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The second the car stopped moving, Javert flung the door open and stomped his way up to the front door, shoulders hunched, hands balled at his sides. He was practically a caricature of irritation, dragging his own personal thundercloud after him; and well, Valjean shouldn’t laugh at that. But he was laughing, quite hard, as he struggled out of his seatbelt and stumbled down the stairs up to the door in Javert’s wake, his chest bubbling with mirth.
“Javert,” he called between helpless chuckles. “Javert, wait—”
The man paused to pin Valjean with a glare, just long enough to ensure that Valjean wasn’t going to trip and fall back down the stairs again before turning to finish storming his way into the house. Valjean staggered after him, unable to dull the grin on his face.
He managed, with some fumbling, to shut and lock the door behind him; the sound of Javert’s footsteps were already retreating up the stairs, towards the bedroom. Clearly he intended to sulk. Valjean forced his face into something which he hoped might be more sympathetic—it was so difficult to tell, all the muscles of his face buzzed with that peculiar, infectious joy—and then dutifully trooped up the stairs after him.
Javert was removing his suit jacket to hang it neatly in the closet. Valjean had never once seen him toss a used article of clothing on the back of a chair, and had earned himself no shortage of disgruntled hums when he did so himself. It was fortunate he was so fond of the man, or else he would be insufferable. The thought made it very difficult not to smile again, leaning in the doorway to the bedroom they’d shared for over a year, but he was truly doing his best.
Javert glanced over his shoulder as he slid the tie free from his collar. It hadn’t really been a tie sort of party, but of course Javert would not be dissuaded. On seeing Valjean watching him, his frown deepened. “Don’t even bother, Jean.”
Valjean’s eyebrows raised. “Bother what?”
“I mean it. I’m not speaking to you until you can behave like a serious, mature adult.”
“I am older than you. And very serious.”
“You are grinning like a baboon.”
The words sent Valjean into an entirely new paroxysm of laughter, which made Javert’s scowl deepen, which in turn, naturally, made Valjean laugh harder .
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, after far too many barely-repressed giggles for any apology to count. Javert was hanging his tie back on its rack as if the only alternative was to strangle Valjean with it. “Really. I’m just—”
“Drunk,” Javert said, turning to level an accusing finger in Valjean’s direction. He bit the inside of his lips, trying to quell the smile. “You are drunk, Jean Valjean, and I’ll hear nothing more from you.”
Valjean went to go sit on the bed. Yes, it was true that he’d had just a little more wine than perhaps he should have at the party. Yes, the room was tilting in a pleasant, peaceful way. But he wasn’t—
“I am not drunk ,” Valjean argued mildly, as Javert stripped his shirt button by button to the undershirt beneath, before returning it to its hanger and buttoning it right back up again.
“Yes you are,” Javert said. “And a silly drunk at that, and a lecherous one. I’m not sure which is worse.”
“I am—pleasantly inebriated. Buzzed. Still fully in possession of my faculties.”
Javert secured the final button at the top of the collar and then yanked the shirt into immaculate neatness. “Then you have absolutely no excuse.”
“For what?”
“Oh, for—” Javert threw up his hands. “You accosted me. Inappropriately. In the car.”
This time Valjean succeeded in keeping his face neutral, though the smile threatened to bubble up all the same. “I was under the impression you enjoyed my inappropriate accostments.”
Javert spluttered a bit at that, satisfyingly. The sight of that never ceased to amaze and delight Valjean, who never knew he was capable of flirting until about six months into his relationship with Javert, when his daughter complained about how incorrigible they were being at dinner.
“‘Accostments’ is not a word,” Javert finally said. Was he blushing? “And I enjoy them well enough—when they do not take place in a moving motor vehicle .”
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“You don’t—Jean, are you serious? What if we’d been caught ?”
“It’s not as if we got that far.” Valjean said, still teasing in spite of himself, and the look Javert shot him was absolutely venomous, and at once the memory slid over his eyes like the next image in a viewfinder: the sight of the streetlamps coasting across Javert’s face on the deserted backroad they were on. His head pleasantly swimming. The sudden need to be closer, the click of Valjean’s unbuckled seatbelt, Javert’s sharp admonishment, the smell of Javert’s cologne as he pressed his face to Javert’s neck, the sharp intake of breath as he kissed the flutter of Javert’s pulse.
And then he’d slid his hand over the growing bulge in Javert’s slacks, and they’d nearly swerved off the road with the sound of Javert’s fluid profanity ringing loud in his ears.
The laughter had started up just after that. Javert had taken his eyes off the road only once, to shoot him a glare like the one affixing him right now.
Valjean could see Javert’s cheek twitch as he ground his teeth. “You took your seatbelt off,” Javert said stiffly. He crossed his arms over his white sleeveless shirt, incongruous with his neatly pressed slacks. “You could have died.”
“Elderly man perishes in tragic handjob accident,” Valjean deadpanned, miraculously straight-faced. Javert opened his mouth to yell at him some more, but a laugh escaped instead: a stunted, scoffing chuckle that only barely made it past his lips before he clamped his mouth shut again, trying to glare—but it was far too late. The laughter returned and this time Valjean joined it, reaching out to tug Javert down onto the bed beside him and press his face into the warm crook of the man’s shoulder, smothering his giggles with skin. It was not so long before Javert’s helpless amusement turned to a sigh of fond aggravation. At some point their fingers became intertwined.
“Never do it again,” Javert said sternly, and Valjean nodded, all innocence.
“Just to be clear,” he said, pulling back to look into Javert’s eyes. “You are referring specifically to anything that might result in a charge of reckless endangerment, correct?”
“ And indecent exposure. But yes.”
“Ah. Good. Well, in that case.” Valjean disentangled his hand—and then dragged it up Javert’s leg from knee to groin, the soft, supple fabric of his slacks practically no barrier between skin and Valjean’s caress. It never grew less exquisite, watching the man’s pupils expand. Javert’s jaw fell open, his breath shuddering in his throat, looking at Valjean as if torn between consternation and the shock of raw desire. In the end, desire won.
“Where were we?” Valjean said, with another grin, and this time Javert did not protest at all.