Ponderous Salmon

" Valjean’s hand moved to his head, smoothing his hair, running his fingers through its long, dark strands. Again his lips were on his brow, on the top of his head. “Ferkó,” he murmured against his scalp. “Ferkó.”

     Javert had hated that name; he had hated it from the depths of his heart—but to hear it spoken thus, from Valjean’s lips, it seemed the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

     The last of his hesitation gone—and knowing what it was he was doing, now—he grasped the front of the man’s blouse, twisting his fingers in it as Valjean nuzzled the top of his head. Javert’s hands trailed along the man’s broad chest, reaching around to the small of his waist and clutching the fabric there.

     Valjean laid his head against his, and his breath ghosted over his skin. “Je t’aime,” he breathed. I love you.

A shudder of passionate joy ran through Javert at that utterance. “Je …” He tried to swallow the knot that had formed in his throat, and gripped the man tightly, squeezing him to his chest. “Je t’aime aussi,” he managed to choke out, “Je t’aime aussi, Valjean.” "

"Brow knit, hand still on his cheek, Javert could feel Valjean move, feel the drifting, tilting of his head as he drew closer. So he could not say he was surprised when he felt the man’s lips press, gently, against his own.

     Somehow, it came as a relief. He did not know what to make of this—could not comprehend what on earth was occurring—save for that he suddenly found himself pining for it, whatever it was. He shivered beneath him, his heart fluttering like a bird in his breast.

     And so it was that Javert was overwhelmed by a host of sensations, the like of which he had never experienced before, or even thought himself capable of. He felt dizzy, and oddly euphoric, like a drunkard, or a man in a dream. All that existed in the darkness of his mind, in the limits of his senses, was Valjean—and it seemed almost as though he was the only thing that had ever truly existed at all."

" This time he drifted off to sleep without meaning to, despite sitting up.

     He dreamt, but he could not recall what about when he awoke. And when he awoke, it was because he felt he had forgotten something.

     After a moment, he realized that something was Valjean.

     He raised his head, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and wondering whether or not the man had made it home safely. He glanced up.

     The man had not made it home.

     The man was still standing at his window—his curly white hair illuminated by starlight, a stark contrast against the bluish shadows of his room—almost giving one the impression of a halo. And he was gazing at him, a strange look on his face, his cravat undone and hanging loose at his collar. "

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  "   “So,” Javert began, “you, ah, wanted me to …?”

     Valjean bowed his head, a self-conscious look on his face. “If you would. I told you, I—hadn’t been quite brave enough to pin it on myself. It seemed … inordinately vain.”

     “Vain—? Oh, for god’s sake,” Javert grumbled, “Here—” And then he was digging the Legion cross from its box and taking hold of Valjean’s lapel, and there was very little space between them.

     Javert faltered as he held the medal up to the man’s chest to gauge its placement, suddenly aware of the gravity of the situation—of all the things the medal represented, and all the years behind it. Of all the things they had overcome to get here.

     He paused, took a breath—became overly cognizant of Valjean’s gaze on him, and his own clumsiness as he poked the pin through the wool. Javert glanced up at him for a split-second, saw the look in Valjean’s eye, and started internally, returning his attention to the medal with a timid, nervous wrenching in his gut. The clasp was small, and his hands were very much the opposite; his fingers fumbled at it. He leaned in closer to better see what he was doing, unsure why his cheeks were warming so, or why it should take him so long to work a pin.

     But finally he managed to fasten it in place on the man’s left breast, and let his shoulders sag. He ought to have been stepping back by now, but he remained, carefully straightening Valjean’s fine green tailcoat, though it had hardly been displaced. "

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"“Alouette, gentille alouette …

     Alouette, je te plumerai.”

     The boy gazed into his eyes fixedly as he sang, a cruelly seductive demeanor hanging about him like a cloak.

     Javert’s skin prickled, his hair standing on end. A chill ran up his spine as the cool steel traced his throat.

     “Je te plumerai le cou,[2]

     Je te plumerai le cou.

     Et le cou; et le cou …”

     The dagger made its way to the soft spot of flesh beneath his jaw, forcing his chin up.

     The boy drew so close that their lips nearly met.

     “Et.

     Les.

     Ailes.” "

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"Almost amazed at himself, he reached into the breast pocket of his coat and withdrew his snuffbox.

     To his surprise, a little vellum card, folded in half, came out of the pocket with it, tumbling onto his lap.

     Blinking, he picked it up and unfolded it. It was too dark to read, and he had to wait until they passed a streetlamp before he could make out the text. He squinted, and found it just barely legible.

     ‘Thank you,’ it said. In Valjean’s handwriting.

     Javert stared at the words dumbly.