Chapter Text
Javert opens his eyes, undrowned.
He'd leapt. He had. He'd felt it when the bridge gave way to air, he'd heard the rope snap straight. So why is he still here, breath ragged, mud seeping through his clothes?
Why is there a man kneeling before him?
Oh.
Shame sears, and he knows that if he'd drowned, he'd burn less for want of air than he does now for want of exit.
Javert could not face him.
All his life, he'd pursued justice. Carefully, he'd tracked it, hunting, marking out its edges. He'd traced its constellation in the heavens, those eternal even scales.
But there had been no justice in what he'd done to this man.
Yet he kneels here, this thrice-damned sainted convict, and holds out a hand as if he does not know, as if he knows too much. His eyes are warm as candles and Javert feels he's at the stake. His eyes sting as if from smoke. His mouth is dry.
The convict’s voice is too, too gentle when he says -
“It is a death, of sorts, to change.”
Javert scoffs. It's automatic, like the kick after the firing of a gun, but he can find no force behind it. The exhalation turns into a cough in his burning throat, and now he cannot stop - he struggles for each breath, each convulsion scrapes his throat. Through blurring eyes, Javert sees the man uncap a water flask, and when the tin cup meets his lips, he holds his breath and gulps. Almost instantly, his throat is cooled, the fire doused. But suddenly, nausea overcomes him and he bends double, retches bile.
He's poisoned him, then. Pulled him out so he could be the one to end him. Of course. It's no more than he deserves.
“Easy,” the convict says. “Don't drink so fast, not yet. Your throat is swollen. Just take a little, like this.”
He tips the cup to Javert’s lips again, and Javert sips more slowly, feels the water smooth inside his throat, and closes his eyes in something like relief.
When he feels himself relax, his eyes snap open in alarm. This man should not be here. Should not be helping him, giving him cool water, should not have pulled him from his fate. This man was, had been, still must be his enemy, and he cannot stand for him to see him laid so low.
But the eyes beneath that furrowed brow are soft, and when Javert flinches at the hand he lifts, they turn softer still. For the convict knows this reflex, has borne it since the galleys. Javert turns his head away. He was the one who'd sent him there, to live a life devoid of human regard, divorced from any touch besides a strike. He had not questioned it before. Javert had never needed kindness, himself. Only armor. And the guilty deserved neither.
The convict’s hand comes up to cup his cheek, and his palm is warm, so warm against the bleak night air. It is only then that Javert registers the cold, the knife of wind across the water, and he trembles. The chill cuts him, a slash across his face. It is only when a thumb brushes against his cheek that he feels the wetness there.
He startles. He cannot help it. What powers does this man command? Javert was stone, was justice implacable, unfeeling and unmoved. The last time that he wept, he'd been a child, with a child's yearning for comfort. He'd left that weak desire in his grimy infant cell.
But this man touches him, so gently, and something in him cracks. He can't bear that knowing gaze, so he closes his eyes, and more tears fall. He reaches, blindly, seizes the convict’s wrist as if to rip himself away, but he finds he can't let go.
When Javert had leapt, he'd meant to drown. But now he only sinks into those arms.
And Valjean holds him.