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In Marius’ conscious reckoning, in that moral calculus that those events had so recently shaken, a cloud had lifted from Jean Valjean's conscience - yet, absurdly, Marius found his discomfort with the old man's presence in his household only increasing. The lack of challenge from the man only seemed to rouse whichever pit was stirring within Marius. Once there had been a being, M. Fauchelevent, who seemed to stand guard over Cosette like a sheepdog, and that man Marius had felt able to face with at least the tenacity expected of a young man gone a-courting if not quite the ferocity of the wolf that he had only so recently found to exist within him (yet still seemingly only when it came to Jean Valjean). Now the dog had ceased even to guard, yet the idea that he must be brought to heel seemed impossible to smother.
After the sheepdog Marius had conjured a brute within his mind, a sort of Caliban delighting in conning the industrious for their well-begotten fortunes and snatching away little girls for God-knows-which purposes, only to slither into human skin and play the benevolent father as soon as his designs had been fulfilled. The image had come crashing to the ground, and every day Marius felt himself the brute for ever believing in it, yet it felt as if there was a shape to Jean Valjean that only the false image had opened Marius’ eyes to and which now refused to disappear. In truth he was thinner (much thinner) than he had ever been before, and yet his back seemed so broad now - how could that form ever have been mistaken for someone else's? - his hands larger, even his hair, which he wore so neatly, seemed to sit somehow threateningly on his face. Marius had had quite the terror of large men as a child (his grandfather had had a fairly formidable build in his prime, if not nearly as much so as Jean Valjean as far as Marius recalled - and after all all men had dwarfed the boy Marius), but not when their backs were turned to him, not unless they were shouting or picking up a cane. Jean Valjean, however, seemed a thousand times more threatening with his back turned.
Something seems to give a little bit when Valjean comes to him one day, standing upright yet looking like a supplicant nevertheless, telling Marius about the beautiful clothing he, Marius, keeps Cosette in now, and how he, beg your pardon sir, being but an old man and trying never to be indulgent with himself, so misses being involved with his daughter's finery.
Marius, as far as he recalls, had been kept wanting for nothing in terms of the material as a child, even when he would have preferred otherwise - he remembers, when very young, sobbing at watered combs through his curls and ascots tied until he felt like he was choking, but all this had been done by his aunt with the maid Nicolette as her proxy, not with any hint of the loving involvement that Jean Valjean seemed to associate his provisions for Cosette with. Marius had never been gifted any finery, merely commanded into it, as a military man with a uniform. He knows this about Valjean and Cosette already, yet it takes him a moment to identify what it is he is being asked and why, the emotional appeal that the old man is making so intuitively unfamiliar to his senses. Forcing himself to hold that gaze, the man looks shockingly plaintive, with nothing in the way of expectation to be seen on his face. If the man had been less consciously humble in his appeal, Marius might well have been overtaken by the flare of anger in him at the appeals to his daughter, the finery that he kept her in. Perhaps it is mere pity, or, to Marius’ vague shame, a perverse sensation of having already won thoroughly, that makes indulging the man seem the most appealing option by far.
“You may purchase her a dress, then. I shall see you pick it out yourself.” and so he does, saying nothing at all to the other on the long walk to the tailor's. The silk of the fabric presented for their perusal is soft underneath Marius’ touch, and Jean Valjean's large hands look suited only for ripping it to shreds and certainly not for paying for its fashioning into something fine and elegant, yet Marius stands back after that cursory touch, knowing little and less of what the tailor must think his role in this purchase. “She is your daughter, monsieur, do you think this make good enough for her?”
The old man's adam's apple bobs, and the tailor, a little man with a mustache and an exaggeratedly servile air as if he would really quite like them to get this over with as soon as possible, silently hands him another bundle, something white and blue of which sort Marius has no way to know. He lets Valjean run his fingers over that also, lets his quiet discomfort be broken up by a look that almost resembles satisfaction, before interjecting. “Monsieur, she is a married woman now. Surely she is not to return to dressing like a schoolgirl of twelve?”, and the shadow of embarrassment on the man's face sends a rush through Marius. Does the fabric truly look childish? Marius would be hard-pressed to tell; he certainly would make no complaints about seeing Cosette in that drape. It is easy to say, however, and the reward is immediate.
Valjean browses through a couple more options, Marius makes a couple more meaningless critiques. In the end, Marius contents himself with letting the old man commission an elegant daygown made from a deep burgundy changeant, with gold-bronze trimmings at the hem that will reveal the slightest daring hint of Cosette's stocking-clad ankles. Marius’ love for Cosette is entirely heedless of what she wears, but it seems an expensive option, and a fashionable (and as such unfamiliar) one - and therefore just the right task to lay at Valjean's feet.
Marius considers arranging so that Cosette will receive the gift in his presence, but somehow, even after that outing, he can't quite justify this to himself - it makes it too much of a game, too much for his own benefit, a framing that already pushes at the edges of his conscience and threatens to intrude. She wears it for the first time without any fanfare, cheerfully telling her husband that it was a gift from her beloved father who had gone to the tailor's himself so that it would be a surprise, and Marius is beyond relieved that it is winter and his deep flush can be excused as an effect of the cold. He had almost been expecting her not to like it - he's not sure if this would have been less or more of a satisfactory result. There is nothing about Jean Valjean's response to any of this that qualifies as out of the ordinary, but to Marius’ own delirious glance the old man's own black clothing suddenly seems even more ascetic, and the presence of this dress puts Marius much more at ease with their frequent walks together knowing that everyone will wonder as to the dissonance of the elegant young lady and the strange-looking old man. “A lady should have pretty things,” Valjean says one evening to Cosette, smiling, and Marius, no spendthrift at the best of times, makes sure to buy her three more pieces of clothing in as many weeks, letting her pick these out herself. Marius imagines, vaguely yet vividly, the man's thick neck ground down into the floor by a strangely disembodied pair of new heeled slippers.
Jean Valjean, of his own accord, and after a number of days, comes to Marius once again. This time his request is even stranger and more forthright.
“You wish to atone.” Marius is surprised enough to have let his mouth become ajar until he, embarrassed - closes it - and yet the aura of disbelief that would conquer him should any other man make this request does not quite make its appearance. He stares. Jean Valjean appears almost serene, his hands tucked neatly in front of him, with no hint of the quiet panic that Marius has learned to look for and which Marius has so recently and strangely learned to harness and make to gallop. Marius breathes. “Yes, I suppose that might be the right of it, from what you have told me. But monsieur, why on Earth have you come to me? I am no priest to administer penances.”
“You are the father of the household, as we agreed,” Valjean says almost placidly. “You are under no obligation to me, Monsieur Pontmercy. I shall go elsewhere or go nowhere as you command it. I only thought it was right that you, first of all, had the choice for me.”
“You wish to atone through pain - no, do not deny what you intended to ask me, I know that much already. you benefit from pain, that much is clear. And so as I am the father of the household and you have proven you cannot be trusted…”
He trails off to study Jean Valjean's face. Will he show rage or contrition now, that man who could snap Marius in half should he choose to separate from his civilized half? Marius feels his own face scrunch up when he realizes he's seeing neither. A hint of recalcitrance, perhaps, in the twist of the brows, but something very strange must have just happened within that man's mind, for his eyes hang closed and his lips are parted. “I should like to hear your words, not see your tongue,” scoffs Marius, who understands the man perfectly, perhaps just to say something.
“You have the right of it, sir.” Jean Valjean nods. “I place myself entirely in your hands now.”
“Then - stay here, first and foremost, until I command otherwise. And you are welcome to kneel, monsieur, if you wish.” It is not an order and is not intended as one. This only seems to increase the effect it has on the old man. Jean Valjean trembles all over, as if he were made of paper and not flesh. Slowly, but in one fluid motion, he sinks to his knees, the rhythm broken by a soft adjustment into further supplication as he bends himself forward, abandoning the more natural, sitting-like kneeling position of resting on the heels of one's feet. Marius is still mulling over what to do with this, feeling almost trapped in his own body and registering the seconds as hours, when he notices something that throws him entirely out of his head.
From Jean Valjean's new position on his knees, eyes fixed just below the reach of Marius’ gaze, an odd shape seems to emerge. It's not in a place where Marius should look. Marius looks, and sees something from which recoiling occurs to him as the proper reaction later, yet somehow never in the moment. It's the man's trousers, tented with what is unmistakably a cockstand, almost seeming to advance itself directly towards Marius’ gaze. The old man, Jean Valjean, is aroused, and by appearances in an advanced state of it. What is this? Marius is familiar, of course, with that thing whose most polite appellation is Greek love. He remembers vividly having been seventeen and shocked to encounter it being invoked rather freely at the Cafe Musain, either with a jocular and comfortable air between two or three very good friends or expressed in high-flying verses of poetry aimed at the beauty of a man or of a man personifying an ideal. It had not necessarily disconcerted Marius, but it had been hard to understand, and he had more-or-less consciously decided not to make an effort to. Even if he had any inclination to try, though, Marius doubts he could have imagined those men progressing to the forbidden further that the concept implied - they had seemed too dignified for that, far too dignified for more than touches and gazes and declarations of devotion. Galley slaves, though - everyone knew that bagnards would “take each other to wife” in the absence of women, that a young or handsome man had to guard his chastity there as valiantly as any maiden. Could Valjean have been used thus, his body having been conditioned to respond this way to the mere act of supplication before another man? Even in his darkest days of hating and fearing the man Marius would never have allowed himself to think of the possibility, but now, right now, it seemed as if he were being invited into it by Jean Valjean himself - and, despite the well-known odds found in his former life, Valjean paradoxically seemed faltering, even virginal, in extending said invitation.
His next action Marius cannot explain to himself, to the Lord on high, or indeed to the old man himself - who, Lady Luck blessing him, never does entreat him to. Marius backhands Jean Valjean. He is not strong, has never been, but he is wearing a single silver ring on his finger, which despite its lack of sharp edges undoubtedly adds some weight to the blow. Jean Valjean's head seems to fly to the side with the slowness of molasses, before just as arrestingly righting itself. His cheek is a deep red, with a slight further flush where the ring must have struck. He looks, for the first time that Marius has witnessed since that strange scene in the Gorbeau house, as if in a state of bliss. God above, but he was made for this. Marius, no more sure of what he is doing than he was a minute before, steps closer. “Do you want more, monsieur?”, my God, what is this? What is he?, and his father-in-law unmistakably nods. Marius backhands him again, on the other side of the face this time. Jean Valjean seizes up, inhales deeply, and then exhales all at once. His trousers are wet.
“Good God,” Marius exclaims, not playing to his audience this time. The old man either climaxed or came perilously close. What could possibly be wrong with him? “Did you - never you mind. Get out of those clothes in an instant.” Marius had had that order shouted at him countless times as a child - never, of course, caused by this, and never had it meant that he were to undress right there on the spot. That is exactly what Jean Valjean does, and Marius realizes he would have been gravely disappointed had it been otherwise. Still, he draws in a shocked breath at the man's matter-of-fact compliance. Marius just stands there, unmoving and breathless, as Jean Valjean (ex-convict, father-in-law, enjoyer of suffering) strips off his vest, shirt, trousers, undergarments and stockings, folding them all neatly and laying them to the side as if he were about to fulfill a simple private ablution and not acting on an order from his daughter's husband in the dark privacy of his quarters at their marital home. Marius does not avert his eyes, but also cannot seem to permit himself to truly look until the man has returned to his former kneeling position, looking almost perfectly serene were it not for his deep flush and heavy, staggered breaths belying his own agitation. It seems a full climax had not truly been reached, for between those strong-looking thighs sits a still-rigid, reddened cock, covered in pre-spend. Marius only manages to look away when he instead catches sight of the deep, long scars that cross Jean Valjean's thighs and chest, a latticework of oddly uniform, brown and red and greyish shapes standing out all the more underneath their thin coating of stark white hair. Marius cannot see the man's back from where he is standing, but the most livid of scars seem to cross the shoulders, some located heart-swoopingly close to the large vein on the neck. They certainly come from blows, and Marius dreads to think what just one of them straying could have done even to this strong and massive man. As it stands, Marius thinks some of them must already have debilitated him, with infection if not sheer pain, upon their incursion - the bagnes are not famed from their sterility, and the man would certainly have been straining in his forced labor there, far too much to allow for a smooth healing process like the one he had, through his own repeated imperilment, enabled Marius himself to have. Marius wonders what the man did to earn himself those stripes. Had that controlled man been an unruly inmate, one that the guards perhaps took pleasure in taming, or had he been a willing sacrifice, taking the place of weaker men, the pain bringing him closer to his purpose in God all the while? Both images have Marius transfixed. He reaches out to touch one scar, one long stripe crossing the upper half of the chest right up to the broadest part of the shoulder.
“You were flogged.” He says quietly, hands still on Valjean.
Valjean nods. “It is the standard punishment for trying to escape, sir.”
Sir. Marius almost mentions the circumstances he had been imagining. Instead, even with his fevered brain, he thinks better of it. His finger moves to another scar, this one a little lower on the chest, shorter and more livid-looking - the end of a whip snapped down hard there while trying to get in a good long stroke, perhaps. “How did it feel?”
Jean Valjean barely pauses for a moment before answering, as if this visceral feeling was always lingering at the forefront of his mind, ready to be dragged back out by a mere falsely-conversational question. “It is a pain beyond that which most are willing to imagine, sir, yet many come to prefer it to the hard labor. The humiliation was the worst for me, at first, but the galleys have a way of robbing a man of any illusion of dignity before his fellows or superiors alike. After months there, and certainly after the first flogging, it is hard to feel as if you have any pride to lose.”
Marius lets the images wash over him again. Jean Valjean, perhaps his age or barely older, dragged back in chains and stripped, mute and with a dark shadow of hatred tinged with the beginnings of dejection on his face. A featureless man in uniform, standing above him, reading from a book of prison infractions and their legal penalties. Marius has read that galley slaves customarily are made to carry out each other's punishments - another peasant lad, perhaps one who Valjean had come to consider an ally or even a friend, forced to hold the whip, being kicked or beaten himself when he tries to make the blows land as softly as he can.
“Sir,” Jean Valjean says again. Is he waiting for a command? Marius’ hands tremble; still, he explores further. The rigidness of the man's cock is a constant unsettling presence at his feet and at the back of his mind, but somehow, compared to the scars, it almost seems to fade into the background. Jean Valjean is tall enough even in this kneeled position that Marius doesn't even have to crouch to get a good look at the scars that run almost parallel to his nipples. He pinches one scar hard, and Jean Valjean groans. Marius can hear both of their labored breathing like this.
“You crave more,” Marius says, almost whispering. How did he get this close to the man? He cannot seem to recall. “You ache to be hurt. You don't know what you are without it.”
It's not a groan, exactly, but a deep hum that seems to emanate from Jean Valjean this time, and Marius hears, with the clarity of the bell that rings for lectures and reaches even those students mouldering in some tavern or hovel streets and streets away, this wearied body singing wordlessly yes, yes, tell me what I crave, what I am for. Marius knows not if he can give it to him, but he knows he wants to.
Somewhere, distant yet distinct, Marius feels a sharp pang of pity, tending towards self-disgust. Injustices have been done to this man, injustices that should be grieved and forgotten rather than dredged back up, and if Jean Valjean truly yearns to flagellate himself it should be discouraged, not enacted for him. Marius is a lawyer, a man of the mind, not some scourge-carrying masked devil of the carnaval. Stronger, though, is whichever unidentifiable feeling is roaring in his head and making him continue, even as his hands feel like to burst into flame and take both him and Valjean with them into the ashes, and his tongue feels dry enough to have already have reached that state. He swallows.
“You have been good to Cosette, no, you are good to Cosette. Not always good enough, perhaps, but better than anyone would have ever deigned to expect. You are no longer a prisoner, of anything except perhaps this home - for we will not let you escape again - and here you are subject to no code nor labor nor kept within the house's four walls. There being no code, monsieur, what am I to flog you for? By what right have you earned it this time?” Marius can hear the answer forming as he's wording the question, but he cannot go on without hearing the man say it himself.
“I… my escape, sir, if you would be so kind.” Valjean looks uncertain, and as Marius knows by now he is not uncertain about this yearning, bizarre as it is, so he is most like uncertain as to whether Marius knows what he is talking about, or will react with confusion. Fortunately for him, Marius does know. The absurdity of Valjean asking to be punished for something done in large part by Marius’ hand is not completely lost to him, but seems to matter vanishingly little in the heat of the moment. Did this man not truly wish to suffer? Had he not used Marius’ hand for that very purpose already?
“Very well. I shall give you that. I will tell you, as I punish you, what you must be punished for - punished for by me, not by the law or any other power, for I am no priest, monsieur, and I cannot by my own instrument give you that which is His to give, only, perhaps, aid in reaching a state of honest contrition. If you do not agree, that you must be punished for what I tell you, you will speak up, and we will find out what your true sin is or is not. Do you understand?” It is a ramble, and maybe a little legalistic, but Marius needs to assure himself as much as reach a common understanding here. Either way, Valjean nods, gazing with purpose towards the floor. He does not consider himself good enough for my gaze. Marius nearly moans himself.
Valjean, apparently wishing to deviate from his position as little as possible, makes the slightest gesture to something to his side - the pile of his clothing that he had neatly folded and put on the chair. Atop the pile sits his leather belt. Right. Marius picks it up. It's a thin, plain strap, entirely utilitarian, designed to hold up trousers that have lost their proper tailoring and to sit hidden at the waist underneath the jacket. It will do for this purpose as well, although it must be nothing compared to whichever implement had struck Jean Valjean's body in the galleys.
“Bend over the chair, monsieur,” Marius orders. Jean Valjean, looking at first a little puzzled, complies as quickly as anything, dutifully moving his own clothing aside to a nearby table. Marius can get a much better angle from here. He takes three deep breaths, trying to calm himself as best he can. Jean Valjean's breaths are staggered, anxious, are making his chest visibly heave even from the back. That is just as well.
“You are being punished for being a thief.” Marius strikes as if firing off a shot, direct if not targeted, and the blow strikes Valjean's shoulderblade. The man does not make a sound nor any perceptible movement beyond an exhale, but something seems to go through him still, something unfathomable. Marius strikes again, and again, and again, the fourth blow landing on the right shoulderblade, which judging by the man's scars was the favored location of his correctors in the bagne. “You stole, monsieur, and chose to scoff at the law established for all of our protection, not just yours.” Marius does not believe that anymore - at least he tries not to. He does not know what it is Valjean, in his heart of hearts, believes about himself.
Deep, satisfied breaths from Valjean. Marius, absurdly, rues that he cannot see his face. Maybe when he is finished with this side.
One, two, three blows of the belt. “You hardened yourself against God and man, did you not? Committed acts against your own dignity. These scars you have prove as much.” Marius pauses for a second, watching the formation of new red stripes along the man's shoulders with fascination. He does not intend for him to bleed and therefore does not intend to form new scars, but still there is something transfixing about the immediate physical effect of the instrument wielded by Marius’ hand. “You hid that hardness from the world, afterwards, as you perhaps should. But to whose ends? Yours, is not that so?”
A sound. Marius moves a little to the side. He dares not touch Valjean’s face, not even now, but his new position enables a new sight - tears streaming from closed eyes, a flushed, flexing face with an inexorable expression of half-bliss, half-despair. The man is crying. Marius has made his father-in-law shed tears. He should stop - should have stopped long ago, before any of this started. His hand does not stay, but rather seems to find new strength with which to strike, even as Marius distantly feels the pain before him reflected back into a warning ache of his own wrist. “You told me I was the master, monsieur, when you confessed your crimes. Was it this that you wanted? That you cannot live without? Did you want me to grant you a place at our hearth so you could kneel on the carpet and be beaten like a cur?” Marius lets the belt come down again and again and again, permitting Valjean no time to react to the words absent the pain or the pain absent the words. Marius has no illusions of being an avenging angel, here or anywhere, and yet his instrument feels like flame. At the end of this, will Valjean be cleansed, and if he is, will he be remade in a new shape - one that Marius can live with without feeling like casting himself to Hell?
Marius, still raining down a steady stream of blows on every bit of naked muscle offered up to his reach, has his reverie broken by a sudden contraction from his target. Valjean shudders, tenses again, and lets out a low-mournful moan. Marius stops, shocked perhaps more than he should be by now to realize what has happened. Valjean's cock, which Marius has been pretending so stalwartly to pay no mind to, has finally spent itself completely, having spurted onto the chair untouched. The man has yet to move out of position, and Marius lets himself watch for a bit, leaving Valjean in the dark as to where he is or what he thinks or what he is doing, just standing there, watching the older man's thighs and buttocks clench so valiantly holding his strong body up even through the aftershocks as his cock, wet with his own slick, slowly softens away from Marius’ fixed gaze. Marius shudders himself at the sight. He wants to see more, see every bit of what he can make this untameable body do. “Turn over,” he commands. Valjean, less hastily than before, does obey this as well - is there any order he would let himself refuse by now, and how deep should Marius go in order to find out? He seems to pay no heed to avoiding physical contact with the result of his sudden coming, just turns around and sits on the chair as any clothed human being might, clearly unsure of what exactly to do with his arms and legs. It is good that he is unsure. And he looks - pleased is not quite the right word, Marius thinks, but it distressingly seems much more right than any of its antonyms. Does this mean Marius has done good? Or at least not done something truly wretched? Marius, with a start he has to physically suppress, recalls a location he's tried not to think about for a very long time, an endeavor that became easier after the months he spent in that post-barricade comatose fog that at its worst sometimes seemed like a newly erected insurmountable wall between two very different Marius Pontmercys. In the Gorbeau house, this old man, the one Marius had called Monsieur Blanc, upon being held captive and threatened with torture, had grasped the brand being menaced at him, heated it up himself, and held it against his own arm, his entire posture and gaze perfectly serene, almost elated. So much had been happening over the course of that hour that Marius had barely had time to contemplate it, but the vision had showed up in a few confused dreams afterwards, always oddly disconnected from the (supposed) name and identity of the man it was happening to. Marius had, more than once, brought himself to climax with that disembodied face of a serene martyr on his mind, with no good explanation for why he had done so, but a desperate fervor in response to the concept of that voluntary pain. It is not a face that Marius (to his honest relief) has succeeded in exactly replicating in Jean Valjean with his ministrations of the belt, but nevertheless that very serene martyr sits before him now, exposed, prostrate, eyes darting, wretched and beautiful and shamed and proud all at once. It is shameful, and not just for Valjean, and Marius never wants to see the man any other way again.
Marius breaks from his reverie - the man's eyes are still darting, uncomnonly intelligent-looking even in this situation, clearly not wanting to focus on anything in particular. Marius, looking down himself as to what it is the man seems to be trying so diligently not to notice, feels ice in his blood. He, Marius, is hard - noticeably so, fervently so. How had he not noticed? Letting out a soft cry, he raises his hands to his face, blocking his outlook. His face is perhaps not what he should be trying to hide, but it is too late anyway. So that is what he had been feeling. He had let himself look at the other man's cock, let his thoughts stray to Greek love all the while seeing it rise and respond, wondrously, to every bit of pain and humiliation doled out, but had been too caught in his thoughts to realize that the strange fever hitting his head had in fact been hitting his entire body. He is lifted just above the mire of his horrified self-contemplation by a gentle tug at his wrist. Jean Valjean, keeping an almost respectful physical distance, is reaching out for his hand, and Marius lets him, feeling too feeble-limbed to do much else. “It's alright, Monsieur Pontmercy,” Valjean says quietly. His tone has shifted - it's almost the register in which a different sort of man might have called him son or lad. “You have nothing to fear from me - I will go immediately, should you wish it. You did not deserve for me to drag you into…” he does not seem to know the words for what is being done in this room, no more than Marius does. The tone, the gesture, however - both seem to instill calm and invigoration in Marius in equal, paradoxical measure. He can feel his limbs again, and the roaring in his head has become the steady flow of a river. Marius has often felt panic (much often than those who surrounded him growing up ever seemed to, and it was a frequent source of scoldings and, as the years went on and the pattern never changed, mystified disappointment) - rarely has he been calmed from it by any measure except his own efforts, and yet more rarely has anyone seemed to have taken the conscious effort to try. Jean Valjean, of all the people in the world, in this context out of all the contexts in the world, has just done so.
Marius grabs the man by the back of the neck and kisses him.
It is not a good kiss, or perhaps even truly a kiss - Marius’ teeth more so clash into the side of the man’s mouth, and the little yelp (what a strange sound to hear from his father-in-law the ex-convict) coming from Valjean could have been one of pain if Marius did not by now know that is not how he reacts to pain. It is, however, accepted. Valjean turns his head clumsily, with no particular movement of lips, as a tamed deer might nuzzle against a familiar human hand, but he leans into it, and deeply so, as if he wishes to get impossibly even closer.
“Will you help me?” Marius whispers, which should destroy any semblance of the illusion that had been so gradually built, but Valjean simply reaches down blindly, unbuttoning Marius’ trousers, and Marius, not knowing what to do but feeling bizarrely overwhelmed by the combination of unexpected intimacies, turns his head away from the strange kiss and instead lets Valjean bury his face in Marius still-clothed shoulder as Marius presses an arm down atop that soft white head of hair and Valjean’s strong hand works the length of Marius’ cock. It is not particularly practiced, clumsy compared even to Marius’ own shameful too-frequent self-pleasuring strokes to remove that common source of overbuilt frustration, but his hand barely needs to move thrice before Marius has spilled. He lets the old man work him through it gently, once, twice, before shuddering and pulling away. Marius knows not how he himself looks, but Jean Valjean looks wrecked… and stiller, face less wound, than Marius has ever seen him. Even then, he whispers, “I am so sorry.” His face is red and swollen on both sides, one cheek and temple mirroring the textured contours of Marius’ jacket.
Marius, because he cannot seem to subdue it, lets out a little hysterical laugh, then, with inexplicable confidence, responds: “Do not be, monsieur. Were you helped? Do you feel like exiling yourself once again?” It is not that Marius is not also unsettled by what has just happened, how to categorize what they have done. Perhaps it is simply that the buildup, the fixation of inexpressible images onto Jean Valjean, has lasted for so long for him that this, comparatively, feels at least like a semblance of bricks having settled into place - or perhaps it is baser still. Regardless, the terrifying storm of which this was the culmination has been forming for so long with sharp focus on this man. Perhaps for Valjean it had not hitherto been truly about Marius - or perhaps he simply does believe that he inculcated this into him. It would be a far more shameful thing for Marius not to disabuse him of that notion - he owes him that much and infinitely more.
“You do not truly deserve humiliation,” Marius murmurs, trying as best he can to look the man in the eyes despite the unsteadiness of his voice. “I've been having - thoughts - you did not put them into me, except perhaps by being such a vision in your penitence, and that is entirely due to holiness, not wickedness, on your part. It is my sin, and my design, never yours.”
Jean Valjean meets his gaze directly, which feels to Marius like a trial for them both to rival Hercules’ battle with the Nemean lion, but Marius rises to it. “Would you consent to help me with my penitence when I shall need it again, sir?”. Marius' only semblance of a response is a frantic nod and a single syllable of verbal agreement, and he means it deeply.