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ask meme 33-34-32-35

33. Do I look like an idiot? Well... no. Though you are known to act like one occasionally.

34. How long were you going to keep up this lie? Until my dying breath, Javert. If you hadn't called me out, I would still be Monsieur Madeleine and the city would be much better off for it!

32 and 35 I'm not mad, just... Aw, you poor man. *hugs* Look, now you got Seine all over my rags. Let's go find a place where we can sit and talk for a  while, I'd like that.

(thinks 6 and says 7) (link to meme)

[jean-valdead-blog]

Send a ♒ and I will generate a number for what my muse will say to yours!

A mix of nsfw, crack, fluff, angst, etc.

1-50

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I am good, but not an angel, I do sin, but I am not the devil.

—marilyn monroe

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Valjean tried to surpress a smile. He was unsure if he succeeded. It was odd to find Javert in this silent afterlife, but it was strangely pleasing. Since his disappearance that night and subsequent suicide death Jean Valjean had been left with a nagging feeling of unfinished business. 

He had decided to give in, to surrender himself to the law, to finally be done with that sword of Damocles hanging over his head, only to find his imminent execution delayed once again, perhaps forever.

"It is strange, Inspector. You, who always wanted to know what was going on, are purposefully not investigating this?"

"It is a deduction. There must be an exit, because the ghosts I see disappear and do not come back. Therefore they must have left. However, I have no idea where such an exit is or where it would lead to. Consequently, I’m in no hurry to find out."

It was not cowardice that held him back, or so he told himself. There was just no point in running headlong in a place that was worse than this. If such a place existed, but taking that risk was a decision he could not justify to himself. ‘Better the devil you know’, as the saying went…

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"So we are not alone here." It was the first good news he'd received all ... day. "And you say there is a way out? But why are you still here Javert, if you know about this exit?"

"That certainly was my intention." He looked away. The sight of Valjean still rattled his nerves. "Purgatory, you say? I certainly had imagined Hell to be more crowded."

A hot, crowded place full of miserable, howling souls… That he could have dealt with. It wouldn’t have been much different from what he had known for the better part of his life, as a prison guard. That he should be one of the inmates now rather than a guard was only a logical consequence of his choices in life. His choice of death, too. 

Yet this place was worse.

Reluctantly he turned back to face Valjean. “Was France stricken by famine that you died this way? Certainly you had enough money to buy food even if the rest of the population was starving. You were always in good health, too, as I recall.” 

He gritted the memory of his teeth. Usually he was more to the point that this, he berated himself. He did not care about how Valjean had died, but that he had died. That he had died and come here. It was wrong. Inexplicably wrong. But even in this world where thoughts needed no voice to be heard, he could not bring himself to ask what he really wanted to know.

Another failure on his part… 

"Never mind. You will find your way out of this place soon enough. All the spectres I have seen here have done so, somehow."

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Hell. "No."

"I've been through hell, Javert. I can assure you, this is not it."

Valjean glanced around, the faded cityscape void of life, of colour. "Purgatory, perhaps?" He wondered. But maybe hell was not the fire and brimstone he was taught to believe, maybe it was this desolation and hopelessness for eternity. He shivered.

"I never thought we would meet again."

"Yes," Javert said simply. When Valjean’s expression did not become less harrowed, he added: "You died." He tilted his head. "Of hunger, if your present state is anything to go by. But the how means little after the fact. We are both dead, and as far as I have been able to determine, this place is Hell." His jaw worked. "Which begs the question what in God’s name you are doing here.”

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The Inspector looked like you would expect a drowned man to look. His face was discoloured and his clothes dripping and torn. For all the world he looked like he'd just left the water. But Valjean knew that could not be. He'd read the newspaper article about Javerts death a long time ago.

"Where are we?" Valjean asked bewildered. "Why are you here? Are we dead?"

He stopped in his tracks at the sound of his name. Water dripped from his sodden coat and pooled around his feet. The turmoil in his mind was terrible, but the silence of this place was worse. He used to enjoy solitude, but that was when he had been surrounded by people. Here he was alone. Utterly alone. For all eternity.

The prospect was too daunting even for him. He looked over his shoulder, and felt an inexplicable relief when he saw Valjean was still there.

"Well?" he said, unsure how else to address a man who had every right to hate him, yet did not run. He should say more, but was at a loss as to what that should be. What could it be? What could Valjean and he possibly have to say to each other?

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"Javert!"

Valjean ran after him. There was some irony in running after the man he'd spent his life running from, he reflected later, but now he could not just let the Inspector go.

"Please Javert, wait!"

Javert stood motionless. He attempted to hide his shock. This was Valjean? The old, emaciated man before him, Jean Valjean; he was to believe this? 

"It is I," he said eventually, "but you cannot be who you say you are. This place does not welcome those who save another's life. And if it is you: leave! You have no business here!" 

He turned and walked away, down the empty, dreary streets of a Paris that was not Paris. The water that dripped from his coat left a trail on the ghostly cobblestones. 

Valjean, if that was indeed who this apperiation was, had not been the first person he saw since arriving here, but the only one who had spoken to him. Javert resisted the urge to turn back. It could not be the real Valjean. But if he was, Javert did not want to know. His world had been upended enough already when he realised that Valjean was right about everything and rightfully had a halo about his brow. The thought that that notion was wrong was too much for Javert to even entertain. So he walked on with long, resolute strides.

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"You would mock me? I am as far from sainthood as you are from fallen - if it is you, Javert."

Jean Valjean had died. But it had not been the first time he'd been erased, had it? All his life, his identity had been fluid, and never once he'd been entirely certain of who he was. He knew all to well what he was: a convict, a prisoner, a thief. Always hunted, always shunned. And here before him stood the face of all his fears: Javert, the relentless inspector who had torn him from his life again and again, the man of justice.  The l a w.

Javert chuckled. It was a deep, unpleasant sound, even to himself.

"Demon, you say? Yes, why not! I have been called worse in my time, and I certainly have done enough to earn that name." He cocked his head, and sneered. "But then what to make of you?"

He sauntered closer and circled the apparition while watching it with an appraising gaze.

"It cannot be the man himself," Javert concluded, speaking to himself. "Saints do not go to Hell. So, this must be a demon. A demon trying to repell a demon. Ha! We’re both in good company then!"

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"Get away from me, demon!" 

He made the sign of the cross over his chest, but it was to no effect. Javert -or whatever had taken his form- would not so much as hiss. He was just... dripping?

Javert stops a few feet before the the haggard-looking man. He folds his arms before his chest and regards the apperition.

"Jean Valjean… Why must you always turn up? Haven’t you done enough damage already?"

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At the sound of footsteps, Valjean turns around. This desolate Paris is a stranger to him, but the man who approaches is certainly not. A menacing figure he strikes, tall and imposing. Even without his iconic hat Valjean would know this particular silhouette, for it had hunted him throughout his life. And now, it seemed, in death also.

"... Javert?"

" To love another person...

…is to see the face of God “

Fantine? Fantine!? Do not leave me here, I beg of you!

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" To love another person...

...is to see the face of God "

Fantine? Fantine!? Do not leave me here, I beg of you!