r e c l a m a t i o n

Title: by tilted arcs [or read on Ao3]

Fandom: Les Misérables

Pairing: Javert/Valjean

Rating: Teen

Warning: None

Tags: Post-Seine, Javert tries his best

Summary:

What is comfort, Javert thought, when the one in need of it is inconsolable and the one offering so ill-equipped?

『Or, Valjean is wasting away before Javert's very eyes and he doesn't know how to stop it.』

What is comfort, Javert thought, when the one in need of it is inconsolable and the one offering so ill-equipped?

“Tell me what I can do for you.”

Valjean smiled, a weak thing, more an imitation than an actual expression. It was an expression produced when the heart was so thoroughly drowning in anguish that the body cannot help but follow, showing the state of the soul in every action.

He shuddered to look at that smile.

Some time ago, Javert had found himself on Valjean’s doorstep. June was many months past. He had arrived unannounced, thinking only about himself, his lifetime’s accumulation of failures, and the Seine’s rejection. He had not even known at the time why he sought out Valjean, except for the vague understanding that many decades of misunderstanding hinged somehow upon this particular man for correction. Or blame.

“Javert. I thought,” Valjean said, uncertainly, “The Moniteur...” He did not continue.

Javert thought the shock must have been serious; even the few words Valjean managed to speak were breathless, requiring sharp draws of air after each slow syllable. He knew what would cause Valjean to look so pale, and grimaced to think of it—that wretched article. He had read the thing twice in his sickbed before throwing it aside, pages thumping against the wall before falling, scattered, to the floor.

He had not considered what Valjean’s reaction might be to words like ‘mental aberration’ and ‘suicide.’ He knew what reaction they had drawn in other quarters, and he preferred not to think on that either.

“Obviously, the article was published with too much haste. They issued a correction the following week.”

“I see,” Valjean said, standing in the doorway.

When Valjean continued to gawp, he said, “May I come in.” It was not quite a question.

Valjean levered himself off from where he leaned against the doorframe and made room for him.

Fragility was entirely new to Javert. Rather, his awareness of it was new.

Most of his broken bones were healed, but his ribs twinged when he bent a certain way. His back often throbbed for no reason at all, especially when the weather turned damp and cold. And these were minor annoyances in comparison with how the world appeared before him, huge and incomprehensible and, apparently, nothing like he once thought. He felt like something made of glass, already woven through with fractures, accidentally knocked from a window ledge, waiting for the final shattering.

Speeding the fall along had done him no good, and now he was held in awful suspension.

It still took him far too long to notice that Valjean, too, was fragile: The man who once lifted a cart for an entire town to see now stopped to catch his breath when crossing a room. He stared into the light of candles for long hours without moving or speaking. He had not once seen Valjean take a meal.

This was untested—this newborn instinct to care for another.

“There must be something I can do,” Javert said, demanding.

“I am well,” Valjean said, lying through his damn teeth, “There is nothing to be done.”

Perhaps anyone else would have known how to be kind. He did not have the patience for it. He extended two fingers, placing them so they rested against the cuff of Valjean’s shirt. He did not press down or grasp.

“If you are well, lift your arm.”

“I don’t think—”

“Try,” Javert interrupted, a challenge.

Eventually, there was an answering push against his fingers. He held them exactly as they began, holding his ground, braced while Valjean strained up against his immobile hand. For the first breath, he thought he might be wrong—there was some give, the hint of incredible strength, and the smallest, incremental movement upwards against his will. He imagined Valjean might, even at his most weak, best him.

Then, Valjean’s arm fell back to the table. He was left panting from the effort, pale and shaking.

“I am well enough,” Valjean corrected himself when he could speak again.

“Eat,” Javert ordered the next day, shoving a bowl forward.

Valjean only looked at the food.

“We are very different, Valjean. But not in this. Eat.”

The crash came soon enough, and it was nothing like he thought it would be.

They kissed, and none of it made sense. Javert had dreamed of such things. Unreal visions of Valjean under him, broad chest bared and heaving with desire. While he slept and no part of it was real, he conjured versions of himself able to thread gentle fingers through soft white hair and murmur the right words of comfort. At night, alone in bed, he imagined that he could hold Valjean without the clumsiness he felt in the clarifying light of day.

More than once, he berated himself for taking the liberty of touching Valjean’s wrist, even over his shirt. Anything further was an impossibility—a trespass just in the thinking of it.

But Valjean was the one to kiss him.

Valjean fisted his hands into Javert’s shirt, pulled him close, and kissed him with eyes rimmed red and miserable while rough hands formed a gentle cradle around his face. Javert yielded, helpless, lips parted under the shock of warm skin against his mouth. His shattered senses could not keep pace, starting and stuttering over each touch against his lips. Dimly, he registered that Valjean was breathless, but not as much as he might have been a few weeks ago.

“Why?” he asked. “Why would you want this?”

“You are a comfort to me, Javert,” Valjean admitted, with all the weight of a confession. His cheeks were still sunken, hollowed by hunger and whatever sadness he refused to share. “I don’t think you know how much that is true.”

This was mid-fall: the way the heavy heart plummeted before the rest of the body caught up, the terrifying lack of resistance, the drag of wind threatening to pull the body end over end in a directionless tumble.

“Tell me what I can do for you,” Javert said again much later, doggedly. He no longer expected an answer of any weight.

“You already do so much,” Valjean said, and curled both of his hands into Javert’s hair.