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The tattoos, appearing scrawled across the skin at 17, can somewhat predict the future of a pair. Their last words to each other are immortalized deep in their flesh, unchanging and final. They could write out something loving that affirms a kind departure from one’s soulmate; just as possible, stinging insults written into the skin can make one dread the day when their soulmate last speaks to them, because it means that their deathbed bears no comfort from their soul-bound beloved. Their last words to each other are hurtful, and then they must go their separate ways as fate dictates.
Jean Valjean’s words are not quite scathing, not quite comforting; from the day the ambiguous “you cannot” raises to his shoulder in meticulous, functional handwriting, he feels only a vague apprehension over the words. They keep him in suspense, the common words leading him to question whenever the phrase is uttered to him. In a childish, possibly-naive way, he still thinks, it would feel different. He would know if his fated partner were the one to speak that simple, confounding phrase. Some sign from above would tell him when. So he calms his beating heart and forces himself to wait.
When they brand him - and he is unsure if this is supposed to be an act of cruelty or merely an act of carelessness - they burn into him the permanent object of a number directly over the delicate promise of a soulmate on his shoulder. Hope falls away to be replaced by an injustice-born anger that burns even brighter and more painful than the brand itself. The world becomes his enemy, and Talon’s caged existence carves his soul into a stunted, lost creature, abandoned. The sentence stretches to 8 years, then 16, and by the 19th year the light of humanity that had resided in him hardly flickers, if at all. Shut off from all paths and from hope, Valjean has little capacity in his shrunken heart to care for the words of a soulmate.
By his run as mayor in Montreuil-sur-Mer, he resigns himself not only to the lack of an eternal partner but to isolation itself. Any kind of love would infer closeness, and closeness means intimate knowledge of another person. Something like that in his life would be dangerous for both him and anyone he decides to get to know. He can masquerade as a free man, but only if others overlook the truth. Keeping others at arms’ length is the only way to secure his safety. Instead, the glowing joy of helping another is slotted in the place where love could be. It doesn’t quite feel the same, but there isn’t much from his life that he can compare it to. The happiness of a family and of belonging is long lost to the murkiness of memory.
“Do you have a wife, monsieur?”
As always, he gives the formal smile of a mayor. “I don’t concern myself. I am content.”
He watches over the growing industry he built and sometimes wistfully wishes that the last words on his shoulder were never stamped at all.
(Sometimes, though, when he walks through town in thoughtful discussion with the inspector, he foolishly and only momentarily sees himself finding a possible soulmate here.)
In the prison Javert grows up in, soulmates are often joked about as hopeless, inaccurate, and foolish.
The jokes are true for those making them, a natural response created from years of earned cynicism. Any pure connection between souls is often tarnished by the ruin and despair of the environment. As often as not, people in this prison were put there because their last words to their soulmate were a deadly threat on which they followed through. Their bond was one fated to have gone awry from the moment those tattoos spelled it out on their skin.
Javert is brought up in this cold, unsympathetic attitude, one that thinks soulmates are laughable at best. His own mother would let out a small scoff and tell him, without preamble, the regrettable words staining her skin that detailed her faults. “He told me quite clearly what he thought of me. And that’s the last I’ve spoken to him.” Soulmates’ last words are not reserved for the deathbed; some don’t last that long. Two souls made for each other flit their separate ways into the darkness. Not all pieces are made perfect.
This thinking carries over to all relations. Javert sees friends and couples and can only think that if they are soulmates, it is likely to end with some sort of pain. In that part of France, a poor, depraved one that houses the hopeless, it is extremely likely that one’s tattooed words will be undesirable, because the circumstances are undesirable. Despite the universe’s best efforts to match pairs, final words in that wretched place are most often signs of an early end to the relationship, be that a painful death, a hungry disease, or an imperfect match that spawns irreversible arguments.
When the despicable phrase “let me help you” loops down his inner wrist in a careful and learned font, it disgusts him. He begins to wear gloves in the summer and builds an irreproachable image, a form of himself that cannot be looked down upon or disarmed. Whoever pities him like that can only be a bad match, just as he thought they would be.
No one says those words to him for enough years that he forgets the tattoo is even there. Unsurprising, as becoming close to someone was never part of the path to which he committed. Some other policemen share his feelings on the matter, and don't partake in speculation over their words’ implications - something which is often a common activity, especially among single officers. Like Javert, some do not have time to form a meaningful relationship, soulmate or not.
Oftentimes, soulmates are drawn to each other, circling around each other, becoming lifelong companions without knowing their ethereal status - even if they suspect it. The only way to truly know is to hear the tattooed words. Before the romanticism of the soulmate idea was stripped from Javert, he used to think it was depressing. Now, he thinks nothing.
An unfamiliar ill feeling shakes Javert’s very core when the pieces he sees fluttering in the wind are painstakingly connected to convict Madeleine. He is surprised when he has an adverse reaction to the man’s guiltiness beyond betrayal; there are no feelings in the law, merely order and actions to make that order.
There is nothing to be done. Valjean is a lying thief, a threat to the community pretending to be upstanding. Javert knows this, but even the satisfaction of a chase ended cannot remove the pain that rattles somewhere in his chest. Emotions so far removed from his being could only be felt in a dimly visceral way, without knowing the cause. Any infatuation he once had with the mayor had never been truly acknowledged, it was so distant, and so Javert can only wonder why sound sleep escapes him the night the arrest is finalized. Listlessly twisting under the sheets brings him no answers. His wrist aches oddly, a singular reminder years after his decision to go partnerless, and he ignores it.
Before Valjean is transferred and becomes 9340, another nameless desolate face, he lies in the cot of his sparse cell, rubbing the secret sous between his fingers. His shoulder burns, and he cannot tell which brand screams at him that night. There is nothing he can think of that causes it, but when he gives himself over to sleep, the burning gaze of an inspector flashes in his memory.
They've met and remet a few times, enough for it to resemble the work of fate, a soul bond stringing them together across the winding streets of Paris, across days and coincidental lives. It is too perfect to be random, especially after the Jondrette ordeal. Valjean, in his weaker moments, prays to God that his soulmate is not Javert, because the idea scares him beyond words. Other times, he reminds himself to follow the set path and allow their souls to collide if they must, if they were made to be. Of course, it is all preemptive thinking, but better to be prepared if it turns out to be the truth.
In his ripening age, he has entertained the idea of a soulmate once more, in passing, thinking the bond of a soulmate would be welcome, a heaven-sanctioned partnership marked by red twine. But changing his social habits in order to actively seek them out is unlikely. If he interacts with others more and someone recognizes him, it is all over; Cosette will have to live with someone when he goes to prison for life - and who knows who! He knows he would leave her his savings. He has thought about the scenario often, but there are not many people in his modest life that he could trust.
Reaching out is not an option, even with the tug he feels deep in his bones to a place far off, where possibly his soulmate lives out their life. All he can really do is trust in God’s plan. They will meet eventually. Hopefully the words engraved in his skin are not indicative of a bitter end, no matter the person that says them.
It isn’t much of a surprise to find the Patron-Minette executing a kidnapping plot with Thenardier. These scum of the earth often mingle until everyone knows each other in some way or another, some interests crossing enough for a temporary alliance and others clashing enough for a rivalry to form. Their frantic and poorly-planned failure to escape would make Javert laugh if he weren’t too busy wrapping up the details of the crime.
The foolish boy never fired the warning shots, that is true. Javert is bound to come in sooner or later because of that, but it is sooner solely because of the intense lure he feels to the scene. Whatever it is, it is a gut instinct that he feels inclined to follow, and so he does. The near-gravitational pull intensifies until it shakes his ribcage when he enters the room.
However, when he finally calms the situation and rounds up the familiar ratty faces of the Patron-Minette, the victim is gone, and with him, the tug.
Damn. He would have been the most important source of information.
(The strange feeling leaves an odd taste in Javert’s mouth, a tingling in his extremities, and he would like it if that never happened again. If that victim is his soulmate, it is probably for the best that they do not meet. It is likely the victim is another criminal, and Javert would rather not fraternize with such a person. At least, that is what he tells himself.)
Something within Valjean makes it hard to think straight when he realizes that Javert is bound by the revolutionaries. Leading the man away from the others is done with an agonizing slowness. When he brings Javert to his mock-execution site, it feels both dangerous and as if he would truly never have done anything else.
The shock and wild fire behind Javert’s eyes as Valjean pulls out a knife to cut his ties… Valjean is sick to his stomach. Something has gone horribly wrong, or was made to be wrong. There is a piece in this puzzle that has been forced sideways into the picture. He suppresses the urge to vomit.
His hands, so close to Javert’s own, tremble in the darkness. But there is nothing he can do.
He simply frees the snarling man. It is not enough to protect him from an ill feeling in the pit of his stomach. The fake shot is fired, and the stumbling rebellion goes on.
Valjean, suspicious of Javert’s sudden disappearance, undoubtedly goes off to find him. If the streets weren’t so barren tonight, he would worry that the man was assaulted or otherwise detained.
By some inexplicable intuition thrumming in him, he arrives at the Pont au Change. His intent was only to explore the nearby alleys for conflict, but something brings him there instead. It is good that he comes here, because the inspector is there as well, a less formidable figure than before even though the parapet gives him extra height.
He calls out to Javert. When no response comes, he approaches and forcibly turns the man.
Javert turns to face him, and something in his expression is wild and lost. A laugh that matches his face wheezes out of him, the grin terrible and full of teeth. It is devoid of mirth. “Must you follow me even to the grave, Jean Valjean?” Will he be haunted there too?
“Surely you are not doing what I think you are doing here,” Valjean responds in a cautious, dangerous tone. The tugging in his chest pulses uncomfortably. “Nothing is worth throwing away God’s gift of life, Javert.”
“It was not a gift. I am giving it back.”
“That is not so! Whatever plagues you, it can be changed!”
Javert leans precariously away from him towards the gnashing darkness of the Seine, sending Valjean’s heart pounding. “This is useless. I know what I must do.”
“Wait!” Valjean takes another calculated step, careful not to force the inspector off into the black waters below. “Let me help you.”
Something sparks in Javert’s otherwise unfocused eyes, a sort of bitter amusement awakening in his face. Tired understanding. Of course it is him: a bad match, just as Javert expected. Whatever force in the universe that threads souls together like beads has a sick sense of humor. Javert knows how this match ends.
“You cannot.”
He cannot bear witness to Valjean’s expression - the burst of the soul bond within him screaming out at years never used, halves never connected, time having drained away in hindsight like rain through one’s hands without an ability to stop it - because he is already over the edge.