Sour Milk
Javert's has a less than satisfactory evening on the beat.
Javert did not often find himself in brothels, and tried to avoid them whenever possible. They were never particularly clean, always smelled of something sour that wriggled through to the back of his nose and stayed for a week, and tended to house more lawbreakers than any other building except the prison.
Brothels, in general, were home to three things Javert had decided would be better left alone: loose women, raucous sailors, and an affluence of mind-clouding substances. The Silk Purse, in particular, had all three of these things as well as a spectacular brawl that had started on the lower level before crashing out into the street right at the feet of the Law on its evening rounds in the form of the previously mentioned Officer Javert, who truly wanted nothing to do with it.
He'd had a rough day, and not the kind that needed to be gone into in detail. Suffice it to say, he'd slept poorly and it had soured everything. Now his day was almost over, and he was looking forward to crawling back into his cold little bed (which was still warmer than the air on the street), when he was struck viciously in the side by an errant fist that belonged to one of the two drunkards now beating away at eachother around his legs.
Javert had learned early on that your first instinct was usually your right one, so he went with his: he took his nightstick in his right hand and swung it down as hard as he could on the back of one of the two brutes. Neither noticed. He repeated the gesture, struck the other, and still neither paid him any mind.
Then he kicked one in the ribs, sending him flying from the tangle of bodies into a small rubbish heap, and Javert had thought that the end of it.
As he stood in the doorway, looking in to the house of ill repute to assure himself that these two raving lunatics were the only ones, he was tackled from behind by one of the men (presumably the one who hadn't been kicked in the ribs and dumped in the garbage), and run headlong into a table. This table happened to contain one man, three women, and a hefty jug of cheap whisky. Javert had the good luck to miss both the ladies and the gentleman (though 'gentleman' was stretching the term) and instead made solid contact with the jug. It thunked him solidly in the forehead, and his world went dark.
When the lights came on again, the first thing that really registered in Javert's addled mind was the smell. It wasn't a horrible smell (it was actually quite pleasant and sweet), and it wasn't a familiar smell (like garbage, or bodies, or any other stink of the street), but even in his current state, Javert was able to recognize it for what it was: the smell of a woman's perfume. The bed beneath him wasn't as hard as his own, but the mattress was lumpy and sunken in the middle – it was the pillow that reeked of roses and lilies and woman.
Something was patting at his head: something that was cool and soothing against the knot of pain growing above his left eye. This something, he reasoned was a wet cloth, but it was the hand attached to it that really got his attention, because the hand was attached to a pale arm, the pale arm to a (very bare) shoulder, and the shoulder to a pretty young woman who could not have been more than eighteen. Her long, dark hair was stringy and unwashed, but she had pleasantly clear eyes and charming smile of teeth that were almost white enough to be considered attractive.
"All right?" she asked him gently, leaning over his prone form and providing him with the generous view down her dress' front. The thing was fine, if old, but much too big for her, and hung away from her chest whenever gravity so dictated.
Javert's incoherent mumble – meant to be something like "Yes" – came out as a garbled choking. He pushed her away as gently as he could find it in himself to do, and sat up to cough. As soon as he was vertical, his head began to reel, and it was the woman's arm around his middle that kept him from pitching to the floor and bashing his head all over again.
"The men," he began, when he had forced the bile back down his throat and his stomach stopped turning. "The brawlers… where…"
"Oh, don't you be minding about them," the woman said, dipping the cloth in a basin beside her feet on the floor, before wringing it out and reapplying it to his forehead. "They're all out cold, half drunk or concussed. Someone will be along for them soon."
"The gendarmes," Javert muttered, closing his eyes when the light in the room – barely a few candles, became too much for his head. "Don't let them up… the brawlers…"
"You're in a bit of a bad shape yourself, aren't you?" she cooed gently to him, ignoring his mumblings. Somehow it brought back his nausea. "Knocked your head hard on that table. Took three of us to get you up the stairs and into a decent bed. Been out almost half the hour."
"Three of who?" Javert questioned, for he'd forgotten where he'd been when the fight began.
"Us," she said simply, winking at him in a manner that was almost predatory. "Me and two of the other girls."
Girls. Right. He was in a whorehouse. She was a whore.
"I'm Sweetie," she said when it seemed he had nothing more to ask her about. "And I'm going to be your nursemaid until your brothers come to collect you. I don't think I've ever seen you in here."
He had never been in any whorehouse – not as a customer, anyway – but didn't have the strength to tell her. His head was slowly cracking open, over and over, breaking apart in a seam that ran right through the middle of the large bump on his head. Besides, she seemed harmless enough. They usually were, as long as you had your pants on and no money in your coat pockets.
Javert double-checked his person, just to be sure. When he came up with two empty pockets and one pair of trousers, he decided it might be all right to take another quick nap.
"Oh no," Sweetie said authoritatively, thumping a fist against his chest. "Don't you go to sleep. Madam says you should stay awake, to keep your head clear."
"A rest will clear my head," Javert was finally able to articulate, pushing away her hands as they poked and pinched at his chest and stomach in efforts to keep him from his nap.
"No, monsieur," she insisted. "What if the brutes downstairs wake up again? What will all the women do without a man to protect them? It is your duty, monsieur."
Funny, that a woman of ill repute would have the nerve to dictate his duties to him, but Javert had to acquiesce that she had a point, no matter how selfish her reasons for making it. Best to stay awake, incase the brawlers were able to rouse themselves.
"Who were those men?" he queried, deciding he might as well use the time to his advantage.
Sweetie shrugged. Javert wished she would put on something that fit her better, or was a little less revealing.
"Regulars," she said easily, beginning to swab his forehead again. "They beat on us a little sometimes, but they always pay so Madam never says anything to them. That was awfully nice, what you did for Delphine."
Javert could not recall ever having done a favor for a prostitute, except to ignore when her business caused small problems on street corners. He wondered what she was talking about, and if she had him confused with some other, more compassionate, policeman. He possessed neither the want or need to find out what she was speaking of. Whatever it was, it had been "awfully nice." It didn't seem something that needed worrying about.
"Even the gentlemen don't treat us like ladies," Sweetie continued, drawing lazy circles on his chest as she leaned into him. "Especially the gentlemen."
"Just doing my job," he volunteered warily, unaware of how trite he sounded.
"Allow me to do mine," she said, with a small smile. "I want to repay you for the kindness."
"There was no kindness," Javert replied, feeling the beginnings of panic welling in his soul. "It was my job."
"Aye, sir," Sweetie exclaimed, as if he had suddenly given her the go-ahead to do with him as she pleased. "And this is mine!"
She slung one of her legs across his waist, straddling his hips and pinning him to the bed, which groaned under the sudden motion. Her mouth was hot when she kissed him, and he might have enjoyed it but for the fact that she tasted like sour milk.
Sweetie began to pull at his shirt buttons, and had gotten all of them undone and was busy tugging it from the waistband of his trousers by the time Javert could comprehend what was happening. Panic set in quickly when she made short work of the fastenings on his pants and made to plunge both her nimble little hands down the front. He could only muster a grunt of his noncompliance before the door flew open, and two gendarmes and a cadet fell into the room.
Javert recognized all three of them immediately, though he could only name the gendarmes: a no-nonsense, holier-than-thou man of the people who called himself De Camille, and a smarmy, snot-nosed, foul-mouthed brat (who was really too young to be a cop, let alone a gendarme) named Laroque. Both stopped short at the sight that graced their eyes, and the cadet was doing a very bad job of hiding the gales of laughter trying to bubble up from his lungs.
Sweetie continued to suck fervently on his neck as thought nothing was amiss.
"Put that down," De Camille said through a tight smile. "And come downstairs. There's real business to attend to. You're late coming off your shift."
"At least he's coming off somewhere," Laroque broke in, sending both himself and the cadet spiraling off into uncontrollable laughter.
Sweetie finally removed herself from his person, and stood in front of him, hands fisted on her hips.
"Get out, all of you!" she exclaimed. "Can't you see he's ill? He needs a rest."
"What he needs is to get back on the job so he can get off our clock," Des Camille said forcefully, staring down the much smaller woman.
"Or," Laroque began again with a snicker, "For you to get back on so he can get off-"
"Shut up, Laroque!" his companion snapped, and Laroque only barely managed to avoid the large fist that swung to cuff him in the ear.
"Out!" Sweetie cried again, throwing her weight against the three of them and shoving them bodily out the door. "He just needs a rest, is all! He needs to be left alone!"
"I'm fine," Javert protested, already on his feet with his trousers fastened. He was tucking his shirt in when he pushed past Sweetie and the gendarmes, plucking his coat from the room's only chair as he passed it on his way to the door. "I'm perfectly fine."
Then he fled as fast as he could.
Out on the street, Javert's head cleared instantly. He could remember everything as it had happened up until he'd knocked his head, and everything just after waking. He was almost proud of the former half, and was trying desperately to forget the latter when Laroque drew even with him and remarked, "You have rouge on your collar. And what might be a hickey just under your chin."
"Shut up, Laroque," Javert muttered as he proceeded back down the street, ignoring the snickering of the cadet and trying to get the taste of sour milk out of his mouth.
AN: I do NOT write Les Mis, at least not commercially... So all you crazy little nit-picky Javert fangirls... don't beat me up for being uncanon. This was a gift for Lady Erised, who has been very kind ot me over the years, and it was very fun to write.