Chapter Text
He stared at the strawberries.
The tiny fruits stared back.
They were ripe—blood red and sweet and expensive—and Javert wondered how anyone could ever afford those things. He rarely bought berries even on a good day: God knows he barely bought fruits at all, for there were better things he could have spent his money on. But there was a tiny voice—something insistent and annoying that sounded like Valjean’s. It wouldn’t hurt to indulge in certain fineries sometimes, said the voice, even though Valjean was the worst person when it came to food, and he had certainly never said something like that. He wondered what Valjean would say about the berries when he bought them home, whether he would reprimand Javert for spending money on something that he could grow in his gardens.
He supposed he wouldn’t. Valjean rarely spoke to him unless he was addressed these days.
Javert counted the coins in his purse. The owner of the stall was glancing at him warily, and maybe he should have taken his uniform off before walking to the stores. He stared at the paint peeling off the wood supporting the stalls and wondered if he should repaint the walls in Valjean’s house.
“You need to get some fruits or leave,” snapped the owner, then almost as an afterthought he added reluctantly, “Monsieur.”
He paid for the strawberries. The fruits shone under the bright light from the sun. They almost looked glossy—something artificial and fake and disgustingly sweet—and Javert knew close to nothing about strawberries, but he was almost certain Valjean’s strawberries didn’t look like that. But his plants thrived under his care, and Javert had never seen another who had a talent like his; so perhaps it was not a fault of the stall owner’s, but a particular attribute of Valjean’s. It almost felt strange to think of Valjean that way—without disgust or indifference, rather as someone that he cared for. Or attempted to care for, at least.
He walked straight ahead with the bag of strawberries in his arm, his head held high; he walked like a man with a purpose; or a dog with a rabbit in his mouth, waiting to show his master the hunt he had caught during the day. The sun was shining bright above his head, and there was a sheen of sweat on his face; his hair plastered onto his forehead. His hair had gotten longer. He should get a trim sometimes.
He wouldn’t. He still remembered the way Valjean touched his hair with soft fingers and wistful smiles. “I used to have longer hair too,” said the man. And that was new. That was something that he did not know about the man. Valjean was no longer looking at him, but at his hair; his fingers tugging at Javert’s hair lightly. And that cemented his decision to never cut his hair again.
He took another turn. Then another onto the main streets and took the steps dutifully. He didn’t pause to knock on the door anymore—he was probably more accustomed to the area than Valjean was at this point. The door creaked open with an ear-screeching sound, and Javert made a mental note to fix the issue as soon as possible. He placed the strawberries onto the table, then turned to look at the man on the couch.
“Valjean,” he said plainly. And he watched as the man trembled—a full body shudder—as if he had just witnessed something equally majestic and terrifying. “Have you been sitting here for the entire day?” He continued, and Valjean’s eyes glazed over; it was evident that the man was disinterested in continuing with the topic on hand. “Valjean,” he repeated, firmer this time, and this seemed to have done the trick; for Valjean’s eyes snapped up to him this time. “Did you eat anything?”
The answer was sitting on the table: the bread and soup untouched. The baguette would have been rock hard by now.
“…What time is it?”’
“It is now seven.” Javert told him. “I get off work at half past six; it would take me twenty minutes to walk here.”
“That would make it ten to seven then.”
“I am glad your mind is still working as well as before.” He paused to take in the state of Valjean—and what a sight he was, Javert thought. He wondered if the man’s daughter would even recognise him in this state: with his sunken eyes and fragile body, and the way his body trembled if he even tried as much as to get out of bed these days. The loss of his daughter devasted him, and he wondered if the girl knew how important she was to her father. He wondered if she would feel a hint of guilt, something akin to remorse if she laid her eyes on her father now; if she would gasp out loud before flinging her arms around her father. She didn’t abandon him—that Javert knew at least—she had left out of her own accord: children grow to become adults, and adults ought to start their new lives. Javert did the same with his mother, and he would be a hypocrite to chastise the girl for doing the same thing that he did when he was younger.
Perhaps it was unfair to blame the girl—for it wasn’t her fault Valjean chose to self-destruct in her absence—but she should have anticipated the consequences of her leaving the place. There did not exist a house which could survive without a master, and she had left the house without ensuring the smooth transition to another. It only made sense that there would be someone who suffered the consequences of her inaction.
Javert thought about his own mother like this sometimes: a thought that almost felt fleeting, yet it lingered longer than he would like when it appeared. He was too young to consider the consequences of his departure then, and he wondered if his mother ended up in a state like Valjean’s; then promptly decided it was probably not the case. Valjean shared a much stronger bond with his girl than Javert did with his mother.
“Ha!” Valjean let out a bitter laugh, his voice hoarse from disuse. “I suppose you should have arrested me then and there.”
“Not even Toulon would accept you in this state.”
“Of course you would know about it.”
“You will not be deemed in a state stable enough to stand trial. They do not want to find a dead body in the cells.”
“As if they have never seen one there!”
“It matters when you are on the verge of death. I doubt anyone seeing you in this state would find you capable of living until the day of the trial.”
Perhaps he made a terrible excuse of a caretaker. Javert tried to imagine what the girl would say to her father now, if she was here instead of him; with her worried eyes and soft voice that sounded like a lark’s. He didn’t belong to their household; she did. He was still an outsider, someone that never quite belonged to this house.
Valjean’s eyes slid shut. His lips were dry—the dry skin peeling off his lips—and Javert wondered if he even took a sip of water from the glass beside him at all. He listened to the man’s harsh, laboured breaths; as though the exchange had taken far more than he had at the moment. Just months ago he could drag the boy out of the sewers and return to pull Javert out of the waters; now he was nothing but a hollow sack of skin and bones.
“You need to eat,” Javert finally said. Valjean’s eyes remained shut. He wondered if the breaths would grow weaker and shallower, until his chest stopped heaving and his breaths came to a complete stop. “You are killing yourself.”
Valjean flinched at the bite of his words. Perhaps the truth stung more than his harsh words. He had tried yelling at the man, then snapping at him; until impatience won and he forced the scraps down the man’s throat. Valjean choked on the food and he gagged—he spluttered and there were tears running down his face—but those were the first scraps that he had taken in in days.
He brushed the curls out of Valjean’s forehead after that. Something tender and wholly out of place in their relationship—something that almost felt like affection and care. Something that Valjean did for him months ago. Then Valjean stared up at his face helplessly, with the same look that he had when Javert returned home today—as though he was looking at the face of a monster that he created.
“I do not want to die. I am not—I do not seek to—”
“Your body says otherwise.” He tapped a finger beside the man’s lips. “I bought strawberries.”
“I—”
Javert tutted impatiently. “Open up.”
He watched as Valjean opened his mouth obediently. There was a stray curl hanging on Valjean’s forehead, and Javert brushed the curl away with his hand as he tilted his chin backwards. He pushed the strawberry into the man’s mouth and watched as the man bite down on it in reflex, the red juice dribbling down the corner of his mouth. He could have forced a few more fruits into Valjean’s mouth, just to observe the way the man would choke on them; but he didn’t want to inflict pain onto Valjean now—not now, not anymore—and so he waited until Valjean swallowed the fruit in his mouth. He pushed in another strawberry. Then another. And watched unblinkingly with equal parts of fascination and mesmerisation as the man took in the fruits.
“I do not think I can take in any more of the fruits,” said Valjean. Javert glanced at the box of strawberries: there was still half a box of strawberries left.
“Just one more,” he insisted. He expected Valjean to put on a fight—to yell at him and throw him out of the house for his orders—but nothing happened. It was as though every last bit of strength had left the man’s body, and all there was left was the empty shell of the man that was once called Valjean. It almost felt mechanic: a routine checkup with another prisoner back when he was in Toulon. He pushed his thumb in between Valjean’s teeth to push his mouth wider open. He used to do that to the prisoners—and perhaps he had done the same to Valjean, once upon a time, for no other reason than to make sure they had not hidden something that they should not. To ensure they were alive. They were better off alive than dead—and the prisoners knew that too—they were chained to another one of theirs, after all. Then to the bed at nights. There was the ever-persistent pain of the chains dragging them down, and he could still see traces of the bagne on Valjean. His ever-present limp was one of those.
Valjean clearly arrived to the same conclusion as he did. “Am I your prisoner then?” He asked, but he wasn’t expecting an answer—because the man leaned in and took the strawberry from between Javert’s fingers with his teeth. “I suppose this is a step up from where I am supposed to be in,” Valjean continued, and it was supposed to be a jibe; something aimed to hurt. But it mattered little—Javert had said worse; had done worse—and that was the first thing he had eaten today. Javert watched as the man finished the fruit before he took one from the box.
The strawberries were sickeningly sweet. He had no idea how the man managed to finish half the box of berries—they were like sugar in the form of a fruit—and abruptly Javert remembered the same fruits that Valjean procured from his gardens just over half a year ago, with bright smiles and light eyes and his cheeks flushed red. It almost felt like a lifetime ago when he last saw the man like that, and he barely remembered the taste of the strawberries now. He didn’t like them—there are better fruits out there, he told Valjean. You can buy apples enough for a day for the price of those berries. And Valjean smiled—one of the few rare smiles that he directed to Javert—
“Well,” he said, “I guess I am fortunate, for I grow my own fruits in my garden.”
He did not have a garden now. Not at Rue de l’Homme Armé, and Javert wondered if Valjean would have been in a better state if he was kept in the Rue Plumet house. Yet he couldn’t risk bringing the man out in the open, not when he was in a fragile state such as this—and he found Valjean at Rue de l’Homme Armé, so he supposed Valjean had his reasons for choosing this location for his self-imposed exile. His temporary exile, at least. Javert unpacked his bags when Valjean was asleep in his bed the other night. He was almost certain that the man would be out of reach if he was given a chance—as if Javert would leave him alone after seeing the state he was in—and he wondered if he should have called for the girl.
“I can get you more strawberries tomorrow.” Javert told him. “You seem to like them well enough.”
The man didn’t respond to his words. Javert did not expect an answer anyway—between them he had somehow become the one that spoke more now—until the reply came softly, almost inaudible.
“Cosette used to love strawberries,” mumbled Valjean. His gaze was hollow, as if he was seeing another soul through Javert. He reached out—to touch someone, and he shivered when his fingers hit Javert’s arm instead. “You need not spend the additional money on…there's money in…”
Javert frowned. Valjean tried to lift himself out of the couch until he fell back onto it again. He sat on the edge of the couch with his hands in his palms, and Javert held onto him to steady his body. He pressed down on the man’s wrist, and he knew Valjean was nothing but skin and bones now; yet it still shocked him to feel it directly under his finger. He could barely feel a pulse—and he opened his mouth to say something—anything—but Valjean managed to stand up on his own this time. “I think I should go to bed,” he said, and his body was swaying unsteadily as he walked towards his bedroom. His movements were jagged and sluggish; a stark contrast from what the man used to be before. There was the sound of something collapsing into bed, and Javert knew he would not see Valjean move from the spot until he drag him out of bed the next day.
Perhaps he should write a letter to Valjean’s daughter to inform her of her father’s conditions. The issue was that she had moved out of the house, and Javert knew from experience that there were rarely people who would want to take up the position that they had relinquished. She had moved on to another family now, and as much as Javert doubted her choices he was in no position to offer his judgements. Your father is dying, and he requires the mistress of the house, the letter would read. Or if you are unable to return, please send another in your place. The girl would probably take a glance at the letter and huff incredulously. God knows M. Chabouillet would if he dared disturb the man in his retirement, not that Javert ever would; he knew where he stood after everything that had happened, and even before then he would not have dared to risk his patron’s wrath for something so trivial.
He should probably get another box of strawberries. After all they seemed to be of Valjean’s liking.