Eris (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chaotic_cupcake) wrote,@ 2008-12-22 11:30:00 |
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| Current mood: |  accomplished |
| Entry tags: | birthday fic, fanfic, les mis, valjean/javert |
We All Fall Down
title: we all fall down
author: chaotic_cupcake
fandom: Les Misérables (Valjean/Javert)
length: 3071
summary: The times they met and the times they didn't
warnings: Slash, which means man-on-man action love
aliferlia on her birthday, today, the 22 December - HOLY CRAP YOU'RE 18. :o This is definitely not sufficient birthday presentfulness. Await more lavish gifts. Notes on the story will be at the end (they'll be boring, I would bother if I were you.)//we all fall down
The light was catching on the silver badge, blinding him over and over again. That’s what Jean Valjean remembers about the day he was brought to this precinct of Hell; that cocky, beautiful young officer with his shiny new badge, so condescending and proud, like some kind of avenging angel. Sometimes Valjean can’t remember his crimes or even his name beyond the five digits branded onto his forearm { 2 - 4 - 6 - 0 - 1 } but he will never forget the cold glare of the silver badge, and the colder steel-blue gaze.
//here we go round – round – round
There is certain monotony to his life: the past twenty years have fallen away with no great achievements to mark the years. Each year a new rank, a hundred sinners justly punished, but nothing to satisfy his burning for justice. Something sits ill within Javert’s chest – something connected to the rough fingers of a man he escorted to jail twenty years ago. Rough fingers lay absolutely still, no nervous fidgeting or tension, no hope.
Javert goes towards the jail now, as he does every month. Another routine: check the security, endure the warden’s attempts at humour, try and avoid the dead gazes of the inmates. His eyes are drawn as ever to Valjean (no not valjean not anymore 2-4-6-0-1 now), his smooth skin wrinkled and aged early, burnt by the sun and sand. His strong hands, rougher than ever, hang limply by his sides, with no hope. And yet – and yet. Something still burns in those eyes, something that makes it hard for Javert to ignore him as he should. Valjean should not be a person any more: he should have dissolved into a sea of sinners, and nothing but his number should remain.
And his number has finished its sentence. His number may now return to society.
//only half way up, they were neither up nor down
“24601.”
Valjean is lost in the mindless rhythm {lift heavy swing heavy hit hard lift} of the quarry work. His back is aching – always aching, can’t stop – and he is hungry and the cold sun burns his skin while the cold air freezes his sweat. No relief, not any time soon, and not even the escape of death.
Every day a priest comes to preach to them, the poor little lost sheep, no hope now. God doesn’t want them, there’s space enough in Hell. Valjean is saving his resentment, but there’s no solid proof that he isn’t in Hell already.
“24601.”
Something connects in his mind. A number is branded onto his skin –
“24601!”
“Yes…?” he replies eventually, but his voice is hoarse with disuse. No one to talk to in Hell: no stories that suffer the telling. “Yes?” he tries again.
“You’re done. Time’s up. Got to take you to that bloody officer with the eyes.”
There’s an irony in there somewhere. Cold blue eyes as he goes in and cold blue eyes when they finally let him leave.
“Your time is up, 24601.” There is a harsh emphasis on the number. Valjean stares blankly at the man. “You know what that means, of course?”
“It means I’m… free?” The word sits strangely in his mouth; he find that he’s forgotten what it means.
“No. It means that you are now on parole, judged fit to rejoin society.” The tone makes it clear that this man was not the judge. Valjean thinks of the priest, “God sent his only son to die on the cross that he may relieve you of sin, but you have chosen the path of the devil.” “You are still a criminal – 24601.”
“My name is Jean Valjean.” There is uncertainty in Valjean’s voice. He’s not sure he said it right, or that it even was his name at all.
“And I’m Javert – do not forget that, 24601. I am your parole officer; I shall ensure that you do not break the law again.”
Valjean stared at him as a peripheral ghost came forward to unlock his chains.
“I stole a loaf of bread and the law locked me up for twenty years,” Valjean managed hoarsely. He was angry; he wanted to shout. He was tired; he wanted to cry.
“You tried to escape.” Javert’s voice is scathing, like a whiplash on Valjean’s already-wounded soul. “You wounded a policeman.” Valjean can’t remember, he can’t even remember the taste of bread. Javert might be telling the truth.
He stares blankly forwards as the chains clatter to the floor around him.
//for you may try to sew and sew, you’ll never make anything regal
Valjean stands over the chest, hesitating. He is unsure; it is so long since he has had to make a choice.
There is no reason to reach into the chest: he has a job now, and at least he is out of that Hell. He wrings his chafed wrists to remind himself of the risk he runs, the Hell that tenses, ready to reclaim him. And what of this man, this Reverend who took him in, fed him and gave him shelter? He doesn’t deserve to have his silver stolen.
“You will all burn in Hell,” a smiling face reminds him from the darkness of his memory.
The Church is corrupt and God is merciless.
And he’s damned anyway.
//ran to the end of the sky
Javert glares at the two policemen with unnecessary anger.
“You let him go?” he spits. “You arrested him and then let him go, and now he has disappeared. What, pray tell, made you let him go.”
The Reverend helped him. The Reverend has always given every last penny to charity, his only luxury being his precious silver. Now, Valjean – no, 24601 – has stolen it and the Reverend has given him the candlesticks. Has let him go. Has helped him escape. What did he see in the convict?
Why can’t Javert see it?
(Maybe he does.)
//and hide his head under his wing, poor thing
The candlesticks are heavy, by far the heaviest things he has ever had to carry, even after twenty years in a quarry. Even after he’s sold them, and built up a new life for himself, after he is well off enough to help people, to give people work.
The candlesticks weigh on his thoughts, constantly, and he tries harder to have deserved them.
//leave them alone and they will come home
Five years pass painfully, grating away at Javert’s mind like a madness. Five years since he last saw Valjean, and he feels something screaming in his soul. Justice, he thinks.
Another town, another criminal to chase – not Valjean, they’ve given up.
And then he meets the mayor, sees his strength in action as he lifts a cart off of a man. He’s different now, Valjean, his face is genial and gentle and his eyes crinkle up when he smiles – he smiles now – but Javert recognises his rough hands, still rough, doesn’t even need to see the branding on his arm.
So he finds someone poor, someone innocent, someone who looks a very lot like Valjean used to.
“I’ve found this criminal, this Jean Valjean, after five years of searching, Monsieur Madeleine! We will hold him here in your town until we have reinforcements to escort him back to Paris. We can’t risk him escaping again.”
He doesn’t think it will work. Surely, Valjean will not risk his own neck for someone else’s, not after he has somehow swindled his way to the top. And surely he will know that the man’s innocence can easily be proven – simply by checking for a branding or some kind of scar on his arm.
It is not a trap. It is a test. Javert wants to prove to himself that Valjean is selfish and evil.
//when the bough breaks
His house of cards comes crashing down at once.
Fantine, one of his workers, dies, begging him with her dying breath to take care of her child. It is his fault that she died. He wanted to protect the innocent and poor, and she is sweet even after the world has taken everything from her. He sees in her what he wishes he could be, but he is still so bitter at times, so bitter at the world.
Her child is sick, she says, and he remembers his sister.
((Oh, Marie Valjean? Yes, her child died not two months after her brother was taken into prison. Starved, poor thing, nothing to be done. Marie followed not three weeks after, refused any food, said it was too late. Poor thing, poor thing. So sad.))
“None will ever harm Cosette as long as I am living….”
And Javert is in his town.
He has felt the cold gaze on him, judging him and hating him and knowing that he is not worthy of all that he has for the past twenty-five years. He hurt a man, they tell him. He can’t remember much from before that hellhole of a prison, except Marie’s gentle smile and her tears, but he believes them. He doesn’t deserve any of this, especially not the candlesticks.
The last straw is that some innocent, someone like he had once been, like Fantine was, is arrested. Javert is convinced that the man is Valjean, doesn’t recognise the criminal beneath his nose.
Everything is wrong. The injustice of the world buzzes in his brain like rage, only calmer. He doesn’t think at all and his mind is blank. There was once a man who believed that his soul could be saved, believed that there was good in him yet. He won’t let that man down.
But he won’t leave Cosette to die, either.
(And he won’t let Javert be wrong. All Javert has to lean on is his Justice; he is Justice. Valjean knows this. Javert is the angel watching him, his every move, and Javert cannot sin. Valjean won’t let him.)
// I saw a black man upon a black horse
Javert stares. He was wrong. He was right. It doesn’t matter which. Valjean passed the test – he stood up to Javert, refused to let someone else pay for his crime. No! He is still a criminal. He is still evil – but he wants to go and save a child. That is not evil, that is far more righteous than Javert, who never helps and only punishes. No. Punishment is necessary, and Valjean is evil. Evil is darkness and trickery and Valjean only wants to escape.
(Then why did he admit to his crimes?)
Javert talks over his muddled, racing, painful thoughts. He condemns Valjean, refuses to let him leave.
“You must think me mad! I’ve hunted you for five years, and men like you can never change.”
A man such as you….
Valjean is angry now, and isn’t wrath a sin? He yowls and spits like a cornered cat, like a mother defending her children. Javert struggles to see the evil in him.
“I’m warning you, Javert, there is nothing I won’t do to save this child. When you locked me away, my sister and her child starved to death. If I have to kill you here, I’ll do what must be done. Don’t underestimate my strength: I am damned anyway.”
Valjean attempts to escape. Javert attempts to stop him. The world goes black.
//she shall have music wherever she goes
Ten years have passed. Valjean has not forgotten, exactly, but he tries to forget. He doesn’t think about it actively anymore, thinks instead of Cosette and protecting her. Worries about this Marius who is trying to steal her away – is he pure, can he be trusted, how could a damned man tell the difference anyway?
He worries about Paris, in upheaval. He understands the pain of the people maybe better than any other. Certainly better than this Marius. He is the pain of the people, in a way. He is also their sins, and he can’t forget that. He tries.
He worries about being caught, about Cosette, about the politics of the land.
Every night he can see Javert’s eyes blaming him from the darkness.
//and so betwixt the two of them
Ten years have passed. Javert has not forgotten, never. The years are grating at him like madness, like obsession. He is mad, he is obsessed. He is in Paris, as well, he hardly notices himself getting caught up in fighting the workers, the starving people, but in his moments of lucidity it sits wrong with him. What is wrong about their wishes? Only their methods are harmful.
When he is not lucid, when he is locked in the past, in that last confrontation with Valjean, there is a sentence that sticks in his mind like honey, painfully sweet and the farthest thing from clear.
“That man bears no more guilt than you.”
Valjean did not blame him. Valjean who did rescue an eight-year-old girl from a cruel foster family, Javert discovered, Valjean who ran with her to Paris and disappeared into the masses. Valjean, whom he has been chasing and haunting and blaming, that very same Valjean did not blame him. Javert doesn’t understand why Valjean did not hate him and blame him and kill him.
He wants to find him again, to prove to himself that he is still just, that he is still righteous, that he is still right. He needs to find him again. It grates on his mind like madness, like obsession, like doubt.
//it made the children laugh
Valjean stares. Stares at the prisoner these people have caught, these blood-drunk, victory-stupid, vindicated boys with guns. Javert’s lip is split, his eye bruised, there’s a long cut oozing blood down his cheek and neck. He is slumped against a wall, hands bound, eyes and teeth clenched in pain.
“I know him. He put me in prison. He has chased me for fifteen years. Let me decide his fate.”
They laugh. They hand him a knife. He steps forward.
It was never supposed to be like this. For the thirty-five years that he has known – not known, really, never known his motivation or anything about him, but known somehow – Javert, he has never once seen him like this. Seen this despair in his eyes, this hope.
What does he hope for? Death, maybe, or escape. Valjean to kill him and prove him right. Valjean can see that in his eyes, and also the doubt. He raises the knife and Javert flinches.
He slices away the rope and Javert’s hands fall to hang limply at his sides. Javert’s cold blue eyes are blank with shock.
Valjean leads the others away. He doesn’t look back.
//fell down and broke
All along, he was wrong. All along, the justice that he lived by, lived for, was wrong. No, it was right, it was always right, that’s what it was – he was wrong. He was nothing more than a self-righteous, proud pawn of a broken system.
Valjean should have killed him. Valjean had every right, every reason. But Valjean was pure and in his forgiveness was condemnation.
He has been chasing a good man for fifteen years.
He stares at the stars through the smoke of his burning city and feels the numb shock dissolve into certainty. No more doubt, not any more. His feet stop on the bridge. He hadn’t noticed that he was walking. He doesn’t take note of which bridge. He pulls himself, feeling and appreciating the ache in his body, onto the balustrade. This is right. This is fair. He smiles, under the cold gaze of the stars, and knows that punishment awaits him. That Justice awaits him.
//and oh but it was laden with pretty things
Valjean pulls him back.
Javert doesn’t understand. He says so. He doesn’t care that he’s crying.
(so confused so lost he is a good man he is what i should have been)
Valjean doesn’t let go, hold his shoulders roughly, tells him that Justice can’t die. Tells him that he couldn’t live knowing that Javert had killed himself. Tells him that he is too perfect and innocent and blameless to go to hell.
Javert still doesn’t understand. He says so again. How can Valjean, who was blameless all along and whom he had chased all along, how could Valjean not blame him?
Valjean wipes his tears away. His fingers are rough and worn, never quite healed after twenty years of rough stone. He doesn’t really care what the hellfire preachers say about this kind of love, knows that God will not condemn Javert for this (for how could God condemn an angel and isn’t God all-loving anyway?) and he’s going to hell anyway. He presses a gentle kind-of kiss to the corner of Javert’s mouth, wraps his arms around him.
Javert is surprised. He doesn’t understand, but is beginning to suspect that he never will. He doesn’t really care about the state of his soul at this point and he has been obsessed with Valjean for too long not to love him. Valjean has been on his mind for thirty-five years now and he just kissed him. An almost-kiss, anyway. And suddenly, wrapped in Valjean’s arms, Javert does not want to die. He murmurs as much.
Valjean is surprised, too. He pulls back slightly, looks at Javert, and sees a ghost of a smile on his lips. He’s never seen him smile before. Something very much like love and forgiveness washes over him for the first time in thirty-five years.
Javert kisses him, properly, passionately. He tangles his fingers into now-grey, ash-stained hair, pulls himself closer despite the protests of his battered body.
Valjean is hurt too (very bruised and aching and is that blood?), so their kiss is brief. They stumble, together, back to Valjean’s house, back home (where Cosette is looking after a wounded Marius and doesn’t even know that her best friend is dead, not yet, doesn’t care, not yet) and neither die. They both think that, at fifty-five, it is about time they had some happiness.
Maybe they’ll go to hell, maybe they won’t.
But they’ll go together.
//this is the way the world ends
_____
notes
um. not so happy with the ending (meh, it's too happy, I need to go write that Sesshy/Rin one and refill on angst). also - i struggle writing long things, i don't have the attention span. so this is too short. but i finished it!
also, for anyone interested, the funny bold lines came from assorted nursery rhymes. here's a list.
List of Nursery Rhymes used (in chronological order): Ring-a-rosie, Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush, Grand Old Duke of York, Pop Goes the Weasel, A Little Boy Ran to the End of the Sky, The North Wind Doth Blow, Little Bo Peep, Rock-a-by Baby, As I Was Going to Charing Cross, Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross (variation of the previous), Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Jack and Jill Climbed Up a Hill, I Saw a Ship A-sailing, and the last line was shamelessly filched from the Hollow Men by T. S. Elliot.
Love you, Ali-chan. (^__^)b (btw, when I said I'd be at your house at 12.30 I may have meant that I'll leave home then, by the way things are looking.) See you soon!
