That was when Javert began to look distinctly uncomfortable. He offered little more than a blank, bland look. This was not at all how he had planned to spend his evening, and he was ill-prepared to sweet talk a Dominant into a contract, let alone one that appeared to be half his age, despite his jests. He was also never a terribly sociable man, and he lived his life as an outcast from the start. His interest in other people mostly went in as deep as it was relevant to know others for his work or for a case. Hell, some of his closest 'friends' were probably a handful of bandits he had been acquainted with in their repeated run-ins with the law.

"I shall make myself clear," he said at last, and he raised his sharp eyes back to his companion without realizing he had squeezed them shut. "I am... not well. I must have had you fooled somehow. I had gone on a walk to sort my thoughts, ah! That ended in a bust, you saw how that went. Now I am sitting here with a lad half my age for a wine-and-dine, and the whole bloody idea is mind-blowing to me."

He twisted his water glass idly. Did that feel like a weight off his shoulders to admit? No, not quite.

"You are an all-right fellow, Carden. Share what you like, I will hear you. Ask what you like, I will tell. But the less I have to think, wretched as that is to me, the better."