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all we are is skin and bone

Chapter 10: don't be so scared of the things you love

Notes:

terribly sorry for the delay on this chapter--hopefully it was worth the wait! my endless thanks to vaincs and icicaille for variously betaing and helping me work through this mess.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Valjean at once feels betrayed and unburdened and abandoned. Javert has left him here with Cosette, and he hurts. Perhaps it should not surprise him that Javert has run out—Valjean cannot really blame him for doing so, given the tenor of the conversation, but he had thought they might do this together, as friends or companions. It is a small thing, and perhaps it should not wound Valjean so much. Still, he finds himself wishing Javert were here with him.

Cosette sits next to him, too close, and she looks like Fantine, or what he remembers of her. She is defiant, brave, but soft, with a hand resting lightly on his forearm. She shakes her head; she has been staring down since Javert walked out. “I don’t understand, Papa,” she says, “this is all so much.”

He does not know what to tell her. Javert has set everything off-balance once again. This was supposed to be simple—as simple as it could be, anyway—and now it is even more complicated. Valjean supposes he should have expected this, for things are never simple when Javert is involved. He sighs. “I am sorry for keeping it from you.”

And again, she shakes her head. “You did all of this for me and my mother,” she says. “I cannot be upset with you for that, though—though I wish you might consider your own needs. You do so much for others, I think you must forget to take care of yourself, sometimes.” Her laugh is sad, and when she looks up at him, her eyes are wet, rimmed with tears.

“You need not worry about me,” he says. At once he is thankful and disappointed that Javert is not here. No doubt he would take Cosette’s side in this, suggest he hasn’t been eating enough—but his presence is calming, and he is sturdy, and Valjean somehow feels less afraid when he is around.

“But I do! How am I not to worry when you’ve shown me this?” She gestures hopelessly at the floor, the papers spilled before them. “And Monsieur Javert is your friend, but—” She stops before finishing the sentence. “I should learn to hold my tongue.”

“Go on,” Valjean says. “Speak.” He steels himself for whatever she may say. She is too perceptive for her own good, and has always had a way of cutting him when she does not intend to. He readies himself for this wound.

She takes a deep breath, looks at him tentatively. “He is your friend, but he is the cause of all our troubles!” She shrugs. “When I was a child, our lives seemed like some great adventure, always running from place to place. But to know why, now, and to know he is your friend—surely you must understand why it unsettles me.”

“That is the past,” Valjean says. He bears Javert no ill will, no anger save what flares up after the nightmares, sometimes. “He is different now.”

“Can people change so much?” Cosette says. She folds her hands in her lap, stares down at the papers on the floor. “I am sorry, Papa, but what if he hurts you, or us, again?”

And Valjean thinks of Javert’s hands on his, Javert’s mouth on his—months ago now—and wants to tell her that Javert would never intentionally hurt them again. That Javert has been careful, but this thing of theirs is complicated, and he is complicated, and what is between them will never be easy.

“He has good intentions,” Valjean says simply.

Cosette sighs. “Good intentions or not, I cannot help but worry.”

Her palm is flat on his forearm and he is aware of his unbuttoned cuff, the ugly band of scars circling his wrist exposed to her eyes. If she is looking at them, he does not notice. He focuses on the weight of her hand, a reassuring touch—this unfamiliar thing between them, this barrier broached.

“If it will alleviate your concern, I shall—I shall end our acquaintanceship.” That word is not enough for whatever he and Javert  have. To put any sort of name to it feels reductive. “Javert has voiced a similar worry—perhaps the two of you are correct.”

Valjean’s stomach sinks at the idea of losing Javert again. First Cosette, and then Javert. He supposes that this is the course of things, this is the only way his life could be expected to play out, but that does not ease the pain of the blow. Javert is his friend, or something like a friend, and the only person other than Cosette who cares for him. And though he does not understand why, he is certain that Javert does care for him.

“Has he?” Cosette says, and it throws Valjean from his thoughts. She lifts her hand from Valjean’s arm and he feels strange without it there, the weight of his skin too heavy to bear. He is not sure when he entered this new world where he is touched kindly. “I do not want you to be unhappy, but—I suppose if he has been concerned, too, then…”

He braces himself for her command. End this, he expects her to say. He is resigned to finishing his life without ever knowing the warmth of Javert’s touch again, without ever feeling Javert’s mouth on his knuckles. Briefly, he thinks of how he will go on—he will do as he had planned at Cosette’s engagement, before he was tied up in feelings for Javert. He will go far away, and they will all forget about him, and he will die.

“If you will take care of yourself, Papa, if you will do what is best for you—if he makes you happier, then I cannot ask you to deny yourself that,” she says. “You have already denied yourself so much for me.”

It takes him by surprise. She is shaking her head again, her eyes downcast, and this time, Valjean is sure she is staring at his wrist. He tentatively moves to button the cuff, to hide away the marks on his skin. The feeling of the fabric against his wrist is distant, fuzzy, like sound heard while underwater.

“But—but I cannot forgive him so easily.” Her fingers suddenly still his, brushing against the button at his wrist. “I do not think I can forgive anyone who has hurt you so.”

“In time,” Valjean says. “When you are ready.”

“Perhaps,” Cosette says. She glances at the papers on the floor and leans down to pick one up. Valjean recognizes Javert’s handwriting on it—it has not changed much in all these years, though everything else has. “Did you think I would disown you for this?”

“I would not have held it against you,” he says. “I have kept so much from you, Cosette. I thought it would pain you to know the truth.”

“It only pains me to know how you have been treated,” she says. “You, of all people.” 

He is not sure what she means by that—what makes him any less deserving of what has happened to him than anyone else—but he will not make her say it, for there are tears on her cheeks now, and her eyes are red. He pats her hand and it is small in his, and she is a child again, still, and she throws her arms around his shoulders and cries her child’s tears into his coat.


It is a few days later when a gamin brings a letter to Valjean’s door. Valjean tips the boy well, takes the letter from him and sends him on his way, and opens the envelope. The letter is from Javert, of course. Valjean supposes he has been expecting it. They have not spoken since the night at the Gillenormand house, as is becoming usual for them, and Javert does not do well with so little communication.

This letter, though, is different—Javert’s familiar handwriting is little more than a scrawl, the page heavy with ink splotches. And where Javert is usually wordy, his sentences meandering before finally getting to the point, this letter is short and simple. We must speak soon, it reads, face to face.

Valjean feels alarmed upon reading it. This is quite uncharacteristic of Javert, to send so little information, to request a meeting with so little explanation. An image flashes in Valjean’s mind, rips through him and settles, heavy, in the pit of his stomach—Javert at the banks of the Seine again, Valjean too late this time, his body washed up days later, blue and bloated.

He draws in a breath. Surely Javert would not. He has made promises.

Valjean fetches paper and pen and ink and scribbles out an equally short response. I would be pleased to see you this evening. He folds the page into an envelope, and he worries and hopes.


Night falls and Javert has still not arrived. Valjean has spent the hours pacing, finding himself unable to focus on books or prayer, even. He is making tea—a nervous habit—when there finally, blessedly, comes a knock at the front door. Valjean scrambles to unlock it, nearly tripping over his feet as he does. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach is still there, and is only slightly alleviated upon opening the door.

Javert looks in a sore shape, his face flushed and hair disheveled, long strands loose from his queue. His jaw hangs, he breathes too heavily, and there is something in his eyes that sets Valjean unsteady.

“Come in,” Valjean says. He hopes it sounds cheerful. “Tea?”

He has only barely shut the door when Javert blurts out, “I’ve resigned from my post.”

Valjean almost drops his cup of tea. “Again?” He turns and Javert is staring down, digging the toe of his boot into the floor. “You’ve only just started back.”

“May I sit down?” Javert asks, voice raw. Valjean watches Javert’s fingers twitch against his thigh, stretching and digging in before closing into fists.

“Of course,” Valjean nods, gesturing to the sofa near the fireplace. He wonders if he should start a fire, or fetch a blanket—he is suddenly aware of the chill, and he fears Javert may be cold or uncomfortable. Valjean lingers at the fireplace, thinking, and feels the weight of Javert’s gaze on his back.

“Come sit,” Javert says. It is less a command than a plea, a tone Valjean has still not grown used to hearing from Javert. Valjean follows, forgets about the tea in the kitchen, and sits next to Javert on the sofa, a distance between them.

It is strange to share this space, to feel the weight of another next to him like this. Valjean has missed it—he can admit that—and it is comfortable to be so close. Still, they do not touch, and Javert’s hands are still in fists at his thighs. Valjean rests a hand on the cushion that separates them, his fingers splayed over the fabric, and thinks of Javert kissing his knuckles again. He had not realized how much he had yearned for that touch. Now it seems close, palpable, but impossible, too.

There is still the desperate look in Javert’s eye when he speaks again. “I resigned from my post,” he repeats. “This morning, I—I went to the prefecture, and I sat at my desk and I—could not. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything.” He avoids Valjean’s eyes. “And so I tendered my resignation. It is done.”

“Done,” Valjean says. He is more than a little confused—hadn’t Javert, just weeks ago, been thrilled to return to work? Again, he thinks of Javert at the Seine, Javert hopeless, and wants to reach for him, beg him not to take such drastic measures. “You are not going to—” Valjean starts, but Javert cuts him off with a scoff.

“No, Valjean, I am not going to—I promised you.” Javert shakes his head. “Do you think so little of me?”

Valjean has not forgotten those half-conscious promises, almost a year ago now, made in his bed in the middle of the night. It is a relief to hear that Javert has not forgotten them, either. “I think my worry is understandable,” Valjean says. “Your letter was alarming.”

“It was all very sudden, I suppose,” Javert says. “But I needed to speak to you. I need to speak to you.”

“Are we not speaking?”

Javert sighs and flexes his hands against his thighs again. And then—after what feels like a lifetime—he takes Valjean’s hand, and Valjean feels himself relax, his skin warm under Javert’s touch. How long has it been? He has needed this, wanted this, and now it is his. Javert draws a long finger over a thick vein that runs between Valjean’s knuckles, breathing quietly, the desperate look still in his eyes. He turns toward Valjean for a moment, then clasps Valjean’s hand in his own. Valjean can feel sweat between their palms.

Javert’s mouth is gaping. Valjean is sure his is, too, but—he refocuses. It is hard to concentrate on anything but the feeling of their hands together again, finally, finally, but he forces himself to speak.

“Why did you resign?” Valjean says.

Javert looks at him, and Javert’s thumb is moving against his hand, and Javert swallows hard. “If this—we—are to continue as—friends,”—he stumbles over that word—“then I cannot continue my career with the police.”

And Valjean does not understand that—to think of Javert without the police, to think of Javert as anything other than police, is unfathomable. Antithetical to Javert’s existence. But Valjean had thought this softness was antithetical to Javert’s existence, too, and he has been craving that for weeks now. Javert squeezes his hand, and Valjean tries to put the contradictions away. He stares at Javert, feels his brow furrow, lets his gaze drift to their hands.

But he cannot keep himself from speaking. “Javert, I don’t see how those two things are—”

Then Javert is shifting, still holding Valjean’s hand but lowering himself to the floor, and Valjean is even more confused than before. Javert is on his knees before Valjean, Valjean’s hand held in his own, and he is staring up at Valjean with steely eyes betraying—fear, maybe, or something else Valjean cannot decipher. Valjean is bent forward just so, Javert’s face inches from his knee. There are strands of silver in Javert’s hair—Valjean has never noticed them until now—and Javert is breathing too hard.

“I have hurt you,” Javert says. “I know you will never admit it, but I have allowed so much harm to come to you.”

“That is—that is not true,” Valjean starts.

“Please,” Javert begs, and Valjean quiets himself. He feels his chest tighten as Javert’s fingers slip to the cuff of his sleeve, unbutton it, expose the marked skin there at his wrist. Javert turns up the cuff and pushes it back, up Valjean’s forearm, and sets his fingertips there where the scars are thickest. Valjean watches Javert’s fingers move over the scars, but has no sensation of touch except where Javert’s thumb rests between the bones of his hand. “This should never have happened to you,” Javert says. “Can you even feel me?”

There is disgust in Javert’s voice, and Valjean is sure that it is the scars that have disgusted him. “No,” Valjean says, the word hard to speak, and Javert visibly winces.

“I let this happen to you,” Javert says. Even though Valjean cannot feel the pressure of Javert’s fingertips, he can see the tenderness, the lightness, with which Javert moves over the marred and bunched skin. “I may well have given you the ones on your back.”

Valjean cringes. He has tried to put those scars out of his mind—but of course, he cannot forget them. They are his to bear. “Things were different, then,” he says.

“That is no excuse.” Javert is repeating the process on Valjean’s other wrist, unbuttoning the cuff and stroking the scars, gentle. Valjean has never let another person touch them before, and he had certainly never expected Javert to be the first. But Javert glances up at him before touching, and Valjean cannot bear to stop him. “You have suffered—so much, Valjean, endlessly. At my hands. What I have done to you, the pain I have caused you all these years—it is unforgivable. But I—it is a folly, but I ask for your forgiveness.”

“Of course, Javert, I have never held any of this against you—it is all forgiven. Everything.”

“No,” Javert says. “I do not think you understand the—the magnitude of what I have done to you.” He has gone back to holding Valjean’s hand now, his thumb resting over the scars. “For so long you were not even human to me.”

“You were doing your job—come now, this is unnecessary,” Valjean mumbles. There is an unpleasant heat in his chest, an unsettling feeling of too much attention, too much touch. He still cannot feel the fingers at his wrists but he knows they are there, mapping the old mottled skin.

“It is—absolutely necessary!” Javert’s voice breaks, and when Valjean looks down, Javert’s hands are shaking. “You forgive and forgive—and your daughter is right, you should not forgive such awful things. To think I might once have thrilled to see you die. You cannot forgive that.”

Valjean hardly knows what to say. He cannot begin to process this—Javert telling him what is and is not forgivable. He has never thought anyone beyond forgiveness. Certainly not Javert. And now Javert is on his knees before him, begging to be forgiven and telling Valjean that he should not be.

“I do not know what you want,” Valjean says, and he flexes his fingers helplessly against Javert’s hand.

Javert squeezes Valjean’s hand again. “I want you to understand the wrong I’ve done to you.”

“I do,” Valjean says. “I of all people should understand it.”

“But you—you think you were deserving of such suffering.”

“Was I not? I have paid for my crimes, that is all.” Valjean shakes his head and almost wants to pull away from Javert, but the softness of his hands is welcoming, soothing.

“A lifetime of suffering is not equivalent to stealing bread.” Javert unfolds Valjean’s fingers, strokes each one, slow and gentle and measured. “I stole so many years from you.”

Briefly, Valjean considers what his life might have been, had he never been on the run, had Javert never chased after him, had it all been different. Would he have still ended up here, Javert’s fingers brushing over his scars? It is not a thought worth entertaining for long—that is some other person’s life, not his, and there is no use imagining what might have been. Fate, or Providence, has brought him here, to this.

“You have not been treated the way you deserve to be treated,” Javert says, pressing his mouth to the heel of Valjean’s hand, “and for that, I am sorry.”

Valjean’s skin is new under Javert’s lips, and it is difficult not to believe him when he speaks so sweetly. Valjean has always believed his life—everything that has happened to him, Toulon and Montreuil and everything in-between—was a punishment, was a way of atoning for his sins.

Javert must sense Valjean’s hesitation, because he suddenly lifts his mouth from Valjean’s hand and stares up at him. “I wish there were some way to make you believe this,” Javert says, his lips moving against Valjean’s knuckles.

Valjean does not know what to say to him. It would be easy to feign belief, just to please Javert, to say out loud, I did not deserve this, and feel nothing. But to do so would be to lie to him, and Valjean cannot do that to Javert. Javert is still looking at him, searching, hoping, and Valjean swallows down his words. His lip twitches. Javert’s fingers are still against his scars.

“You told me once about a bishop who changed you,” Javert says. “Maybe you do not remember telling me.”

It had been not too long after the river—one of the early nights, when Javert was still bundled in Valjean’s bed, roaring about the pain in his ribs and flinching at every touch. Valjean remembers speaking softly, the candlelight sputtering in the warm summer breeze through the window, Javert harrumphing. He can recall talking about forgiveness, the impossibility of it, and Javert seemingly ignoring him.

“I do,” Valjean says, and suddenly feels sick to his stomach.

“You said he saw the worst parts of you and forgave anyway. You were a thief.”

“I am a thief,” Valjean says.

Javert shakes his head, reaches up and places a hand at Valjean’s cheek. “You were a thief.”

Valjean breathes, low and heavy. Javert draws a thumb across the bone under his eye, the pressure a pinpoint, tense. Valjean wants to unravel under Javert’s hand. He forces himself to stay steady, to breathe, to look Javert in the eye.

“Do you remember what you told me?” Javert asks.

Of course, of course, Valjean wants to say, how could I forget? Valjean had thought it fruitless then—talking of forgiveness and right and wrong to Javert, who was full of anger and bitterness and hurt. But he had told it the way he has always remembered it: an ex-convict, desperate, lashing out against an innocent man who had tried to help him. That man responding not with hate but with love. Being transfigured by forgiveness, by the purchase of a new soul for pieces of silver.

Valjean just nods.

“You said you were on your knees in front of him and you expected him to condemn you. You said you deserved that.” Javert’s fingers slip down Valjean’s cheek, over the hair at Valjean’s chin. “But he made you new, despite the theft and the—you said, the hate in your heart.”

And Javert’s fingertips are against Valjean’s throat, the smooth skin where there had once been an iron collar. Here there is sensation, dull and distant but present. He can feel Javert’s fingers trembling, pausing before making soft strokes, and he hears the quiet noise he makes before he realizes he has made it. It is not quite a cry but something equally involuntary—his body sighing at the tenderness of Javert’s touch, its fearlessness.

“I would ask you,” Javert says, “to look at me as I was—as I am—and know that I would undo all of it, even if it meant never ending up here, if it could keep you from suffering. I would sacrifice this to keep you from harm. It would not be a difficult decision.” He no longer meets Valjean’s eyes; he drops his hand back to Valjean’s wrist. For a moment, he only touches there, his finger rising and dipping over the ridges of scars, but then—Javert lifts Valjean’s wrist to his lips and kisses just below the heel of Valjean’s hand. Valjean cannot feel it but he is certain that it is unbearably soft, unfathomably gentle.

The breath leaves his body. He wants to stroke Javert’s hair, he wants to hold Javert’s head against his chest and know where else his lips might wander, he wants, and wants, and wants.

Javert’s mouth lingers at Valjean’s wrist for a moment and Valjean cannot bring himself to pull away. He is thankful when Javert replaces his lips with his thumb again and finds Valjean’s eyes. “I have done unforgivable harm to you, Valjean. I cannot give back the years I took from you. But I would ask you to see that I took them, and see how I have hurt you, and—and I would ask you to make me new. I am asking your forgiveness.”

Then—he turns his face against the side of Valjean’s knee, and steadies himself there with a palm at Valjean’s calf. He holds Valjean’s hand loosely in his own, his body shaking, and there is the sudden feeling of something wet at Valjean’s knee.

It occurs to him that Javert—wood and stone, Javert—is weeping.

Valjean feels helpless. To remove his hand from Javert’s would be to abandon him, and Valjean cannot do that. Instead, he thinks of that morning in Digne: rocks digging into his knees, his body aching and hot with embarrassment, and how the bishop had bent next to him, presented him with the silver, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Valjean remembers it vividly. There was, as there has always been, the instinct to run, to flee. But the bishop’s face and touch was kind and steady—the first kind touch in uncountable years—and there was God, there was absolution, there was promise.

He cannot absolve Javert of his sins. He does not have the power to do that. But he sets his free hand at Javert’s shoulder and feels Javert’s body quiver.

“Javert,” he says, but Javert only buries his face in Valjean’s knee, his nose pressed against the fabric of Valjean’s trousers. This is the first time Valjean has ever seen him cry—indeed, Valjean did not quite think him capable of it—and Valjean does not know how to react. Javert is mumbling something—I wish I could undo it, I wish, I wish.

He cannot imagine a life without the pain, the suffering, the winding road that has led them here. He cannot imagine his wrists, his ankles, his back without thick scars, or a night that passes easily, with no lingering thoughts of the chain or the lash. It is unfathomable, to believe anything else might have ever been possible for him.

He thinks again of the bishop, his inhuman kindness and trust that there was something good in him. And he thinks of Javert at Toulon, young, the lash in his hand, and older, at Montreuil, following, and by some twist of fate, at the barricade. His commitment had seemed almost admirable.

Javert says he would undo all of it. Can such a thing be true? Even here, even now, Valjean doubts—but Javert would not lie to him, not about this, and Javert is broken against his knee. That must mean something. Valjean catches sight of the scar at his wrist and realizes he cannot remember what it looked like before. The skin there must have been smooth once, before it was cuffed and chained and bloodied day after day. His wrists would have still been red and raw when the bishop took him in. His ankles, too, and his back would have been a mess of breaking scabs and old scars. And yet the bishop never hesitated.

Nineteen years. More than that, if he counts all the years he has been running. He has only just stopped. He does not know what he would have done with that time. Would he have still ended up with Cosette? Or here, with Javert?

He lifts Javert’s head, gently, and sees his face is streaked with tears. Javert does not meet his eyes, and Valjean cannot ask him to. Instead, he slips a hand under Javert’s arm and pulls him back up onto the sofa—no easy task, given how Javert’s body goes limp when Valjean touches him.

Javert swallows back his tears, his lower lip trembling as if he wants to speak. Valjean only looks at him, hopes for some sort of connection, guidance on what to say.

Suddenly, Javert reaches out and touches Valjean’s face again. His fingertips press against Valjean’s jaw, rub the soft spot below Valjean’s earlobe. It is courageous of Javert to touch so easily. Valjean does not mind it. He places his own hand over Javert’s—Javert draws in a sharp breath, and their knees brush against each other—and lets himself touch Javert’s rough knuckles.

He is still not quite sure of what to say—what is right or wrong, what will make Javert happy. He thinks of his wrists again, and Javert touching them, and wonders how it might feel to someone else. How it might feel at all. He realizes he will never know, never feel Javert’s fingers there, never be unscarred. But—perhaps Javert will touch him anyway, with that kind of uncomfortable reverence that he is learning to enjoy.

The bishop gave him a second chance, a second life, all those years ago. He had not even wanted it, but it had been granted to him. And now Javert is on his knees, pleading for the same thing.

Valjean swallows hard, breathes deeply. Then, finally, speaks.

“Javert, I—I forgive you. For everything.”

Javert exhales, heavy, and all the years, all the distance between them melts away. His thumb moves over Valjean’s face again, a smooth arc, finally settling at the corner of Valjean’s mouth. He looks as though he wants to speak, but his bottom lip trembles, and he makes soft, small noises that might be sobs.

Valjean repositions Javert’s hand just so and kisses the pad of Javert’s thumb. Javert’s eyes close when he does. “All is forgiven,” Valjean says between kisses. “All is forgiven.”

He kisses Javert’s thumb, repeats those words, over and over until he is sure Javert understands. He becomes, at some point, vaguely aware of the tears pricking at his own eyes, but cannot be bothered to wipe them away. Javert’s hand is still against his face, and Javert’s thumb is still against his lips, and this is a warmth too sweet to abandon.

For a long time, they stay like that, until the candles burn down to almost nothing. Eventually, the tears on their faces dry, and Valjean finds himself feeling lighter. This kind of easy touch might once have made him uncomfortable, but now he almost relishes in it.

It is a strange thing, to be asked to make a man new. It is stranger still to desire and be desired. But these things are coming easier to him, now, and he holds Javert’s hands in his own, and tries to forget how his hands felt before, when they were empty.

Notes:

works that were invaluable in my writing of this chapter (and all of this fic up to this point) include elaine scarry's the body in pain and "forgiveness: an interview" by julia kristeva and allison rice.