette can see that Valjean is practically collapsing onto his plate. "I must rest," he tells her. "So must Javert. I will put blankets on the floor for him." But when the door is shut, he offers Javert the bed.

"If you stay with me, I will take no liberties as I did before," Javert assures him. For a moment Valjean looks as though he may laugh. He sits down on the mattress beside Javert. It is apparent to them both that they will fit together on the narrow bed only lying very close, wrapped around one another.

Valjean urges Javert to lie down, then presses his shoulder to make him roll onto his side, facing the wall away from Valjean. After a moment Valjean's muscular frame presses behind him. A strong arm drapes itself across Javert's side, anchoring Valjean in the bed. Javert can feel Valjean's breath against the back of his neck.

Though he would never have guessed that he could find rest in such a state, Javert falls asleep nearly the moment he closes his eyes to think, and though he dreams of the river, it is of resting in a boat in the shade on a hot day, rising and falling with gentle waves.

He wakes in the same position, pressed back against Valjean, his clothing damp with perspiration in all the places where they touch.

His prick is swelling. He can feel Valjean's prick as well, nudging against him from behind. He turns and his mouth finds Valjean's. There is a sort of resignation in Valjean's kisses and a sort of curiosity that gives way to eagerness.

They teach each other to kiss, or try to. Javert has always believed kisses to be useful only to seduce or to show dominance. He does not know what to make of Valjean's long, thorough explorations that steal his breath without attempting to subdue his tongue or bite his lips into submission. Each time he tries to turn the kiss into the sort to which he is accustomed, Valjean does something unexpected with his hands or mouth. Javert tries to rock against his thigh and feels Valjean shift to permit this, holding him close with his strong arms.

The joy of it is too much. To Javert's horror, he grunts and spurts his seed into his trousers, writhing and bucking against Valjean. "Did you...?" asks Valjean with so much wonder on his face and in his voice that Javert forgets to be mortified. He can't move as Valjean opens the trousers, moving down in the bed to breathe Javert in, then to taste the mess that Javert has made in the hair low on his belly.

Javert's hands slide into Valjean's hair, clutching as if he is adrift and Valjean is keeping him from drowning. His cock is too sensitive now to bear Valjean's mouth for long, but he groans and shudders until he thinks he will burst if he doesn't use the chamberpot. Valjean turns to the wall to give him the illusion of privacy, though Javert thinks that Valjean must be as aware of his body as he is of Valjean's.

When he returns to the bed, he kisses Valjean's mouth once, tasting the seed on his lips, before moving down on the mattress, unfastening Valjean's trousers and taking Valjean's cock into his mouth. This, he knows how to do, though he has rarely done it with a cock as large as Valjean's and never with one that he so ardently wished to satisfy. Small whimpers escape from Valjean's nose and he bites his lips as if afraid that he will cry out and draw someone's attention. Valjean is not a young man, his balls are heavy and the nest of wiry hair is gray, but his cock responds eagerly to Javert's lips and tongue and he makes more of those desperate noises which sound at times like apology but more often like encouragement.

"Please," he groans when Javert can tell that he is close to finishing, his fingers groping for Javert's shoulder. "You must - I can't -"

Yet he can, and does, erupting in Javert's mouth while biting down on his own hand to stifle the sounds he is making, hips jerking off the bed. The flood of release is hot and bitter. Javert swallows it as if it is sacramental wine.

Tugging him up with one strong arm beneath Javert's own, Valjean kisses him. They are both sweating and sticky now, yet neither will stop. "Did you dream of that?" asks Valjean, too breathless to sound challenging.

"No one would ever let me kiss him so soon after," mutters Javert, his face flushing.

He thinks this satisfies Valjean, who nods. "I will not fuck you," Valjean whispers, his gaze hard and defiant. "But if you will learn to make love with me, perhaps one day we will do that."

This is why Javert comes to live at the Rue Plumet with Valjean. Cosette continues to inhabit the large pavilion while Javert moves with Valjean into the small building with the secret door that he realizes must be how Valjean kept himself hidden for so many years. Ostensibly they have two beds. In reality they share one. Since Toussaint never enters to clean the small room and Valjean brings Javert to dinner with Cosette in the pretty house, no one else can learn of this.

Javert is required to learn about pleasure all over again. At first he thinks this is because Valjean believes him to be corrupt from his experiences with other men and will not let Javert show off what he has learned, but Valjean does not touch Javert as if he finds him dirty. Indeed, Valjean has few of the inhibitions that Javert has discovered in nearly every other man. He is not shy of putting his mouth in places that no other man has tried. He satisfies Javert's wish to be possessed and marked and owned in ways Javert never could have imagined. He is slow and methodical; he is strong enough to bend Javert to his will without needing brute force.

"Am I doing this correctly?" he asks once, curving two long fingers inside Javert in a way that wrings ragged cries from Javert's throat, muffled by the pillow in which Javert buries his face.

"You are making me -" That's all Javert gets out before he spends himself all over the sheet beneath him, his voice dissolving into a strangled wail.

They learn other things about one another as well. Javert learns that Valjean knows the proper care of all the plants in the neglected garden, and knows, too, the best ways to make them flourish. Valjean learns that Javert knows the names of all the stars and their constellations, and that he can beat both Valjean and Cosette at any game of cards they suggest.

"Perhaps I have loved you from the first," Javert says one night, lying contentedly in the circle of Valjean's muscular arms.

He feels Valjean tense. "It was not love when you saw me as a body without a soul," he says.

"I doubt that you imagined, then, that I had a soul either." Still, Javert recognizes why this bothers Valjean. "Perhaps I have loved you since Montreuil, then."

"It could not have been love when I was obliged to lie to you, either. And you wanted to arrest me."

"I wanted to arrest you because it was the only way..." Javert stops. So much of his life before the barricade seems like a lie now, a story he told himself about justice and duty.

After a few minutes he feels Valjean kiss the top of his head and understands that he is forgiven. "I know," Valjean whispers.

Javert learns that Valjean's scarred and calloused feet are ticklish when touched and especially when kissed, that he can leave Valjean limp and breathless with laughter merely from a few swipes of his tongue across the arch. He lets Valjean discover that he likes to be held immobile by Valjean's hands or by the linens tied around his wrists, that his thrashing signifies not struggle but surrender.

Once in a while Javert tries to remember other men he has known, mostly because he feels that Valjean is a far more inventive lover than himself and he thinks perhaps he might recall some unexpected technique that might give Valjean pleasure. But it is hopeless; his memories are occupied with the fantasies he had about Valjean, how he wished Valjean would touch him, how he pictured Valjean's face superimposed upon all others at the moment of climax. There is nothing from that unworthy past that Javert wishes to retain. It is as if some other man took his momentary ease from the things that Javert had done, and now that that shade has disappeared. If Valjean is right that there is a Heaven, perhaps it will seem as delightful by comparison to Earth as the delights he shares with Valjean seem by comparison to any he had known before.

Of course Javert must give up police work. He does not dare try to balance this new understanding of justice and mercy with those his duty demands, and he angers his superiors by drawing their attention to what he believes to be all the flaws and failings of the system. He expects to miss being a policeman, which had defined his life and become the only thing he believed to be important. He had never liked to garden, but with Valjean leaning close, showing him how to stake the vegetables and coax the fruits to grow, he finds that he likes it now. Nor had he liked to read, but Valjean is a great reader and when he speaks the words aloud from the pages, Javert finds himself engrossed in the story and in the flickers of expression that cross Valjean's face as his voice changes with the scenes.

Javert finds that he misses the idea of being a policeman more than the daily responsibilities, the papers, the knowledge of his superiors' weaknesses and the frustrations of a social order that is pitiless even to hungry children. He has been wrong too about whether men can change.

One particular evening Valjean is sad at the prospect that Cosette will soon marry and leave him to live with her husband. Javert cannot bear to see him suffering. He promises Valjean that he will never go away, that they will be together every day, and when Valjean smiles at him, he feels for the first time in his life entirely satisfied. Then Valjean asks him if he loves him, and Javert can see that that word means something different to Valjean than the fickle, coquettish distraction he had long imagined it to be. His assent is fervent and heartfelt.

That night Valjean lets Javert climb over him and take Valjean's prick inside himself. After so long without being fucked, it is a new and strange feeling to be penetrated thus by one he knows so well. He loves the sharp ache that spreads into bright rapture deep inside him, he loves the voluptuous wonder that transfigures Valjean's face when he cries out. Though he is sore when he wakes, he offers himself when Valjean presses him to the bed, then presses inside to join their bodies again, making Javert surge and spatter Valjean's hand with seed.

"I have never asked for that," protests Javert, blushing, when Valjean suggests that they try it the other way around. "I have never asked anyone for that." Yet this seems to please Valjean, so for the first time Javert discovers the bliss of mounting a powerful body and feeling it yield to tentative prods that become less cautious with each moan that leaves Valjean's lips. Still Javert prefers to have Valjean take him, and it does not take Valjean long to discover that Javert is equally willing whether pressed to the wall or pinned to the floor or bent over the table which jolts and skids across the floor with Valjean's thrusts.

"I am yours," Javert whispers as Cosette marries Marius, her eyes shining with happiness, and though he cannot gaze at Valjean just then, he can picture every crease and wrinkle in the face he has never allowed himself to forget. There are other men at the celebration, perhaps even men whom Javert would once have considered passable substitutes for an hour, but they move as if blurred past Javert's vision.

He thinks that Valjean must look just as glorious as the bride, and perhaps, at Valjean's side, that radiance burns away all his own darkness. Or perhaps he is deluding himself once more. In either case, it changes nothing. Not even snuff distracts Javert now. He has only one vice, which is also his greatest virtue.