Chapter Text
The first time he touches Jean Valjean, it is a mistake.
He is giving lashes—quietly furious with the man for fighting and increasing his sentence by six more months—angry and yet vindicated in his beliefs that the bagne is the only place for these beasts—and raw stripes of red well up after each crack of the whip. Valjean’s wings are pulled up and shuddering, drawn away from the point of impact, as every prisoner soon learns that it is much less painful for the whip to lick bare skin than feathers.
The last blow falls, and Javert lets silence hold for a brief moment, listening to the animalistic groaning and panting as the convict tries to simultaneously catch his breath and hold back tears. Disgust fills his throat at the sight: a grown man, crying like a child, shaking as if he has the one been wronged, and not the prisoner Valjean had quarreled with and beaten.
He drops the whip upon the nearby bench for cleaning, and steps forward, impatient for the completion of this sordid task.
“24601,” he says, “You have paid your dues. This is the punishment for fighting; you will not do it again.”
Valjean does not speak, only keeps his face towards the wall. Scarred and powerful hands tremble in the manacles that pin him to the rack.
Javert sighs and frees him to return to his duties, and as he turns away, his shoulder brushes against something long and sturdy; Valjean, beginning to retract his wings, had caught against him. A frisson of something nameless and electric and searing runs alongside them both; he sees the discomfort in Valjean’s face and is certain that it is mirrored in his own.
Neither of them says a word. Javert escorts the convict back in silence.
But after that single unwelcome point of contact, Javert finds himself changed in the most terrible of ways: he has found, quite reluctantly, that he has taken notice of Jean Valjean’s wings.
He has never paid them notice before—in a sea of prisoners, it is more unusual to see a man without a pair at all. Wings tend to grow in so early, after all, before a criminal has time to be caught and sentenced to hard labor; they might form as early as seven or eight years old as the first blossoming of a child’s pure love for a dear playmate or companion; more often they emerge with vigor during the years of youth, as maidens blossom into young women and boys turn into men.
Javert has never found himself appreciating the feathers of a beautiful lady; his eyes, when drawn to a back, tend to linger more often on that of an older man, if at all, and more tellingly, he has never once imagined what it might be like to have his own grow in, if they ever will. His examination is never that of interest, and he ignores the automatic classifications that his mother had taught him so many years ago: white for a child’s pure love; tawny gold for tenderness; brown for warmth. Black, brown, or gray bars across the tops signify loyalty or steadfastness; dark flecking along the edges of feathers hints at darker passions: jealousy, lust, possessiveness. Mottled feathers may be a sign of sporadic emotion, or mixed feelings: a reluctant love, perhaps, or one with volatile emotion.
So if Javert’s eyes linger on a set of wings, it is to search for indication of personality, and nothing more.
And yet… Javert finds his eyes searching the backs of the prisoners, and stilling when they fall upon the broad and golden pinions of Prisoner 24601. They are larger than most, (which, if the experts are to be believed, have more to do with the depth of a person’s first love than their body mass) and stronger. Javert had thought to himself that every part of Jean Valjean could be used as a weapon, even appendages grown from love itself, and he is proven correct; despite all taboos against the unveiling of wings, these convicts are beasts. Valjean uses them in his labors, using them to support the loads he is made to carry, to shield his face from the rain.
Several months later, there is another fight, and Valjean wades into it with all the unrestrained fury and exultation of a berserker. He wields his wings like weapons though they should be fragile. Examination of prisoner’s injuries after the riot shows that his wings are as strong as a man’s arms—he could not have caused such grievous injuries otherwise. One of the men is transferred to another prison because he has been so badly harmed.
Javert finds himself wanting to touch the convict’s powerful limbs again. With his hands, this time, not against the clothed slope of his shoulder. Wants to feel their strength—wants—wants— needs —to feel them wrap around him.
The instant he thinks this, his face flushes dark and he is in a foul mood for the rest of the day, taking out his fury and self-disgust upon the prisoners, who pull away from him as though repulsed by a magnetic force.
(That night, he pulls his blankets tightly around his shoulders and tells himself, no, he is not pretending them to be muscles bound in golden feathers.)
(He sleeps in that cocoon for the rest of the night, better than he ought to.)
He watches, years later, when Valjean is shackled to another prisoner. Younger than them both, little more than a boy, without any wings at all. The boy is instantly set upon, and teased, and beaten, and degraded. But Valjean is there when he falters; he bears his burdens, performs the other’s share of labor.
When the cudgels fall upon him, Valjean appears to react instinctively; that powerful, broad wing snaps out between them and the boy, a golden shield.
Javert watches from the wall, and even from such a great distance, he hears the snap of the wingbone breaking under the blows of the guardsmen’s cudgels.
He knows it is wrong, and foolish, and very likely an abuse of authority, but when Valjean is admitted to the infirmary for treatment, Javert is already present and waiting.
“Take care of the other inmates,” Javert tells the bagne doctor, daring him silently to refuse. “This man is dangerous. I will handle his treatment.”
There is no argument; after all, who would possibly volunteer to wrap a wing injury? To touch another’s wing is to bear an intimacy greater than intercourse; to care for the wing of a convict would be crass and unseemly. It is just as uncomfortable for a doctor as it is for a patient.
And yet Javert desires it.
Desires it! Regardless of the fact that these wings were grown for another; the very representation of Jean Valjean’s first love, the outward signal that says, “I am one who has a heart.”
And Javert wonders about this, too, because the prisoner he knows is cold and bloodthirsty, bitter and cruel.
The wings, though… the wings are different. They are strong and certain, and helpful, and protective. Wings cannot be used as most limbs, and indeed, they often move without conscious thought. Javert finds himself fascinated with a man whose wings are free and bold, which threaten and assure in equal measure.
Valjean’s eyes are sullen when Javert steps past the bedcurtain and towards his cot. He fumbles at the sight of one golden-feathered limb sagging, lewdly spread across the sheets. Deep gold on pure white linens. He focuses his attention on the bandages in his hand to calm his nerves and distract him from the sudden burst of lust.
“Steady,” Javert says as much to Valjean as to himself, and probes the appendage for the break. He is thankful for Valjean’s cry of pain because it masks his own surprised exhalation. The feathers are warmer than he had expected, and the skin beneath, far softer.
It is entirely an alien feeling. He has picked up bird feathers once or twice before, but never has he touched the wings of a man. Valjean’s wing is broken near the end, dangling loose and useless; easily splinted, fortunately, because Javert finds that his hands are shaking.
He wraps the bandages tightly enough that Valjean hisses. Feathers crumple beneath the cloth in his haste. He dismisses Valjean too soon, and barely notices the other man’s glare.
He leaves a few feathers on the cot: two tiny bits of down, and one mangled golden flight feather. The latter is bisected with the wide black bar that Valjean proudly displays across his shoulders.
Javert takes it in hand out of morbid curiosity. It is still warm from Valjean’s skin; he twirls it in his fingers, watching the light glitter of the black bar. It seems even darker, pulled from the prisoner’s flesh; he thinks about the width, and the pigment; it is the color of jet, and by the size of the bar one would presume that Valjean must have been very devoted to his first love indeed, for the unyielding line of loyalty to be branded so darkly and clearly.
He asks no one in particular why Valjean must be devoted to a person and not to the law.
Javert has never been a thief, but he steals the feather from the bedsheets and sweeps the down into the trash.
Three nights later, Javert awakens in a night sweat, feverish and ill. His skin crawls. Something is terribly wrong with him, an instinct deep within him alerting him to a sense of wrongness swiftly overtaking him.
He is sick in his chamberpot, and dumps the vomit when he recovers moments later. His nightshirt sticks to him uncomfortably. He ignores the sensation and forces himself back to sleep.
Valjean and the boy remain chained together, and he appears to like the boy’s company. They keep each other out of trouble, which appeases the other guards save for Javert, who cannot fight down an inexplicable anxiety about their close companionship. Valjean smiles more frequently around him, and on several occasions, he even laughs. Javert curses the boy, then, for having heard the sound directly from the man’s lips; curses him as he himself stands many yards away and listens keenly for the faint sound of a warm, deep chuckle.
He is vindictively pleased when the boy falls ill that winter, and dies. When the body is buried, two little stumps are discovered, beginning to emerge from his back.
His back itches incessantly.
Valjean stops smiling, and this enrages Javert more than anything else. It is far more intolerable to see his face return to grim stoicism, lined and weary. Javert thought he had hated the boy before, but it is nothing compared to this new fury—low and seething, that a boy would cheer Valjean so and then allow himself to be taken by death.
Towards the end of the year, Javert oversees the prisoners constructing a ship in its entirety, from the ground up. Normally their labors are focused upon repairs; it is intensive and difficult and back-breaking work for the sake of the French Empire. Javert takes pride in being a part of France’s victories, and therefore never allows prisoners to put forth substandard work.
This is a different matter. They have their instructions, and they have craftsmen to guide them as they call out orders to the prisoners; only the strongest men were called for this project. It is difficult and dangerous work, as the sides are put into place and sealed with pitch. They must work close to the frigid waters as well, and if any man falls into the sea, it is a death sentence: not even the healthiest of men can withstand the icy chill of the ocean’s embrace in December.
The men work until their hands are chapped and bleeding. Many are harmed by the bubbling pitch as well, their skin searing if drops hit their skin. Some of them break fingers trying to slot boards into place. Near the end of the project, another dies by falling from the deck.
Five days before the ship is to be complete, Javert is ordered below decks to oversee the transportation of supplies. They are to be brought in on carts, stacked, and tied together so that when the ship is upon the waves, the supplies do not shift and become damaged.
About two hours through his shift, there is a loud snap, and a shout, and the sound of groaning timber; Javert is ready with a hand on his whip and a chastisement forming on his lips, but is unprepared for the sight of a leaning pallet, stacked too high and unbound, with the top row of crates beginning to slide towards him.
He is not a man easily surprised; his instincts are good and supplemented by quick reflexes. He is just about to step back when the crates teeter and fall; and he would have likely gotten out of the way except that a broad hand clasps the front of his jacket and drags him forwards, directly into the path of the falling crates.
He thinks, this is it, I will die, I will have been murdered by convicts within the line of duty and finds himself strangely serene before closing his eyes.
There is a terrible clatter and another shout and a loud grunt of pain that does not belong to Javert.
And then there is silence.
He opens his eyes to find Valjean’s face tight with pain, only inches away. Just past the prisoner's shoulder, Javert can see the rough-hewn edge of a crate; the entire pallet has collapsed upon them both.
Javert flinches at the sensation of hot breath over his mouth, the foul scent of a big and unwashed body covering his own, many pounds of muscle pressing down upon him from heel to breast. He looks up at his savior in amazement, and realizes that the convict is adorned with a halo of gold.
Valjean’s wings are open. They are far, far larger fully extended, he thinks numbly, enough that he could wrap himself in them several times over. And beautiful, unending sheets of aged gold, vibrant and shimmering and—
“That,” Valjean grunts, “was foolish.”
Javert pulls his eyes from the arched wingtips over Valjean’s head, and fixes them upon his face instead. The convict looks at him with such derision and anger, as if Javert were some particularly dull creature in need of training. “Indeed it was. I wouldn’t have fallen at all if you hadn’t pulled me down beneath the crates.”
“You were too slow,” Valjean admonishes, and Javert shudders to feel the vocalizations forming within his body, the deep rumble that travels up from the hard and muscular belly and the vibrations low in his throat. He feels Valjean speaking more clearly than he hears him. They are pressed together indecently. “You would not have made it in time. I did what I could.”
Javert grits his teeth. “And you have Toulon’s thanks for saving a servant of the law. Now could you please stand?”
Valjean pauses. “I cannot. I… may have broken something.”
Javert glances around wildly for any of the other convicts; the deck had at least three other men on it before the crates fell; now the entire ship is suspiciously silent.
He sighs and lets his head fall back against the floor. “This was an escape attempt, wasn’t it.”
“I didn’t realize you would be the guard on duty.”
It sounds strangely like an apology, and Javert squints for a moment before deciding that he’d rather not press for more information. “Then we are trapped.”
“I am afraid so.”
Javert closes his eyes again rather than keep looking at Valjean, and instead is made to focus on damp breath against his whiskers and mouth and neck: too warm, too soft. His skin prickles. “What do you think is broken?”
“Only my leg, hopefully.”
“Are you able to feel your legs at all?”
“Yes.”
“Then at least it is not your back.”
“I didn’t expect compassion from a guard.”
“You are mistaken,” Javert snaps. “If you cannot work, you cannot pay back your debts to society.”
There is a low chuckle breathed out against his neck, and Javert nearly wrenches every bone out of socket from the flinch that overtakes him at the sensation. He has not heard Valjean laugh since the boy’s death, and never this close. He thinks about the little stumps of flesh found on the corpse, just below the shoulderblades. He is beginning to think he knows why the boy grew them.
“Of course, Javert. I never should have mistaken you for a compassionate man.”
He jerks in surprise. He meets Valjean’s gaze again, by accident, but can’t seem to look away. “I… didn’t realize you knew me by name.”
“It’s been nearly fifteen years,” the prisoner answers. “Faces become familiar, given enough time.”
“And enough of the scars on your back are by my hand,” Javert says. “I should not have been surprised.”
Valjean says nothing.
They lay in silence for long moments. Javert hears a shout outside, off the ship, and then nothing. He wonders how much time might pass before they are discovered. Perhaps, if left for too long, Valjean will realize what a terrible mistake he made in trying to save Javert, and will kill him instead.
Although that would leave him trapped with a corpse. Maybe Valjean wouldn’t mind. He might take some sort of pleasure in watching Javert grow pale beneath him, knowing that his own massive hands are the cause of his tormentor’s death. He would have ample time to savor his victory before his beating, and subsequent execution.
“Why did you step in front of me?” The question has left him before he can think better of it.
Under the weight of the crates crushing their bodies together, Valjean still finds the strength to shrug. The tops of his wings flex around Javert’s face distractingly. “Don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”
He scoffs, trying to hide his blush. “And yet you called me foolish. You seem to have a habit of putting yourself in harm’s way.”
Valjean looks at him then, peering down at his face; Javert wishes he could be anywhere else, but if not even Valjean can move the crates away, then there is no helping it.
“You’re talking about Abélard. That time when they were beating him, and I took his punishment.”
“The boy, yes.” And once again, before he can catch himself, he asks, “Did you do that without thinking, too?”
Deliberately, Valjean looks side to side at his open wings, stretched wide in the ultimate gesture of protection: pinned to the floor by crates, feathers bloodied and crushed. “It is as you said. I have made a habit of it.”
Javert fidgets, feeling just as vulnerable as Valjean must also feel, although he does not seem at all discomfited by his most intimate appendages draped open and ruined on the floor. “Are… they… broken again, as well?”
“I would not be speaking to you if they were,” he says, and explains, “Wings are so sensitive. Any kind of injury is incredibly painful.”
“I see.”
“Worse than a punch to the groin.”
“Hm.”
“Of course, a limb’s sensitivity makes it that much more pleasurable when stroked.”
Javert blushes and fixes his eyes upon the ceiling. “Please stop talking about your wings while they’re open inches away from my face.”
“I wasn’t speaking of my wings; I was speaking of my groin.”
“Neither of those, Valjean.”
Two beats of silence. Javert cringes, and very purposefully looks anywhere other than the man’s face. He can imagine the smug expression spreading across his face, though.
“So it is not only myself who knows your name; the reverse is true as well.”
“It’s been nearly fifteen years,” he reminds, echoing Valjean’s earlier words.
“So it has.”
Javert squirms again. He is trying to make himself marginally more comfortable, seeking a position beneath Valjean’s hard and sweaty body that is not so very intimate; it was shockingly pleasant at first, to be pressed against trembling and chiseled muscle, to have the air knocked out of him under the immense weight of the crates atop their bodies; but he is realizing that the hard edge of one of the crates must be digging into his hip, because—
Unless it is not a crate.
Javert closes his eyes briefly and tries for patience. Clearly, there must be a God, for the heavens have conspired to put him into the very worst position possible.
“Valjean,” he says, trying for sternness, but it comes out hoarse.
He is pinned underneath a mountain of crates, all save one of his prisoners have escaped, and the latter is currently aroused and hard against him. The pressure against his hip jerks slightly, in reaction to his spoken name.
“Javert,” Valjean growls, and good god his voice is sinful. The convict’s hips rock forward, just the once, a small enough amount that it could be called an accident. Javert knows better.
He is blushing. He knows he is blushing, and he finds himself completely incapable of stopping. And so he blurts, “The boy. Abélard.”
“What of him?”
“He did not last long.”
“Boys that young rarely do,” Valjean says, humoring his line of questioning. He nuzzles his face along Javert’s neck, who bites his tongue to keep from crying out.
“He was enamored with you,” Javert manages.
Valjean sighs. “And?”
“You protected him. You… enjoyed his company.”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Valjean says, and at this he finally sounds angry. “I loved him like a son. I may be a prisoner of the bagne, but I am not a beast.”
Javert scoffs, grasping at the rise of emotion. Anything to seek to pull Valjean’s attention away from the interest between them. If he can distract Valjean, then the other man will hopefully miss Javert’s own stirring attraction. And speaking of a dead man will do wonders for destroying the atmosphere surrounding them both. “You mean to tell me that you were chained to that boy for that many months, and did not act upon your own base desires once?”
“Never.”
“I understand,” Javert says, “I have had it entirely wrong. Perhaps instead, you desired for him to take you instead—after all, you’ve spread your wings for at least two men so far. Why not your legs as well?”
Valjean lets out a snarl of rage.
“You must have been so disappointed when he passed; you would have to work to find yet another man desperate enough to fuck your used-up hole. Did you plan this, the crates falling atop me? Were you so eager to have me pinned?” Javert presses on, baring his teeth at Valjean’s furious expression. “That boy might have been willing, but I would never. When he died. He was growing wings for you. That is the only way a man could possibly want to lay with a beast like yourself.”
Finally, finally, at this, Valjean makes a low noise of grief and rage, and his eyes are once again glittering with hurt and anger, not amusement and lust. He presses his face against Javert’s neck once more so that they do not have to look upon each other. More importantly, the hardness against his hip has abated, so Javert is free to relax.
He does not know what he feels so guilty. Valjean’s body is pliant against him, and after Javert’s needling, neither of them are aroused. He won’t be able to take advantage of a prisoner’s misguided lust; he won’t be breaking regulation by simply waiting.
But, god! To see Valjean’s face filled with pain! Javert wishes there had been other words available. Could he have stopped Valjean had he continued to thrust against Javert’s hips—could he have stopped himself? Would his excuses have been heeded?
Whatever rapport they had built from the time that the crates fell is extinguished. In its place lies bitter ashes. Javert, still consoled by the warmth of the heavy body atop him, acknowledges this, and cannot fault himself. Even if Valjean had listened, even if they had not reached completion with each other, Valjean would have known of Javert’s iniquity. It would have ruined them both.
Far better to destroy something before it has begun.
They do not speak for another thirty minutes, until they are rescued by the other guards. Valjean’s leg is checked over and found to be sprained, not fractured, but his powerful wings are mangled by the crates and dripping with blood from broken feathers.
When they leave the ship, the floor is splattered with it, and amidst the blood are a scant few clips of gold from Valjean’s feathers: rare and covetous, like a handful of coins scattered across the rough-hewn boards.
Spring arrives wet and warm in 1811, and Javert although it will never be a matter worthy of the history books, he feels that somewhere it should be recorded that this very year is the one that proves to him that Fate is real. And Fate must also be petty and cruel, because otherwise his life would never have become… this.
It is on one of these wet spring days, as Javert slips on his shirt and stock, that he notices a peculiar pressure on his back. He pauses before the mirror in his sparse, cheerless room, and slips the shirt back down until it hits the floor, dropped by nerveless fingers.
The line of his back is marred by the appearance of two naked stumps.
It is at once the most hideous and dear thing that Javert has ever seen, and hates himself all the more for the burst of joy within his breast that wars with horror. Because, of course, a man may lie to himself about his own feelings, may tell himself repeatedly that he does not experience a certain lightness when reminiscing about another; that he is not pleased to see a secretly beloved countenance; that his heart does not lift when spoken to by his dearest.
But when the wings appear, the lies must cease.
Javert has fallen in love for the first time, and he has fallen for Jean Valjean.
He is entirely distracted that first day. He has not spoken to Valjean since the ship incident, but his eyes follow the other ceaselessly. He cannot help but ask himself—had the crates not fallen, had Valjean not tried to protect him, would his wings still have grown? He cannot say. Can they be formed due to one incident alone? Would they have developed regardless, or was that time spent pressed against the other man all his body needed to bloom?
Javert thinks it must be so, because he hasn’t spent much time at all with the other man. They haven’t had a single conversation since that winter day, and already several months have passed.
He watches, mouth going dry, as Valjean hefts a particularly heavy load. Javert’s wings, at first unnoticed but likely a few days or perhaps a week old by this point, shift against his back once or twice without volition, like the fluttering movements of a babe in the womb. Had Javert not been hyperaware of the emerging appendages, he likely would not have noticed. Instead, they burn against his flesh like a brand.
Javert wants to ignore them, and makes a valiant attempt to continue to lie to himself about their existence.
He stops, when, another week later, he risks a glance in the mirror to discover that they have tripled in size, and worst of all, the feathers are coming in black—the color of guilt.
Something must be done.
Using some of his largely-untouched earnings from his position at the bagne, he purchases a length of cloth and takes to wrapping his wings fast to his skin in hopes that the constriction will stunt their growth.
Perhaps he does not tie the cloth tightly enough, because the wings continue to itch and flex intermittently against his back, and in another two months they are too large to be hidden at all; if Javert continues to wrap them, he will risk breaking them.
He should not be as horrified at the prospects of his own broken wings as he is. He is thirty-two years old now; he has gone a lifetime without wings, and has gained them so late that some may argue he might as well not have gained them at all. But they are precious to him now, these great ugly black wings, dark as sin, ungainly and inelegant and unpleasant.
He is not afraid of what people will think when they look at him. Black wings are nearly unheard of; darkness usually indicates something foul. They will assume things that are untrue: they will guess upon the circumstances of his coloration.
Look at that man, he imagines passerby will say, look at his wings. Did he fall in love with a married woman? Was his first love sickly and dying? Is that sheet of darkness stained with guilt, or grief?
But it does not matter what they think, because the truth is far worse.
Javert resigns himself to his fate, and on his next day off work, he goes to the tailor’s to have new waistcoats fitted and his shirts adjusted. He is greeted with knowing glances and pleased smiles when he announces the reason for his patronship, and is shown a wide variety of styles that he might request for the alteration of his shirts.
He ignores the lovely pearl buttoned variety with buttons so fine and small they require hooks to be fastened; he would not want to bother with such a ridiculous expenditure for all the time it would take each morning to dress. He settles on the fitted shirts with lacing that will allow him to keep wearing the same shirt no matter how large his wings grow. The lacing is simple and unassuming, and if they require a larger opening to fit through, he will only need to pull the ribbons out down to the next hole.
“Then they are still coming in, Monsieur?” the tailor asks with a smile. “You have my congratulations, and my thanks for your patronage. Now, as far as the waistcoat and overcoat goes…”
“I will purchase an overcoat from off the rack,” Javert interrupts. “I am not a man of means.”
“Just the waistcoat then,” the tailor confirms, and gestures at his clothing. “May I take your measurements?”
“I… yes,” he says, and removes his waistcoat at the tailor’s prompting.
“I will have my seamstress take down the measurements for this, while I concern myself with the measurements respective to your wings.”
Javert stiffens. “Surely that is unnecessary.”
The tailor chuckles. “Monsieur, I promise you that I have seen many bodies, nude and otherwise. It may be intrusive, but your fit will be greatly impaired if I cannot take a proper measurement.”
“They are still growing,” Javert defends. “What if your fit is too tight? No, Monsieur, I will take the waistcoat in the same laced style as the shirts.”
“Then I will not touch them,” the tailor says, “but at least allow me to see them for an estimation.”
Javert has run out of excuses, and so he removes his shirt without a word. He keeps his face turned away but watches the tailor’s expression in the mirror.
To his credit, the other man’s brow furrows for a moment as he takes in the sight: unusually large, tips extending all the way to the small of his waist. They are much longer than the tailor’s own gray wings, folded neatly—six inches at most, whereas Javert’s are around ten inches longer still. Even without them being fully black, their size alone would be memorable; their shade included, they are anomalous. But the tailor says nothing, only glances up and down along the slope of Javert’s back, and then allows him to pull up his shirt once more.
“Your shirts and waistcoat will be ready in a week’s time,” the tailor says, and graciously bids him farewell after Javert purchases an overcoat to accommodate his new appendages.
Unfortunately, the size of his wings also means that he must request a change in uniform. His jacket is exchanged for one with brass buttons lining the back and a sewn-in half-cape to protect his wings from the elements.
Javert is loathe to wear it. He has yet to appear in public with them visible; so far the only other person to see them has been his tailor. If he steps out in his new clothing, everyone will know that beneath the stony expression and unattractive features is a heart of weakness. His safety amongst the prisoners will be compromised. If he is not careful, an inmate might try to pull out his feathers as he passes.
And… amongst those prisoners… Valjean will see them too. He will never know that he is the cause for their appearance, but he will see them.
At the thought, the wings tremble and lift, before closing more tightly against his back.
By the time he returns to the bagne for his shift, he aches. His wings are growing in so quickly now that the bone and sinew and skin are developing faster than his feathers can grow to cover them. He had heard about the notorious growing pains of wings, and could only imagine the difficulty that a man with unusually large wings, such as Valjean, must have had, and now he is forced to experience it himself.
They are hideous: patchy, limp, and weak. Had Javert had the faintest desire to Display himself before Valjean, he would have wept in despair; even so, he shudders while he dons his uniform and thanks God that the half-cape covers the worst of the bald skin. He can hardly move them to dress himself, and in fact is forced to prop them up with hands at one point. The effort it takes to keep them against his back leaves his muscles trembling, and he is glad he arrived to work early enough to be able to sit for a time before he must report for duty.
He had hoped, that with the dark blue of his uniform, that his wings might blend in and remain unnoticed. Of course he is not that lucky.
“Bonne journée, Javert,” one of the guards calls, and then his eyes fall to the cape, and lower to black feathers brushing against his waist. “By God!”
After that, the entire bagne is aware. He is assaulted with questions, jibes, and comments from prisoners and guardsmen alike: Who is she? It must be a very beautiful woman to have captured the heart of Javert! Did you Display them for her? I wonder why they’re black… I can’t believe their size! Javert is only human, after all.
And, a less friendly undertone, Disgusting. Foul Gypsy bastard. Looks like Javert’s coal-black heart could grow coal-black feathers; is anyone surprised?
But, a tiny part of him protests, silent and unheeded, they are not coal-black. They are black as jet—full and dark like the bar across Valjean’s golden wings.
Valjean sees them, too. Javert is watching very carefully, when he passes by. Dismissive eyes flick over him, once, and linger on a naked portion of light brown skin where the feathers are still sparse.
“Congratulations,” he says, coldly.
This is their last positive interaction.
After his wings appear, everything changes. It is as if a switch has flipped, and as Javert had feared, the prisoners lose all respect for him. His feathers are snatched at and stolen, making him cry out with pain; Valjean was right. It is, indeed, incredibly painful. It is a sensation not unlike his heart tearing out with his flesh.
Valjean may have protected him once before, but since the ship, he refuses to make any attempt at helping Javert. He watches with grim satisfaction as Javert is mocked and tripped; the other guards do their best to help him, since he has been loyal and steadfast for so many years, but it isn’t enough.
Javert attends his yearly review with a split lip. The warden looks at him sharply but does not comment.
The physical pain is not the worst of his problems, however; he must constantly fight his body’s own demands to Display for Valjean. Every time he sees the other, his muscles twitch; a few times he catches his back trembling with effort to keep his wings modestly closed. They are unfamiliar; like a cat’s tail, they seem to move without his consent. He begins to understand what Valjean had spoken of, that his wings would do what they wished—that it is difficult to keep control of them.
It is a battle of wills. To Display for a prisoner would ruin him, and yet he thinks that it would be a great mercy to let them slide open, if only to end this relentless war upon his own body.
Meanwhile, the damned appendages continue to grow. Within another month, his wingspan surpasses Valjean’s; he finds that he can no longer sit down with his wings folded. Instead, he must risk impropriety by lifting them and holding them tight against his sides. It is incredibly uncomfortable. He stops taking coaches so that he can avoid the awkward posture.
Everything has changed; not only sitting, but his every movement is conscious of the abnormal growths weighing down his back. He walks differently to avoid hitting his wings with the backs of his legs; he stops sleeping on his back. He can no longer kneel in the same way; his wings must either be pushed up, or he must straighten his back before crouching.
By the middle of the summer, they have finally slowed their growth. The tips of his pinions brush his calves as he walks. He has never seen another man or woman with wings his size, and yet they continue to grow. They should have been filled with glossy black feathers, but instead they are still dotted with bald patches where prisoners have torn them out by the fistful.
Javert becomes accustomed to pain. There is never a part of him that does not ache, whether it’s the wounds on his back, slowly dripping blood onto the docks—his face from being struck—twinging ribs and bruised shins and tired eyes.
He is worn down slowly. He no longer has the energy to shave every day. He comes to work and finds himself wishing he could be back in his bed. He is more easily chilled; the spray of the sea splashing upon his legs and coat is freezing when before he had considered it refreshing. After six months of constant degradation and looking behind his back for the hordes of wild-eyed prisoners breathing down his neck, his reflexes have slowed.
Javert fools himself into thinking it doesn’t matter; perhaps it is only that he doesn’t think at all anymore.
One late evening as he makes his rounds, he notices an irregularity: Paquin, the guard on duty outside the prisoner’s sleeping quarters, is sitting by the door, head bowed.
“Paquin,” Javert hisses, striding forward. “Wake up!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of movement. He doesn’t move quickly enough—dirty, pitch-stained hands grasp at his clothing and pull him against the wall. He lets out a shout and in his flailing to escape, his boot knocks into Paquin’s shoulder. The other man slumps, and Javert finally, finally notices the poorly-disguised puddle of blood, and the shiv sticking out of his fellow guard’s back.
This is it, then, he thinks despairingly. I am going to die. The prisoners have escaped, and I was too fool to notice the uprising.
Javert is clapped in irons by a pair of leering, toothless old men, and dragged out to the yard. Half the prison appears to be there, all prisoners mingling freely, a scant few guards on their knees with heads bowed and hands chained. He glances towards the empty watchtower and curses. How did this happen? Fifteen years, and there has never been a revolt of this scale. Dead guards, honest men in chains—righteousness and justice has been overturned. Javert is living in a nightmare world where the many rule the few.
The frosted earth is bathed in light, and then darkness once more, as the clouds whisper across the skies and shield the moon from the prison below. Valjean’s face is cast in harsh shadow as he approaches.
“Here he is,” one of the convicts says to Valjean, “here is Javert, just as you asked. What should we do with him?”
“Strip the Gypsy of his uniform,” Valjean orders. “I will deal with him.”
The convicts descend upon him. Javert has never known fear like this, as cold knives cut through his clothes and cross ungently over his skin. When they are finished, not even his drawers have been spared, and is left defenseless and nude in the frigid fall air in only his boots and the irons on his wrists. Blood slides across skin from the myriad cuts the convicts left upon him during their cruel ministrations. Javert wonders whether it would be more or less shameful to attempt to shield his nakedness with his wings.
“And now?” someone asks.
“Now,” Valjean says, “we will deliver justice.”
The convict’s eyes are glittering, and in them Javert sees a stranger: a beast named 24601. It is not Jean Valjean. It is not the brutal yet amused man that had been pinned to him on the ship. It is not a leader or a thief or a protector that he sees.
It is a killer.
Javert’s wings press tightly against his back, as if seeking to crawl back beneath his skin. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the small and huddled group of captured guards watching fearfully.
“And Javert,” 24601 continues, “you have always been a great admirer of justice, have you not?”
He stares across the distance between them and suppresses a shiver. If he is not killed by these men, it will be by the cold. He has nothing to lose. It might be better to goad them into action than to stay silent, but he has little interest in responding to 24601’s mockery.
The convict prowls around him, still speaking: “You love this institution that keeps us chained like dogs. You worship it. All you want is for justice to be done. Am I correct? Answer me!”
Someone kicks Javert in the back of the leg, narrowly avoiding his wing, and he drops to his knees in cold mud. 24601 stops before him, and Javert, for the first time, must lift his face to meet the other man’s eyes.
“Yes,” he repeats dully. “Justice must be done.”
“There are two great injustices to be seen here in Toulon, and tonight, we will correct both of them. The first, the matter of our freedom, we have already accomplished. And the second…” 24601 leans in, the fetid air of a beast ghosting over his skin. “The second is an affront to God himself—that a man without love could grow wings!”
All around them, the inmates shriek and roar at the skies. Javert is forced to the ground, and kicked, and spat upon, and his face is ground into the mud. Broad and calloused hands touch his naked back, and then his wings—he feels the strength of a familiar body descend over him. His mind knows this creature to be 24601, but his wings recognize him as Valjean, and begin to stretch open accordingly and lovingly, like a lost dog celebrating the return of its master.
24601 takes one wing in both hands, sliding down to the joint, and pulls.
There is a god-awful crack and Javert screams into the mud. Cold filth seeps over his teeth and down his throat and he is gagging from the sheer pain. And yet having his wings broken doesn’t hurt as badly as Javert thought it would. Perhaps it is because of the one breaking them—it seems fitting, that they are both made and destroyed by the same man.
He passes out before he can feel the second wing snap.
The taste of mud is still thick in his mouth when he awakens. Javert’s eyes open slowly to a sky of pure white, and decides that he must be in either heaven or purgatory. Hell could never be this shade, the color of purity, but yet only hell could deliver this amount of pain.
“Monsieur,” says an aged, warm voice, and an ugly and wrinkled face appears over him. He notes the habit and veil of the nun, and returns his gaze to the ceiling. So he is still alive. Were he in hell, a nun would not be present; were he in purgatory, there could also not be a nun, because surely a holy woman would go straight to heaven. And he is in too much pain for heaven—thus, he must be alive.
“You will drink, and have some soup, and then more laudanum,” the nun says.
“No,” Javert says; or at least tries to say, but his mouth is foul and his tongue is trapped between his teeth. He manages a small groan, and then passes out once more.
When he next awakens, he is a little more coherent. The nun is absent from the room, and he finds himself on a peculiar sort of cot: a thin, raised cushion that digs uncomfortably into his back, keeping pressure off his wings, which hang from the rails of the bedposts in enormous slings. He feels around the flesh of his shoulders tentatively; he had been sure they were being torn off, but he finds them intact but splinted instead. Apparently, Valjean was unable to follow through with his words.
Javert shudders, thinking of the animal expression of the other man, the snarling lips and eyes of hatred. The way he had become his number alone, not even a name to bridge him to humanity.
He sleeps again, and eats, and has medicine forced down his throat. He is often too weak to protest. And he thinks, too, for he has little else to occupy him.
The nun, Sister Agnes, checks in on him periodically, and from her he learns a little of what had happened: only thirty minutes after he had fallen in the yard under Valjean’s powerful hands, the prison had been reclaimed, and he had been rescued. He had been dragged out and sent in a carriage to the nearest doctor; since his wings were splinted, he has been relocated back to the bagne’s small medical wing, where he has been afforded a private room due to the nature of his injuries. No one else was as wounded as he; the other guardsmen are all either dead, or beaten, or maimed, but they at least all have intact wings.
The warden, Monsieur Deschanel, visits him in the hospital two weeks later.
“Javert,” the man says, glancing at his wings. They have been covered for the sake of modesty, which had made him laugh bitterly at the time; they have become so enormous that Sister Agnes needed to drape bedsheets over them. “Are you well?”
“I would have been fit for duty a week ago, had my injuries not been in this location,” Javert admits. “I apologize deeply, Monsieur, for any trouble I have caused you. I will repay you for my time spent hospitalized—”
“Please,” M. Deschanel says, sounding pained. “Do not. You did not ask for this. I should have acted when I discovered how the prisoners were targeting you, two months ago. And yet I did not.”
“Monsieur, but I have not been on duty, you cannot expect…”
“Nevermind the matter about your pay! Good God, Javert. Any other man would have leaped at the chance for their medical fees to be waived.” The warden huffs, and then leans forward. “But about the riot. You must tell me, did you see the face of the man who did this to you?”
Javert hesitates.
“If you know who it was, please tell me. Many were killed during the prison’s reclaiming, and the rest were punished accordingly. But not everything is accounted for. We still are looking for the man who killed the guardsman Paquin, and no one seems to know who broke your wings—and if any do, they will not say.”
Javert casts around for an explanation, but cannot find any words. He settles upon a simple, “I cannot say,” and then followed by, “It was very dark.”
Two separate statements, both true—he cannot say, he cannot betray Valjean, and it was, in fact, very dark. But the warden will think something else.
“I understand.” M. Deschanel sighs.
“Although, there is something else—you said that prisoners were killed? Do you recall… you may not know the name, but Prisoner 24601. A man by the name of Jean Valjean. Do you know if he still lives?”
“Why, yes. He was one of the first men I questioned. He refused to tell me anything, though I believe he knows the identity of the man who harmed you.” The warden studies him intently. “Why do you ask?”
“If he is to be punished… I would ask that you practice restraint. He had the opportunity to kill me himself, and he did not take it.”
Valjean, when he had spoken as 24601, had been correct when he said that Javert was a man of justice, and Javert would prove himself to be. This is not mercy. This is not affection, and it is not a lie. Whatever Javert had felt for Valjean—it is all burnt away.
His clothes had been cut off, he had been mocked, he had been shamed: but the simple fact is that the only thing Valjean had harmed were his wings. And those… those had always been Valjean’s to begin with.
“Very well,” M. Deschanel accepts. “There is one more matter for us to discuss. That of your transfer.”
“My transfer, Monsieur?” He feels his face grow pale. “I have told you, I will pay back everything that the bagne has spent upon my recovery—only, please do not—”
“Calm yourself!” M. Deschanel presses a hand onto Javert’s chest to keep him in place, and he slumps back against the oft-cursed cushion that digs into his spine. “You are not losing your position, you are being promoted. I wrote to a former colleague of mine, Monsieur Chabouillet. He will take you in as an inspector, in Paris. I have given him my word that you are a hard-working and honest man.”
Javert feels dizzy. All his adult life has been spent at Toulon, and all his childhood, in the women’s prison nearby. He knows nothing but the bagne. It has been his home and a sort of peculiar comfort in its familiarity. And now he is to be removed from it? Cast aside because of injuries that he could not avoid, ones that he gained in the line of duty?
“Do not look so downcast. This is a good opportunity for you. Paris is a good place to work. You will be well-paid, and I trust M. Chabouillet to show patience with you. By all rights, you should have been promoted long ago.”
“...Thank you, Monsieur,” Javert says at last. He doesn’t mean it, but it seems to be the right thing to say.
Deschanel appears satisfied with the sentiment. “Very good. Now, I will take my leave. The nurse will give you a letter from Chabouillet with details in a few days. Be well, Javert.”
The warden is gone before he can return so much as a bonne nuit. Javert looks up at the ceiling for many moments, lost in thought. Paris. It is a week’s travel from Toulon. It is unlikely that he will ever see Valjean again.
He should make peace with this. Even though he grew wings for the other man, it means little. Most people do not marry their first love; it is fine. He will continue on with his life, and do his best to become the greatest Inspector in France, now that he can no longer be the greatest guardsman. He will devote his life to his work once more. Perhaps he will even fall in love again, and this time with someone more proper. Law-abiding.
It is fine.
Javert closes his eyes against the white, and sleeps.